There are some games that marvel with their technical masterpiece. Others bring something new to the table. While more still just try to standout in one way or another. It works sometimes. Other times it’s a disappointing slog. And then there is the occasional experience that does all of the above while also doing nothing. Eternal Filena is one of those games.
Eien no Filena doesn’t do too much in terms of anything. But there’s something about it that gives it a unique feel. Even for the time, the graphics weren’t great. It looks like it was built off of Final Fantasy V, with how sharp and pointy the sprites are. But there are zero flashy magic animations, and no dungeons pop out at ya. Enemy sprite work looks pretty good, and there’s zero reuse there, so that’s rad!
The music doesn’t stand out as anything special either. You’ll hear one song too many times and a few others that share similar “instrumental” effects. But there’s just enough to get ya through.
There aren’t many impactful moments. What does exist takes place before you really care about the participants. There are no plot twists, but there is a WTF moment that you might just let go because it’s easier to digest. It is a fairly standard plot. But there’s something about it that lets it shine. And I think it’s in the way it tells the story.
Eternal Filena has our hero, Filena, running from the evil Devis Empire the whole game in hopes of restoring her kingdom, which she’s never even known. For the last ten years, she has been masquerading as a man, under the direction of “grandpa” Zenna, to blend in with battlers. Battlers are slaves, clechia, who kill each other for the amusement of the ruling class. The battlers are even granted “wives,” who fulfill the obvious duties. The whole thing is a human rights violation on top of human rights violations. The battles function under WWE rules in that there are storylines for melodrama. One of the writers decided that Filena gets to fight Zenna. He sacrifices himself, giving Filena a necklace that details the truth of her life. After breaking into a fancy library with a disgruntled writer named Nest, it’s revealed Filena is the princess of the Filenia Kingdom, which ruled the sea sixteen years ago. Viewing this sets off the alarm of sedition and forces Filena and Nest to flee the city. Sadly, the wife of a battler whom Filena killed attacks her home. Filena’s wife, Lila, who knows her husband is actually a woman, is fine, but our MC gets blinded. Nest and Lila guide her, along with the assailant Milika, to the sewers. Milika has also been betrayed by the empire. But the empire is now trailing them.
But there’s something in how that story is told. Usually, the evil empire our heroes are fighting knows our every movement. And the Devis do, at first. But their understanding of Filena’s situation changes over time. And as they lose all control of the situation, we gain it back. Or do we? A movement has started using Filena’s name, and they seem successful. But we never actually see them do anything, so whatever. But there’s something in that story that interests me. Escaping from a fascist dictatorship, bringing peace to a world, and reclaiming what’s yours in a novel fashion is the one thing Eternal Filena brings.
The gameplay isn’t offensive to drag that down. It’s a standard ATB affair, but you can equip three weapons, each with its own skill sets. There are seven weapons in total, but no one character gets unique move sets with a particular weapon. It’s perfectly fine, and one of the primary characters is a dog, and he can only equip one weapon, so it feels more varied than it is. It doesn’t distract. More interestingly is the random encounter rate. I think it’s truly random. You can walk three steps to get into two battles, but it can also take a full minute between fights. But you’ll get into plenty of them and never want for money or experience. Only the final boss is tough, so you’ll never feel dragged down and get to experience the story unassaulted.
But I’m sick and writing a review with a headache, sore throat, and chills, so let’s wrap this up. Eternal Filena isn’t gonna blow anyone away with anything it brings to the table. It’s just a solid experience mired in a genre with goats. Two years of delays probably didn’t help. Releasing in 1992 might have made EF stand out, but the genre passed it by in the interim. I’ve got it as the floor of a good game. Still enjoyable, but two years too late. Unless you’re into stories with lesbian romance, but there is more here than just that. 34/50.
I wish I wasn’t sick…
Wednesday, March 25, 2026
Monday, March 16, 2026
Why is E.V.O. an acronym?
A part of me misses the days when random ideas became video games. Abstract ideas could turn into strange but heartwarming memories of Christmas. Now, though, it’s all about money and how much money this game makes for shareholders. I understand it’s because the cost of game development has skyrocketed from the golden age, and one bad game can bomb a company, but those budget titles/eccentric cult classics bring something to the industry that’s dead and gone. Unless you’re Hideo Kojima… Who’s a hack.
What I’m trying to say is E.V.O. Search for Eden is a strange game.
You play some weird organism that can adapt on the fly to a number of external issues. You begin in the sea, bite other sea creatures to steal their essence, and then evolve into a stronger being. You grow throughout the five ages of prehistory, guiding evolution as you go. You, yourself, don’t actually get to say what lives and dies, but you block the bottlenecks that do. Tyrant sharks, plant devouring insects, and planet conquering birds lie in your path. You also orphan a yeti for some reason… None of these bosses seem to matter, as they’re just tools of something beyond. A rival, perhaps? Everything but you fights for the mysterious crystals that other organisms talk about. What guides you is the pretty naked lady with parallax hair, Gaia. I think that’s what parallax means? Her hair is stationary, but its color has animation. It’s very trippy. Regardless, Gaia is really into the Earth and is seeking a companion. Should we evolve enough, we can marry her and become a god ourselves. Praise the Son!
Gameplay consists of eating everything. This is it. Building up enough Evo points to increase your bite takes a long time, so E.V.O. is a game for grinding. Jumping is also a strategy, but that never does as much damage as eating, has a cooldown, and the timings can be wonky. Enemies also like to pounce on you. You can also evolve horns to charge, but those break pretty fast. Wasting 5000 Evo points sucks. Evolve your tail for moment boosts, and your body for more HP. There are various ways to get to max stats, and there are even a few neat tricks hidden around in secret areas to make exploring worthwhile. But the main loop is still the same, and gameplay variance won’t be high.
The music is a mixed bag. I’ve already added three songs to my Spotify playlist, but there are four songs that made me mute the TV. They’re variations of each other, so it explains how one took down the whole lot. And you’ll be hearing the awful songs way more than the good ones. They’re an era theme that’ll play in subsequent sub levels. Koichi Sugiyama, the Dragon Quest guy, did the OST, so I should expect better.
Graphics are also odd. I liked the backgrounds, and the neargrounds were detailed. Sprites were cute, but the game lacked something. Depth? Variance? It felt like there were only four or five areas to explore, and mazes were terrible to navigate.
E.V.O. Search for Eden is a fun concept. It was unique for the time (ignoring that it’s a spiritual sequel), and it’s never been emulated by a newer developer since. But the concept doesn’t hold up with repetitive gameplay, bland visuals, and a weird storyline. At the end, I was left wondering things like what that final boss was, were aliens the big boss guys, and did I just bang a planet? With the way the Son spoke to me, I like to think I did. I banged that planet hard. Also, sorry for squandering your gift, father-in-law. 31/50
What I’m trying to say is E.V.O. Search for Eden is a strange game.
You play some weird organism that can adapt on the fly to a number of external issues. You begin in the sea, bite other sea creatures to steal their essence, and then evolve into a stronger being. You grow throughout the five ages of prehistory, guiding evolution as you go. You, yourself, don’t actually get to say what lives and dies, but you block the bottlenecks that do. Tyrant sharks, plant devouring insects, and planet conquering birds lie in your path. You also orphan a yeti for some reason… None of these bosses seem to matter, as they’re just tools of something beyond. A rival, perhaps? Everything but you fights for the mysterious crystals that other organisms talk about. What guides you is the pretty naked lady with parallax hair, Gaia. I think that’s what parallax means? Her hair is stationary, but its color has animation. It’s very trippy. Regardless, Gaia is really into the Earth and is seeking a companion. Should we evolve enough, we can marry her and become a god ourselves. Praise the Son!
Gameplay consists of eating everything. This is it. Building up enough Evo points to increase your bite takes a long time, so E.V.O. is a game for grinding. Jumping is also a strategy, but that never does as much damage as eating, has a cooldown, and the timings can be wonky. Enemies also like to pounce on you. You can also evolve horns to charge, but those break pretty fast. Wasting 5000 Evo points sucks. Evolve your tail for moment boosts, and your body for more HP. There are various ways to get to max stats, and there are even a few neat tricks hidden around in secret areas to make exploring worthwhile. But the main loop is still the same, and gameplay variance won’t be high.
The music is a mixed bag. I’ve already added three songs to my Spotify playlist, but there are four songs that made me mute the TV. They’re variations of each other, so it explains how one took down the whole lot. And you’ll be hearing the awful songs way more than the good ones. They’re an era theme that’ll play in subsequent sub levels. Koichi Sugiyama, the Dragon Quest guy, did the OST, so I should expect better.
Graphics are also odd. I liked the backgrounds, and the neargrounds were detailed. Sprites were cute, but the game lacked something. Depth? Variance? It felt like there were only four or five areas to explore, and mazes were terrible to navigate.
E.V.O. Search for Eden is a fun concept. It was unique for the time (ignoring that it’s a spiritual sequel), and it’s never been emulated by a newer developer since. But the concept doesn’t hold up with repetitive gameplay, bland visuals, and a weird storyline. At the end, I was left wondering things like what that final boss was, were aliens the big boss guys, and did I just bang a planet? With the way the Son spoke to me, I like to think I did. I banged that planet hard. Also, sorry for squandering your gift, father-in-law. 31/50
Saturday, March 14, 2026
Burn out from a burn out.
Bad games’ll do that to ya.
Playing old ass JRPGs is long and tiring. Sometimes you need to do something different. This week, I played a puzzle game from my youth that I never beat, Goof Troop. I finally beat it! After that, I played a new game. ...from 1990. It was a sorta RPG that tertiaryly applied to the genre because of vibes. It’s not an RPG. This is good because it sucks.
Actraiser is not a good game.
Let’s start with the majority of the gameplay: platforming. It is unpolished and rough. It’s slow, and the jump sometimes just does things. And the way it (doesn’t) interact with the combat is maddening. Attacks are fast, but there are only two animations. You can crouch to stack snakes, but a basic sword swing is your usual move. You can’t attack up or directly down. The jumping attack works about thirty percent of the time and rarely connects, even if it goes off. The animation is too fast, so you need to be very precise… with a wonky attack. Rad. Even then, hit boxes are also weird. Maybe they’re too precise, so that’s good, but our hurt box isn’t in our favor. It’s such a clunky experience.
But that’s half the game! The other side of Actraiser is a rudimentary city builder. You guide six different locations around an area, growing them and dealing with their unique problems. They build their homes and farms with no input from you, besides a general location. There are no unique buildings for you, and they’ll never construct anything more. Your only action is knocking down obsolete homes, which they’ll replace with higher density ones. You also destroy obstacles with your god power over the weather. Ideally, guide them to the monster lairs around the map to make their home peaceful. And also give them wheat. And that’s it. Guide villagers, wait for their population to rise up, which also raises your HP, then go side scrolling hack ’n’ slashing in a dungeon. Rinse and repeat for too long.
“But why,” you ask? Because revenge. The big bad guy, Tamzra, killed you. So now you need to build up your power through faith from the villages, beat up Tamara’s friends, and then kill him. No twists, no turns, no shocks. It’s a sandwich that’s only half a piece of wheat bread.
But at least it looks pretty nice. Barebones as HFIL, but sprites are neat to look at, and spells are flashy, especially for a de jure SNES launch title. I also found the music to be… fine. I only liked one song, which is a great track, but the rest didn’t make me like the game more.
But maybe the worst part of Actraiser is that it keeps score, like an arcade game, for every dungeon. This means nothing to the overall experience, and it doesn’t even tell you your grand total. At the end, after you’ve gone through the painfully difficult boss rush, you just stand on a rock overlooking the sea. You never see your final score.
But I’ll show you mine. 20/50. Actraiser is a difficult, empty, unfun mush mash that isn’t rewarding. I get that this is pretty much a tech demo for the Super Nintendo, releasing within a month of the system’s launch. But F-Zero showed that a tech demo can be amazing. And Super Mario World showed they could be GOATs. Actraiser just sucks.
Playing old ass JRPGs is long and tiring. Sometimes you need to do something different. This week, I played a puzzle game from my youth that I never beat, Goof Troop. I finally beat it! After that, I played a new game. ...from 1990. It was a sorta RPG that tertiaryly applied to the genre because of vibes. It’s not an RPG. This is good because it sucks.
Actraiser is not a good game.
Let’s start with the majority of the gameplay: platforming. It is unpolished and rough. It’s slow, and the jump sometimes just does things. And the way it (doesn’t) interact with the combat is maddening. Attacks are fast, but there are only two animations. You can crouch to stack snakes, but a basic sword swing is your usual move. You can’t attack up or directly down. The jumping attack works about thirty percent of the time and rarely connects, even if it goes off. The animation is too fast, so you need to be very precise… with a wonky attack. Rad. Even then, hit boxes are also weird. Maybe they’re too precise, so that’s good, but our hurt box isn’t in our favor. It’s such a clunky experience.
But that’s half the game! The other side of Actraiser is a rudimentary city builder. You guide six different locations around an area, growing them and dealing with their unique problems. They build their homes and farms with no input from you, besides a general location. There are no unique buildings for you, and they’ll never construct anything more. Your only action is knocking down obsolete homes, which they’ll replace with higher density ones. You also destroy obstacles with your god power over the weather. Ideally, guide them to the monster lairs around the map to make their home peaceful. And also give them wheat. And that’s it. Guide villagers, wait for their population to rise up, which also raises your HP, then go side scrolling hack ’n’ slashing in a dungeon. Rinse and repeat for too long.
“But why,” you ask? Because revenge. The big bad guy, Tamzra, killed you. So now you need to build up your power through faith from the villages, beat up Tamara’s friends, and then kill him. No twists, no turns, no shocks. It’s a sandwich that’s only half a piece of wheat bread.
But at least it looks pretty nice. Barebones as HFIL, but sprites are neat to look at, and spells are flashy, especially for a de jure SNES launch title. I also found the music to be… fine. I only liked one song, which is a great track, but the rest didn’t make me like the game more.
But maybe the worst part of Actraiser is that it keeps score, like an arcade game, for every dungeon. This means nothing to the overall experience, and it doesn’t even tell you your grand total. At the end, after you’ve gone through the painfully difficult boss rush, you just stand on a rock overlooking the sea. You never see your final score.
But I’ll show you mine. 20/50. Actraiser is a difficult, empty, unfun mush mash that isn’t rewarding. I get that this is pretty much a tech demo for the Super Nintendo, releasing within a month of the system’s launch. But F-Zero showed that a tech demo can be amazing. And Super Mario World showed they could be GOATs. Actraiser just sucks.
Tuesday, March 10, 2026
This was a PC-88 game...
But on the Super Nintendo!
Tengai Makyō Zero is a spin off of the other Tengai Makyō games. It’s usually translated as Far East of Eden, but there’s some contention about whether that’s good. I’m probably just gonna use FEoE or Zero anyway. I don’t know anything about the rest of the franchise, other than it’s on the mythical platform of the Japanese Turbografx-16. Specifically, the CD-Rom-Rom (that’s the actual name) add on to play cutting edge disk games. It was 1988; things were weird. Usually, when these types of games are ported over, there’s some clear degradation of core game elements like graphics. Zero is not a port, but even if it were, there would be no loss of principles.
Most retro gamers know that the SNES had several types of booster chips to make certain games run better. Star Fox is probably the most famous, with Star Ocean being another commonly stated example, and there are dozens more. Zero used two of them. But were they worth it?
Yeah, kinda.
The story isn’t all that exciting. You play as Higan, a twelve-year-old boy who lives with his grandfather in a sorta post apocalypse. 100 days before the start of the game, the evil god Niniji took over the world by using a defamed emperor’s hatred against him. Now Niniji’s army rules the seven regions of the planet, destroying the natural landscape and corrupting the minds and bodies of men as each sees fit. Sadly, Higan is a silent protagonist, so he’s just kinda along for the ride. His four companions do all the heavy lifting in dialogue and get plenty of screen time because of it, but one is just kinda cookie cutter. Two of them, though, are hella rad and do something I don’t think I’ve seen done before. In fact, all the twists revolve around those two. After the army comes to Higan, as well as the herald of god’s chosen king, he must now reseal Niniji and save the world.
The story we play is guided by the creation of the world 600 years ago, when Niniji and his sister, Agni, first formed the world. That story is more interesting to me and had more riveting points that I kinda wish that was the game. But it isn’t because that was the start, and we’re at the grand finale!
It doesn’t take too many swings at forks or jaw dropping moments, but the themes took a turn and properly explained things that other of its ilk failed to do. Specifically, what true freedom from gods means. Subaru, the fairy who looks like a chipmunk, does something she isn’t supposed to do. And she does that because Subaru, like children and their parents, is not the goddess Agni. ”...For a child’s life is independent of its parents.” What really is fate or free will? It’s further expounded by there being two endings, with the decision coming after the final battle.
Gameplay mechanics make Zero stand out. The game is turn based, with speed being a vital stat, and all characters play differently. Mostly, at least. Subaru is clearly a mage with her summons and healing, but I couldn’t figure out a proper “class” for Mizuki and Tenjin. DPS/supports? Everyone has unique skills, and half of them have different ways to find them. Each character also has slightly different access to scrolls, which are Zero’s form of magic spells. Most dungeons have a gimmick to them to vary them up.
But what’s most interesting is why Zero needs a chip: to add an internal clock. There are about fifty different events that can only be experienced during certain times of the real world day/year. Yearly festivals only happen during specific months or days of the week. Shops give discounts or change their wares every twenty minutes or on weekends. Higan can have a birthday party if you play on the day you set it to and visit home. So don’t play in March! Nothing was happening, and Higan’s birthday was in February, so I chose the worst time to boot this game up. But it’s a game that might be worth coming back to. Even a few secret bosses require the correct use of time.
Some of them make me feel kinda icky, though. There’s a mini game where you can strip a geisha of her clothes. If you do this “after midnight,” she’s naked, covered only by her arms. The daytime version had a censored stamp over her. Higan can also spend time with an NPC(s) called the Looker(s) once per day, which gives off sexual connotations. Higan is twelve. This is a theme of the tea party mini game, which results in a sham marriage to seven women. Higan is twelve. I’m asexual, so I’m not big on sexy sex. I’d usually overlook it, but our main character isn’t even a teenager yet. It gives off slime. Fortunately, it is all optional and clearly stated that this is gonna be gross, so I’ll do the mental gymnastics to not deduct points.
