Fairy Tail 2 returns players to the story of the Fairy Tail manga. It's an adaptation of the Alvarez Empire arc, the last arc of the story. This arc has the powerful Fairy Tail guild facing the might of an entire empire, which is led by the dangerous Emperor Zeref, his elite squadron the Spriggan 12, and an overwhelmingly powerful black dragon. While fans of the story are sure to know how these battles turn out, there's also going to be a new bonus post-game arc called "Key to the Unknown," which will provide a glimpse into what the characters do after the story is over.

Fairy Tail 2 is set in the kingdom of Fiore, where the Fairy Tail guild goes about its everyday lives while also dealing with the plot of the manga. This means it veers between the story and more casual moments, where you can do things like hang out with various characters or take on quests to quell powerful monsters. The entire Fairy Tail guild is at your disposal, but the plot may change which characters are available at any given time.

The turn-based combat system in Fairy Tail 2 seems to be an evolution of the combat system featured in Atelier Ryza. You have direct control over one party member, while the other two are controlled by AI. Once your turn bar fills up, you're able to take an action. By default, all you can do is your regular attack, which is a three-hit combo. However, every hit in your combo builds up the SP gauge. Once you've earned at least one pip on the gauge, you can spend it to perform one of your character's special attacks. The main character, Natsu, can perform a powerful single-target attack or a damaging AoE fire burst, while Wendy has a good single-target hit but can heal instead of attack. These abilities evolve as the game progresses, and you'll even unlock new ones, including special Awakening modes where characters power up significantly.

If you've earned multiple pips, you can chain together special attacks into a combo, but every special attack you use in a combo will cost one additional pip. This is important because of the Break Gauge. Enemies have a bar divided into multiple segments. When you damage an enemy, the bar goes down, and if you break one of the segments, then you'll unleash a powerful Link Attack with one of your party members. The Link Attacks do damage and have a character-specific bonus. For example, Erza Scarlet will give you a temporary attack boost, while Lucy will refill chunks of your SP. This also raises your Fairy Tail rank, which allows you to perform longer attacks and store more pips. Once you've completely depleted an enemy's Break, they become super vulnerable to attack, so if you've been properly saving your pips, you can quickly unleash an absurd amount of damage quickly. You'll also be able to use a Unison Raid special attack because who doesn't love more damage?

Overall, Fairy Tail 2 seems like it should be a great experience for fans of the franchise. The character animations are gorgeous, and the combat system seems fast, frantic, and allows players to use of all their favorites. The adaptation of the manga's arc seems pretty fleshed out, and I imagine players are quite eager for the chance to beat down the biggest, baddest enemies the franchise has to offer. Thankfully, it won't be a long wait as Fairy Tail 2 releases Dec. 11, 2024, on PC and Dec. 13, 2024, on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch.