Review: The Fairly Fun World of FAERIA

Faeria is a fun mix of various different digital card games that are fairly popular with a chess-like element which brings fresh card gameplay to the switch. Four factions, solid style, and 3-D gameplay makes it a little bit more interesting than your average card game, but has been done better by other, similar titles.

The game is pretty simple, two players are on different ends of a board that they slowly build and use different cards to summon creatures and various actions to attack the enemy hero and monsters. There are neutral cards and four unique factions that specialize in different gameplay styles. The classes are well-balanced and offer a good variety. It is nice to mix and match the factions like in TEPPEN and Magic: The Gathering, I just wish there was a little bit more variety in the different colors of cards.

The single player tutorial and campaign missions are more thorough than I thought they would be and offer a lot of single player playtime while slowly teaching players new elements. It would be nice if there was an option for more experienced players so that various basics and levels would be shorter, the other colors would unlock a lot faster, etc. I found it taking a little too long to get to the real meat and interesting parts of the game.

The 3D hexagonal board is a pretty cool element, but I didn’t find that the cards and overall gameplay took advantage of it as best as it could. There are other card games, Hand Of The Gods: Smite Tactics and Duelyst, that are similar in structure, but utilize the 3D area, cards, and strategy much better. It is cool that the board is built by the players and that the cards played require certain elements. This forces players to be very aware of what cards they play, when they play them and what tiles they make and which elements. It is a great way to set up round progression overall, but I just wish that the cards themselves made a better use of the 3D area and those elemental tile decisions. I hope the other expansions make better use of the board and the unique design, but as of now it’s fairly standard and under used compared to other games.

One thing to note, on a larger TV the game looks just fine, but when using it in handheld mode or especially on the Nintendo switch light, all of the different parts seem pretty small and the space could have been divided up a lot better. There is a lot of empty space dedicated to the environment which looks nice, but the hexagons, pieces and UI could/should have been much bigger for players to better see pieces and other parts of the game.

Overall, this is a fun game and offers a lot of content, but it doesn’t bring enough original ideas to separate itself from other well-established games. Also, its uses of space and lack or fully realizing card potential holds this game back for now. If you don’t have a PC to play this other games or you want a new fun and different kind of card game, Faeria could definitely entertain you, but it won’t amaze or really surprise anyone.