Transfer Student Drama Bomb!

Got another weird one today, both in its content and because I don't know how to feel about it. 

Adventures of Hourai High was not initially on my playlist. It seemed more of a gimmick than an actual game. However, doing research for this quest brought me to several YouTube videos, some from people I've been subscribed to for a while. PixaAfterDark raved about Hourai High, and it caught just enough of my interest to make me expand my horizons. Worst case scenario, it'll be a way to break up all the dark, mysterious, and brooding stuff I gravitate towards. After finally finishing it, I see where he's coming from. But I also think we have very different opinions on video games. 

Let's start with the obvious. In Hourai High, you play as a transfer student who makes a bombastic entrance on his first day of school by literally falling from the sky, through the roof, and into another student. You pick your name, blood type, birth month, and gender. Gender does decide some different characters and story beats, so it does matter. But this leads your instant celebrity into a series of wacky, slapstick events with you and your underground newspaper friends forcing your way in. Keep in mind, you're all in high school, and this is a grounded plot. Just ignore your skydiving antics, million high student body campus, and principal just out of university. Okay, so it's not THAT grounded. But the student council is always changing the rules to wild ideas around bathroom limits, gender segregation, and replacing names with numbers. It's low stakes, but it's a comedy game, so who cares. 

Skills are also learned via traditional school shenanigans. To learn new attacks or gain passive skill boosts, you must join clubs! The kendo club boasts bashing weapons and teaches Triple Strike, and the medic club turns your characters into a white mage, for example. There's a secret occult club that grants access to quasi black mage spells. Each club only has three levels, so it isn't particularly deep, and leveling them up is done entirely through traditional battles. That's where I begin to fall off. It's cool that learning new skills is passive, but I want more of a club feel to them. There's a mini game in chapter two or three with a strange jousting mechanic, so there's certainly something they could have done out of the box to increase levels or, at the very least, master a skill. 

And with the amount of battles in the game, you're gonna master skills very fast. Hourai High has a very high encounter rate. And the battles aren't particularly hard, so it's easy to overlevel. There's even an auto battle option, so hit that and hold down the emulation speed up button. I might be a weird one, but I didn't mind the encounter rate. It felt like passive grinding and made the endgame dungeons and bosses a breeze. But that also meant I stopped caring about the clubs. I had my attack skills and a few magic and healing, so let's get this done with. And most of the advanced clubs deal with status effects stuff, which... who cares? I got sick once from an enemy. Status effects do work in boss battles, so there can be some depth here. But if you want to experience it, you'll need to download a rom hack that lowers it. It does exist, so maybe that'll be fun if I ever play the girl's route. There are so many clubs, including secret ones, and it's a bit of a shame I barely bothered with them. 

The same can be said for the characters. Only four matter: you and your three other Hospo newspaper group. And you're a mute... I collected fourteen other friends, but I know I missed a few more. There's a starfish out there somewhere... But that's four relevant people out of fifteen. The other hanger ons don't do anything in cutscenes, and they rarely have unique clubs. Or maybe they do, and I just didn't care. Julia does, so shout out to the fellow American. What was the point of them? They could have helped make the clubs feel bigger. They could have made student life feel bigger too, as even that felt flat. Student council elections are brought up early, but you never participate in them. They simply pass. Several festivals are relegated to a small scene. You never take any tests, talk to friends outside of missions, or make non combat friends. It's just shallow. 

Believe it or not, the villains are... also along those lines. They're a monster-of-the-week type, so they lack the means to be deep. The final boss is very Dragon Questy, but the main organization at least has some lasting impact. 

Visually, the game is also limited. There's one cave tile set, you roam the jungles a tad too often, and buildings are all the same. That last one probably makes sense, seeing as the entire campus is on one island, which should have a cohesive architectural design. Mob pallet swaps are because of school uniform regulations too. It can be hand waved away, I guess. 

The music is... fine. It's background noise with little variety. If there was speech over it, it would be perfectly suited. I really could imagine this being the soundtrack to an anime. 

Which I think the devs were trying to go for. If anyone wanted to, they could turn Adventures of Hourai High into a pretty solid show. It would be a slice of life with plenty of sophomoric humor. It would be Angel Beats meets CLANNAD without the crying. There's plenty of NPCs to fill out the cast. The world is huge and filled with so much side content. I found zero of the seven wonders! I enjoyed repairing the rail lines; cool side content. Studios wouldn't need to change a thing. There's plenty of charm here, but a SNES RPG probably shouldn't have been made. There's a damn good basis here; it's Persona ten years before Persona as we know it. 

So it's an ambitious game filled with plenty to do. Maybe I skipped a lot (because of the encounter rate), but I see the humor, the vision, and the attempt. I just like stories and characters. I'm not high on Hourai High, but I think it's actually kinda solid. I'm giving it only 33/50 points, but my super secret new rating system says it's a top twenty RPG on the system. 

Reviewing my review of Child of Light

Just over ten years ago, I posted one of my first reviews to Steam. It was on a game called Child of Light. I'll post the link at the bottom so as not to break up the flow more than I usually do. I believe I posted it here, but I can't find it, so maybe I didn't. Or I'm confusing it with another. Recently, my boss bought me a new computer. Go play Crowns if Power! Wanting to relive and begin some new games I couldn't hope to experience with my last (two) rigs, I booted up an oldie. 

Child of Light was a magical experience ten years ago. Its visuals, soundtrack, world, and gameplay all felt like a fever dream of everything I want in an RPG. I know I enjoyed the game, but it was a fever dream because I don't remember anything about it. Who are these characters I have written down in my giant Google spreadsheet? Why don't I have any villains on it? I've been listening to this Cœur de pirate album for ten years, but I don't have any mental images to get lost in when I snuggle with my stuffed animal/waifu, Lucy, outside. I need to fix that. I also want to look back at myself from ten years ago. 

When I still had hope...

The first thing I notice is that I understand why I barely graduated from college. I love commas! Why didn't I use them? And those run on sentences... You know it wasn't written by a clanker, at least. But I'm not here to mock me. I do that every other day! What did I get right, change my mind on, or wish I had better knowledge of? 

My first paragraph is a joke, walking the line between how bad Ubisoft is and telling people the game is too good to pass up anyway. Some things never change. I still begin with a joke, and Ubisoft just keeps getting worse... 

The second paragraph is where the review begins. It's one long sentence saying that the game is similar to something from the PS2, except the main character isn't a brooding teen. In fact, she might be the weakest character in the game! Grammar aside, this is true. Aurora is such an amazing character, but her stats leave a lot to be desired. She's towards the bottom in every stat, with her only saving grace being her Light magic spells. Stuffing her full of Stardust, a consumable stat booster, helps to even her out, but maybe the min/maxers would place them on other characters. I go on to "accidentally the whole thing" setting up the plot. I mention Aurora's father, The Duke, and his depression. The story begins with Aurora dying, followed by a massive rainstorm threatening to flood their kingdom. She seeks the Sun, Moon, and Stars, saves two realms, and I'm vague about some twists. It's a decent overview of the story. I end the paragraph with a fun note about Austria's history with dukedoms. By the way, I didn't bring up Stardust once ten years ago. 

I then talk about the combat. I kept this concise, so good job. I make frequent references to the timeline, mentioning the goal is to interrupt your opponent before they interrupt you, sending you back to the beginning. There are ways to constantly manipulate battle participants' roles in the timeline. I even bring up the ability to switch characters on the fly. I did get it wrong that it sends new characters to the back of the line, though. I didn't experience that my second time through. I probably should have compared it to Final Fantasy X in that fashion. I also hadn't played Grandia yet, but that would have been the best connection to make. 

I continue that point by talking about the "multiplayer" aspects and the firefly Igniculus. Igy can slow down enemies and heal in battle. He also gets easier access to the restorative flower pollen. I dared player two to have fun, but I somehow forgot Igy can open several types of treasure chests. I no sold him, which was just pathetic of me. 

