Fortune Summoners - Adventurer Lolis

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Hello everyone! After the last entry dedicated to the brave Bunny and her restless fight against perverted vampires and giant killer kitties, I´m going to dedicate this new entry to another of those doujin games that have been making their way recently to the western market thanks to download platforms such as Steam. The game I´m talking about is Fortune Summoners. Let´s see what the adventure of the young and brave Arche has to offer.

Welcome to the town of Tonkiness.

Developed by the Japanese indie team Lizsoft, although more than “a team” is just a single (incredibly talented) guy, and published in the western market by Carpe Fulgur, Fortune Summoners is a classic 2D Action RPG/Dungeon Crawler in which we will play as Arche, a young and brave aspiring swordswoman. The story starts when Arche moves with her family to the town of Tonkiness. There Arche will attend the Minasa-Ratis Magic School, for the in the world of Fortune Summoners people can use magic thanks to the help of the Elemental Stones. In the school she will meet other students and discover the secrets of magic, which together with her adventurer spirit will lead her on an adventure together with some of her classmates that will take them around the world. The 3 main characters we will be able to control during the adventure will be:

ARCHE PLUMFIELD

The protagonist of our story, Arche is a bright, energetic young girl. She holds dear the skills in swordsmanship her father taught her, and she carries a big (for her) sword wherever she goes. Aspiring to be like her father, who was once one of Scotsholm's most skilled swordsmen, she spends her days getting into little adventures - however, her honest-to-a-fault personality and her tendency to not think things through gets her into no small amount of danger, as well. Even in the danger, her perpetually sunny disposition and incredible luck always see her through. During her adventures, Arche meets Chiffon, a little flying rab- er, wind elemental. Seemingly rendered amnesiac by a curse, Chiffon needs Arche's help to regain his memories... and Arche may need his help with something she finds with him... Yeah, Arche sounds pretty much as your typical shonen character...

STELLA MAYBERK

A classmate of Arche's at the Minasa-Ratis Magic School. The treasured daughter of one of Scotsholm's wealthiest families and heiress to one of its largest companies, a savant at magic, and arguably Minasa-Ratis' prettiest student. Despite her natural gifts and her seeming perfection in all she does, she's very cold to her fellow classmates and, as the game opens, has no real friends. Unbeknownst to everyone, she aspires to be just like her idol, the sage Minasa-Ratis herself, and Stella constantly pushes herself to ever greater - and harsher - heights to reach this goal... and her desire may be a result of an incident from her past. She always wears a high-grade elemental stone on a bracelet, called Royal Scarlet; it and Stella are perfect for one another, and Stella can use it to cast incredibly powerful fire magic.

SANA POANET

And because no decent Japanese RPG group can be complete without a quiet and shy character, we have Sana, a gentle and painfully shy student at Minasa-Ratis, and the first student Arche meets there. Her talent at magic is fairly average, but her water-elemental stone, Eolamest, allows her to use healing magic. Normally, she's a quiet, dedicated student, but after she meets Arche, she ends up dragged into increasingly incredible adventures.










Perhaps this time the story is no that original and deep, at least for a Japanese game (sorry guys, not all can be naked vampires with burning ding dongs), in fact the story could be considered quite conservative, just like many other aspects of Fortune Summoners, although this doesn´t have to be always a negative point, like it happens for example with the graphics. The first thing that catches the eye when you start playing Fortune Summoners is its GORGEOUS graphics, which will take you back on time directly to the golden era of the 16/32 bits, with extremely detailed sprites and animations, and backgrounds full of color and all kinds of details that will make the world of Fortune Summoners come to life, making it an instant eye candy for all the pixels lovers, provided you can cope with high levels of kawaiiness (“kawaii” means cute in Japanese just in case someone doesn´t still know what it means).

First day at the school.

As for the gameplay, Fortune Summoners follows the path of games such as Zelda II: The Adventure of Link and Castlevania II: Simon´s Quest topped with a Demon Souls-like combat system that gives priority to properly planned attacks rather than brainless button mashing, offering like this a challenging action-RPG adventure with exploration and platforms sections, all in gorgeous good old 2D. As we advance through the adventure we will explore an extensive world filled with all kinds of places such as towns, castles, fields or caves in order to complete the different missions that will be assigned to us, in which we will have to fight endless waves of enemies and enormous bosses, for the combat is one of the main points in Fortune Summoners. In spite of its “sweet looks”, Fortune Summoners makes use of a really deep and demanding combat system that can turn out to be quite “bitter” for some, as it will punish every single mistake we commit during the combats. As we gain experience by defeating enemies, our characters will level up and learn a wide variety of new techniques and spells that we will really need to master if we are to complete the game. Each character will have a different purpose, thus we have that while Arche is the best character for close combat, Stella can cast powerful fire spells while keeping the distances, and Sana can make use of all types of curative and support spells. We will be able to control any of the 3 characters during the game, with the game´s AI taking control of the other remaining two, being able to configure their behavior patterns in different ways such as focusing in attacking or defending, saving MP, and many more.

Even harpies are cute in Fortune Summoners, at least till they start beating the crap out of you...

One of the huge bosses of the game.

Unfortunately, as with any game, Fortune Summoners is not free of mistakes, and in its case its biggest weakness are the controls, which are not as accurate as the combats (and some jumps) require, which will surely make many players want to destroy everything around them in a sudden attack of rage from time to time, specially after you experience how evil and though those son of... cuteness enemies are, surrounding you only to proceed to beat the crap out of you without any mercy. If on top of this you add a rather simple story, a trio of “super best friends forever” lolis protagonist, and that the numerous combats and maze-like dungeons can get rather repetitive after a few hours of game, some players might find it hard to keep and interest in Fortune Summoners, however, all those looking for a classic challenging adventure will find in this game a real jewel. Either way, one cannot deny the great job that this indie developer has done, specially if you keep in mind that he did all by himself. You can buy the game in the Steam website. Enjoy!


GAMEPLAY VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr7QGLnrrNE