And the graphics are the reason for another chip. It took additional hardware and seven people to compress Zero into the Famicon cartridge. There has got to be over 100 mobs in the game, and none of them are palette swaps. Absolutely zero! No two dungeons look alike. There are even animated cutscenes! They’re not too expansive, and I think Mystic Ark had better ones, but Zero’s were smoother, more colorful, and looked like they were ripped off the PC-88. Eat your heart out, Emerald Dragon! It’s the wide array of colors in Zero that stick out, even if you don’t realize the enemy variety. NPC sprites get cycled around, though, but there’s still plenty there, and they’re quite expressive.
The music is, likewise, outstanding. It seems to be of higher quality than the average SNES soundtrack, but I can’t tell for sure. Judging by the three hour YouTube video, there’s definitely more of it! A few of them kinda suck, all of which are of the joke category, but you’ll be hearing them a lot. Finding hermits to get their magic scrolls was rewarding, but also annoying because their theme is borderline mutable.
The charm follows the same path as the overall story. It has plenty of fluff but isn’t super deep. The lack of memorable NPCs being the most obvious. That’s not totally true, as the real world time allows a few to shine here or there, but unless you’re keeping track of minute details, you’re gonna forget about them. It’s a problem with the Dragon Quest exploration style of regional/monster-of-the-day subplots.
—-
Plot: too SNESy. Characters and enemies are slightly shallow, and the story isn’t particularly deep either. I also have a few questions about Higan’s dad and the fate of my two favorite characters. Fortunately, there’s just enough here to keep it from tanking. 7/10
Gameplay: there’s the depth. The use of a real world time mechanic helps differentiate playthroughs. Events and mini games you experience will be different from mine. There are even a few life simulation elements here with raising pets and Subaru’s best summon. I never got it because I didn’t play long enough, though. Lotta spells, too! The enemy design variety has its flaws, believe it or not. Most dungeons just had mobs for the sake of it, and they didn’t seem to fit the theme. I also didn’t like the limited timeframe for certain events. I don’t play during the day, so I couldn’t get one of Higan’s skills. Even then, the basis for the game is as traditional as it gets. 8/10
Music: more chips! I wish more devs had expanded their games with the chips. The soundtrack is high quality and quantity and enhances the overall experience like a Square title. It’s probably a reason Zero never made it out of Japan, though, and by 1995, the console was nearly dead. Just too expensive. Nothing stuck with me, though, and I really hated the hermit theme! 8/10
Art: the standard bearer for the console. Chrono Trigger has the best soundtrack. FFVI stands above the rest with its story. And now Tengai Makyō Zero can take a chair on the dais with its graphics. 10/10.
Charm: almost there. One, maybe three, long term NPCs prevent perfection. The penultimate region also grated on me, making the game slightly too long. It didn’t help that the random encounter frequency felt too high at times. I finished the game at level sixty three. You did not need to be at level sixty three. And you get crazy rich at the end. The unanswered questions and straightforward plot also kinda dampen the It Factor. But the world is absolutely expansive and filled with cute stuff to look at. 7/10
Far East of Eden Zero is absolutely worth playing. Just skip the gross scenes. The gameplay is polished but unremarkable, though highly enchanted by the two booster chips. The graphics alone make this a must play, and being able to showcase the true strength of the SNES is amazing. I could knock off some points, but I had fun. Tengai Makyō Zero gets 40/50 points.
Now to hope a tornado doesn’t kill me in the next twelve hours...
Tengai Makyō Zero is a spin off of the other Tengai Makyō games. It’s usually translated as Far East of Eden, but there’s some contention about whether that’s good. I’m probably just gonna use FEoE or Zero anyway. I don’t know anything about the rest of the franchise, other than it’s on the mythical platform of the Japanese Turbografx-16. Specifically, the CD-Rom-Rom (that’s the actual name) add on to play cutting edge disk games. It was 1988; things were weird. Usually, when these types of games are ported over, there’s some clear degradation of core game elements like graphics. Zero is not a port, but even if it were, there would be no loss of principles.
Most retro gamers know that the SNES had several types of booster chips to make certain games run better. Star Fox is probably the most famous, with Star Ocean being another commonly stated example, and there are dozens more. Zero used two of them. But were they worth it?
Yeah, kinda.
The story isn’t all that exciting. You play as Higan, a twelve-year-old boy who lives with his grandfather in a sorta post apocalypse. 100 days before the start of the game, the evil god Niniji took over the world by using a defamed emperor’s hatred against him. Now Niniji’s army rules the seven regions of the planet, destroying the natural landscape and corrupting the minds and bodies of men as each sees fit. Sadly, Higan is a silent protagonist, so he’s just kinda along for the ride. His four companions do all the heavy lifting in dialogue and get plenty of screen time because of it, but one is just kinda cookie cutter. Two of them, though, are hella rad and do something I don’t think I’ve seen done before. In fact, all the twists revolve around those two. After the army comes to Higan, as well as the herald of god’s chosen king, he must now reseal Niniji and save the world.
The story we play is guided by the creation of the world 600 years ago, when Niniji and his sister, Agni, first formed the world. That story is more interesting to me and had more riveting points that I kinda wish that was the game. But it isn’t because that was the start, and we’re at the grand finale!
It doesn’t take too many swings at forks or jaw dropping moments, but the themes took a turn and properly explained things that other of its ilk failed to do. Specifically, what true freedom from gods means. Subaru, the fairy who looks like a chipmunk, does something she isn’t supposed to do. And she does that because Subaru, like children and their parents, is not the goddess Agni. ”...For a child’s life is independent of its parents.” What really is fate or free will? It’s further expounded by there being two endings, with the decision coming after the final battle.
Gameplay mechanics make Zero stand out. The game is turn based, with speed being a vital stat, and all characters play differently. Mostly, at least. Subaru is clearly a mage with her summons and healing, but I couldn’t figure out a proper “class” for Mizuki and Tenjin. DPS/supports? Everyone has unique skills, and half of them have different ways to find them. Each character also has slightly different access to scrolls, which are Zero’s form of magic spells. Most dungeons have a gimmick to them to vary them up.
But what’s most interesting is why Zero needs a chip: to add an internal clock. There are about fifty different events that can only be experienced during certain times of the real world day/year. Yearly festivals only happen during specific months or days of the week. Shops give discounts or change their wares every twenty minutes or on weekends. Higan can have a birthday party if you play on the day you set it to and visit home. So don’t play in March! Nothing was happening, and Higan’s birthday was in February, so I chose the worst time to boot this game up. But it’s a game that might be worth coming back to. Even a few secret bosses require the correct use of time.
Some of them make me feel kinda icky, though. There’s a mini game where you can strip a geisha of her clothes. If you do this “after midnight,” she’s naked, covered only by her arms. The daytime version had a censored stamp over her. Higan can also spend time with an NPC(s) called the Looker(s) once per day, which gives off sexual connotations. Higan is twelve. This is a theme of the tea party mini game, which results in a sham marriage to seven women. Higan is twelve. I’m asexual, so I’m not big on sexy sex. I’d usually overlook it, but our main character isn’t even a teenager yet. It gives off slime. Fortunately, it is all optional and clearly stated that this is gonna be gross, so I’ll do the mental gymnastics to not deduct points.
And the graphics are the reason for another chip. It took additional hardware and seven people to compress Zero into the Famicon cartridge. There has got to be over 100 mobs in the game, and none of them are palette swaps. Absolutely zero! No two dungeons look alike. There are even animated cutscenes! They’re not too expansive, and I think Mystic Ark had better ones, but Zero’s were smoother, more colorful, and looked like they were ripped off the PC-88. Eat your heart out, Emerald Dragon! It’s the wide array of colors in Zero that stick out, even if you don’t realize the enemy variety. NPC sprites get cycled around, though, but there’s still plenty there, and they’re quite expressive.
The music is, likewise, outstanding. It seems to be of higher quality than the average SNES soundtrack, but I can’t tell for sure. Judging by the three hour YouTube video, there’s definitely more of it! A few of them kinda suck, all of which are of the joke category, but you’ll be hearing them a lot. Finding hermits to get their magic scrolls was rewarding, but also annoying because their theme is borderline mutable.
The charm follows the same path as the overall story. It has plenty of fluff but isn’t super deep. The lack of memorable NPCs being the most obvious. That’s not totally true, as the real world time allows a few to shine here or there, but unless you’re keeping track of minute details, you’re gonna forget about them. It’s a problem with the Dragon Quest exploration style of regional/monster-of-the-day subplots.
—-
Plot: too SNESy. Characters and enemies are slightly shallow, and the story isn’t particularly deep either. I also have a few questions about Higan’s dad and the fate of my two favorite characters. Fortunately, there’s just enough here to keep it from tanking. 7/10
Gameplay: there’s the depth. The use of a real world time mechanic helps differentiate playthroughs. Events and mini games you experience will be different from mine. There are even a few life simulation elements here with raising pets and Subaru’s best summon. I never got it because I didn’t play long enough, though. Lotta spells, too! The enemy design variety has its flaws, believe it or not. Most dungeons just had mobs for the sake of it, and they didn’t seem to fit the theme. I also didn’t like the limited timeframe for certain events. I don’t play during the day, so I couldn’t get one of Higan’s skills. Even then, the basis for the game is as traditional as it gets. 8/10
Music: more chips! I wish more devs had expanded their games with the chips. The soundtrack is high quality and quantity and enhances the overall experience like a Square title. It’s probably a reason Zero never made it out of Japan, though, and by 1995, the console was nearly dead. Just too expensive. Nothing stuck with me, though, and I really hated the hermit theme! 8/10
Art: the standard bearer for the console. Chrono Trigger has the best soundtrack. FFVI stands above the rest with its story. And now Tengai Makyō Zero can take a chair on the dais with its graphics. 10/10.
Charm: almost there. One, maybe three, long term NPCs prevent perfection. The penultimate region also grated on me, making the game slightly too long. It didn’t help that the random encounter frequency felt too high at times. I finished the game at level sixty three. You did not need to be at level sixty three. And you get crazy rich at the end. The unanswered questions and straightforward plot also kinda dampen the It Factor. But the world is absolutely expansive and filled with cute stuff to look at. 7/10
Far East of Eden Zero is absolutely worth playing. Just skip the gross scenes. The gameplay is polished but unremarkable, though highly enchanted by the two booster chips. The graphics alone make this a must play, and being able to showcase the true strength of the SNES is amazing. I could knock off some points, but I had fun. Tengai Makyō Zero gets 40/50 points.
Now to hope a tornado doesn’t kill me in the next twelve hours...
Sunday, March 1, 2026
Heed the Call to Awaken
What the HFIL did I just play?
The answer is G.O.D. Growth or Devolution: Heed the Call to Awaken. The translation was released in 2018, so I’m eight years behind the times. Shame on me. I’ve heard this game compared to Chrono Trigger because of time travel. There is no time travel in this game, so tell those people to shut up. I’ve also seen it called an Earthbound clone. That’s a bit truer, but only on the surface. It starts out very kiddie but quickly spirals into some heavy stuff. But GoD goes further and makes more sense. The goofiness remains, though, but this game goes places Earthbound didn’t. Religion, metaphysics, politics, and then there’s the gameplay. This was wild.
I like to be unhelpfully vague when discussing the story and try to avoid spoilers. That isn’t possible for GoD, so you may want to skip the plot portion of this review. I’ll mark the gameplay with #gameplay if you want to Ctrl+F away from it.
GoD starts out with the simple task of going to Grandma’s. It’s an 800 mile bike ride, so poor Gen was never going to make it. He rides north, from Tokyo to Hokkaido, on his bike, enjoying the idyllic scenery of eastern Japan. He passes through a cute farming village before taking a break at the foot of a mountain. He ends up running into some bullies, but he Gen can take them out. He continues up the mountain to take in the scenery, but accidentally falls into a hole. Inside is a talkative giant bat. Through the use of a popular soda drink, Gen manages to eke out a win over Batty, the loud and egotistical Chiroptera. But behind it was an orb inside a transparent pyramid. As anyone would, Gen touches it, and he sees things. He’s not sure what it means, but it’s time to go to Grandma’s. He finds the exit to the cave and takes one last peek at Tokyo behind him. It’s a beautiful sight, but then the world changes forever. Spaceships descend from the sky and destroy the city. Gen’s life, and the planet as a whole, is forever changed in the year 1996.
Ten years later, Gen wakes up in an army barracks with the sudden remembrance of that day. He somehow forgot it, but this amnesia plot point is so inconsequential that there’s no reason to talk about it. From here, Gen is a soldier fighting the alien invasion. But even this home is quickly raided, and he needs to seek out a new goal. Various Bless missions take him around Japan, where he finds three other people like him. In the preceding ten years, Gen discovered he had access to something similar to magic, but I’ll get to that later. But he’s not alone. A fiery American stranded in Japan keeps laying waste to aliens in Kobe. And then they find a girl who was being used as an icon to a cult on an island to the south. And finally, a spunky girl who isn’t afraid to single handedly take down ancient demons. Gen, Keith, Mina, and Ai manage to destroy the main base of operation for the aliens in Japan and decide to set out to do the same to the rest of the world. Along the way, they discover more Godstones, which are the same pyramid orbs Gen found after fighting Batty. A scientist with Bless, the military organization Gen and Keith are a part of, surmises these expand the brain’s power from thirty percent to a full 100 percent. Mainland Asia, Western Europe, Africa, Oceania, and South America all house something from an ancient civilization with a Godstone inside. This journey takes them not just through forgotten relics but through personal struggles. There are hopes and love, but also tragedy.
Every one of our five heroes is spurred on by something that happens in the game. They act heroically, albeit destructively at times, for the sake of those around them. They are active forces in this war.
Eventually, they arrive in America and learn that the Americans have agreed to peace with the aliens. While breaking up the treaty signing, the real horrors kick off. Even the strange guy who’s been stalking the group can not withstand the Great Calamity. When the team faces off against this monster, they learn who the aliens really are. They are a precursor race who lived on the planet when humans were less developed. They built the pyramids, Angkor Wat, Stonehenge, and other Godstone relic sites. And they only left because of God. It should be shortly before this when you realize all but one boss alien is named after a god in various religions. So all the ancient gods are real. And they live on the moon…
Yeah, there’s a lot of conspiracy stuff here. None of it is pointing to them being correct, but hollow earth, hollow moon, lost continents, “ten percent of the brain” myth, the meaning of god, aliens, and a flat earth are plot points. It’s actually an interesting take, and they’re well done. Sorta. It could have been deeper, but the writers chose to make the aliens nazis, so it ends up falling a tad flat. But it turns out there’s a real god, and you have to kill it! And then the real final boss is the emotions we made along the way. This was mostly enjoyable, outside of a few parts that weren’t supposed to be fun, and one really stupid plot twist.
The #gameplay is quite solid. To start off, each Godstone you find not only advances the plot, but also your character’s powers. Magic in GoD is called Psycho, and what gets learned is unique to each character. But the Godstones allow you to empower what the game calls chakras. These chakras can be equipped like materia from Final Fantasy VII and allow the users access to the chakra’s specialized magical abilities. They start off sorta useless, but the more Godstones you find, the better their skills and the more useful they’ll look. One chakra lets you avoid the random battles, while another can buff or debuff a target. There are a few that do that, actually, but the hows are different for each. There’s one that can heal status effects, and one that lets your physical attackers shine! You can also Tenchi no Uta the battles with one to talk to your enemies. You can eventually combine two of them for more access, and those two create their own passives. I liked the one that lets Keith perform two attacks a turn. Just a tad broken! You’ll have to grind those with cosmic stones, which are just AP from mobs. There’s a lot to work for in GoD, and it’s all worth it and fun!
The music is a mixed bag. Most of it is pretty good, be it action or relaxin’. But there are a handful of tracks that are just awful, three second loops that drive me mad. I had to mute the game twice, and I almost did it a third time.
There is quite a lot of asset reuse when it comes to the graphics. NPC sprites, especially, are overused. There will be a lot of green haired/brown clothed girls in 2006. Enemy art is also palette swaped a lot, and there aren’t too many unique dungeon tiles. Spell animations, though, are hella rad.
—-
Plot: almost. All the characters are fun, but they’re just too basic archetypey for me. Their worst issue is how little they change during and after the story. Keith is always a pervert, Mina is always the madonna. They’re so close to being perfect. The enemies are far behind them, though. Most of them are of the monster-a-day variety, even if they have a fun name, so no one lasts. And only one of them has a personality, but they’re also in a stupid plot twist that brings the entire story down a notch. The mid boss gets the most subpoints… 7/10
Gameplay: it’s fun. There’s a lot to mix and match with the chakra system, and the inherent uniqueness of the characters, along with the way the game keeps ya moving. It’s the lack of side quests that tries to drag this down. And the bland dungeons. 8/10
Disclaimer: There is an easy type patch out there, and I think I played that one. At no time did I ever feel threatened by a boss, and I curb stomped my way through everything past Batty. Maybe I overleveled with some accidental grinding, but this was one of the easiest games I’ve ever played.
Sound: should be better. Harlem, Angkor Wat, and the second overworld get muted. One is too many, so imagine three. 7/10
Art: RPG Maker. Spell graphics are top notch, but there’s so much reuse in the world. 8/10
Charm: solid. Despite being kinda barren, the world feels alive. It’s a rad quirk with the irreverent way the story gets told. A mailman in a ruined world is funny, and I won’t hear otherwise! NPCs feel alive, but there’s only one side quest, and it’s kinda meh. I don’t see myself ever replaying this, but at least it’s a perfect length. 7/10
Now the writing/translation needs to be discussed. I’m pretty sure the writing is a bit “lol so random XD” as a baseline. I also feel like the translation took a few liberties. Early game swearing let me notice that. I’ll never know what’s what, but I’d bet the team took that philosophy and ran away with the script, which can be either a good thing or a bad thing. Either way, it didn’t vibe with me. That isn’t my type of humor. Why are all the nurses horny, for example? It might not be a problem for you, but it was for me. It's also a tad sorta racist here or there... So there is a 1 point negative.
With all that in mind, Growth or Devolution gets 36/50. I feel like it’s better than a C-, but I also can’t argue against it. It’s definitely a good game worth playing, but it isn’t a heavy hitter. And that’s fine. Not everything needs to be/can be Chrono Trigger. But the modern setting, fun chakra system, and intricate story, which is deep, exciting, and can bring out the tears, is worth experiencing. You’ll probably score it higher than I, but don’t get your expectations too high. I’m placing it at 15 out of 34 SNES RPGs.