I then poorly talked about character skill trees. I inferred some can get magical or physical skills, but that isn't true. Every tree is based around a character's "class" of sorts; what they do best and bring to the table. It would be better to have said each tree enhances a character's skills. Aurora, for example, gets a physical route, a path to boost her quick Light spell, and another to up her super Light spell. Óengus gets a branch to up his attack, his defense, or a magic spell called Quake. Robert gets attack boosts, skill boosts, and his antidote buffs. So maybe I was right, but I worded it poorly. Finn, though, only gets magic boosts. The other characters do have physical/magical splits, too. Good job, me. And better job, game devs. 

I'm halfway through, and I finally talk about the "platforming." The ability to fly makes running and jumping antiquated, but the amount of hidden things is amazing. The verticality of Lemuria adds so much to the game and it's visuals, while adding some much needed whimsy. There's a word I wish I had used back then. The collectables are fun to find, even if I misspelled "as."

I then gush about the graphics. "A prodigy's watercolor dream" is still an apt way to describe it. Character sprites, portraits, and the world are all stunning. There's texture in those watercolors, mind you, so it isn't flat like Valkyria Chronicles (THIS JS CALLED FORSHADOWING), and Yoshitaka Amano can eat his heart out. I go on to say how the visuals work with Aurora's age and naivety before pinning for more games to look like it. You can tell my eyes have gotten worse because I made no mention of how hard it is to read some of the word bubbles over Aurora and Igy's heads during gameplay. They're fine during visual novel cutscenes, but being legally blind kinda sucks here. 

I saved the music for last. I suggest everyone listen to the soundtrack, even if you want to play the game, before questionablely describing what I heard. It's probably the same way I'd do so now! I even posted links to the soundtrack(s), bringing up tracks not on Spotify. Even now, I still think Cœur de pirate, or Beatrice Martin, wrote one of the greatest soundtracks the industry has ever seen. I did not place it in my top ten, though, because I am a fool, a coward, and, most obviously, an idiot. I'd probably throw it at seven, between Final Fantasy VII and Bastion. 

Lastly, I bring up the alleged downsides of it being a linear game. This is true, but I failed to mention how short it is. I finished my second playthrough in just under thirteen hours. I want more Child of Light and Aurora antics, and I'm kinda sad it's already over. But I'm not sure how to add to it. Answers on where the circus is and what's in the houses of all those locked doors. Those feel like side quests, though. There's no more main content to do. But it's okay to end a story when it's over. And, maybe this time, I'll keep the memory of this game in my head. 

I throw more unnecessary shade at Ubisoft and those boycotting the game because of Child of Light's connection to it, but my closing thoughts are still poignant. "If you're an artist of any style, you're going find [sic] plenty to love in Child of Light. If you're a gamer of any style, you're going to find plenty to love." I said that ten years ago, and it's still the best way to describe CoL. Just, ya know, get a better editor...

That was the past, so let's talk about the now. 

I can't believe I forgot about Child of Light. Everything about it is amazing, and I want more of it. The art style is stunning, in the way backgrounds showcase a massive world filled with both fear and whimsy. The music tells a tale of sorrow and triumph on its own. And the story, with all of its heavy segments about a young girl seeking her father and missing her mother, but through it all, saving a world she doesn't belong in just because it's what's best. I don't think the secondary cast holds up to Aurora, but they're all fun and lovable. In a world of rhyme, our white mage is the only one who can't. A sad jester, a thirteen-year-old man with a beard, a horny capitalist mouse, a knight with a checkered past, and a fish girl who's the last of her kind help this strange girl who can fly get home. To say nothing of the firefly who shuns his own people to see her journey through. I felt like crying several times in these thirteen hours. 

The bosses can be painfully frustrating, and they definitely don't carry their weight in the plot, but the presentation and gameplay are more than adequate for anyone to enjoy Child of Light. 

48/50. It's been a long time since I've played anything this good. 

And here's my first review, which I'll give a D- too. https://steamcommunity.com/id/Deadaghram/recommended/256290/

BAZOOOOOO!

Ancient Magic: Bazoo is one of those games that does something new, even by today's standards (keep in mind, I don't play modern games). And that something can be fun, is really rad, and it's wrapped in a lovely box your grandfather bought for you. But your grandpa is a bit crazy, and there's a bomb attached to the lid. 

Let's start with the good! I thought the story was amazing. You play a teenager in a small town. Relatable! You choose your name, gender, and background. Gender doesn't seem to mean much, as there's no apparent romance, but your background dictates what your character says when interacting with the world. I chose priest because its skill is lore. I like to think I know about the world and want to show it off, which that does. Anyway, you quickly learn your dead dad was a heroic mage, and you want to follow in his footsteps. Your reluctant mom listens to a bard, who whisks you off to your rich uncle, where you meet your cousin. But your uncle kinda sucks and has you working as a servant until you do something cool. And then you go to wizard school to spend the next two years. 

And that's one of the best things Bazoo does. It tells a long term story about how you grow as a mage and as a person and introduces you to characters and concepts slowly. It does feel like a life, but without the boring stuff. Only adventure! And from there, you save the world, but whatever. The story has neat twists about your morality, a strange history, and what happens after "happily ever after." There are even small choices along the way that slightly change the story. I'm not sure by how much, but you can 'skip' certain bosses by making the appropriate decision. 

And the battle system is pretty neat too. It looks like your typical turn based affair (where speed matters), but there's a twist. There isn't just one screen all battle participants are standing on, but an entire field. You'll often have to run up to your enemy to actually stab them. It's very D&D in that manner. And sometimes a mob can't hit you because someone is standing in the way. Which is where magic comes in! Magic is very powerful, but it's also even more expensive. MP drains fast. This can be mitigated by actually buying elixir fizzes, but guess what I didn't find until too late. The lack of item descriptions is poor game design, I'll give you that. Most important, don't forget to do the ritual for learning new spells after you've bought the scroll. Your master, another choice you make, only teaches you so many. 

Visually, the game is kinda NES Premium. Tile sets are reused, and every village and town feels the same. Not too much variety here, and that includes the spell animations. They try to do something while the magic travels, but it's a meager attempt. 

And musically, it's much the same. A few good songs are scattered about, but there isn't much here. It's also forgettable. 

But... the world! I got a kick out of seeing it live. Ships sail, and carriages travel as you leave the villages scattered throughout the world. NPCs are almost up there, but there isn't enough side content to make them matter. The game's also pretty short, so they only get so much time. 

It's a shame Grandpa planted that bomb, though. The encounter rate in Bazoo is outrageous. It might be the second worst on the console, behind Arabian Nights. I wish the story was longer, but I couldn't suffer through any more encounters and had to tap out early. 

I enjoyed playing Ancient Magic: Bazoo... I like games that try new things, even if they're rough around the edges. I didn't know that about myself, but this SNES RPG saga has taught me that. Ogre Battle, Metal Max, and Cyber Knight can attest to that. If I don't finish it... All in all, Bazoo gets a score higher than those games. 32/50. I'm shocked, but I'm not gonna argue with myself. 

Time travel is fun.

I've been playing two games at the same time for about two months. Mediocre SNES games, man. I needed something different! I learned my phone is stronger than my (old) computer by playing some Nintendo DS games on it. Why I played this particular game instead of another Final Fantasy is beyond me, but I wanted something really different, I guess. Anyway, Radiant Historia was really fun! 

And the biggest reason why is the story. Or, rather, both stories. Radiant Hiatoria tells two interweaving stories about a war, mana, and human/beastkin relationships. It focuses on Stocke, a top ranking member of Alestiel's special ops division. Or you can leave and become a commander in the primary army. Regardless of your choice, though, you'll be experiencing both. Information and items obtained in one timeline helps propel the other forward. And each side is wildly different, taking you to different areas, meeting different people, and fighting different bosses. There are even bad endings along the way to keep you on your toes. 

