Unfortunately, the awful treatment of the female cast quickly becomes a huge letdown. This makes for an overall fun read, if not something I found special. The manga has a solid found family element, bombastic fights, sloppy world building, and some genuinely touching moments. The series chronicles the lives of the members of one such guild, which is known, to the surprise of no one, as Fairy Tail. Fairy Tail is set in a fantastical world where magic is commonplace and guilds made up of mages for hire undertake all sorts of odd jobs. Going through the manga up to that point set some expectations for me. Back when the series was ongoing, I kept up with it for a year or two, but the game begins around the 243rd chapter, much further than I ever read. In preparation for Fairy Tail, I decided to refresh my memory of the manga.
Could Gust bring their usual charm and intricate system development to a licensed property, and if so, what could it mean for the future of licensed RPGs? When I heard that Gust was developing an RPG based on an anime property, my interest piqued. They make the popular Atelier series and release games at a rate unprecedented by any RPG developer outside of Compile Heart.