The answer is G.O.D. Growth or Devolution: Heed the Call to Awaken. The translation was released in 2018, so I’m eight years behind the times. Shame on me. I’ve heard this game compared to Chrono Trigger because of time travel. There is no time travel in this game, so tell those people to shut up. I’ve also seen it called an Earthbound clone. That’s a bit truer, but only on the surface. It starts out very kiddie but quickly spirals into some heavy stuff. But GoD goes further and makes more sense. The goofiness remains, though, but this game goes places Earthbound didn’t. Religion, metaphysics, politics, and then there’s the gameplay. This was wild.
I like to be unhelpfully vague when discussing the story and try to avoid spoilers. That isn’t possible for GoD, so you may want to skip the plot portion of this review. I’ll mark the gameplay with #gameplay if you want to Ctrl+F away from it.
GoD starts out with the simple task of going to Grandma’s. It’s an 800 mile bike ride, so poor Gen was never going to make it. He rides north, from Tokyo to Hokkaido, on his bike, enjoying the idyllic scenery of eastern Japan. He passes through a cute farming village before taking a break at the foot of a mountain. He ends up running into some bullies, but he Gen can take them out. He continues up the mountain to take in the scenery, but accidentally falls into a hole. Inside is a talkative giant bat. Through the use of a popular soda drink, Gen manages to eke out a win over Batty, the loud and egotistical Chiroptera. But behind it was an orb inside a transparent pyramid. As anyone would, Gen touches it, and he sees things. He’s not sure what it means, but it’s time to go to Grandma’s. He finds the exit to the cave and takes one last peek at Tokyo behind him. It’s a beautiful sight, but then the world changes forever. Spaceships descend from the sky and destroy the city. Gen’s life, and the planet as a whole, is forever changed in the year 1996.
Ten years later, Gen wakes up in an army barracks with the sudden remembrance of that day. He somehow forgot it, but this amnesia plot point is so inconsequential that there’s no reason to talk about it. From here, Gen is a soldier fighting the alien invasion. But even this home is quickly raided, and he needs to seek out a new goal. Various Bless missions take him around Japan, where he finds three other people like him. In the preceding ten years, Gen discovered he had access to something similar to magic, but I’ll get to that later. But he’s not alone. A fiery American stranded in Japan keeps laying waste to aliens in Kobe. And then they find a girl who was being used as an icon to a cult on an island to the south. And finally, a spunky girl who isn’t afraid to single handedly take down ancient demons. Gen, Keith, Mina, and Ai manage to destroy the main base of operation for the aliens in Japan and decide to set out to do the same to the rest of the world. Along the way, they discover more Godstones, which are the same pyramid orbs Gen found after fighting Batty. A scientist with Bless, the military organization Gen and Keith are a part of, surmises these expand the brain’s power from thirty percent to a full 100 percent. Mainland Asia, Western Europe, Africa, Oceania, and South America all house something from an ancient civilization with a Godstone inside. This journey takes them not just through forgotten relics but through personal struggles. There are hopes and love, but also tragedy.
Every one of our five heroes is spurred on by something that happens in the game. They act heroically, albeit destructively at times, for the sake of those around them. They are active forces in this war.
Eventually, they arrive in America and learn that the Americans have agreed to peace with the aliens. While breaking up the treaty signing, the real horrors kick off. Even the strange guy who’s been stalking the group can not withstand the Great Calamity. When the team faces off against this monster, they learn who the aliens really are. They are a precursor race who lived on the planet when humans were less developed. They built the pyramids, Angkor Wat, Stonehenge, and other Godstone relic sites. And they only left because of God. It should be shortly before this when you realize all but one boss alien is named after a god in various religions. So all the ancient gods are real. And they live on the moon…
Yeah, there’s a lot of conspiracy stuff here. None of it is pointing to them being correct, but hollow earth, hollow moon, lost continents, “ten percent of the brain” myth, the meaning of god, aliens, and a flat earth are plot points. It’s actually an interesting take, and they’re well done. Sorta. It could have been deeper, but the writers chose to make the aliens nazis, so it ends up falling a tad flat. But it turns out there’s a real god, and you have to kill it! And then the real final boss is the emotions we made along the way. This was mostly enjoyable, outside of a few parts that weren’t supposed to be fun, and one really stupid plot twist.
The #gameplay is quite solid. To start off, each Godstone you find not only advances the plot, but also your character’s powers. Magic in GoD is called Psycho, and what gets learned is unique to each character. But the Godstones allow you to empower what the game calls chakras. These chakras can be equipped like materia from Final Fantasy VII and allow the users access to the chakra’s specialized magical abilities. They start off sorta useless, but the more Godstones you find, the better their skills and the more useful they’ll look. One chakra lets you avoid the random battles, while another can buff or debuff a target. There are a few that do that, actually, but the hows are different for each. There’s one that can heal status effects, and one that lets your physical attackers shine! You can also Tenchi no Uta the battles with one to talk to your enemies. You can eventually combine two of them for more access, and those two create their own passives. I liked the one that lets Keith perform two attacks a turn. Just a tad broken! You’ll have to grind those with cosmic stones, which are just AP from mobs. There’s a lot to work for in GoD, and it’s all worth it and fun!
The music is a mixed bag. Most of it is pretty good, be it action or relaxin’. But there are a handful of tracks that are just awful, three second loops that drive me mad. I had to mute the game twice, and I almost did it a third time.
There is quite a lot of asset reuse when it comes to the graphics. NPC sprites, especially, are overused. There will be a lot of green haired/brown clothed girls in 2006. Enemy art is also palette swaped a lot, and there aren’t too many unique dungeon tiles. Spell animations, though, are hella rad.
—-
Plot: almost. All the characters are fun, but they’re just too basic archetypey for me. Their worst issue is how little they change during and after the story. Keith is always a pervert, Mina is always the madonna. They’re so close to being perfect. The enemies are far behind them, though. Most of them are of the monster-a-day variety, even if they have a fun name, so no one lasts. And only one of them has a personality, but they’re also in a stupid plot twist that brings the entire story down a notch. The mid boss gets the most subpoints… 7/10
Gameplay: it’s fun. There’s a lot to mix and match with the chakra system, and the inherent uniqueness of the characters, along with the way the game keeps ya moving. It’s the lack of side quests that tries to drag this down. And the bland dungeons. 8/10
Disclaimer: There is an easy type patch out there, and I think I played that one. At no time did I ever feel threatened by a boss, and I curb stomped my way through everything past Batty. Maybe I overleveled with some accidental grinding, but this was one of the easiest games I’ve ever played.
Sound: should be better. Harlem, Angkor Wat, and the second overworld get muted. One is too many, so imagine three. 7/10
Art: RPG Maker. Spell graphics are top notch, but there’s so much reuse in the world. 8/10
Charm: solid. Despite being kinda barren, the world feels alive. It’s a rad quirk with the irreverent way the story gets told. A mailman in a ruined world is funny, and I won’t hear otherwise! NPCs feel alive, but there’s only one side quest, and it’s kinda meh. I don’t see myself ever replaying this, but at least it’s a perfect length. 7/10
Now the writing/translation needs to be discussed. I’m pretty sure the writing is a bit “lol so random XD” as a baseline. I also feel like the translation took a few liberties. Early game swearing let me notice that. I’ll never know what’s what, but I’d bet the team took that philosophy and ran away with the script, which can be either a good thing or a bad thing. Either way, it didn’t vibe with me. That isn’t my type of humor. Why are all the nurses horny, for example? It might not be a problem for you, but it was for me. It's also a tad sorta racist here or there... So there is a 1 point negative.
With all that in mind, Growth or Devolution gets 36/50. I feel like it’s better than a C-, but I also can’t argue against it. It’s definitely a good game worth playing, but it isn’t a heavy hitter. And that’s fine. Not everything needs to be/can be Chrono Trigger. But the modern setting, fun chakra system, and intricate story, which is deep, exciting, and can bring out the tears, is worth experiencing. You’ll probably score it higher than I, but don’t get your expectations too high. I’m placing it at 15 out of 34 SNES RPGs.
Thursday, February 26, 2026
Songs I Think are Magic pt. 6
This blog is a Yuko Kanno cult now!
Nearly a year ago, I went into loving detail about how much I like anime. But there was one I skipped over. One piece of this art form stands so far above the others that it deserves its own post. It didn't need to take a year and a half (and counting) to write, but I got hella lazy. In case you couldn't tell by the opening joke, that one anime, and the backing band, is Cowboy Bebop, Yuko Kanno, and the Seatbelts.
Cowboy Bebop's impact on the medium and music has been discussed countless times by people far more educated on the subject than I, so I won't get into the nitty gritty of scholarship. I'm just gonna talk about the scene(s) and the music that plays during them, and my personal attachment to either of the topics while dabbling in music theory.
First up is not ironic since there have been zero replies on this blog. "No Reply" doesn't actually play on screen. It's from the movie, "Knocking on Heaven's Door," but it doesn't get played there either. It's strictly from the soundtrack. It starts off ripping off The Verge (who ripped off someone else, if I believe) before Steve Conte starts singing. He sings a love song to someone whom he hurt and is asking for forgiveness. But I think he knows he doesn't deserve it. The chorus is about all the things he'd like to do to help the other person because they changed his life so much. But "Steve" still hurt them. And now he's dying, but that other person is the only thing he sees as his life flashes before his eyes.
The music is straight out of the 90's alt rock processor, which should be expected from a song that uses the violins of "Bittersweet Symphony." It's drum heavy, with a guitar just kinda noodlin' around. It's almost like the guitarist is still trying to warm up. It's 90's minimalism. The bass during the chorus, being as chill as possible, is neat! And then, around 3:30, the magic hits. The song builds up with some quasi orchestral stuff. The violins from the beginning return to play only a few notes, but those notes seem dissonant. They're unsettling behind the raspy guitar's pick slides, which was the style at the time. Steve almost screams, "You'll always mean so much to me," before going low and getting sad with "And there's No Reply," referencing an attempt to reconcile that went nowhere. The final words are how life only made sense with them in it. And then "Steve," presumably, dies. The final chords taper into something that gives me that vibe.
This song always makes me think of a melodramatic last stand scene. A man is looking back as his wife and children flee a roaming horde of demons, and only he remains to buy them time. It kinda speaks to me in the way that I need someone to tell me what to do. I've been on my own for too long and have just screwed it up. So it's the exact opposite... Either way, someone boss me around! The specific part of the song that I think is magic is the "And there's no reply" part. The way the song builds up to that drop is just so depressing. It hits the hammer onto the face that all of "Steve's" struggles meant nothing. It forces you to pay attention and evaluate the song if you had it as background music.
"Gotta Knock a Little Harder" is also only on the movie soundtrack. But it does get screentime! It plays after the climax of the story as the Bebop crew saves the day. It bleeds into the credits with a nice bluesy guitar, tagging in a jazz piano when the singer starts up. It's almost gospel like early on. It's very Cowboy Bebop. Mai Yamane sings about life, obviously. A life that doesn't know the meaning of happiness. She's kept her life "safe inside. Where no one ever had a chance to penetrate a break in." But then it hits her. "Suddenly it occurred to me ... Had totaled my existence. Everything left on the other side could never be much worse than this." She then starts to remove the metaphorical locks she's put up, but there's a fire at her back. And there are so many locks. There is no resolution here, but "Mai" ends it by saying she's got to knock a little harder. The lyrics are uplifting, and I'm realizing I've never actually read them before. Kinda just been vibing it. I've always liked the music.
That cool blues guitar always gets my attention, which is an important part of magic, it turns out. It leads into some exciting piano, with a driving bass in the background that doesn't need to take the spotlight because it knows you're listening to it anyway. It crescendos into a gospel like song, which you'd think I'd hate. I actually enjoy some gospel music; it's a basis for rock and roll, after all. But this song isn't your basic gospel song. It's more Black Baptist than Mormon. It gets ya up, it gets ya going, it makes you want to do something. Anything! And Mai's voice is just perfect. Her range fits any genre, with "GKALH" showcasing about four of them. It's just a song that's so fun that I can't help but change my mood when I hear it.
It's time for some Jazz! "Adieu" plays in the penultimate episode, "Real Folk Blues Pt. 1." Despite being in such a vital episode, I don't remember the scene where it plays. The Cowboy Bebop wikia says it's when Julia is on the phone with Wren. Yeah... not a clue. But it's the music that does it for me here. And that voice! I love a good jazz voice, and Emily Bindiger has one. It ascends over the slow piano that tries to keep up with her but fails spectacularly.
The lyrics are about a woman who loves someone, but they can't be together anymore. "Emily" doesn't want them to "care for me" and has to "say goodbye," despite the pain it causes her. She hopes these feelings will "fade away." So the question is, why doesn't she want to be with them? The opening lines make me think she's not ready for a relationship. "Been a fool. Been a clown. Lost my way from up and down." Or maybe the other person is simply dead? Or maybe he was just a concept she created?
Now, I do know where "Call Me Call Me" is played. The not Blondie song plays as Radical Edward takes her leave of the Bebop, along with Ein, to find her absent father. Presumably, at least. Maybe it's just because Edward has wanderlust? Faye Faye is also lying down in the ruins of her childhood home, which was destroyed sometime when she was in cryosleep. She's been looking for who she was the entire show, losing her memory during the icing, and she's finally found it. Only to, just now, fully realize how out of time she is. A close friend from high school has grown old and has grandchildren, while the life she once knew is literally gone. It's one of the heaviest scenes in the anime as the crew we've come to love is down two members, while another has some sort of closure. The best she's gonna get, at least. Meanwhile, Spike and Jet snake down two dozen eggs, trying to figure out their next plan...
Steve Conte is back! Behind him is an acoustic guitar that I don't think is strung correctly. They sound loose somehow. The real kicker is that bass that comes and goes as it pleases. I know it's there, and I hear the melody, but I'll be damned if I can figure out the rhythm/meter/time/whatever's going on back there. It's especially notable because the drums aren't very active either. I know it's there, but I have trouble noticing it. But the song is great anyway. It's a wonderful mess! It's a more traditional song during the pre chorus and chorus, where everything is there, doing what they must. Perhaps it was that random violin strike that brought them to attention? The same pattern repeats until the end of chorus two, where there's a piano breakdown. "Call Me Call Me" is an influence on metalcore! And the violins, sick of everyone goofing off, take control to add some class. A beautiful symphony, which also sounds like "Bittersweet Symphony," leads us out. Steve belts out the emotional climax of the song during that time, so those violins were needed. The guitar tries to finish it, but it gives up pretty fast.
The lyrics (and Conte's voice) are what truly shine here. "Steve" starts out, saying how happy he is, before he suddenly gets confused and wants to "get to you." He hopes the other person calls him and almost starts begging for them to "call me, call me." It would really "ease my mind." The second verse shows they used to be friends before "Steve" "had to grow." But that was "ten thousand years ago." He keeps pleading as the violins take over, repeating the refrain from earlier. But nothing happens. It's a song very similar to "No Reply," both as they're phone related, and that the man really wants this other person to talk to them. It could save his life. I also can't help but think of "Adieu." Is "Call Me Call Me" the man's view of that song? They both had to do some growing up before they knew who they were and what they wanted. Or did Yoko Kano write two songs with the same meaning and imagery by accident? Both being really good, relatable, and open ended? And now I'm just trying to make a musical subplot happen? Should I look into more songs on the albums? Damn it, me! Actually... these are related. They're all songs that give the blues to real folks....
A fitting place to end this report is the ending theme to Cowboy Bebop. One of the most iconic songs in anime. It's been two or three years since I last saw Bebop, but I can still visualize the black and white still images, with the occasional red rose splattered about, of Spike and Julia existing when I hear the song. The guitar phase intro lives rent free in my head, but only because they invite those trumpets over all the time. They only play seven notes, but they're the greatest seven notes a horn can play. And the bass may play the slowest scale ever recorded, but that's all it needs to play. You're already here, so why be wasteful?
Mai Yamane sings in Japanese as the guitar plays something more akin to a kid learning basic chords at 1 AM, hoping not to wake up his parents, while that bass doesn't give a damn who hears. He's got a song to guide. As the song goes along, the trumpets get bored. They intentionally wake everyone up because everyone needs to be awake. This is a song you have to hear, even if it's a song you don't want to. The other instruments are along for the ride because who are they to say no to these horns? Or is it Mai guiding them? She belts out the song title, in English, with all the emotion of a person trying to save the world. I'm being a tad overdramatic, but her voice during the chorus needs to be taught in vocal schools everywhere. It's so smooth but raw, and is the reason we're here. She gives way to the horns, who allow the guitar to noodle a solo between their beats.
But that's it. It repeats, and the final third of the song is more guitar noodling, but those horns. Those goddamn horns! I've never heard trumpets give a sense of melancholy and despair before or since. It is powerful because it signals the end. It is strong because you hear it twenty six times. It's unskippable because, despite it being in a language you probably don't speak, you know every single word.
"The Real Folk Blues," lyrically, fits in with the trilogy I've built up in my head about the last three songs. I've read a few different translations, but they all give the same vibe: a broken heart. It's been a long time, and the love should have faded away. But it hasn't. Perhaps it never will? The singer thinks about the past and the future, hoping to be held by them again. They want to cry but can't. Hopefully someone else can... It's not so bad, though. It's better to have love and loss than to have never loved at all, as they say. Love? Heartache? Just two sides of the same coin.
I like to think I'm over a certain someone. I like to think I was never in love with her to begin with. But every now and then she crosses my mind, and I can't help but think... The good times. The bad times. Doesn't really matter now, though, does it? I gotta carry that weight.
As Space Lion plays through my speakers, it's time to finish this up. Cowboy Bebop speaks to me in ways I never thought about until now. It tells the story of Spike and Julia in ways the show doesn't show. and it relates to me in ways I wish it didn't. If nothing else, writing these 2300 words has helped me appreciate the whole thing even more. It's so damn good. So long, Space Cowboy...
Nearly a year ago, I went into loving detail about how much I like anime. But there was one I skipped over. One piece of this art form stands so far above the others that it deserves its own post. It didn't need to take a year and a half (and counting) to write, but I got hella lazy. In case you couldn't tell by the opening joke, that one anime, and the backing band, is Cowboy Bebop, Yuko Kanno, and the Seatbelts.
Cowboy Bebop's impact on the medium and music has been discussed countless times by people far more educated on the subject than I, so I won't get into the nitty gritty of scholarship. I'm just gonna talk about the scene(s) and the music that plays during them, and my personal attachment to either of the topics while dabbling in music theory.