And that's aided by the characters. Most of them have a reason to be there, grow along the way, and become their own person by the end. Their motivations are clear, they're well written, and they're easy to like. Each brings something slightly different to combat as well. They also get a pretty neat scene through side quests, too. Hell, even minor characters without a name have some vital side quests. In fact, some of those are the key to getting all the endings. You really need to explore everywhere and talk to everyone. Wanting to see what happens next was the whole reason I kept playing. 

Largely because the battle system is kinda hit or miss. The idea of it is amazing. There's a manipulatable turn order of Final Fantasy X, but there's also a grid, à la Lunar, for the enemies. You can move your opponents around the grid, with the back row lowering their attack strength. Certain boss groups also get formations that enhance their skills if they ever achieve this, so keep them out of that! You can also push your opponents into each other, letting subsequent combo attacks deal bonus damage to all mobs on that square. This is rad, but this also hamstrings the usable party composition. This also might just be a me problem, though. I focused heavily on moving around the mobs, which only a handful of player actions can do, and not every member gets access to. So I never used most of the group for that reason. Sorry, Aht. There's also the problem with availability. Only Marco and Raynie are stalwarts in Stocke's party, with everyone else showing up depending on the story path or event. Eruca may have just been an NPC. But the basics of moving, comboing, and turning single target spells into AoE is a lot of fun. 

The soundtrack is also up to snub. It's filled with tracks I wish were on streaming sites as they're so relaxing. City and field songs are fitting, battle themes get you focused, and story scenes hit great. However, there aren't a lot of tracks here. The OST was composed by Yoko Shimomura, so the quality is assured, but why are there only twenty five tracks? The game deserved more, which makes me want to check out the 3DS remaster. There are more tracks there, so maybe I'll give that a listen later. 

Graphics, though, are the biggest dropped ball. I'm pretty sure there are only seven mobs in the entire game, each with four or more pallet swaps. I don't know how limited the DS was, but I've seen more varied games on it. Ya know, like Pokémon... It's kinda inexcusable. The sprites are high quality, mind you, there are just so few of them. And spell animations don't help either. All fire attacks look the same, regardless of caster, usage, or level. 

But the charm tries to save it all with a wonderful wrapping. NPCs, even unnamed ones, are vital to the story, and the world feels like an ever changing entity. Exploration grants you strong gear, side quests, and even better (and more) endings. There isn't much replayability here, and the final boss kinda sucks. 

Radiant Historia takes you back and forth across two timelines, meeting six great characters, and inviting you to play a unique battle system. In fact, the characters have the highest score of any cast I've reviewed. And the story matches that. It really is a shame about the graphic reuse, as that's the only middling issue here that prevents the game from being an all timer. That's also a personal nitpick, so maybe you're less judgmental and can see RH for its true ranking. As for me, it might be the best 78% game I've experienced. There's a lot of competition for that, though. Definitely a must play for the NDS. 

Playing a saga backwards.

Silva Saga tells a story over three games and across two consoles. I decided to play the last game first because reasons....

But it was pretty fun anyway! 

Welcome to the World of Minelvation! We're at the grand conclusion of it all, so of course, we're gonna play as the world renowned hero, Silva, right? No? We're a random dude with amnesia who was found shipwrecked but suddenly wants to seek out the grand hero? That's odd. So you're this dude, right, who wakes up and starts off on a journey to find Prince Kyral. He walks all over where Kyral was, meeting a lot of his friends. His girlfriend, in fact, is the first person to join him. There are also a few who are even more random than you! There are fifteen people who join your adventure for whatever reason. Some are told by another king, two girls use you as a bodyguard, a guard gets bored, etc. None of them feel important, which they're not; not even you do. They don't even get their own class or spell list. There are no character arcs or vital side quests. They're just here. Which is in line with the bosses. There's pretty much only one worth talking about, and he's a Dragon Quest BBG with a backstory. Ho hum. The plot is also lacking depth. But I still somehow liked it. I'm a sucker for sprite changes and weddings. (1-1-2) 4/10

The gameplay, though, is a lot of fun. Besides your ever changing cast of stupidly named people, you also have access to two other types of parties. You can buy your own brand of mercenaries to travel with you. Those four fight separately for you, so only call them when you want a break. I never used them at all. They were very expensive... I did make liberal use of the Idols, though! These statues function similarly to the mercs but only cast magic. Their HP, MP, and status are restored after every battle (unless they die), and they're free. It's a waste not to. You can also combine two of them to create something (probably) stronger. I have no idea the differences, and magic isn't hella diverse in Silva Saga, so I never noticed. Idols are effective, so I used them pretty regularly and held down the turbo button for their auto battle. Elsewhere, you can warp everywhere, including dungeons, which is gonna lead to bonus points in another review system. Either way, I had fun. There's zero difficulty if you're only using one or two parties, so this is probably what's called a 'junk food' game. 6/10

The music is solid. There are a few near bangers but only one I really want on a playlist. Castles feel regal, towns are peaceful walks, and dungeons are ominous. If the game were more well known, I might call it a measuring stick. I just liked it. 9/10

Artwork is a weird thing. As with my previous review, I think the world sprites are lacking. They're very NES premium. But enemy battle sprites are really flashy. Spell animations have their moments, too. What's weird, though, is how beautiful cities are. Buildings almost rival FFVI, and those shadows are really neat. If there were a few more tilesets, there might be a stronger rivalry. Dungeons look different, as well, but they're all still either caves or towers. I loved what they did with the overworld forests and how they actually hide you. 8/10

And Silva Saga has its moments of shine. The world calls out to each other, and there's plenty of NPCs. The rotating cast sees to that. You can inspect nearly everything in a house, and I should do a deeper dive into that. What happened to that mouse I kept finding? Because of the game's brisk pace and difficulty, it lasts the perfect amount of time. 7:10

Silva Saga II isn't super great, obviously. Maybe if I had played the other two games on the NES, which do have fan translations, these random characters might feel more impactful. There's something here. Or it's just a competently made game in a sea of garbage. Whatever. I just think it's neat and liked playing it. Never found out what a Silva was, though...

34/50

Real quick...

Inindo: Way of the Ninja is a game that's so awful to experience that I'm surprised no one's tried suing it for assault. The visuals are horrible, but it's the soundtrack that hurts the most. The shamisen does not translate to SNES MIDI chips at all. 

I have no idea about the plot, as I had to run across Japan for too long and got ambushed by another ninja. Turns out there's a big grind I didn't do. 

14/50. Played it a week ago; only now got around to writing about it because it was horrifyingly unpleasant. Getting my wisdom tooth removed was more fun. 

This could have been something.

Shin Seikoku: La Wares is so niche I can’t find a translation for the title, and Google Translate just pumps out the same thing. I wonder if the developers didn’t think anyone would play it? 

I say that because the actual content here is as barebones as can be. I’ve played RPGMaker games with more stuff to do. And what’s interesting is La Wares has two different battle modes! So let’s start there. Combat is a traditional turn based affair where your agility stat matters. Cool, looking good so far. And there are only three characters in your party, which is fine. In theory, this allows those three to shine. I’m a big fan of a small character list. The difference in La Wares is I’m not sure what the differences between those three are. If I really bothered to dig in, I’m sure I could find a Final Fantasy job they’d fit into, but I’m not gonna. All three learn the basic cure spells. Chiffon, the main character, is definitely physically focused, but Agura and Michelda feel the same. Hell, they can even equip all the same gear. I did get a kick that this tiny princess can use a halberd. 

And then there’s the robot battles! Yep, it’s a gundam. A singular gundam, in fact. Only Chiffon gets to pilot a robot, and they’re awful. You can only attack or kick. What’s the difference, you ask? Why, it’s the same as a combination of an elephant and a rhino. It’s an ‘eleifIknow! There is no difference. Chiffon is also a terrible pilot because his accuracy is around thirty percent. And the GUI is equally bad. I think I figured out the right side/blue tubes are our HP, but what did the red side mean? To make matters worse, all but the first handful of bosses are done in the mecha suit, so those two mages following you around never get to show off. You don’t need magic in random battles; they’re just so easy. 

