Fairy Tail: Dungeons

Genre: Turn-Based Card RPG / Roguelike

Players: 1

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Review:

Fairy Tail: Dungeons, released in 2024 on PC and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2026, is a Turn-Based Card RPG and Roguelike in the vein of Slay the Spire, starring the characters of the popular manga and anime franchise Fairy Tail, with players taking Natsu and friends down into a mysterious dungeon that opens up underneath their adventurer’s guild to rescue others who have become trapped there.

While I do think fans of the Fairy Tail series will obviously get the most out of seeing their favorite characters depicted in this game, those unfamiliar with the franchise needn’t worry too much, as the story here is particularly shallow and little more than a contrivance to enable the Card RPG gameplay.

As for the rest of the presentation, Fairy Tail: Dungeons makes use of 2D pixel art visuals that look decent enough, but aren’t detailed or well-animated enough to be truly exceptional, though the variety of fighting moves you can use is quite nice. This is backed by high-energy instrumental music from the show that’s really wonderful at first, but gets really tiresome and repetitive before too long.

The gameplay here takes more than a few pages from Slay the Spire, with decks full of cards that represent attacks, defensive moves, and supporting moves you can use in a given turn, with players altering and upgrading their deck as they progress through the randomized dungeons. At its core, all the pieces are in place here.

However, things fall apart a bit in the details. The interface uses a button-assignment system that’s really disorienting and takes a lot of getting used to, the Roguelike elements don’t seem as varied and flexible for creative deckbuilding as you’d hope for in a game like this, and the game does a poor job conveying information to the player, making you feel like you have to guess at things as you play.

Ultimately, that Fairy Tail: Dungeons ended up doing was making me really want to play… Slay the Spire again. By comparison, this game has some interesting ideas like its custom card combo system, but it just can’t hold a candle to the variety, creativity, and accessibility of Slay the Spire. Unless you’re a huge Fairy Tail fan, I suggest you play that game instead, or one of numerous other games in the genre that do more to differentiate themselves from Slay the Spire.

tl;dr – Fairy Tail: Dungeons is a Slay the Spire-style Turn-Based Card RPG and Roguelike starring the characters from the popular anime. While the game gets the basics of the genre right, it fumbles the interface, the Roguelike elements, and in giving the player clear information to make strategic choices. As a result, while not a bad game, Fairy Tail: Dungeons can’t live up to multiple other better games in the genre.

Grade: C+

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