First up is not ironic since there have been zero replies on this blog. "No Reply" doesn't actually play on screen. It's from the movie, "Knocking on Heaven's Door," but it doesn't get played there either. It's strictly from the soundtrack. It starts off ripping off The Verge (who ripped off someone else, if I believe) before Steve Conte starts singing. He sings a love song to someone whom he hurt and is asking for forgiveness. But I think he knows he doesn't deserve it. The chorus is about all the things he'd like to do to help the other person because they changed his life so much. But "Steve" still hurt them. And now he's dying, but that other person is the only thing he sees as his life flashes before his eyes.
The music is straight out of the 90's alt rock processor, which should be expected from a song that uses the violins of "Bittersweet Symphony." It's drum heavy, with a guitar just kinda noodlin' around. It's almost like the guitarist is still trying to warm up. It's 90's minimalism. The bass during the chorus, being as chill as possible, is neat! And then, around 3:30, the magic hits. The song builds up with some quasi orchestral stuff. The violins from the beginning return to play only a few notes, but those notes seem dissonant. They're unsettling behind the raspy guitar's pick slides, which was the style at the time. Steve almost screams, "You'll always mean so much to me," before going low and getting sad with "And there's No Reply," referencing an attempt to reconcile that went nowhere. The final words are how life only made sense with them in it. And then "Steve," presumably, dies. The final chords taper into something that gives me that vibe.
This song always makes me think of a melodramatic last stand scene. A man is looking back as his wife and children flee a roaming horde of demons, and only he remains to buy them time. It kinda speaks to me in the way that I need someone to tell me what to do. I've been on my own for too long and have just screwed it up. So it's the exact opposite... Either way, someone boss me around! The specific part of the song that I think is magic is the "And there's no reply" part. The way the song builds up to that drop is just so depressing. It hits the hammer onto the face that all of "Steve's" struggles meant nothing. It forces you to pay attention and evaluate the song if you had it as background music.
"Gotta Knock a Little Harder" is also only on the movie soundtrack. But it does get screentime! It plays after the climax of the story as the Bebop crew saves the day. It bleeds into the credits with a nice bluesy guitar, tagging in a jazz piano when the singer starts up. It's almost gospel like early on. It's very Cowboy Bebop. Mai Yamane sings about life, obviously. A life that doesn't know the meaning of happiness. She's kept her life "safe inside. Where no one ever had a chance to penetrate a break in." But then it hits her. "Suddenly it occurred to me ... Had totaled my existence. Everything left on the other side could never be much worse than this." She then starts to remove the metaphorical locks she's put up, but there's a fire at her back. And there are so many locks. There is no resolution here, but "Mai" ends it by saying she's got to knock a little harder. The lyrics are uplifting, and I'm realizing I've never actually read them before. Kinda just been vibing it. I've always liked the music.
That cool blues guitar always gets my attention, which is an important part of magic, it turns out. It leads into some exciting piano, with a driving bass in the background that doesn't need to take the spotlight because it knows you're listening to it anyway. It crescendos into a gospel like song, which you'd think I'd hate. I actually enjoy some gospel music; it's a basis for rock and roll, after all. But this song isn't your basic gospel song. It's more Black Baptist than Mormon. It gets ya up, it gets ya going, it makes you want to do something. Anything! And Mai's voice is just perfect. Her range fits any genre, with "GKALH" showcasing about four of them. It's just a song that's so fun that I can't help but change my mood when I hear it.
It's time for some Jazz! "Adieu" plays in the penultimate episode, "Real Folk Blues Pt. 1." Despite being in such a vital episode, I don't remember the scene where it plays. The Cowboy Bebop wikia says it's when Julia is on the phone with Wren. Yeah... not a clue. But it's the music that does it for me here. And that voice! I love a good jazz voice, and Emily Bindiger has one. It ascends over the slow piano that tries to keep up with her but fails spectacularly.
The lyrics are about a woman who loves someone, but they can't be together anymore. "Emily" doesn't want them to "care for me" and has to "say goodbye," despite the pain it causes her. She hopes these feelings will "fade away." So the question is, why doesn't she want to be with them? The opening lines make me think she's not ready for a relationship. "Been a fool. Been a clown. Lost my way from up and down." Or maybe the other person is simply dead? Or maybe he was just a concept she created?
Now, I do know where "Call Me Call Me" is played. The not Blondie song plays as Radical Edward takes her leave of the Bebop, along with Ein, to find her absent father. Presumably, at least. Maybe it's just because Edward has wanderlust? Faye Faye is also lying down in the ruins of her childhood home, which was destroyed sometime when she was in cryosleep. She's been looking for who she was the entire show, losing her memory during the icing, and she's finally found it. Only to, just now, fully realize how out of time she is. A close friend from high school has grown old and has grandchildren, while the life she once knew is literally gone. It's one of the heaviest scenes in the anime as the crew we've come to love is down two members, while another has some sort of closure. The best she's gonna get, at least. Meanwhile, Spike and Jet snake down two dozen eggs, trying to figure out their next plan...
Steve Conte is back! Behind him is an acoustic guitar that I don't think is strung correctly. They sound loose somehow. The real kicker is that bass that comes and goes as it pleases. I know it's there, and I hear the melody, but I'll be damned if I can figure out the rhythm/meter/time/whatever's going on back there. It's especially notable because the drums aren't very active either. I know it's there, but I have trouble noticing it. But the song is great anyway. It's a wonderful mess! It's a more traditional song during the pre chorus and chorus, where everything is there, doing what they must. Perhaps it was that random violin strike that brought them to attention? The same pattern repeats until the end of chorus two, where there's a piano breakdown. "Call Me Call Me" is an influence on metalcore! And the violins, sick of everyone goofing off, take control to add some class. A beautiful symphony, which also sounds like "Bittersweet Symphony," leads us out. Steve belts out the emotional climax of the song during that time, so those violins were needed. The guitar tries to finish it, but it gives up pretty fast.
The lyrics (and Conte's voice) are what truly shine here. "Steve" starts out, saying how happy he is, before he suddenly gets confused and wants to "get to you." He hopes the other person calls him and almost starts begging for them to "call me, call me." It would really "ease my mind." The second verse shows they used to be friends before "Steve" "had to grow." But that was "ten thousand years ago." He keeps pleading as the violins take over, repeating the refrain from earlier. But nothing happens. It's a song very similar to "No Reply," both as they're phone related, and that the man really wants this other person to talk to them. It could save his life. I also can't help but think of "Adieu." Is "Call Me Call Me" the man's view of that song? They both had to do some growing up before they knew who they were and what they wanted. Or did Yoko Kano write two songs with the same meaning and imagery by accident? Both being really good, relatable, and open ended? And now I'm just trying to make a musical subplot happen? Should I look into more songs on the albums? Damn it, me! Actually... these are related. They're all songs that give the blues to real folks....
A fitting place to end this report is the ending theme to Cowboy Bebop. One of the most iconic songs in anime. It's been two or three years since I last saw Bebop, but I can still visualize the black and white still images, with the occasional red rose splattered about, of Spike and Julia existing when I hear the song. The guitar phase intro lives rent free in my head, but only because they invite those trumpets over all the time. They only play seven notes, but they're the greatest seven notes a horn can play. And the bass may play the slowest scale ever recorded, but that's all it needs to play. You're already here, so why be wasteful?
Mai Yamane sings in Japanese as the guitar plays something more akin to a kid learning basic chords at 1 AM, hoping not to wake up his parents, while that bass doesn't give a damn who hears. He's got a song to guide. As the song goes along, the trumpets get bored. They intentionally wake everyone up because everyone needs to be awake. This is a song you have to hear, even if it's a song you don't want to. The other instruments are along for the ride because who are they to say no to these horns? Or is it Mai guiding them? She belts out the song title, in English, with all the emotion of a person trying to save the world. I'm being a tad overdramatic, but her voice during the chorus needs to be taught in vocal schools everywhere. It's so smooth but raw, and is the reason we're here. She gives way to the horns, who allow the guitar to noodle a solo between their beats.
But that's it. It repeats, and the final third of the song is more guitar noodling, but those horns. Those goddamn horns! I've never heard trumpets give a sense of melancholy and despair before or since. It is powerful because it signals the end. It is strong because you hear it twenty six times. It's unskippable because, despite it being in a language you probably don't speak, you know every single word.
"The Real Folk Blues," lyrically, fits in with the trilogy I've built up in my head about the last three songs. I've read a few different translations, but they all give the same vibe: a broken heart. It's been a long time, and the love should have faded away. But it hasn't. Perhaps it never will? The singer thinks about the past and the future, hoping to be held by them again. They want to cry but can't. Hopefully someone else can... It's not so bad, though. It's better to have love and loss than to have never loved at all, as they say. Love? Heartache? Just two sides of the same coin.
I like to think I'm over a certain someone. I like to think I was never in love with her to begin with. But every now and then she crosses my mind, and I can't help but think... The good times. The bad times. Doesn't really matter now, though, does it? I gotta carry that weight.
As Space Lion plays through my speakers, it's time to finish this up. Cowboy Bebop speaks to me in ways I never thought about until now. It tells the story of Spike and Julia in ways the show doesn't show. and it relates to me in ways I wish it didn't. If nothing else, writing these 2300 words has helped me appreciate the whole thing even more. It's so damn good. So long, Space Cowboy...
Monday, February 23, 2026
Destiny fulfilled.
Over the last week, I’ve been making a new attempt at an old goal. During that week, it took seventy five in game hours (but forty IRL) to achieve something I had been trying for nearly twenty nine years. Since before the Gameboy had color, and I had depression. It took a romhack of an enhanced port, but that dream has resulted in success. As of 10:00 AM on the morning of February 38, 2036, I, Deadaghram, have caught all 151 generation one Pokémon.
A part of me wishes I had done it through original, basic, Red, but I was ultimately going to “cheat” regardless. Trading with myself, Missingno glitch, fast forward spam; it was going to happen no matter what. So, using Ultra Violet, a romhack of Fire Red was cheating in other ways. In ways to save time. Rather than max rare candies, I spend fifty in game hours grinding before the Elite Four. I PKHexed that douche who blocks you from entering Cerulean Cave (which I should have done sooner). And with a team of Venusaur, Raichu, Golem, Arcanine, Vaporeon, and Dragonite, I stomped through Gary one last time. My dream achieved.
I win. I’m a Pokémon master. 47/50.
A part of me wishes I had done it through original, basic, Red, but I was ultimately going to “cheat” regardless. Trading with myself, Missingno glitch, fast forward spam; it was going to happen no matter what. So, using Ultra Violet, a romhack of Fire Red was cheating in other ways. In ways to save time. Rather than max rare candies, I spend fifty in game hours grinding before the Elite Four. I PKHexed that douche who blocks you from entering Cerulean Cave (which I should have done sooner). And with a team of Venusaur, Raichu, Golem, Arcanine, Vaporeon, and Dragonite, I stomped through Gary one last time. My dream achieved.
I win. I’m a Pokémon master. 47/50.
Tuesday, February 17, 2026
Fastest RPG Ever
It's the beginning of summer 1999. You, a small boy in Japan, are woken up by your mother the morning of a big trip. Your mother lets you write your name on a new backpack. You write Gon. And then you and Mama go down to get your lunch. She gives you steak and octopus shaped wieners, your favorite! You also get your allowance of 1000G. Assuming that's actually yen, that's about $9, American, in 1999. Before taking your bike and spending all summer with Grandma in Hokkaido, Mom asks you if you really want to go.
I don't want to bike 800 miles, so I say no. Seriously, Mom, allowing your child to get on a bike and travel 800 miles is probably child abuse. And you're letting me do this alone?
Mom is happy we're staying, but a tad disappointed, so she asks once more. I'm busy calling CWA, so Mom asks again to make sure I heard. The cops are here and tell me to go watch TV.
And then the game over screen appears!
Booya! I speed ran a video game!
Obviously, this is a joke ending, but it's still an ending. Is it a promise of things to come, or a funny scene in a heavy game? I don't know yet, but I wanted something to replace that previous game's lack of proper review. I'm eight away! I also wanted to declare that the next game I'm playing is G.O.D. - Growth or Devolution: Heed the Call to Awaken. I want to move on, but I don't think G.O.D. will work for daily updates. So this is me putting dirt over the grave of something else. See ya later!
I don't want to bike 800 miles, so I say no. Seriously, Mom, allowing your child to get on a bike and travel 800 miles is probably child abuse. And you're letting me do this alone?
Mom is happy we're staying, but a tad disappointed, so she asks once more. I'm busy calling CWA, so Mom asks again to make sure I heard. The cops are here and tell me to go watch TV.
And then the game over screen appears!
Booya! I speed ran a video game!
Obviously, this is a joke ending, but it's still an ending. Is it a promise of things to come, or a funny scene in a heavy game? I don't know yet, but I wanted something to replace that previous game's lack of proper review. I'm eight away! I also wanted to declare that the next game I'm playing is G.O.D. - Growth or Devolution: Heed the Call to Awaken. I want to move on, but I don't think G.O.D. will work for daily updates. So this is me putting dirt over the grave of something else. See ya later!
Monday, February 16, 2026
Permanent Shadow on My Soul
Mystic Ark does not respect your time.
So here's what I did tonight: I beat the game. I did not enjoy tonight. It broke me. But I was so close to finishing this nonsense that I might as well end it. The final world was a perfect representation of the other chapters. The backtracking and tedious run around broke me. Here's a quick overview of the world before I get to the final dungeon.
The fireplace that has been guiding us all game is tired and asks us to douse the fire. Filling up the mysterious bottle in the kitchen with the Ark of Water allows us do just that. I somehow felt bad... But behind the flame is a secret path that leads us to another auxiliary building on the church grounds. Inside is a book we can't read, but the Ark of Wisdom can. Using it lets us see the book is titled "Fairy Tales." Open it and read the pages to be teleported to a land called Tinkle. Great start! Reading the sign is the trigger for Darkness to teleport it and promise that this is the last world we'll ever explore before he leaves.
With that out of the way, welcome to the land of fairy tales. We'll be meeting all the best Disney characters and bedtime story tent posts. The Three Little Pigs, the Ant and Cricket, and the Little Match Girl all have bit parts. The last two I'm not familiar with. Our story kicks off with us talking to the king, who is naked, and probably why the English localization of Mystic Ark got cancelled. Don't mention his nudity, or he'll throw us in jail. As we converse, a man runs in to tell us his daughter, Little Red Hat, and her grandmother have been abducted by the Wolf. They went west...
And through the trees we go, helping a man we'll learn is named Geppetto by making a sandwich tree grow in front of Hanzel and Gretel's inn. Aeon Genesis slightly tweaked these character names, so I don't know what their names actually are. I'm just going by remembrance. Walk on trees to reach a cave, the cave winds until we beat up Wolf, who agrees to turn himself in because Darkness made him do it. We save the day.
The king gives Felys the best armor in the game, but another person rushes in. There's a monster in the eastern woods. We check it out to find it's the lion from The Wizard of Oz. And now the king wants us to talk to Woz in his tower to the northwest. This pissed me off because the northwest exit wasn't here earlier. I looked around for ten minutes in vain. Break number one.
The northwest forest has boat mazes, somehow, and the Tower of Woz is a spiral staircase with mobs. The lion is here, but Woz lost his powers. Darkness stole them.
Return to Tinkle to hunt for the tailor. The king tells us he's at the inn, but the guy eating the building says the tailor went elsewhere. So we run around town, talking to everyone to discover the tailer was the guy licking the walls at the inn after all. Break number two! He goes to the king to make another Cloak of Concealment, while we help with the monthly ball the nudist throws. The tailor has a dress for Cindernna (Cinderella) with the warning that the dress will disappear at midnight. But she needs shoes too!
Geppetto tells us there's a shoe tree in the east forest that eats glass and that Hansel is psychic. Hansel says a glass ball is located back in the Giant world, so we go there, and I break again.
An invisible wall map with invisible stairs and an abundance of mobs. I hate this game. Tinkle, forest, shoe... choose the middle one. The first and third will send us back here because this game sucks. Break four!
The ball happens, and Cinderella shows up at 11:57. The (clothed) prince falls in love, and they get one dance before the bell rings. Ella runs off, but before she reaches the stairs, she vanishes. Darkness pops in and turns the king, Little Red Hat, and a golden goose into statues. The people are back in the church, but you have Ark of Wood Jack's stump outside his house to reach the goose.
We save the day, but the king is ill. He's worried about Woz, so we have to see him. And there's no warp point for him. Break five... He's gone, and then everyone in Tinkle is too. Only Pinochio remains, despite the fact that we know Darkness that can turn anything into a statue...
The tailor left the Cloak of Concealment in a chest, which we need to use to sneak past something obscured by leaves in the south exit. This dungeon is a lengthy waterfall path with too many dead ends. At least it has the best weapons for Felys and Rooshine. We didn't kill that fox from the fruit world, I guess, and we learn that he was the elder. We kill him now. There's another boss refight later on. Eventually, we reach Darkness. He said things, but I don't remember. I damn sure don't care anymore, either. He dies and reveals he's not the true villain. Six?
[insert Geralt swearing gif]
Everyone is back in Tinkle. We can help the prince get laid, but I don't want to...
Both Darkness and Goddess tell us to use the Ark of Shadows on the crystal pillar in the party figureine room to take us to the final dungeon. It's thankfully, kinda short. There are more winding dead ends, boss refights, and a puzzle that reminds me, and the writer on StrategyWiki, of the spider boss fight from Megaman X.
We reach a pillar of light and an entity inside it. It's a biblically accurate suck boy. This is Malice, the dark side of Felys. Malice is sad and pathetic. Barely does half damage, only casts magic, and lacks kill moves. I had Reeshine max out War Cry buffs and kicked him for 500=950 damage a turn.
He dies, and the Goddess can finally show up to explain everything. Malice was the evil inside Felys' heart, but was born to be a test for Felys. He went rogue and split her into seven artifacts, the Arks. In fact, this entire game was a test for Felys. And she passed! Her reward is that she gets to be born on the side of a highway... Yeah, we hear cars rushing by, horns honking, and a baby cries as the words "The End" appear on screen. There’s probably some religious connotation to it all, but I can’t be assed to research it. I am confused; break seven, unrewarded; break eight, and hate this game. The Eight Saga gets eight breaks.
This game is trash.
Mystic Ark didn't respect me, so I won't respect it. The game gets 22 out of 50 points.
The characters are blank bodies, all seven of them. The villains might as well not exist, and the story is utter nonsense.