So the battle system is boring, to the point I stopped halfway through. And I’ll put an emphasis on why in a moment, but what about what I care for the most: the story? 

It’s actually pretty solid. I liked two of the characters. A good spunky princess is always nice, and Chiffon is …fine. Nothing negative. I also have no comment on Agura, as her twist is so obvious to anyone with eyes that it isn’t a twist. I wonder if this is based on a novel? The enemy group is, well…

They’re not around a lot. But then again, nothing is. 

And the story is filled with melodrama and unanswered questions. What’s this foreign cult trying to assert itself on the playable continent? Probably the Eight Wheel we beat up through the game. But where was Chiffon actually born? His adoption is brought up and instantly dropped. And Agura’s other twist is so out of the blue I feel like I’m watching All My Circuits when Calculon was in a contract dispute. What a dark time for that show. But, oh boy, is it brisk! 

Graphics are …interesting. I find the world sprites to be mediocre, but the battle sprites of the enemies are pretty solid. And the world looks alive and lived in, even if there are only two tile sets for towns. And there’s only one type of cave, but you venture into caves ALL THE TIME. Good looking forest, though. Backgrounds are also nice to look at. 

Music was also perfectly fine. All fifteen tracks… 

But enough beating around the bush, as the bush is already gone. There is no content in La Wares. You can beat the game in eight or nine hours, but half of that is grinding. The actual story comes at you at breakneck speed, and they run out of plot ways to pass the game. No side quests, no characterization scenes, no tangible world building; just grinding. You don’t need to grind for money or rare items; you just need EXP to get through boss walls. The actual common battle enemies die if you sneeze on them, but bosses are just bullet sponges with high evasion. And that’s why I’m over this. 

Shin Seikoku: La Wares has a competent baseline for a game. But then they mess with the formula and never expand on that baseline. It’s Final Fantasy XII of 1993 or whatever. And the translation might be a tad too vulgar for me. But maybe I’m still secretly Mormon. 

16/50

Ys Mutation

So is cancer. 

Lagoon is not a good game; everyone knows this, but I am a fool who has to play it anyway. Surely the sword can’t be that short, can it? It was! And it’s all downhill from there. 

You play as Nasir. Why are you Nasir? No one knows. He’s the Hero of Light, but I hope Link bombchus him. He has to figure out why the lake is muddy, which involves an evil wizard or something. Probably. I only got to the third dungeon before tapping out. 

Why was there an escort quest? Why did I need to backtrack so often!? Why are hit boxes so tiny!? Why are hurt boxes so large!? Why am I wielding a toothpick!? Why is the music so good? 

You’d think, with how awful this game is to play, they’d have phoned in the soundtrack, but that’s the one proper thing Lagoon stole from Ys. 

I don’t mind when games blatantly rip off other games. Oceanhorn was amazing because it was just Zelda. Mana Khemia was fun because FFX is goated. I dig me some classic Ys, which is wholly unique, and I welcome imitators. But they ruined everything that makes Ys Ys (except the soundtrack). There’s no neat characters to drive the story, waifus, or fast paced combat. It’s just awful. 

And it didn’t need to be! You see, Lagoon on the SNES is a port from the X68000. And that’s a complete game with proper Ys combat and a story! Nasir is explained, Thor is more relevant, and there isn’t some random girl who kidnaps the princess. Why did they butcher this game when they already had a proper story that already worked? I’ve said enough already and asked too many questions. Moving on…

17/50

Was this good?

In 1997, nearly a year after the phenomenon that they’re now known for, GameFreak released an RPG that combined Zelda II, A Link to the Past, and Mystery Dungeon on the Super Nintendo. It kinda sucked. 

Or did it? I’ve logged about ten hours into Warrior: Legend of the Blue Dragon - The Two Heroes. I’ve sworn up and down, called it awful, wondered why it has three titles, and I’m putting it down partway into chapter two. But I’ve also said it was a lot of fun, declared it had some cool mechanics, and rode a high after figuring out the combat. So what’s up? 

Let’s start by talking about how those three games combine into one. There is an overworld with grass you can cut, trees to chop, and obstacles you’ll need certain items to pass. Very Link to the Past. Combat, though, involves a separate screen that resembles an action platformer game, à la Zelda II. Dungeons also follow the same style. But it isn’t a free form hack and slasher either. Every encounter has a set number of turns. If you beat the turn par, you’re rewarded. Failing results in mild pain. “But what is a turn?” you ask. A turn is any action that you take. Attacking, calling your shield, shooting your shield, moving, ordering your flying cat/dog head to attack, “jumping,” performing a special attack, or just hitting L to pass is a turn. Standing there is fine, and the mobs won’t move or attack. It is, what I believe, a side scrolling Mystery Dungeon game. It’s not really a rogue like, as death is permanent, and you’ll have to load a save to return to the world. There are also elements of a first person dungeon crawler while in town, but it’s not a big deal. It’s a lot going on, but I feel like it’s all solid. 

And the story is pretty deep. I don’t know how good other Mystery Dungeons are, but Legend of the Blue Dragon feels pretty good. You’re an orphan, and your sister gets kidnapped by a giant bird. Happy birthday! You, the son of a great warrior, now need to save her. You find a floating head that looks like a cat; it talks, and it says it used to be a girl before an evil sorcerer transformed her. You now proceed from town to town, saving all of them, as you hunt down that evil bird. There’s also the backdrop story that your god, Sister Mountain, got beaten by her brother, Brother Sea, because she wouldn’t share life with him. The world has been broken ever since. I liked the twists that I spoiled for myself, and the themes are kinda neat. It is thought provoking! 

The game came out in 1997, six months after the Nintendo 64 was released. The SNES still had some life left in it, but it was on its last legs. This also makes it the newest game I’m playing for a while, beating out G.O.D. by two months. Had it been translated, it would not have been a major release in the States. But, because of the lateness, the game looks stunning. I’ve never seen so many detailed cutscenes on the SNES. Sprites are top notch, even if enemy and nameless NPCs all share about eight models… 

Music is less good. There’s plenty of it, much of it variations on a theme, but nothing stuck with me. Considering I am a hater, this might be a good thing. 

It’s a well put together experience, but why do I hate it? I think it’s the Mystery Dungeon aspects that bog it down. I can’t wrap my head around how every enemy works. Things also feel clunky for me. Jumping isn’t actually a jump. You hold on to Waku, your cat head, and she carries you for a few turns. You need to stop, hold up, and then “jump.” It’s not fast, and that throws me off. Enemy AI is also annoying because they’re smart and don’t act how I suspect they will. Sometimes this is fine, but when I’m taking damage because I’m out of turns, and those damn bees are running from me, I’m gonna get mad. 

And then there’s the grind. Currency is called gems, and you find them when you cut the grass. They’re exceedingly rare, and you’ll need a lot of them. Potions are equally hard to find, so get ready to trade. But you’ll also need a few to buy liquor for a hermit. Thirty gems is about a quarter of all that I’ve found! I’m tapping out, and I’m gonna blame the alcohol. I’m against imbibing, you see. 

And so, while the game is solid and well made, I think it sucks. It doesn’t, of course, it’s just not a game I like. If this sounds like something you’d love, I’m sure you will. I mean, even I found it fun when I went back to the tutorial areas with a better understanding of how it works. There’s something here. Maybe! I dunno. I may think it’s hot garbage, but it still somehow got 30 out of 50 points. That’s gotta mean something. 

My next game is a game that’s universally derided, so I already miss Brain Lord. Hell, I already miss this…

Finally! Something good.

It’s been eighty four years. 

I’ve played a lot of mediocre to bad games the last few months, sometimes giving a commendation because they’re so unique. But I finally came around to one that I can honestly say is something fun. Oh, Brain Lord, how I needed you. 