The gameplay is serviceable, but it starts slow and then drags on, getting boring quickly.
The music is the only good part of the game, but the way the game takes you through chapters means nothing sticks too long.
Sprites get reused all the time, and I'm so sick of the one cave tileset.
The world is interesting, but that's all I care to talk about in terms of charm.
It's a tedious slog that was made to hate you. -5.
And this got a sequel?1
Sunday, February 15, 2026
Water
This was pleasant.
There has been a pen in the first room on the second floor that's been lying there all game. It always annoyed me, though I don't know why. It's a weapon of wisdom, so use the Ark of Wisdom on it. The pen will disappear! There's also been a blank painting in the secondary figurine room all game. And suddenly it has a drawing on it? Hmm...
Anyway, this is the World of Darkness. Battles are random and only occur when entering doors. That's not important. This world is filled with puzzles. Some brain teasers, some memory, some multi room processes. None are particularly difficult, but they're pretty fun. Or maybe I'm just glad they're different? Most puzzles have a hint on the north wall to make things obvious. Good thing, too, because there's rarely any clear direction. There's even an optional one with a boss. The rewards are more than solid, so I'm glad I did some grinding last night. If, for no other reason than because you can't return to the World of Darkness.
But there is some plot here if you go looking for it. All the clues are written in first person, but they start to get more and more deranged as you progress. There are also notes scattered throughout that sound like something Jack from The Shining would write. There are diary entries from someone who roamed these halls before us. He was down here for so long that he lost his mind. The last one tells us they were written by someone who now calls himself Darkness. Darkness is also the name two of the end world bosses spoke of...
In fact, it gets unsettling at the end. Felys hears steps approaching her as she picks up the Ark of Water. We've been all along this entire time, save for the occasional fight. Then suddenly she isn't... Before the door opens, she returns to the church, but a new voice talks to her. It's Darkness. He tells Felys that he grew up in that church. That he's walked where she's walked. He's sought out the Arks. He promises they'll meet soon. Speaking to the Goddess has her frantically telling Felys to gather the Arks. There's one more to get, and we'll get that...
... tomorrow!
A nice short story tonight. It's welcome, even though tomorrow's is gonna be another long one. It got me curious about who Darkness is. Does he have a reason for being evil? Is he evil? Is this the Goddess' fault, and can I follow in his footstepes?
There has been a pen in the first room on the second floor that's been lying there all game. It always annoyed me, though I don't know why. It's a weapon of wisdom, so use the Ark of Wisdom on it. The pen will disappear! There's also been a blank painting in the secondary figurine room all game. And suddenly it has a drawing on it? Hmm...
Anyway, this is the World of Darkness. Battles are random and only occur when entering doors. That's not important. This world is filled with puzzles. Some brain teasers, some memory, some multi room processes. None are particularly difficult, but they're pretty fun. Or maybe I'm just glad they're different? Most puzzles have a hint on the north wall to make things obvious. Good thing, too, because there's rarely any clear direction. There's even an optional one with a boss. The rewards are more than solid, so I'm glad I did some grinding last night. If, for no other reason than because you can't return to the World of Darkness.
But there is some plot here if you go looking for it. All the clues are written in first person, but they start to get more and more deranged as you progress. There are also notes scattered throughout that sound like something Jack from The Shining would write. There are diary entries from someone who roamed these halls before us. He was down here for so long that he lost his mind. The last one tells us they were written by someone who now calls himself Darkness. Darkness is also the name two of the end world bosses spoke of...
In fact, it gets unsettling at the end. Felys hears steps approaching her as she picks up the Ark of Water. We've been all along this entire time, save for the occasional fight. Then suddenly she isn't... Before the door opens, she returns to the church, but a new voice talks to her. It's Darkness. He tells Felys that he grew up in that church. That he's walked where she's walked. He's sought out the Arks. He promises they'll meet soon. Speaking to the Goddess has her frantically telling Felys to gather the Arks. There's one more to get, and we'll get that...
... tomorrow!
A nice short story tonight. It's welcome, even though tomorrow's is gonna be another long one. It got me curious about who Darkness is. Does he have a reason for being evil? Is he evil? Is this the Goddess' fault, and can I follow in his footstepes?
Saturday, February 14, 2026
Wood
We’re looking for a flask today, but there isn’t one inside the church. But there is an auxiliary building behind the chapel. Use the Ark of Fire to light a sconce, which unlocks the door. Behind that door is a bed. But there’s a bookshelf in the back, and the Ark of Wisdom says it’s fake. Inside that hidden room is the flask. Eventually, figuring out how to activate that takes us to…
Another church. And we’re on the dais before three people who are happy to see us! They call us the Hero of Wind and proclaim the legends are true! Before us is a chest that contains the Ark of Wood (not wind), but everyone gets mad if we try to take it. Felys is too nice.
The story in this world is that the wind is dying. There are many earthquakes and other natural disasters that occur. The wind comes from the east, from a giant whom the village elder is weary of. Worst still, a man went to investigate but has yet to come back. You can speak to his son, and he’ll join you, but we’re heading east for now.
We come to a cave with five stone statues outside. We find the missing father unconscious just as we enter. He wakes up and warns us about the strong winds that blow around the cave system. He and his son return home, while we go spelunking. As warned, our characters get blown down the halls of the cave. When it opens up, we get tossed around randomly from all sides as we make our way back. It’s really annoying, and you have to be specific when you try walking. Fortunately, there are no battles, so it’s just a puzzle dungeon. There’s a rock in the back, which we can use the Ark of Wisdom on to read the glyphs. It’s a threatening legend I don’t understand, and the game won’t explain it in a moment.
We return to Nanaka triumphant, but not really. We learned something, but we didn’t solve anything, and that’s bad.
During the night, the wind stops. The cave system we were just in begins to rumble, and the inhabitant moves. A giant golem the size of a mountain rises from the ground. It then starts walking towards the town. It’s done in a cool cutscene, too. It may be the most cinematic scene on the SNES. Quite impressive! We see the devastation in the morning, and half the town is in rubble. The giant went west, so we gave chase. There’s a mountain in our way, but we never climb down it. As we reach the peak, the earth rumbles.
We wake up in a new town, Kumu, and our savior tells us the giant stomped on us. This new town is covered in sand from the giant walking by. The weapon shop sells something to make the sword we made last chapter useless, so that sucks. But people mention someone named Sytus, who went ahead to the tower across the lake. Also, the air is polluted.
We find Sytus on the first floor being attacked. He’s not a fighter. He came here looking for two books, and Sytus has to turn back, so guess what we’re doing? This dungeon is a tower, but there aren’t a lot of battles. It is filled with floating tiles that glide across the abyss. Finding the correct path leads us to two books. Sytus can translate one of them, but the other will take more time. The book tells us about a mirror that reflects the power of the ancients. It’s located in the southwest in a hole in the ground. Good luck finding it; this area of the map is huge. You also need to navigate moving sands, which does have mobs floating around. It sucks.
The next section also sucks. You have to pick between theee statues to remove a rock in the path. Picking the wrong two has a battle. But choosing correctly… also leads to a battle. There’s zero indication of the correct statue, so good luck. The good news is, you only need to do this five times! The better news is that this is the best grinding spot in the game. I ended up coming back here to get Reeshine and Miesia to level 30 and Felys to 34. The backhalf is a traditional dungeon. You’ll find the Mirror of Ancients in the back.
Return to Sytus, who tells us someone is at the Kolb Ruins. We passed this weird town en route to the tower, but a green guy hit us with a thunderbolt before. The mirror, though, will reflect it back to him. And we can enter this tower. The goal here is to turn off three (four) switches to stop lava from forming. This area frustrated me so much. The area is massive and mazelike, and mobs are everywhere. And they’re not exactly fragile. But the bottom contains a machine that the Ark of Wisdom can turn off. The air is no longer dirty.
Sytus meets us outside with the other book translated. It tells us about the Ancients and how they thrived in areas humans would call dirty. They also controlled the giant from atop the tower across the lake. Climb it, the second book destroys an invisible wall, and turn off the control machine. It’s unguarded. Rather than die, the giant knocks down the tower, creating a bridge to the island on the lake, where the ancient base is. Return to town to heal and see the giant blow off all the sand from the town. The giant is actually a good guy who was controlled by evil hands.
Back to the final dungeon of this chapter, we eventually come to a room. We’re constantly ambushed by weaker versions of the green guy outside. They’re not difficult, but there are about a dozen of them. We eventually reach the guy in charge, who is barely any stronger. There is one final machine behind him. Activating it stops all cloning, restores the wind, and saves the world.
Sytus is off on a mysterious archaeological dig somewhere, but we can still witness the giant walk into the sea and disappear from view if we return to Kuru. Return to the first town to see everyone’s excited and confused. The wind is blowing, but the windmills are stationary. That isn’t explained. But whatever, we did our job and are now the Hero of Wind. Despite that, we can pick up the Ark of Wood and return to the church. And we’ll go into world six…
…tomorrow!
I don’t like games that throw weapons and armor at you every ten seconds. Fortunately, I spoiled it for myself, and the last three chapters have limited inventory. So I’m all good on that front. Grinding all those levels, hopefully, puts me in a good position to blitz through the rest of this. I’m already kinda at my limit. There’s still nothing nutritious in the game… Any day now… But the goddess is losing her ability to speak to us, so there’s some story...
Another church. And we’re on the dais before three people who are happy to see us! They call us the Hero of Wind and proclaim the legends are true! Before us is a chest that contains the Ark of Wood (not wind), but everyone gets mad if we try to take it. Felys is too nice.
The story in this world is that the wind is dying. There are many earthquakes and other natural disasters that occur. The wind comes from the east, from a giant whom the village elder is weary of. Worst still, a man went to investigate but has yet to come back. You can speak to his son, and he’ll join you, but we’re heading east for now.
We come to a cave with five stone statues outside. We find the missing father unconscious just as we enter. He wakes up and warns us about the strong winds that blow around the cave system. He and his son return home, while we go spelunking. As warned, our characters get blown down the halls of the cave. When it opens up, we get tossed around randomly from all sides as we make our way back. It’s really annoying, and you have to be specific when you try walking. Fortunately, there are no battles, so it’s just a puzzle dungeon. There’s a rock in the back, which we can use the Ark of Wisdom on to read the glyphs. It’s a threatening legend I don’t understand, and the game won’t explain it in a moment.
We return to Nanaka triumphant, but not really. We learned something, but we didn’t solve anything, and that’s bad.
During the night, the wind stops. The cave system we were just in begins to rumble, and the inhabitant moves. A giant golem the size of a mountain rises from the ground. It then starts walking towards the town. It’s done in a cool cutscene, too. It may be the most cinematic scene on the SNES. Quite impressive! We see the devastation in the morning, and half the town is in rubble. The giant went west, so we gave chase. There’s a mountain in our way, but we never climb down it. As we reach the peak, the earth rumbles.
We wake up in a new town, Kumu, and our savior tells us the giant stomped on us. This new town is covered in sand from the giant walking by. The weapon shop sells something to make the sword we made last chapter useless, so that sucks. But people mention someone named Sytus, who went ahead to the tower across the lake. Also, the air is polluted.
We find Sytus on the first floor being attacked. He’s not a fighter. He came here looking for two books, and Sytus has to turn back, so guess what we’re doing? This dungeon is a tower, but there aren’t a lot of battles. It is filled with floating tiles that glide across the abyss. Finding the correct path leads us to two books. Sytus can translate one of them, but the other will take more time. The book tells us about a mirror that reflects the power of the ancients. It’s located in the southwest in a hole in the ground. Good luck finding it; this area of the map is huge. You also need to navigate moving sands, which does have mobs floating around. It sucks.
The next section also sucks. You have to pick between theee statues to remove a rock in the path. Picking the wrong two has a battle. But choosing correctly… also leads to a battle. There’s zero indication of the correct statue, so good luck. The good news is, you only need to do this five times! The better news is that this is the best grinding spot in the game. I ended up coming back here to get Reeshine and Miesia to level 30 and Felys to 34. The backhalf is a traditional dungeon. You’ll find the Mirror of Ancients in the back.
Return to Sytus, who tells us someone is at the Kolb Ruins. We passed this weird town en route to the tower, but a green guy hit us with a thunderbolt before. The mirror, though, will reflect it back to him. And we can enter this tower. The goal here is to turn off three (four) switches to stop lava from forming. This area frustrated me so much. The area is massive and mazelike, and mobs are everywhere. And they’re not exactly fragile. But the bottom contains a machine that the Ark of Wisdom can turn off. The air is no longer dirty.
Sytus meets us outside with the other book translated. It tells us about the Ancients and how they thrived in areas humans would call dirty. They also controlled the giant from atop the tower across the lake. Climb it, the second book destroys an invisible wall, and turn off the control machine. It’s unguarded. Rather than die, the giant knocks down the tower, creating a bridge to the island on the lake, where the ancient base is. Return to town to heal and see the giant blow off all the sand from the town. The giant is actually a good guy who was controlled by evil hands.
Back to the final dungeon of this chapter, we eventually come to a room. We’re constantly ambushed by weaker versions of the green guy outside. They’re not difficult, but there are about a dozen of them. We eventually reach the guy in charge, who is barely any stronger. There is one final machine behind him. Activating it stops all cloning, restores the wind, and saves the world.
Sytus is off on a mysterious archaeological dig somewhere, but we can still witness the giant walk into the sea and disappear from view if we return to Kuru. Return to the first town to see everyone’s excited and confused. The wind is blowing, but the windmills are stationary. That isn’t explained. But whatever, we did our job and are now the Hero of Wind. Despite that, we can pick up the Ark of Wood and return to the church. And we’ll go into world six…
…tomorrow!
I don’t like games that throw weapons and armor at you every ten seconds. Fortunately, I spoiled it for myself, and the last three chapters have limited inventory. So I’m all good on that front. Grinding all those levels, hopefully, puts me in a good position to blitz through the rest of this. I’m already kinda at my limit. There’s still nothing nutritious in the game… Any day now… But the goddess is losing her ability to speak to us, so there’s some story...
Friday, February 13, 2026
Fire
Perfect.
Tick tock, mess with the clock, and then you will see that all is …black and white? What? This chapter starts off in a world without color. People in the first town, Keepinsign, tell us how disappointing this is, as the sunset used to be a tourist attraction. One of the houses is home to a scientist named Edison, but it’s mostly empty when we enter it. Minus the heart, which I’m sure you can figure out the goal here. While you’re back at church, pick up the other figurine, too. Spoiler, you’re gonna need it in a moment. Reviving Edison doesn’t do much now, but he’ll probably be useful down the line. For now, though, he tells us about his rival, Einstein.
Other citizens tell us about a protection racket through Snowpass, the mountain north, run by a man named Capone. We can talk to Capone at the fort at the mountain’s foot, and he assumes we have no money. I have 30000 gold, but okay. Instead of paying, he’ll ask us to bring him golden wine. So now we have to be barmaids at the tavern in town. Our reward will be 40G, and the wife lets us take home the wine. Giving it to Capone has him dropping us into a bottomless pit…
Since there is no color in this world, he couldn’t see the wine and assumed we tricked him. There are rumors about his receptionist fleecing people, but I’m thinking the boss is in on the take, too. But now we’re in a dungeon. Use the Arks of Power and Wisdom to revive two party members. Yes, two! We’re finally a full team. I’m running with the monk girl, Reeshine, and the white mage, Meisea. The black mage and Lux seem cool, too. And I haven’t used the other two. I tried Tokio once, but he died in chapter one… But this dungeon is no joke, and you’ll need all three. Play time is over this chapter!
Make your way through the cave, and don’t forget to find the heart. This is Graham, and his parents in the armor shop miss him. Soon you’ll reach a door. This returns us to the fort, where everyone is shocked that we survived. Capone apologizes, and, rather than get revenge for attempted murder, we accept it. Not only that, but he asks us to find his daughter, Roma. Her heart is discovered in her room, and she’s the last figurine. Capone is thrilled and gives us brandy that takes up our inventory. He also lets us through Snowpass without guards.
This is a lengthy dungeon with too many mobs. They’re definitely starting to reuse sprites now. But we eventually reach the peak, where things get weird. Color returns to the world, but now there is only silence. No music is played down the mountain. We’ll reach a town, Diplo, but we can’t speak to anyone. There is only silence. The innkeeper somehow tells us to go north. In the northmost house is a woman who can write. Rather than use pencil and paper for daily life in the last year since sound vanished, people have learned sign language. And Felys masters it in three seconds! We can now talk to the villagers. The armorer in the northwest is the most prescient, and they tell us about their sappy hobby of collecting tree sap. There’s also a fella in the bar who tells us about Paulo, an artist who went south to draw the bells. Warp back to Graham’s, talk to everyone, and then go find the bells south of silent town. Paulo will boss us around until he finds the perfect portrait. Or until he falls into a hole. Give chase, and you’ll find a path to the third city, Ratwood.
Nothing seems too strange here. The colors work, and there’s sound. Lotta elderly folks around, though. Find Einstein and talk to him a few times before pilfering his stuff. You’ll find a note to Edison. Give Ed the note, and he’ll join Al in town. Edison will carry on Einstein’s work! It involves a giant machine in the center of town. Edison fixes what he can, but he needs some sap and metal. Find the sap northwest of the quiet town. The armor there was replaced by Graham while they did their yearly hobby. There is a lot of sap, so they let you take a bottle full of it. You’ll need two, by the way, as the weapon shop can mix it with Black Rock from the cat chapter, if you found the second one. You’ll get the sword at the end of the chapter. You’ll also need metal, which is from the red bell by Paulo.
But Edison repairs it as best he can, which rouses Einstein out of his deathbed. They do more, but we power up the machine with an Ark. The elevator now works, and it takes us to a poisoned room. Everyone leaves in fear, so rest at an inn to get the poison off. For reasons, we can go back down, and the poison doesn’t affect us. Just south of the elevator is a fourth town, Metalimo.
Everyone here is dying. They have to work on machines, which pollute the air and wreak the body. And they’re low on food and bedding. Give everyone a healing item, and the leader tells us how to navigate this area. We also figure out that this world is powered by the machine that is down here. It’s also powered by an Ark…
So we make our way down, a very long way, doing one row sudoko puzzles to open locks. It was shocking fun! We reach the bottom and find someone waiting for us. Specifically, us. The demon knows who Felys is and what she’s looking for. He doesn’t fight us, but sends his lackeys after us, and they’re finally a difficult battle!