Now, Brain Lord isn’t gonna blow your mind or anything. The story is perfectly cromulent. You’re just a dude following in his dad’s footsteps of looking for dragons. Rad concept! Doing so brings you to the village of Arcs, where you help a bunch of nameless NPCs and accidentally become friends with four named characters. And these four make you feel like you’re in a party. You investigate four massive dungeons, discover a lost civilization (for some reason), fight off a lot of bugs, save the weather, help a faerie queen, and save the world from darkness. It’s all pretty standard. There’s a cool twist, and I liked helping my friend get married, so I’m big on this. Could it be expanded? Absolutely. But I’m desperate. 

You play as Remeer, and this is when I remind everyone this is a part of the 7th Saga series. I’m not entirely sure how this is a series, but 7th Saga, Mystic Arc, and Brain Lord are all a part of it. Other than the name “Remeer,” there is no consistency, so whatever. Anyway, he’s mute and has zero personality. The same can be said for the final boss, and the one guy who gets named is short lived. It’s early 1994; I’ll take it. 

Plot/ 7/10


Gameplay is another basic top down, hack and slash action RPG. The sword has a wide range, so the combat isn’t frustrating. You can also wield a battle axe, but that range is awful. You do nearly three times the damage, though, so maybe it’s worth it. You also get access to a bow and arrow and a boomerang, so there are a lot of options here for some fun. And to help expand that, the game gives you two fairies that sit on your shoulder. You choose what those two are, and they get stronger throughout the game. I went with a healer and a strength booster. It’s cool that you can even name the fairies. I had to rename the booster Lucy, because all Sarahs are evil. But writing this makes me realize I could have turned Remeer into a mobile turret. Boomerang with the fireball caster and the water shooter might have been fun. There’s also magic that only Remear gets, which you cast by holding down the attack to charge. So there’s no MP. I rarely used them outside of mandatory moments, but they could have helped the mobile turret build. 

There’s also jumping, and you’re gonna need to jump a lot. It’s a tad annoying sometimes, but I found it fair. At the very least, it was fun. There are also a plethora of puzzles, most of which I liked. They made me feel smart, but maybe that’s because they’re super easy. I dunno? Tell me if you solved them as fast as I did. It’s mostly pushing things like rocks and several types of balls, but they’re a good aside from the combat. 

Gameplay: 8/10


And the soundtrack is rad. Parts of it sound like they could be from Ys, and other songs are just good, chili times. I’m not sure they fit the medieval vibes we’re going for, and that techno song in the caves was definitely out of place, but it’s a great soundtrack. Maybe have a podcast on during dungeons. I don’t think they’re good enough to listen to for three hours. 

Music: 9/10


The graphics are more of a standard affair. Everything works, but nothing looks amazing. Spells are simple pellets shooting through the air. The lack of animations might be the most damning, and it took me too long to memorize what the stairs looked like if they were on south walls. Maybe that’s just me and my terrible eyes, but I take contrasts very seriously. 

Art: 8/10


Brain Lord has everything I want out of a video game. The four NPCs feel alive and make the game feel bigger. The world interacts (in the background) with itself, and unnamed NPCs even comment on what you’ve done to change the area. Exploration is so important, as that’s how you find stat growths. There are no levels, only hearts and potions. It’s a good fifteen hours that doesn’t overstay, filled with neat, tertiary things, like the ability to hack up a shop counter with the axe. 

Charm: 9/10

There are a lot of moments of slowdown throughout the game, ball rooms most notably, but I don’t think there’s ever any in combat. And slowdown is dramatic, so I’ll let it slide! 

In total, Brain Lord gets 40 out of 50 points. A damn fine B-. It doesn’t bring anything new to the table, but it doesn’t ruin what it was given. It’s the most genuine fun I’ve had since January, and the best reviewed game since Tengai Makyō Zero. I know I hated Mystic Arc, but the last game of this trilogy was so nice. It’s just fun for the sake of fun, and that’s always fun. Games like Shadowrun, Metal Max, and Cyber Knights were cool because of how unique they were on the SNES. But Brain Lord doesn’t need those caveats. It’s a good game. I’d love a remake that expands on the side characters and world, maybe adds some side quests or mini games, but this SNES game is perfectly good enough.

Or all the garbage I’ve been playing in has warped my mind to what a good game is…

Return to the Realm of Darkness

Sure is dark. 

Once upon a time, I played a beloved game, even by myself, and proceeded to poo-poo on it because it aged poorly. And I’m about to do it again! 

Kingdom Hearts II is mid! 

Before I begin, I’ll preface this by saying it’s much better than KH1. It’s actually playable! The world design is more fun by being shorter and more varied. The camera is …better. The lock on can still be detrimental, but they tried and got closer to best, so I won’t knock it again. Mob AI is actually fun to battle against. They’re more aggressive and don’t run away from you. You do fight the occasional basic (shadow?) heartless to remind you of how much Squaresney has grown, which is fine. It’s so much better, and I’ll spoil it now: KH2 only has one negative trait. 

Graphically, it’s the same game as the predecessor. However, they changed up the chest models to fit in with the worlds, and my eyes are bad. I couldn’t see them most of the time because they blend in too well. Putting them on the mini map could have helped this, but they didn’t. Visuals are 9/10. 

Sound is also the same. I might have taken out a point for standouts for a few reasons, but I didn’t for KH1, and I want to be consistent. It’s Disney; you know what you’re getting. Enjoy “Under Da Sea.” 10/10

You probably expected those numbers, but the charm is taking a massive hit here. While the worlds and NPCs are standouts in the genre, did we ever do any real exploring? Everything feels handed out once you’ve done the railroaded task. A lot of this is because the worlds aren’t as interactiveable. You can’t light up a chimney with fire magic, or vice versa, to reveal a secret passage. Casting thunder doesn’t turn on the power to an entire world anymore. Trinity Limits are gone. It’s just so flat. They’ve also taken away movement options, too. High jump is gone unless you activate a combat ability, and glide is as dead as dead can be. So not only is everything flat, but it’s less fun. Good thing the worlds are smaller to hide that. 

Before I get to my obvious gripe, let’s talk about what KH2 does differently than KH1. The biggest is the command prompts. In battle, there are many mobs or bosses that let you use their skills against them. Rad concept! All you have to do is press triangle under the correct circumstances. Now, yes, you’ll more likely use an ally’s limit gauge (and all of your MP) instead, but at least you’re still doing a lot of damage with a cool cinematic. This does replace skills like Ars Arcanum, but who used those anyway? The other is the addition of a Drive Gauge. Using his allows Sora to “sacrifice” an ally to empower himself. This unlocks crazy new powers, abilities, and attacks on the unsuspecting foe. Alternatively, summons are back! I never used them, though. I liked my MP. But they seem quite cool, and I’ve read about a few broken strategies with them. Great additions. I also played on beginner mode, which I wouldn’t recommend. It’s insanely easy, and you never need to use those new things. I know, I’m a baby, but I’m here for the story. Speaking of…

It’s still so bad! 

We learn who the actual bad guy in KH1 was, and it’s a solid answer to the final scenes there. But I still have so many questions. How did the Nobodies control the Heartless? What happened to Pete and Maleficent? Are the worlds actually connected or not? And, more importantly, what actually is Kingdom Hearts? It used to be a door to light that was infested with Heartless, but now it’s a heart shaped moon made of hearts. What even was this stupid moon supposed to be used for!? But, whatever. There’s a satisfying ending, and this two game franchise gets a great, heartfelt ending… What do you mean there are more games?! Why! Time travel!? At least tell me how Wakka is! 4/10

I hate this story. It doesn’t need to be this deep and filled with stupid turns. Not-sem doesn’t need to be a clone from a bald dude who’s copying Garland. Let it die, Nomura! 