There are three black knights who do massive damage every turn. They tend to go at a similar speed, so it’s possible they can do 180 damage. They also possess Insta death spells. Felys and the white mage have Deathward that works, and they’ll also be healing a lot. The left knight is weak to the monk’s Kick attack, so spam that. It worked every time in this battle for some reason. I won’t complain! Getting one down is of utmost importance. They also heal a lot, so expect to swear.
But we’re not done yet! One of the terminals in the room will upgrade your Open Card, which will grant you access to the Hydra Sector of the area. It’s to the northeast of the town. The Hydra area has Sylph Co arrow floors, but they didn’t automatically push me around. I don’t know if this helped or hindered the encounter rate. I pretended like they worked, and it helped me find the correct way to go. I got lost aimlessly walking around. Finding the correct path brings us to a four way fork. The northeast room contains the Ark of Fire. Removing that somehow makes the malfunctioning underground chill out and start working as normal. using the Ark kicked it into overdrive. But color and sound return, while all the old people return to their proper age. Edison and Einstein will continue to repair the underground, and more people from above chip in to help support working the machines. The Eternal Machine (?) is very important to this world’s existence, which makes me wonder how it worked before everyone’s ancestors built it. But, with the Ark obtained, I grab Felys’ new sword and return to the church. I’ll figure out what’s next…
…tomorrow!
I don’t understand what all this meant, but I enjoyed this chapter the most. It has the least amount of awful backtracking, and it kept us moving onwards. It felt like a traditional RPG. We’re about halfway done, which is good. Not sure how much more I can take, and I’m hoping I get some thorp sink my teeth into soon.
Tick tock, mess with the clock, and then you will see that all is …black and white? What? This chapter starts off in a world without color. People in the first town, Keepinsign, tell us how disappointing this is, as the sunset used to be a tourist attraction. One of the houses is home to a scientist named Edison, but it’s mostly empty when we enter it. Minus the heart, which I’m sure you can figure out the goal here. While you’re back at church, pick up the other figurine, too. Spoiler, you’re gonna need it in a moment. Reviving Edison doesn’t do much now, but he’ll probably be useful down the line. For now, though, he tells us about his rival, Einstein.
Other citizens tell us about a protection racket through Snowpass, the mountain north, run by a man named Capone. We can talk to Capone at the fort at the mountain’s foot, and he assumes we have no money. I have 30000 gold, but okay. Instead of paying, he’ll ask us to bring him golden wine. So now we have to be barmaids at the tavern in town. Our reward will be 40G, and the wife lets us take home the wine. Giving it to Capone has him dropping us into a bottomless pit…
Since there is no color in this world, he couldn’t see the wine and assumed we tricked him. There are rumors about his receptionist fleecing people, but I’m thinking the boss is in on the take, too. But now we’re in a dungeon. Use the Arks of Power and Wisdom to revive two party members. Yes, two! We’re finally a full team. I’m running with the monk girl, Reeshine, and the white mage, Meisea. The black mage and Lux seem cool, too. And I haven’t used the other two. I tried Tokio once, but he died in chapter one… But this dungeon is no joke, and you’ll need all three. Play time is over this chapter!
Make your way through the cave, and don’t forget to find the heart. This is Graham, and his parents in the armor shop miss him. Soon you’ll reach a door. This returns us to the fort, where everyone is shocked that we survived. Capone apologizes, and, rather than get revenge for attempted murder, we accept it. Not only that, but he asks us to find his daughter, Roma. Her heart is discovered in her room, and she’s the last figurine. Capone is thrilled and gives us brandy that takes up our inventory. He also lets us through Snowpass without guards.
This is a lengthy dungeon with too many mobs. They’re definitely starting to reuse sprites now. But we eventually reach the peak, where things get weird. Color returns to the world, but now there is only silence. No music is played down the mountain. We’ll reach a town, Diplo, but we can’t speak to anyone. There is only silence. The innkeeper somehow tells us to go north. In the northmost house is a woman who can write. Rather than use pencil and paper for daily life in the last year since sound vanished, people have learned sign language. And Felys masters it in three seconds! We can now talk to the villagers. The armorer in the northwest is the most prescient, and they tell us about their sappy hobby of collecting tree sap. There’s also a fella in the bar who tells us about Paulo, an artist who went south to draw the bells. Warp back to Graham’s, talk to everyone, and then go find the bells south of silent town. Paulo will boss us around until he finds the perfect portrait. Or until he falls into a hole. Give chase, and you’ll find a path to the third city, Ratwood.
Nothing seems too strange here. The colors work, and there’s sound. Lotta elderly folks around, though. Find Einstein and talk to him a few times before pilfering his stuff. You’ll find a note to Edison. Give Ed the note, and he’ll join Al in town. Edison will carry on Einstein’s work! It involves a giant machine in the center of town. Edison fixes what he can, but he needs some sap and metal. Find the sap northwest of the quiet town. The armor there was replaced by Graham while they did their yearly hobby. There is a lot of sap, so they let you take a bottle full of it. You’ll need two, by the way, as the weapon shop can mix it with Black Rock from the cat chapter, if you found the second one. You’ll get the sword at the end of the chapter. You’ll also need metal, which is from the red bell by Paulo.
But Edison repairs it as best he can, which rouses Einstein out of his deathbed. They do more, but we power up the machine with an Ark. The elevator now works, and it takes us to a poisoned room. Everyone leaves in fear, so rest at an inn to get the poison off. For reasons, we can go back down, and the poison doesn’t affect us. Just south of the elevator is a fourth town, Metalimo.
Everyone here is dying. They have to work on machines, which pollute the air and wreak the body. And they’re low on food and bedding. Give everyone a healing item, and the leader tells us how to navigate this area. We also figure out that this world is powered by the machine that is down here. It’s also powered by an Ark…
So we make our way down, a very long way, doing one row sudoko puzzles to open locks. It was shocking fun! We reach the bottom and find someone waiting for us. Specifically, us. The demon knows who Felys is and what she’s looking for. He doesn’t fight us, but sends his lackeys after us, and they’re finally a difficult battle!
There are three black knights who do massive damage every turn. They tend to go at a similar speed, so it’s possible they can do 180 damage. They also possess Insta death spells. Felys and the white mage have Deathward that works, and they’ll also be healing a lot. The left knight is weak to the monk’s Kick attack, so spam that. It worked every time in this battle for some reason. I won’t complain! Getting one down is of utmost importance. They also heal a lot, so expect to swear.
But we’re not done yet! One of the terminals in the room will upgrade your Open Card, which will grant you access to the Hydra Sector of the area. It’s to the northeast of the town. The Hydra area has Sylph Co arrow floors, but they didn’t automatically push me around. I don’t know if this helped or hindered the encounter rate. I pretended like they worked, and it helped me find the correct way to go. I got lost aimlessly walking around. Finding the correct path brings us to a four way fork. The northeast room contains the Ark of Fire. Removing that somehow makes the malfunctioning underground chill out and start working as normal. using the Ark kicked it into overdrive. But color and sound return, while all the old people return to their proper age. Edison and Einstein will continue to repair the underground, and more people from above chip in to help support working the machines. The Eternal Machine (?) is very important to this world’s existence, which makes me wonder how it worked before everyone’s ancestors built it. But, with the Ark obtained, I grab Felys’ new sword and return to the church. I’ll figure out what’s next…
…tomorrow!
I don’t understand what all this meant, but I enjoyed this chapter the most. It has the least amount of awful backtracking, and it kept us moving onwards. It felt like a traditional RPG. We’re about halfway done, which is good. Not sure how much more I can take, and I’m hoping I get some thorp sink my teeth into soon.
Thursday, February 12, 2026
Wisdom
We’re playing with a music box in the windmill today. It’s cute.
After finagling our way in, we’re brought to a quaint little European town filled with kids. And only kids. After finding books to open the jail cell, giving us access to the south side of town, we take a break from figuring out figurines and lost churches to play hide and seek with the kids. I only needed help finding one of them! After we’ve all gathered, the kids realize it’s getting late and head home. We follow, if only to protect them from the mobs on the world map.
There are no mobs on the world map. Okay!
We’ve come to our return point today, Kidsdam, which is sort of an orphanage. The kids talk about someone named Cecile, who takes care of them, and allude to Felys being taller than her. But Cecile suffers from a strange sickness that keeps her bedridden. It’s only shown up recently. There are even more kids here, and we gather that there are some weird rules about the days of the week. When they can leave, where they can go, etc. There’s also a currency around candy from Candy Mountain we’ll have to respect. We meet everyone, but it’s late. We have to share a bed with one of the kids, so I hope Felys is at least a teenager.
In the morning, Cecile is up, so we can talk to her. She looks normal. Today, the kids are gonna look for candies on the mountain. There is a side diversion around three of them who went exploring too far. You’ll need to find them, as it went wrong. Check the three bulletin board sections to get a password. Monsters are now roaming the world map and attacking them. Find the three in the far eastern forest, then start climbing the mountain. It’s also more dangerous than the kids expected.
This dungeon sucked. There are several puzzles we need to find, but the giver of these puzzles blends in. They’re holes in the wall, barely visible. At the end are two of the kids. They’re fine but scared. After you fill a bottle with candies, escort them home.
The next day is easy. There’s a girl selling a heart for five candies. Buy it, return to the church, and investigate a shelf in the ship room. Whoever turns things into figurines can do it to physical concepts, too. Returning to Kidsdom restores the playground everyone loved. You can do some stuff in the library with candies, like unlock this chapter’s shops. But that’s most of the day. You have a longer conversation with Cecile, which starts to open our eyes to the possibility that she might not be who we think she is. What was that in the fireplace?
The next day has some of the kids running away. Apparently, Cecile doesn’t like us and doesn’t want the kids to talk to us. But they’re fond of Felys, and four run away. Before giving chase, go on a scavenger hunt. We’re about to enter the Lost Woods and need directions. We also need a password, which can be found in a fireplace.
Do your stuff in the Cedar Woods, and you’ll reach Soda Springs. It’s another cave with many winding paths. Lotta dead ends, but there’s a boss here. Also, your crystal broke… Hydra ate the kids, so we have to get them out. The kids are covered in white stuff, but they’re alive. They return to the villa we spawned in at, Blind Alley, with the intent of living there now. Curious about what’s happening at Kidsdom, we return there.
It’s not looking good. Monsters roam the halls, the kids are hiding in three places, and Cecile was abducted, deeper into the bowls. We now have to walk through a haunted mansion filled with lame puzzles. A weird “right seat” thing, a stupid “put utensils into a jar, and then a door maze. The room filled with peaceful mimics was interesting. And finally, the truth is revealed. Cecile is being forced to empower a demon named Chimera. He wants to be stronger than his master, but we kill him. I forgot to change out my team to a mage, and had zero problems with this guy.
With Chimera dead, Cecile is free. The rest of the kids went looking for her and joined us now for a big, happy ending. Chimera believed Cecile was a mage, but she was only using an Ark. We have to find it in a room next to her bedroom, but the Ark of Wisdom is ours. She also told us Chimera would mention someone named Darkness… But I’ll figure that out…
…tomorrow!
I got a headache and couldn’t look around for more secrets. Good night.
After finagling our way in, we’re brought to a quaint little European town filled with kids. And only kids. After finding books to open the jail cell, giving us access to the south side of town, we take a break from figuring out figurines and lost churches to play hide and seek with the kids. I only needed help finding one of them! After we’ve all gathered, the kids realize it’s getting late and head home. We follow, if only to protect them from the mobs on the world map.
There are no mobs on the world map. Okay!
We’ve come to our return point today, Kidsdam, which is sort of an orphanage. The kids talk about someone named Cecile, who takes care of them, and allude to Felys being taller than her. But Cecile suffers from a strange sickness that keeps her bedridden. It’s only shown up recently. There are even more kids here, and we gather that there are some weird rules about the days of the week. When they can leave, where they can go, etc. There’s also a currency around candy from Candy Mountain we’ll have to respect. We meet everyone, but it’s late. We have to share a bed with one of the kids, so I hope Felys is at least a teenager.
In the morning, Cecile is up, so we can talk to her. She looks normal. Today, the kids are gonna look for candies on the mountain. There is a side diversion around three of them who went exploring too far. You’ll need to find them, as it went wrong. Check the three bulletin board sections to get a password. Monsters are now roaming the world map and attacking them. Find the three in the far eastern forest, then start climbing the mountain. It’s also more dangerous than the kids expected.
This dungeon sucked. There are several puzzles we need to find, but the giver of these puzzles blends in. They’re holes in the wall, barely visible. At the end are two of the kids. They’re fine but scared. After you fill a bottle with candies, escort them home.
The next day is easy. There’s a girl selling a heart for five candies. Buy it, return to the church, and investigate a shelf in the ship room. Whoever turns things into figurines can do it to physical concepts, too. Returning to Kidsdom restores the playground everyone loved. You can do some stuff in the library with candies, like unlock this chapter’s shops. But that’s most of the day. You have a longer conversation with Cecile, which starts to open our eyes to the possibility that she might not be who we think she is. What was that in the fireplace?
The next day has some of the kids running away. Apparently, Cecile doesn’t like us and doesn’t want the kids to talk to us. But they’re fond of Felys, and four run away. Before giving chase, go on a scavenger hunt. We’re about to enter the Lost Woods and need directions. We also need a password, which can be found in a fireplace.
Do your stuff in the Cedar Woods, and you’ll reach Soda Springs. It’s another cave with many winding paths. Lotta dead ends, but there’s a boss here. Also, your crystal broke… Hydra ate the kids, so we have to get them out. The kids are covered in white stuff, but they’re alive. They return to the villa we spawned in at, Blind Alley, with the intent of living there now. Curious about what’s happening at Kidsdom, we return there.
It’s not looking good. Monsters roam the halls, the kids are hiding in three places, and Cecile was abducted, deeper into the bowls. We now have to walk through a haunted mansion filled with lame puzzles. A weird “right seat” thing, a stupid “put utensils into a jar, and then a door maze. The room filled with peaceful mimics was interesting. And finally, the truth is revealed. Cecile is being forced to empower a demon named Chimera. He wants to be stronger than his master, but we kill him. I forgot to change out my team to a mage, and had zero problems with this guy.
With Chimera dead, Cecile is free. The rest of the kids went looking for her and joined us now for a big, happy ending. Chimera believed Cecile was a mage, but she was only using an Ark. We have to find it in a room next to her bedroom, but the Ark of Wisdom is ours. She also told us Chimera would mention someone named Darkness… But I’ll figure that out…
…tomorrow!
I got a headache and couldn’t look around for more secrets. Good night.
Wednesday, February 11, 2026
Light
Slightly less backtracking!
The first thing we need to learn today is that the Arks can be used to power certain aspects of the church. The Ark of Power, the macguffin of last night, can power a steel door in the kitchen. Behind the door is the storage room, and there’s a stone squash inside. Licking it does nothing, so get close. Even though you have to get close to lick it…
We’re teleported to a pink village. The people inside tell us we’re in a hallowed out, giant watermelon. How was it hollowed out, you ask? They ate their way in. Cool! But there isn’t much here, so head to the world map.
Another thing the Ark of Power does is it temporarily returns the statues, which are more like figurines, to life. Before licking the squash, you were asked to take the six figurines with you. With them in your inventory, you can use the Ark on them to get a second party member. It only works once, but you can swap out characters anytime outside of battle. So if your current ally gets weak, make a swap. One of them is a dedicated white mage, so she can always be in reserve. You can even change gear while they’re in wood form, so it’s sorta streamlined for 1995.
Take whoever and travel east to Gourd Bridge. It’s a food themed adventure, folks. Everyone here is really weird. Shops refuse to sell to you, and others are just rude. We can’t even leave the north exit. Do some sleuthing to find a secret room in the northwest under two leaves. We’ll find the real villagers down there. They tell us they’ve been taken over by a horde of foxes. They like fried tofu, so someone gives us a piece to fry on the heater upstairs. Doing so causes them to break their transformation spell, and then we jump out. We chase them to a cave system under town.
We have to battle our way through several foxes, all of whom are pretty strong. They could easily kill us if they ganged up on us. We can return to the surface, warp to Watermelon Town, heal, and come back when you get low on HP. There were five, I think, but there’s a boss fox waiting in back. He’s just tankier. For some reason, Felys watches him walk away after the battle.
Returning to Gorde Bridge lets us see it’s business as usual again. The shops have better gear, and there’s an optional sliding block puzzle. More importantly, we can travel north. Don’t yet, because the backtracking begins here.
Talk to Watermelontown’s elder. The town is rotting, and the water supply is in bad shape. He gives us the hearts of a pineapple and a grape. Return to the church and dig through the crates to your immediate left. Place the hearts in the figures of the fruit. Go back to the fruit world again. Along the dried river bed, north of Watermelon and Gorde, are two fertile grounds. Plant the seeds.
Return to the elder. He tells us about the beetles causing trouble. They live west. We’re in a giant tree and must go up. There’s a super beetle in the back, but it’s just like all the other bosses thus far. This is a problem with Mystic Ark: the boring boss battles. Say what you will about 7th Saga, but at least the difficulty was memorable. As with the boss fox, we let the boss beetle pick up three chests, one of which the elder suspects is the Ark, and walk away. We see him being accosted by a bird, who steals one of the chests before flying north.
Return to the elder. Most of the villagers are gone. They believe one of the fruits we planted has sprouted. They’re correct! Although it is hilariously cramped at the moment.
The bird went to the northwest forest. Hidden paths are hidden beneath the heavy foliage, so expect to run into a lot of walls. The bird will be at the end, mourning. The tree it lives on is alive and tells us its hatchling vanished. The tree gives us the hatchling heart. As you’d expect, it’s back at the church. The figureine we need is behind the church if you take the right hand path. Walk back through the forest, because more backtracking, to see both birds happy. They fly away, but the boss beetle gets his treasure back before we get it. We do get the grape seed back when you climb the tree.
Return to the elder. He wants to investigate the source of the river. Something upstream may be causing the drought. The dungeon here is different. There are no mobs, but there are Indiana Jones boulders. Dodge the rocks to find a hole in the river bed, eating all the water. There’s a boulder nearby that can be used to block the hole, but we’re all weak. We get a pot for our troubles, so fill it up with water while we’re here.
Return to the elder. He tells us the lazy guy in Watermelontown is super strong. He hasn’t left yet, so go back there, give him the water, and he’ll tag along. Go back through the dungeon, and he’ll push the boulder, thus restoring the river flow. Grapetown begins to sprout, and Pineappletown grows large.
Return to the elder. Grapetown is attacked by the boss beetle.
Return to the elder, he’ll hand us the beetle key, which unlocks this chapter’s final dungeon, due north. We’re climbing a tree again, oftentimes using vines. At the top is the super boss beetle and the other boss beetle we’ve been chasing. Super boss fights us first, and he’s a doozy. It was around this time that I realized healing springs are far less common here. In fact, there are none. This is a game of attrition now, and I’m concerned. He’s weak to ice, and I need to get used to learning weaknesses. And there’s another trick here, because we’re in back to back wars. We kill super boss beatle, and we’re weakened, so boss beetle tries his luck again. But… it turns out he was in disguise the whole time. He was actually boss fox! Good luck in fight two; I save scummed so hard! As he dies, he gets upset that he broke a promise. Boss fox promised to hold the Ark for someone… The Ark of Light is in the chest. It doesn’t grant us a second ally, but you can imbue your sword with lightning, which is hella rad! Mobs still roam after the battles, by the way.
Return to the elder… who isn’t there! Was he boss fox? That doesn’t make sense, though. Anyway, Pineapplettown is in its final form, and Grapetown is almost large enough to start a city. But the chapter comes to a close, and we can return to the church.
The Ark of Light opens up two new mini game rooms. There’s a memory game at a tree near the hatchlings. Do it once, and you’ll never have to do it again. And we can now reach the stone sword on the beach behind the church. Enter the cave beneath the church and Ark of Light the fountain. The sword dimension is a monster battling game. You can use the monsters that you’ve turned into figurines in a totally AI brawl to earn platinum. You can also bet that platinum in other battles to get even more. Finally, you can exchange your monster statues and platinum for new items. I turned my gremlin into some strong armor for the monk. So I’ll be looking into world three…
…tomorrow!
Please have less repetitive backtracking before I start hating this game.
The first thing we need to learn today is that the Arks can be used to power certain aspects of the church. The Ark of Power, the macguffin of last night, can power a steel door in the kitchen. Behind the door is the storage room, and there’s a stone squash inside. Licking it does nothing, so get close. Even though you have to get close to lick it…
We’re teleported to a pink village. The people inside tell us we’re in a hallowed out, giant watermelon. How was it hollowed out, you ask? They ate their way in. Cool! But there isn’t much here, so head to the world map.
Another thing the Ark of Power does is it temporarily returns the statues, which are more like figurines, to life. Before licking the squash, you were asked to take the six figurines with you. With them in your inventory, you can use the Ark on them to get a second party member. It only works once, but you can swap out characters anytime outside of battle. So if your current ally gets weak, make a swap. One of them is a dedicated white mage, so she can always be in reserve. You can even change gear while they’re in wood form, so it’s sorta streamlined for 1995.
Take whoever and travel east to Gourd Bridge. It’s a food themed adventure, folks. Everyone here is really weird. Shops refuse to sell to you, and others are just rude. We can’t even leave the north exit. Do some sleuthing to find a secret room in the northwest under two leaves. We’ll find the real villagers down there. They tell us they’ve been taken over by a horde of foxes. They like fried tofu, so someone gives us a piece to fry on the heater upstairs. Doing so causes them to break their transformation spell, and then we jump out. We chase them to a cave system under town.
We have to battle our way through several foxes, all of whom are pretty strong. They could easily kill us if they ganged up on us. We can return to the surface, warp to Watermelon Town, heal, and come back when you get low on HP. There were five, I think, but there’s a boss fox waiting in back. He’s just tankier. For some reason, Felys watches him walk away after the battle.
Returning to Gorde Bridge lets us see it’s business as usual again. The shops have better gear, and there’s an optional sliding block puzzle. More importantly, we can travel north. Don’t yet, because the backtracking begins here.
Talk to Watermelontown’s elder. The town is rotting, and the water supply is in bad shape. He gives us the hearts of a pineapple and a grape. Return to the church and dig through the crates to your immediate left. Place the hearts in the figures of the fruit. Go back to the fruit world again. Along the dried river bed, north of Watermelon and Gorde, are two fertile grounds. Plant the seeds.
Return to the elder. He tells us about the beetles causing trouble. They live west. We’re in a giant tree and must go up. There’s a super beetle in the back, but it’s just like all the other bosses thus far. This is a problem with Mystic Ark: the boring boss battles. Say what you will about 7th Saga, but at least the difficulty was memorable. As with the boss fox, we let the boss beetle pick up three chests, one of which the elder suspects is the Ark, and walk away. We see him being accosted by a bird, who steals one of the chests before flying north.
Return to the elder. Most of the villagers are gone. They believe one of the fruits we planted has sprouted. They’re correct! Although it is hilariously cramped at the moment.
The bird went to the northwest forest. Hidden paths are hidden beneath the heavy foliage, so expect to run into a lot of walls. The bird will be at the end, mourning. The tree it lives on is alive and tells us its hatchling vanished. The tree gives us the hatchling heart. As you’d expect, it’s back at the church. The figureine we need is behind the church if you take the right hand path. Walk back through the forest, because more backtracking, to see both birds happy. They fly away, but the boss beetle gets his treasure back before we get it. We do get the grape seed back when you climb the tree.
Return to the elder. He wants to investigate the source of the river. Something upstream may be causing the drought. The dungeon here is different. There are no mobs, but there are Indiana Jones boulders. Dodge the rocks to find a hole in the river bed, eating all the water. There’s a boulder nearby that can be used to block the hole, but we’re all weak. We get a pot for our troubles, so fill it up with water while we’re here.
Return to the elder. He tells us the lazy guy in Watermelontown is super strong. He hasn’t left yet, so go back there, give him the water, and he’ll tag along. Go back through the dungeon, and he’ll push the boulder, thus restoring the river flow. Grapetown begins to sprout, and Pineappletown grows large.
Return to the elder. Grapetown is attacked by the boss beetle.
Return to the elder, he’ll hand us the beetle key, which unlocks this chapter’s final dungeon, due north. We’re climbing a tree again, oftentimes using vines. At the top is the super boss beetle and the other boss beetle we’ve been chasing. Super boss fights us first, and he’s a doozy. It was around this time that I realized healing springs are far less common here. In fact, there are none. This is a game of attrition now, and I’m concerned. He’s weak to ice, and I need to get used to learning weaknesses. And there’s another trick here, because we’re in back to back wars. We kill super boss beatle, and we’re weakened, so boss beetle tries his luck again. But… it turns out he was in disguise the whole time. He was actually boss fox! Good luck in fight two; I save scummed so hard! As he dies, he gets upset that he broke a promise. Boss fox promised to hold the Ark for someone… The Ark of Light is in the chest. It doesn’t grant us a second ally, but you can imbue your sword with lightning, which is hella rad! Mobs still roam after the battles, by the way.
Return to the elder… who isn’t there! Was he boss fox? That doesn’t make sense, though. Anyway, Pineapplettown is in its final form, and Grapetown is almost large enough to start a city. But the chapter comes to a close, and we can return to the church.
The Ark of Light opens up two new mini game rooms. There’s a memory game at a tree near the hatchlings. Do it once, and you’ll never have to do it again. And we can now reach the stone sword on the beach behind the church. Enter the cave beneath the church and Ark of Light the fountain. The sword dimension is a monster battling game. You can use the monsters that you’ve turned into figurines in a totally AI brawl to earn platinum. You can also bet that platinum in other battles to get even more. Finally, you can exchange your monster statues and platinum for new items. I turned my gremlin into some strong armor for the monk. So I’ll be looking into world three…
…tomorrow!
Please have less repetitive backtracking before I start hating this game.
Tuesday, February 10, 2026
Power
7th Saga II, AKA the 8th Saga, AKA Mystic Ark!
I’m fourteen, now thirteen, entries away from having 1000 blog posts in Blogger. Does that mean anything? No. But I want to rush it out. Because of that, I want to play some episodic games that can be broken down easily into chapters. And Mystic Quest fulfills that, while also being near the top of my SNES RPGs to play list! I don’t know anything about this, other than it being a quasi sequel to Elnard. It doesn’t have a full shrine on RPGClassics, which I figured it would. So let’s get into it!
In Mystic Quest, you have a choice in your playable character. A man named Reemer, or a woman named Felys. I think it’s pronounced like Phylis? But Felys is seen running through a cave when another dimensional rectangle slowly floats towards her. It makes contact with her, turning her into a tiny statue and teleporting her to a church in the middle of nowhere. I don’t know if Reemer has a different origin point, but the idle menu cutscene has many others in differing places suffering a similar fate. Through sheer force of will, Felys breaks free and returns to her human self. She notices other statues in the room.
And then a strange voice speaks to her. It grants her the Tears of the Goddess and asks her throw them into the fireplace in a different room. The fireplace speaks. The voice continues to guide Felys outside before giving her her first mission. If Felys wants to return home, she’ll have to do some interdimensional travel and find numerous objects called Arks.
And first up is an adorable pirate problem. Felys is warped to a strange hut located in the badlands somewhere. There she finds her first weapon, a pot filled with honey, and a map of the area. Leaving brings you to a dry desert with nothing in sight, but we recognize instantly that this is Elnard. The crystal ball is in the corner, and you see all the mobs floating around you. When you eventually enter a battle, the graphics also scream 7th Saga.
Walking east, you find a beached ship. Guards outside suck at their job and let you in because they welcome all comers in their eternal war, and we enter the Bloodhook base. But they’re cat pirates, so it’s adorable! You eventually speak to your new boss, Sixpack, who tells you you’re a spy now. Your first mission is to find another spy in enemy territory, the Gunboss group.
Walk around the ridge, and you’ll enter their base. These are also cat pirates, but they’re smarter than the Bloodhooks and don’t let you waltz in. You’ll need to find a back way in, which is via a cave system north. Mystic Ark even rips some enemy sprites from Elnard down here! But you eventually reach the forge of the Gunbosses, find the spy, and then return home. And now you’ve come to the primary game loop of this section.
There is so much backtracking here. Sometimes it’s because I’m a thorough investigator, but it’s usually because each mission unlocks access to a new portion of a ship, therefore, someone new to talk to. The only distraction is a cave to find healing items way down south, which is part of a Gunboss mission anyway. Each cat pirate group has its own problems in its endless way against the other, and you have to solve them all. Poor weapons and a missing cook for the Bloodhooks, and no potions and a monster invasion for the Gunbosses. Even the penultimate dungeon is tedious nonsense. It’s a tower filled with traps that drop you to the bottom. Thankfully, the difficulty is lower than Elnard, and there’s plenty of healing fountains scattered throughout.
And it’s not helped by some of the menus. Mystic Ark takes a sorta adventure game aesthetic sometimes. There are a few places you can examine. Doing so brings you to a submenu with options. “Inspect, open, shake,” for example. And that would even have the occasional submenu inside an option. I didn’t like them. For some reason, my controller keeps skipping over a selection, too, but that might just be a me problem.
But you make a potion for the witch, named Matoya. The potion makes things worse, and Felys has to fight a tedious boss. Note, I didn’t say hard. It didn’t hit hard, but it has too much HP. It’s boring.
But killing the boss breaks the world, and water returns to the area. Felys and Matoya are credited with ending the endless war! Matoya puts both groups to work fixing her flooded tower, while you find a new temple that may have started all this. Felys descends to the bottom, solves a puzzle, and discovers the first Ark: the Ark of Power. With peace restored, she returns to the church, where the voice tells her to speak to the statue outside. But I’ll do that…
…tomorrow!
Besides the Ark, the only other major plot point is the strange rectangle that turned Felys into a statue, which did the same with the missing cook. But you find his heart, his statue, and save him. I didn’t want to get lost in the weeds with specifics here because it really was just a lot of ping ponging around the two ships. That would be some repetitive storytelling. Regardless, I wasn’t fond of this section. It wasn’t terrible, but it was hardly exciting.
I’m fourteen, now thirteen, entries away from having 1000 blog posts in Blogger. Does that mean anything? No. But I want to rush it out. Because of that, I want to play some episodic games that can be broken down easily into chapters. And Mystic Quest fulfills that, while also being near the top of my SNES RPGs to play list! I don’t know anything about this, other than it being a quasi sequel to Elnard. It doesn’t have a full shrine on RPGClassics, which I figured it would. So let’s get into it!
In Mystic Quest, you have a choice in your playable character. A man named Reemer, or a woman named Felys. I think it’s pronounced like Phylis? But Felys is seen running through a cave when another dimensional rectangle slowly floats towards her. It makes contact with her, turning her into a tiny statue and teleporting her to a church in the middle of nowhere. I don’t know if Reemer has a different origin point, but the idle menu cutscene has many others in differing places suffering a similar fate. Through sheer force of will, Felys breaks free and returns to her human self. She notices other statues in the room.
And then a strange voice speaks to her. It grants her the Tears of the Goddess and asks her throw them into the fireplace in a different room. The fireplace speaks. The voice continues to guide Felys outside before giving her her first mission. If Felys wants to return home, she’ll have to do some interdimensional travel and find numerous objects called Arks.
And first up is an adorable pirate problem. Felys is warped to a strange hut located in the badlands somewhere. There she finds her first weapon, a pot filled with honey, and a map of the area. Leaving brings you to a dry desert with nothing in sight, but we recognize instantly that this is Elnard. The crystal ball is in the corner, and you see all the mobs floating around you. When you eventually enter a battle, the graphics also scream 7th Saga.
Walking east, you find a beached ship. Guards outside suck at their job and let you in because they welcome all comers in their eternal war, and we enter the Bloodhook base. But they’re cat pirates, so it’s adorable! You eventually speak to your new boss, Sixpack, who tells you you’re a spy now. Your first mission is to find another spy in enemy territory, the Gunboss group.
Walk around the ridge, and you’ll enter their base. These are also cat pirates, but they’re smarter than the Bloodhooks and don’t let you waltz in. You’ll need to find a back way in, which is via a cave system north. Mystic Ark even rips some enemy sprites from Elnard down here! But you eventually reach the forge of the Gunbosses, find the spy, and then return home. And now you’ve come to the primary game loop of this section.
There is so much backtracking here. Sometimes it’s because I’m a thorough investigator, but it’s usually because each mission unlocks access to a new portion of a ship, therefore, someone new to talk to. The only distraction is a cave to find healing items way down south, which is part of a Gunboss mission anyway. Each cat pirate group has its own problems in its endless way against the other, and you have to solve them all. Poor weapons and a missing cook for the Bloodhooks, and no potions and a monster invasion for the Gunbosses. Even the penultimate dungeon is tedious nonsense. It’s a tower filled with traps that drop you to the bottom. Thankfully, the difficulty is lower than Elnard, and there’s plenty of healing fountains scattered throughout.
And it’s not helped by some of the menus. Mystic Ark takes a sorta adventure game aesthetic sometimes. There are a few places you can examine. Doing so brings you to a submenu with options. “Inspect, open, shake,” for example. And that would even have the occasional submenu inside an option. I didn’t like them. For some reason, my controller keeps skipping over a selection, too, but that might just be a me problem.
But you make a potion for the witch, named Matoya. The potion makes things worse, and Felys has to fight a tedious boss. Note, I didn’t say hard. It didn’t hit hard, but it has too much HP. It’s boring.
But killing the boss breaks the world, and water returns to the area. Felys and Matoya are credited with ending the endless war! Matoya puts both groups to work fixing her flooded tower, while you find a new temple that may have started all this. Felys descends to the bottom, solves a puzzle, and discovers the first Ark: the Ark of Power. With peace restored, she returns to the church, where the voice tells her to speak to the statue outside. But I’ll do that…
…tomorrow!
Besides the Ark, the only other major plot point is the strange rectangle that turned Felys into a statue, which did the same with the missing cook. But you find his heart, his statue, and save him. I didn’t want to get lost in the weeds with specifics here because it really was just a lot of ping ponging around the two ships. That would be some repetitive storytelling. Regardless, I wasn’t fond of this section. It wasn’t terrible, but it was hardly exciting.
Saturday, February 7, 2026
Illusion of Fun
I lied. You actually get plenty of fun.
Illusion of Gaia is the second game in the famed Quintet series of loosely connected experiences. I played Soul Blazer a few months ago, so now, in the middle of my only playing Japan only games (IoG is not region locked), I decided now is the best time to give the sorta sequel a go.
Illusion of Gaia starts off as a standard action game of the time. You’re an orphan with strange powers, and an evil overlord ransacks your house looking for something your historian father left behind. You can’t find it, but talk to him anyway, and you get thrown in prison. You escape, along with the princess, and then your flute starts talking to you. Okay, so it gets weird fast. You’re then thrust into a touching story about love and friendship, which are more typical ideas. Towards the end, though, the game touches on the merits of human evolution, what a soul is, and the cycle of rebirth. Sometimes, it hits, like when you slowly lose your companions as they find a place to settle down and settle the reasons why they came on the journey with you. Other times, it’s weird, like when Kara’s pet pig randomly shows up after you’ve crossed multiple oceans, via shipwreck and plane crash, a three week long tunnel walk, and a final continent for good measure, only to gain sacrificial sentience and the feasting powers of Jesus. It’s almost hilarious. It also gets Xenogears level deep at the very end, which just confused me. Even the final boss isn’t a thing; it’s a concept! Didn’t help that the final dungeon was a dropped ball.
Gameplay is quite solid. It builds off the foundation of Soul Blazer, but feels much bigger and less formulaic. Rather than spawn camping monster lairs, all the mobs are already on the field. Killing all of them now rewards you with stat gains. The basics are the same, but combat has tangible rewards you can feel live. It isn’t just a way to force the story. And monsters can be defeated in three ways. You play as Will, and Will can transform into two other dudes. One of them isn’t given a lore reason, but he looks hella rad, so who cares? Freedan is large, imposing, and eventually learns to throw energy around. The other is Shadow, a sentient light. He has a whip like arm and can melt into the floor. He only appears in the penultimate dungeon, and I liked Will more. Will is faster and eventually has more attacks. He can slide, spin, and break statues. Performing all of these special attacks is a tad cumbersome, mind you. Holding down the attack button and waiting for it to charge mid battle isn’t the greatest experience. I never found it reliable and just spammed basic attacks or Will’s slide attack. I accidentally jump attacked a lot, which was interesting.
The soundtrack is varied and fun. I grew sick of the town theme towards the end, but there are a handful of other songs I might add to a playlist. Not a lot of key changes in this sound font, but I’m not a music nerd, so whatever.
The graphics are of a similar tone. All the dungeons look different, with bonus points for playing differently as well. Towns are equally unique. If someone showed you a picture of all the dungeons, you could tell which was which instantly. Is there only one cave!?