The second half of the game isn’t as fun, either. The bosses there have gimmicks, which I’m all for, but they were the opposite of fun. And the game requiring a finishing strike to end them didn’t help!

Kingdom Hearts II gets 36/50 points. It’s cool we can party with Auron, but why? And “why” is too frequent a question in this franchise. Cool world concepts, rad gameplay, nostalgic music, but why? Why do all this for so long with so many entries? A part of me wants to give Birth by Sleep a go, but no part of me wants to play KHIII. This world doesn’t need the fourth. 

 

I needed a break from SNES games, and now I need a break from all games... 

What Star Ocean could have been.

And why I’m glad it isn’t. 

So it turns out Albert Odyssey isn’t fully translated. Big bummer; I was enjoying that one. But I’m crafty and able to switch things on the fly. There are two other series I wasn’t planning on touching during this deep dive into Enix’s forgotten back catalogue, though. What’s this Cyber Knight game? 

Cyber Knight is a space exploration game. It’s somewhat open world, but there’s a clear order of operations that you’ll need to perform to reach the end of the game. A part of me wants to think of it as Metal Max in space, but the games are radically different in so many ways. It’s just the lack of hand holding, need to explore, and excessive menus that connect the two. Cyber Knight also isn’t particularly good. 

The story starts off with the crew of the SS Swordfish, a spaceship in the year ~2400, blowing up a plot of land in space. Why did we blow it up? The universe will never know! After turning Rennes le Chateau into interstellar shrapnel, the crew prepares for o warp home. Before they can, they’re suddenly attacked by a squad of pirates. The captain tells his crew to ignore them, but that’s quickly proven to be the stupidest decision ever made in space. The Swordfish is forced to make an emergency jump, which could take the ship to a random location in the galaxy. Fortunately, it’s to a peaceful planet. Unfortunately, the captain died, the ship is broken, and only twenty four crew members remain alive. But we only get to meet five of them! Good news, Commander! You’re the captain now! Get us home. 

The crew learns that the humans on this planet are actually from Earth as well. Their ancestors also had to make an emergency jump, wound up here, and have lived here ever since. In fact, the ship they used is still around. We explore it and find a replacement part for the Swordfish. This part allows us to warp between planets and even solar systems. Slowly. But more on that in a moment. The goal now is to return to Earth. We’ll have to traverse the galaxy, upgrade our ship along the way, and settle a group (or two) of rowdy robots that are an existential threat to the entire universe. And that’s god who told us that, not some random dude with a Russian accent. 

And that traversal is where I began to hate this game. Doing anything in Cyber Knight is slower than it needs to be. In order to get anywhere, you need to long jump between systems. The planet you arrive at first is random, and there are a lot of planets out there. Only twenty one of them are actually relevant, but every system has between four to six planets. None of them are named, even if you’ve found life on it, so you’ll constantly be flipping between planets trying to find the important one. And there’s an annoyingly long visual sequence that hurts your eyes for every jump. And, for most of the game, you can only jump one system at a time. It’s not until much later that you can leap across the entire galaxy. It’s just so tedious. 

And even when you land on the correct planet, there are too many menus to leave the ship and explore. Back out of the leave planet option, back out of the bridge, go to the hangar, select depart. It sounds quick enough when you read it, but in practice (and due to frequency), it’s just more drag. 

Exploring is inoffensive at least. You pick two of the five other crew members to accompany you out, and all three of you pilot three of the five modules, which are giant robots. These robots are surprisingly customizable. Each module gets a varying degree of weapons, secret special optional weapons that I kept forgetting to use, and four different defensive aura fields. Weapons each have one of five damage types, and each module specializes in something different (but usually multiple). You can also equip four to five different weapons, so there’s always a way to have all of your tools. My team was Kiri and Vynd. Kiri has high attack stats, and Vynd has the best robot repair skill, which is needed on a long dungeon. Your medic skill is sufficient enough to keep the actual healer at home. They used the Rex, Winner, and Saurus, respectively. Not that it matters much, as all the characters are pretty interchangeable and don’t matter to the story. The three non soldiers each get a scene of relevancy, at least. 

…But even then, there’s something annoying about combat. Firstly, it’s also slow. It’s a small tactical grid like Live a Live, but the basic attack animations are ugly and slow. Maybe if there were fewer enemies or they weren’t as tanky, it would be fine? Hell, I’d settle for a reliable way to know if they were immune to my damage types. Which brings me to my second point of contention. Harming mobs felt random. Sometimes a beam would do wonders, other times it would hit for pittance, even if they weren’t blocking. Meanwhile, bosses always hit like a dump truck going 100, but they’re also stupidly easy to trick. Just stand close and punch them. They’ll always defend and never unleash their super attack. In fact, punching things is the easiest way to kill most mobs. They don’t like being punched and will usually defend, so you’ll never take damage while whittling away their HP, if not outright destroying them. It’s just the same tactic for sixteen (in game) hours. That was point three, and here’s a fourth point. With the abundance of enemies, you’ll be spending a lot of time in combat, which isn’t super fun, and it adds to the slowness of the game. And I hear the random encounter rate is through the roof. I played an easy type mod that drastically lowered it (and boosted exp, I believe), and I’d suggest you do too. This game isn’t good enough for that nonsense. There are even fixed battles at choke points! 

But it does do one thing that’s hella rad. Whenever you defeat a mechanical enemy, which is most of them, they have a chance of dropping their parts. Taking these to the lab on the Swordfish allows the crew to study them and learn new things. These are always in the form of new weapons or boosts to accuracy. I’ve read this is how you gain more HP for the modules, but I got unlucky and only found one of those. +5 HP from the start of the game is weird. They’re not particularly rare; I just didn’t want to fight. I never figured out what the human stats meant, so whatever. 

Visually, the game is hideous. Every dungeon uses pallet swapped tiles or the same mechanical black. 

Music is kinda catchy, but only kinda. But there isn’t much of it. A YouTube video has it just over thirty minutes. But it fits the setting well enough. 

On the positive side, the galaxy is connected well, and the writing has its moments. I liked that the best weapon is optional. 

There’s not a whole lot to discuss past the combat, exploration, and module customization, though. Bland characters, villains, NPCs, graphics, sound, gameplay… It’s just so… 20/50. 

And yet, I kinda liked the game. Maybe I’m just embracing the fact that the reason America didn’t get all of these games is because most of them suck, and I’m allowing myself to wallow in that suck. I’m embracing the suck. I am the suck! Maybe it’s just because it’s such a unique game that’s trying something different. Did it work? No. But with some tweaking, maybe it could. It’s similar to Metal Max and Shadowrun in that vein. Not very good, but an interesting play if you’re looking for something radically different from the norm. Cyber Knight got a sequel, and a part of me wants to try it out. Maybe once my main list is finished, I’ll do it. But I need a break from all this. I need something newer, something from 2005. 

G’day, mate!

Why was it called Astralia? And why was it awful!?

Nekketsu Tairiku Burning Heroes might go down as one of the worst games I’ve ever played. Its final score will be less than middling, and there certainly are worse games I’ve played. But this was, perhaps, the most frustrating one. The repetitive, unrewarding, and bland gameplay, without any redeeming qualities, made this an absolutely miserable experience. 

The music is perfectly fine. There are four different overworld songs depending on which of the eight characters you’re playing as, but they’re not exactly memorable. Town themes are… whatever. You don’t spend much time in these places, so they leave no impact. Dungeon tracks are accompanied by the same puzzles, so your brain is turned off while you listen. 

The graphics are of a similar quality. Playable character sprites look interesting, but you quickly realize they’re just borderline palette swaps. Many of their battle sprites stand and sway the same way. And I feel there’s only about six (unnamed) NPC world sprites. They add a cloak to a few in one town! Even a few generic bosses share the same knockoff Gilgamesh model. And that includes the most important one. Considering the lack of variety in towns and the limited number of dungeons, there’s no reason for this. Dungeons at least look different, but you visit all of them four times, so it doesn’t matter. They could be Tales dungeons, but you don’t want to do any of them more than you have to. 