A good way to describe Illusion of Gaia is that it’s well built but lacking a good paint job. Will may be the only playable character, but there are plenty of friends along the way. The world is giant, but feels kinda empty. You go at speed from event to location, often over the course of weeks, so you don’t get to see how things change. And the only side quest ends up being, well…
So, you collect gems throughout the game. Some of these are nonsense and difficult with hella hidden or random triggers. You even have to enslave a person… And your reward for doing all of this is a big pile of nothing! A secret boss that gives you an ass whooping in a bonus dungeon that doesn’t even boost a stat. What the hell were they thinking? It was a waste of everything and made the ending hour feel even worse. Cool callback to Soul Blazer? I don’t care.
Illusion of Gaia is a lot of fun until you start to think about it. It’s a weird story filled with melodramatic scenes that take forever to go, a terrible side quest, a lack of villains, and a final dungeon boss rush that can soft lock you, ruining the experience. IoG gets 68%.
Illusion of Gaia is the second game in the famed Quintet series of loosely connected experiences. I played Soul Blazer a few months ago, so now, in the middle of my only playing Japan only games (IoG is not region locked), I decided now is the best time to give the sorta sequel a go.
Illusion of Gaia starts off as a standard action game of the time. You’re an orphan with strange powers, and an evil overlord ransacks your house looking for something your historian father left behind. You can’t find it, but talk to him anyway, and you get thrown in prison. You escape, along with the princess, and then your flute starts talking to you. Okay, so it gets weird fast. You’re then thrust into a touching story about love and friendship, which are more typical ideas. Towards the end, though, the game touches on the merits of human evolution, what a soul is, and the cycle of rebirth. Sometimes, it hits, like when you slowly lose your companions as they find a place to settle down and settle the reasons why they came on the journey with you. Other times, it’s weird, like when Kara’s pet pig randomly shows up after you’ve crossed multiple oceans, via shipwreck and plane crash, a three week long tunnel walk, and a final continent for good measure, only to gain sacrificial sentience and the feasting powers of Jesus. It’s almost hilarious. It also gets Xenogears level deep at the very end, which just confused me. Even the final boss isn’t a thing; it’s a concept! Didn’t help that the final dungeon was a dropped ball.
Gameplay is quite solid. It builds off the foundation of Soul Blazer, but feels much bigger and less formulaic. Rather than spawn camping monster lairs, all the mobs are already on the field. Killing all of them now rewards you with stat gains. The basics are the same, but combat has tangible rewards you can feel live. It isn’t just a way to force the story. And monsters can be defeated in three ways. You play as Will, and Will can transform into two other dudes. One of them isn’t given a lore reason, but he looks hella rad, so who cares? Freedan is large, imposing, and eventually learns to throw energy around. The other is Shadow, a sentient light. He has a whip like arm and can melt into the floor. He only appears in the penultimate dungeon, and I liked Will more. Will is faster and eventually has more attacks. He can slide, spin, and break statues. Performing all of these special attacks is a tad cumbersome, mind you. Holding down the attack button and waiting for it to charge mid battle isn’t the greatest experience. I never found it reliable and just spammed basic attacks or Will’s slide attack. I accidentally jump attacked a lot, which was interesting.
The soundtrack is varied and fun. I grew sick of the town theme towards the end, but there are a handful of other songs I might add to a playlist. Not a lot of key changes in this sound font, but I’m not a music nerd, so whatever.
The graphics are of a similar tone. All the dungeons look different, with bonus points for playing differently as well. Towns are equally unique. If someone showed you a picture of all the dungeons, you could tell which was which instantly. Is there only one cave!?
A good way to describe Illusion of Gaia is that it’s well built but lacking a good paint job. Will may be the only playable character, but there are plenty of friends along the way. The world is giant, but feels kinda empty. You go at speed from event to location, often over the course of weeks, so you don’t get to see how things change. And the only side quest ends up being, well…
So, you collect gems throughout the game. Some of these are nonsense and difficult with hella hidden or random triggers. You even have to enslave a person… And your reward for doing all of this is a big pile of nothing! A secret boss that gives you an ass whooping in a bonus dungeon that doesn’t even boost a stat. What the hell were they thinking? It was a waste of everything and made the ending hour feel even worse. Cool callback to Soul Blazer? I don’t care.
Illusion of Gaia is a lot of fun until you start to think about it. It’s a weird story filled with melodramatic scenes that take forever to go, a terrible side quest, a lack of villains, and a final dungeon boss rush that can soft lock you, ruining the experience. IoG gets 68%.
Tuesday, January 27, 2026
Angel’s Poem
And the prayers of white wings.
Tenshi no Uta: Shiroki Tsubasa no Inori is the third and final game in the Tenshi no Uta franchise. It’s very loosely connected to the other two, so, if you jump in here, you won’t notice anything. At least, I think. This is my first foray into the series, so what do I know? The first two are stuck on the PC-88, for now, and game three remains a Super Famicom exclusive. But at least it has an English patch. But what is it about?
The plot mixes Celtic mythology with Christian themes. It’s probably one of the reasons it never got localized. I didn’t notice too much Celtic stuff, outside of an ultimate weapon and a few generic enemies that can be found in plenty of video games. I think the first two games lean more into that area. There’s also a heavy emphasis on love, with a strong overtone of godly love. If you’re a heretic like me, this might be cause to throw the game away. I’d advise against that because there’s also a lot of agnostic atheist touches here. It’s in the form of god working as he does in real life, which is to say he doesn’t. Humans are the real power here, which touches my long, dead heart. None of these are overt, by any means, so I might just be trying to make something deeper.
Tenshi no Uta 3 works like a Dragon Quest game. Battles are in first person, and it’s turned based. And the turn order actually makes sense, so it’s better than Dragon Quest! There are also zero descriptions in battle of what all the spells do! It also does the thing where every area has its own problems, and solving them lets you continue to another location’s issues. This isn’t a hard and stern rule, as there are plenty of locations that are just there to sleep at an inn, restock items and gear, or advance the character narrative. This helps make the game feel fast and the world huge. Another reason why it’s better than DQ! The infrequency of bosses takes this to another level!
It’s also more character driven. There is an overarching plot, but that feels like a background thing for a while. At the end, the characters even mentioned it was secondary to their personal reasons. They don’t run from the demons attacking their home, so they’re not passive characters, but saving the girl is paramount. Nothing else is important until we find this pretty singer’s parents. It’s a neat dichotomy. It’s even weirder because you can befriend the enemies. One of the battle mechanics has you parlaying with mobs. It rarely works, but when it does, you’re rewarded with more exp, money, an item, or a new friend that can help you in battle. I had a manticore, a mid game mob, attack the final boss with me! It didn’t help, but it was funny.
But the gist is, you play as Rey, the son of the village blacksmith. One day, Ray meets a pink haired girl, Callana, at a bridge, singing to birds, squirrels, and cats. So she’s a Disney princess. She’s also an orphan who wants to find her real parents. Rey discovers she’s the headlining act of the circus, as a singer, and falls madly in love. They continue to talk to each other until the circus leaves town. Despite each being in love, Ray lets her go without saying goodbye. He’s a moody teenager who’s afraid of his feelings. His friends urge him on, but it isn’t until they learn Callana has been kidnapped and is forced to marry a corrupt count that he does anything. Rey and his friends invite themselves to the ceremony, saving Callana, but getting themselves involved with demons. From there, it’s new friends, twists and turns, and legends of heroic ventures from only twenty years ago. It goes places! And I liked them!
Long story, short. Tenshi no Uta Shiroki Tsubasa no Inori is a top ten SNES RPG.
—-
Plot: underdeveloped. The story is neat, but the characters involved could have been utilized better. The playable cast is perfectly fine, but the villains are a tad too Dragon Questy. 7/10
Gameplay: best part. You can kill everything, or you can parley to get mobs to leave on friendly terms. It’s stingy, but at least it makes the chaff feel better than mindless zombies. And each mob has their own taunts and dialogue! Sadly, there are only two puzzle ish dungeons. 9/10
Music: why I came here. I knew nothing of this game until I saw who helped compose the soundtrack. This is the earliest work (that I’ll be playing) of my third favorite composer, Motoi Sakuraba. The famed Tri-ace musician started here! He wasn’t the only one, but you can tell which songs are his. The good news is the OST is amazing! 10/10
Art: uh…: It looks like a Sega Genesis game. If someone told me this was a part of the Phantasy Star franchise a month ago, I’d believe them. The overworld and town/dungeon visuals are kinda ugly. However, get into a battle, and the enemy sprites are so incredibly well detailed, it might be a PS1 title. Spells are also unique and high quality, but dungeons are just so ho-hum. TnU also leans into its PC-88 history from time to time with beautiful cutscenes. I wonder how much space the final image of Callana takes up on the disk? 8/10
Charm: solid. The world is huge and sometimes feels alive. While there are no side quests, several NPCs are important throughout. There are several reasons to go out of your way and explore. Mob dialogue is fun, and it’s the perfect length. Man, this game is rad. Doubt I’ll replay it, though. 8/10
Between the fun plot, neat characters, enemy sprites, parlay system, and Motoi Sakuraba soundtrack, Tenshi no Uta: Shiroki Tsubasa no Inori, or Song/Poem of Angels: Prayer of the White Wings, gets 42/50. It’s rough around the edges, but there’s a more than solid experience to be had here. And it turns out that I’ve played this at the perfect time. It’s recently been announced that the first two games in the franchise are getting an official localization! I think preorders are being compiled for both physical and digital, and this game isn’t a part of that bundle, but it’s something. Let me know how they play!
Tenshi no Uta: Shiroki Tsubasa no Inori is the third and final game in the Tenshi no Uta franchise. It’s very loosely connected to the other two, so, if you jump in here, you won’t notice anything. At least, I think. This is my first foray into the series, so what do I know? The first two are stuck on the PC-88, for now, and game three remains a Super Famicom exclusive. But at least it has an English patch. But what is it about?
The plot mixes Celtic mythology with Christian themes. It’s probably one of the reasons it never got localized. I didn’t notice too much Celtic stuff, outside of an ultimate weapon and a few generic enemies that can be found in plenty of video games. I think the first two games lean more into that area. There’s also a heavy emphasis on love, with a strong overtone of godly love. If you’re a heretic like me, this might be cause to throw the game away. I’d advise against that because there’s also a lot of agnostic atheist touches here. It’s in the form of god working as he does in real life, which is to say he doesn’t. Humans are the real power here, which touches my long, dead heart. None of these are overt, by any means, so I might just be trying to make something deeper.
Tenshi no Uta 3 works like a Dragon Quest game. Battles are in first person, and it’s turned based. And the turn order actually makes sense, so it’s better than Dragon Quest! There are also zero descriptions in battle of what all the spells do! It also does the thing where every area has its own problems, and solving them lets you continue to another location’s issues. This isn’t a hard and stern rule, as there are plenty of locations that are just there to sleep at an inn, restock items and gear, or advance the character narrative. This helps make the game feel fast and the world huge. Another reason why it’s better than DQ! The infrequency of bosses takes this to another level!
It’s also more character driven. There is an overarching plot, but that feels like a background thing for a while. At the end, the characters even mentioned it was secondary to their personal reasons. They don’t run from the demons attacking their home, so they’re not passive characters, but saving the girl is paramount. Nothing else is important until we find this pretty singer’s parents. It’s a neat dichotomy. It’s even weirder because you can befriend the enemies. One of the battle mechanics has you parlaying with mobs. It rarely works, but when it does, you’re rewarded with more exp, money, an item, or a new friend that can help you in battle. I had a manticore, a mid game mob, attack the final boss with me! It didn’t help, but it was funny.
But the gist is, you play as Rey, the son of the village blacksmith. One day, Ray meets a pink haired girl, Callana, at a bridge, singing to birds, squirrels, and cats. So she’s a Disney princess. She’s also an orphan who wants to find her real parents. Rey discovers she’s the headlining act of the circus, as a singer, and falls madly in love. They continue to talk to each other until the circus leaves town. Despite each being in love, Ray lets her go without saying goodbye. He’s a moody teenager who’s afraid of his feelings. His friends urge him on, but it isn’t until they learn Callana has been kidnapped and is forced to marry a corrupt count that he does anything. Rey and his friends invite themselves to the ceremony, saving Callana, but getting themselves involved with demons. From there, it’s new friends, twists and turns, and legends of heroic ventures from only twenty years ago. It goes places! And I liked them!
Long story, short. Tenshi no Uta Shiroki Tsubasa no Inori is a top ten SNES RPG.
—-
Plot: underdeveloped. The story is neat, but the characters involved could have been utilized better. The playable cast is perfectly fine, but the villains are a tad too Dragon Questy. 7/10
Gameplay: best part. You can kill everything, or you can parley to get mobs to leave on friendly terms. It’s stingy, but at least it makes the chaff feel better than mindless zombies. And each mob has their own taunts and dialogue! Sadly, there are only two puzzle ish dungeons. 9/10
Music: why I came here. I knew nothing of this game until I saw who helped compose the soundtrack. This is the earliest work (that I’ll be playing) of my third favorite composer, Motoi Sakuraba. The famed Tri-ace musician started here! He wasn’t the only one, but you can tell which songs are his. The good news is the OST is amazing! 10/10
Art: uh…: It looks like a Sega Genesis game. If someone told me this was a part of the Phantasy Star franchise a month ago, I’d believe them. The overworld and town/dungeon visuals are kinda ugly. However, get into a battle, and the enemy sprites are so incredibly well detailed, it might be a PS1 title. Spells are also unique and high quality, but dungeons are just so ho-hum. TnU also leans into its PC-88 history from time to time with beautiful cutscenes. I wonder how much space the final image of Callana takes up on the disk? 8/10
Charm: solid. The world is huge and sometimes feels alive. While there are no side quests, several NPCs are important throughout. There are several reasons to go out of your way and explore. Mob dialogue is fun, and it’s the perfect length. Man, this game is rad. Doubt I’ll replay it, though. 8/10
Between the fun plot, neat characters, enemy sprites, parlay system, and Motoi Sakuraba soundtrack, Tenshi no Uta: Shiroki Tsubasa no Inori, or Song/Poem of Angels: Prayer of the White Wings, gets 42/50. It’s rough around the edges, but there’s a more than solid experience to be had here. And it turns out that I’ve played this at the perfect time. It’s recently been announced that the first two games in the franchise are getting an official localization! I think preorders are being compiled for both physical and digital, and this game isn’t a part of that bundle, but it’s something. Let me know how they play!
Saturday, January 17, 2026
From heaven to hell.
Front Mission sucks!
Front Mission 3 was a mid game that I think I ultimately liked. Gun Hazard was a ton of fun that I know I enjoyed. I’d rather play Lufia than game one.
Full disclosure, I only played about a quarter of the way through the game before I had to tap out. And the biggest reason why is the patron devil of video game mechanics, RNGesus. The biggest annoyance I had with FM3 began in game one. There are four separate health bars on a wanzer: nody, arms, and both legs. Each has a similar chance of being hit in battle. Remember what usually happens in this situation?
The difficulty is also frustrating. Battles five and six contain so many missile launchers that it felt unfair, especially if you’re trying to keep everyone alive. I lost a potential party member because he was AI controlled, and enemy AI isn’t stupid. Paul ran in and got killed. Cool, now I’m at an even bigger disadvantage for future missions. Okay, fine, I can sacrifice one or two characters. But don’t let Lloyd die, or it’s game over. And Lloyd is always on the verge of death!
The music is just there. It’s not exciting, nor is it memorable. One of the songs is a must mute track, though, and you hear it pretty often. Front Mission was composed by Yoko Shimomura, the same composer for Live a Live. So what the hell happened?!
It’s a beautiful game, so it’s got that going for it. Most wanzer parts look different, all the weapons are unique, and there are plenty of head portraits to look at. The portraits even move! The art team popped off, but it was all for naught because…
The story goes nowhere. As I said, I only played about seven missions, less than a quarter of the game, but I spoiled myself and saw what was coming. It’s pretty damn interesting, actually! However, it takes so long to get there. Seventy percent of the game is just you being a mercenary. Why Lloyd is the field leader of a preexisting merc group is beyond me, but whatever. It takes forever to get there. And unlike FM3, it doesn’t have the backdrop of you being active participants in a war.
I’m somewhere between bored and angry with Front Mission. I hate it, and it’s tedious, so I’m done. I’ve got nearly twenty five games to get through. This game is better sacrificed, so that I can move on. 13/50. Maybe it can reach 17, but who cares?
Front Mission 3 was a mid game that I think I ultimately liked. Gun Hazard was a ton of fun that I know I enjoyed. I’d rather play Lufia than game one.
Full disclosure, I only played about a quarter of the way through the game before I had to tap out. And the biggest reason why is the patron devil of video game mechanics, RNGesus. The biggest annoyance I had with FM3 began in game one. There are four separate health bars on a wanzer: nody, arms, and both legs. Each has a similar chance of being hit in battle. Remember what usually happens in this situation?
The difficulty is also frustrating. Battles five and six contain so many missile launchers that it felt unfair, especially if you’re trying to keep everyone alive. I lost a potential party member because he was AI controlled, and enemy AI isn’t stupid. Paul ran in and got killed. Cool, now I’m at an even bigger disadvantage for future missions. Okay, fine, I can sacrifice one or two characters. But don’t let Lloyd die, or it’s game over. And Lloyd is always on the verge of death!
The music is just there. It’s not exciting, nor is it memorable. One of the songs is a must mute track, though, and you hear it pretty often. Front Mission was composed by Yoko Shimomura, the same composer for Live a Live. So what the hell happened?!
It’s a beautiful game, so it’s got that going for it. Most wanzer parts look different, all the weapons are unique, and there are plenty of head portraits to look at. The portraits even move! The art team popped off, but it was all for naught because…
The story goes nowhere. As I said, I only played about seven missions, less than a quarter of the game, but I spoiled myself and saw what was coming. It’s pretty damn interesting, actually! However, it takes so long to get there. Seventy percent of the game is just you being a mercenary. Why Lloyd is the field leader of a preexisting merc group is beyond me, but whatever. It takes forever to get there. And unlike FM3, it doesn’t have the backdrop of you being active participants in a war.
I’m somewhere between bored and angry with Front Mission. I hate it, and it’s tedious, so I’m done. I’ve got nearly twenty five games to get through. This game is better sacrificed, so that I can move on. 13/50. Maybe it can reach 17, but who cares?
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