Gameplay doesn’t wow you either. You only control one person in battle. “Okay!“ I thought before playing this. “I played Emerald Dragon and loved it! This is fine.” If your person is a warrior, then all you can do is attack or use an item. “Atrushan could only attack, so NBD!“ Burning Heroes is a traditional turn based rpg… No skills, no options, no fun. Mages have access to eight spells, but there’s no memory cursor option, so it’s more efficient to just spam attack and hold down your fast forward button. The one thing to note is that you can change your battle formation. This noticeably changes your stats. Certain forms give bonuses to attack, magic, defense, or hit percentage. These would be interesting if your attacks didn’t miss so often, forcing you to only use accuracy forms, or if enemies telegraphed big moves, giving you a heads up to go defensive. Defensive forms also nerf your attack stat so much that it’s not worth it. You also can’t manually move your five characters around in the formation, but they love to randomly move themselves when they level up. This leaves you with your mages taking the front line. I don’t know if being in front means anything, mind you, but it feels wrong. But, hey, there’s a sort of limit break mechanic, which is nice. 

But here’s the worst part of the game. It’s the story. You play as one of eight people (four are unlocked) as they roam around the world, fighting evil, uncovering ancient mysteries, and killing a wannabe god. Sounds cool, right? Live a Live was an amazing game because of that narrative route. Treasure of Rudra was hella rad when they all came together at the end! So Burning Heroes is gonna… No! Burning Heroes doesn’t tell one story from eight perspectives. It tells eight stories about one thing. It’s like those Bob’s Burgers episodes when the kids tell their side of the same story, but with hilarious differences that don’t make sense. However, they’re just too funny, so everyone forgets about why they’re in trouble in the first place and moves on. Burning Heroes is like that, but without the humor. The stories don’t even properly interweave between each other. Your playable character always beats the boss, no matter who showed up first. And sometimes that boss is another playable member who’s now failed in their mission. Sometimes characters even die in other stories. So there is no secret ninth chapter that introduces a proper final boss to wrap everything up nicely, like Live a Live. It isn’t even eight totally different stories like the SaGa games. It’s eight contradictory stories about one villain, with one of three evil side groups thrown in to mix it up. No idea what happens to the other two evil groups in other stories, by the way!

And it’s a shame. The stories themselves are interesting. Naga had some cool beats, Rouga had a heartwrenching moment, and Shen had a neat face turn. Each character gets a lot of loops and twists in their two hour long missions (if you remove random encounters, boost exp, and grant unlimited money). But they’re so short and poorly written. Each character has nearly the exact same personality as the other seven: they’re all hot heads who read the thesaurus. Two are different, so shoutout to Shen and Mevis. And all the enemies shout the same tired insults. In fact, the writing/translation doesn’t help anything, and this is the worst written game I’ve seen. And it takes something truly terrible for me to even notice a poorly written game. I’ve mentioned that everyone has the same personality, but there’s no consistency. Some enemies speak to other MCs differently than others. They shout insults at one, but fall in love with another for no obvious reason. And in another story, they’ll be a bumbling idiot. There’s also a lack of proofreading here. Sometimes the villain is called Project D, but they’re also referred to as Project 8. WTF is that 8? Towards the end, the team just gave up and left in spelling mistakes and garbled text, or didn’t even bother writing anything once. A part of me wonders if the translators knew this game sucked, so they had a lark with it or something. It’s also downright offensive in a few areas, which you might just chalk up to being 2012 humor. A dark time, that was. 

The idea of a sparsely told story about warring factions (from twenty years ago), a demon from space (seven years ago), and a trifecta of boss groups (presently) being controlled by an evil demon as revenge from Earthlings on the current planet (unknown) fighting over a plot of land in space named Astralia sounds fun! But the gameplay is so boring, the story is so awful, and the writing offends you multiple times over. And why do the characters who fill out each group get zero reason to join you? There’s an idea of something when they ask you to bring them on, but it goes nowhere. A part of me wonders if leaving free spaces in the group will change the story into something competent, but I don’t care. I’ve wanted to drop this for four days. But I was hopeful that there’d be a proper wrap up. There isn’t. This isn’t even the worst game I’ve ever played, even though it feels like it should be. Nekketsu Tairiku Burning Heroes gets 21 out of 50 points. Its weighted score is 61.17, making it the fourth worst. It can’t even suck properly. 

Being on Deathwise. I embrace him at this point. 

Just a regular RPG.

But with guns, cyber tech, and ogres. It’s Shadowrun. 

Let me get this out of the way: Shadowrun is a hit or miss game. For me, it was a miss. However, I have to admit that Shadowrun is a game I fully endorse anyone playing. It’s more of an adventure game than an RPG, more point-and-click isometric shooter than turn based menu JRPG, and somehow more linear than any Final Fantasy. 

In Shadowrun, you play as Jake Armitage. Probably. You start by kicking yourself out of a morgue after having your brain fried. The “doctors” run away, believing you’re a zombie, so they’re not very helpful in helping you find out who you are. But, rather than settle down and figure out where you live, you swear revenge and plan to finish whatever you were doing before getting fried. After tracing your steps and meeting some old friends, you learn you were attacked by someone named Drake and were supposed to deliver a program to the Aneki Corporation. 

This requires a lot from Jake. Many investigations lie before him, which requires learning an ever growing list of keywords and finding an assortment of random people across much of 2050 Seattle. This feels like a needle in a haystack situation, as Seattle is full of people, many of whom are useless or fill a niche role. Can asking this person one of my thirty keywords help me? Usually not. In fact, even the correct combination feels like it doesn’t help much. The complete picture is beneficial, but the complete picture feels too hidden without a guide. 

When he’s not being a private eye, Jake’s shooting… via a SNES controller. It’s as clunky as you’d think. Press "A" to bring up a crosshair, and then guide the crosshair to your target. All while being shot at yourself. You will always be down with this system. Enemies see you first, shoot you first, and then keep firing as you aim at them. And they can move! You cannot. More often than not, you're outnumbered, too, so this isn’t an exciting way to play a game. And you are constantly under fire. Just walking around the streets of Seattle will have gunmen leaping out of bushes or firing out of small peepholes. There is no rest. Not only is it clunky, but it’s repetitive and boring. No gun feels different, and the gameplay never changes. You do get magic later on, but most of those are utility or defensive. The only offensive magic is either worse than your gun or only useful against one target. 

The last interesting mechanic involves hacking into the internet, called the matrix in game. And when you hack, you warp yourself into the net. This takes you to an ugly grid where Jake evades invisible enemies while opening grey boxes. It is, like the shooting, repetitive and boring. And it never grows mechanically. It starts boring, gets used too frequently at the end to pad, and ends up feeling like a chore. At least you get a rush of adrenaline when you kill a man in Seattle. 

The presentation of Shadowrun is along the same lines. There’s not much variety in the game, either visually or sonically. It’s all streets, dirty buildings, basic bedrooms, and those awful matrix scenes. It feels like there are only six enemy sprites, as well. There are only fifteen songs on the soundtrack, and four of them are menu songs or story tracks. There are plenty of portraits of people you talk to and a number of unique NPC sprites, but that only goes so far. The mercenary shadowruners don’t add anything to the game, so who cares? The direction fits well, which adds to the one thing Shadowrun does well. 

Nothing feels like Shadowrun on the Super Nintendo. For better or for worse, it is a unique game in a field of copies. It looks gritty and grimy, sounds gross, and even plays like it hurts to experience. And for that, I believe Shadowrun is worth playing. It takes some time to figure out where to go, so put your adventure game eyes on. Nothing about this is a traditional RPG, especially since it’s western, one of the few on the system. If you need something different, here it is. It’ll reset your palette and make you yearn for something. Will it be more Shadowrun or swords and sorcery JRPGs? That’s up to you. But it's just such an interesting experience that, while it didn't vibe with me, I think it needs to be played. Not before, nor since has any game felt so unique without being a total crap pile, at least. 

Ultimately, I found Shadowrun to be a 28 out of 50 game. I just want more, which the Harebrained Scheme games do. I want to play Shadowrun Returns so bad all of a sudden…

Sometimes a bad game is just a bad game.

And it’s nothing to hold a grudge about. 

Arabian Nights: Sabaku no Seirei-ō is one such game. Usually, when I play a game I didn’t enjoy, I develop a burning hatred for it. Seeing Lufia at the bottom of my games list soothes me. It is almost as though despising the existence of this piece of so called entertainment is now a core tenet of my personality. Sometimes that fire dies, but not always. Regardless, it’s a goddamn stupid mentality. 

I don’t know if being sick again for the second time in two months broke me, or if there’s something about Arabian Nights that opened my eyes, but sometimes things that suck just suck. 

But what about Arabian Nights sucks? The random encounter rate is the worst in the genre. Battles are so frequent that it makes exploration a chore, and you feel punished for playing. And it really takes something special to make me point out the encounter rate. I’ve skimmed it in other games with notorious encounter rates, but you can’t in AN. It is the prevailing mechanic of note. And it’s so bad that it makes other aspects of the battle system pointless. 

There are two other things that, in theory, are worth talking about in combat, but I barely dabbled in them. The main thing is that you can use cards to change the element of the battlefield, sorta like Chrono Cross. A wood card will either restore your HP or do an elemental attack at the end of your turn, depending on the level of the card played. You gain a card whenever you’re not full up, so if you want, use them at your leisure. Enemies also have access to cards, so don’t expect to get the full rewards out of them. But because the encounter rate is so high, you’re rarely gonna use any cards. You’re gonna turn on the auto battle function and hold down the fast forward button. And this works great until you run into a green naga or an enemy team uses a card that negates all your physical damage. So the game presents a problem, gives you a bypass, but makes it dangerous to use. Do you see why this game wasn’t well received? And it’s not like battles are short bursts, either. Even jumping 2000 FPS, they can still go upwards of ten seconds. It’s just not a fun game. There’s also a summon system, but it suffers from the same problems. 

Between the battles and the bland dungeons that are either mazes or Sylph Co. tile puzzles, it’s hella unfun. 

And it’s not like the story is worth digging into. You play as Shukran, a girl who stumbles upon a ring that holds Ifrit, the King of the Djinns. Shukran becomes his master because Ifrit was tasked to grant 1000 wishes by the man who sealed him eons ago. And wouldn’t ya know it, he’s at wish 999! All Ifrit has to do is bring peace to the world and stop the Deevs, who seem to be bugs. Along the way, we learn an old ally of Ifrit is aligned with the Deevs, so they need to seek counsel with the rest of the elemental djinns, fully restore Ifrit’s sealed powers, and have some pointless dude named Harty join them. So it’s just a collection quest with some exposition at the start and the very end that leaves me empty. So…Pokemon without the fun. 

But what did Harty bring to the story? We met his whys, but we never experienced the results. His battle skills don’t affect bosses, and the auto battle won’t use them. He brings nothing to the story. And that’s all that can be said about him. 

Ifrit’s special skills are magic and are unlocked by finding magical crystals. They’re flashy and work well, but fall off late game. You can beat up your enemies with bunnies, so the game does have some cool bits. 

Shukran is a summoner, but there’s no point in using the summons for reasons already stated earlier. It’s all so confusing. 

But there’s one more reason to malign the encounter rate. It makes the game too easy. You’re in so many fights that you’re over leveled. Bosses are a breeze, and there’s no tension in the game. There is a mod to lower the rates, which might make the game more interesting. 

But you still have to suffer through the soundtrack. It’s the worst on the console! As you’d expect, there are Arabian sounding tracks, but for some reason, there’s also a lot of jazz fusion mixes, even in the same songs. Shukran’s overworld theme is the worst song I’ve ever heard, even worse than Grandia’s Biran Plateau. And there are a few other tracks that are just annoying to hear. It’s more baffling decisions, and I’m understanding how bad games get made. 

But, hey, sprites look good. It turns out that making some four squares big adds a lot of detail to the world and makes the game pop. And those portraits! Too bad dungeons are bad, all mountains are the same, and enemies are palette swaps. 

I liked that you can see Shukran in different clothes, but they’re for short lived, optional scenes, so whatever… 

The best thing about Arabian Nights is that it’s short. The best ending takes less than fifteen hours, and it’s an easy task if you explore. Just make sure to free all the other djinns. But are the extra endings worth seeing? No. For several reasons. 

If you lower the encounter rate, Arabian Nights is so milktoast of a game that it’s barely worth playing. But with this disaster of a design choice, it’s totally unplayable. At best, it’s just boring. I enjoyed some of the things, but AN was just forgettable. 

21/50; Might have given me the flu again. 

This was an RTS.

Maybe an RPG-lite, but why did I play it? 

The real questions are, did I enjoy Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen (yes), and is Ogre Battle actually good (no). 

As I said, Ogre Battle is not a traditional RPG. There are stats and mechanics like turn based battles, exp, and equipment. But you don’t actually control characters. It plays as an RTS game, so think Command & Conquer or Age of Empires. The only resource you need to pay attention to is money, so you don’t need to construct additional pylons. Select a unit and send them out into the world to claim towns and temples away from an evil empire. Along the way, your units, squads of high fantasy groups that you put together, fight against enemies of a similar assortment who want to claim your base. It’s just that simple. What’s novel is how the battles function. It’s AI vs AI. You can give orders, but you don’t have direct control, even over the unit your player character governs. Your only input is directing your groups around the map and popping tarot cards (which are just magic spells) to give an edge to your teams in battle. It’s very simple, but it also makes gameplay a tad stale. You can make the teams before you head into battle, but the AI does all the busy work, so get that fast forward button ready. 

Creating the teams is an in depth experience. Where you place your group leader matters. Setting them in the front row leaves them vulnerable, but allows them to use their full strength. Unless they’re a mage, so put them in the back. But do you put them with physical attackers or magic users? 1-4 line or 4-1? Or something in between? What about monsters or undead? Make use of their movement skills? Can you find the secret ones? What gear are they equipped with? Jobs can also evolve and grow, which can be a double edged sword, too. Those job growths are based on alignment and charisma, both of which are a pain to adjust. Just don’t let a leader die, or that squad is gone for the rest of the battle. 

But not only is the basic war gameplay kinda boring, but there are several mechanics that actively work against you. If you’re too strong, your alignment goes down. Alignment is the stat that governs whether you’re a good and just warrior or an evil tyrant. Good natured leaders work better during the day and worse at night. They also get “rewarded” more when liberating a city. There’s also a separate sort of gauge for your army as a whole, and that’s where my biggest problem with Ogre Battle lies. It is so easy to lose karma but feels nigh impossible to regain. Losing control of one city undoes four battles worth of gains. Certain story beats change depending on your karma, so losing it over something you have little control over or one simple mistake feels overly punishing. You’re not allowed to be wrong in a game about choices. Low karma results in a boring game, but high karma creates options, new party members, and an actual deep narrative that the game tries to rob you of. Alignment is also vital for job growth, so you might lock a mediocre warrior or mage into something because their squad got ganged up on in a city they were guarding. 

And good luck training up squads you didn’t/couldn’t want to waste money on. Enemies have set levels and don’t respawn, so you’ll need to get your squads right off the bat and hope none fall behind because they won’t catch up. They’ll just die, and let the city they were guarding fall. RIP your karma. 

Music is warlike. It certainly fits the setting, and there isn’t much variety. It’s only thirty minutes long on YouTube, and both chill tunes sound the same. The only others get played during character creation. Good quality, though. 

Visuals are along the same lines. Brightly colored plains are the primary biome of this planet. And they are very bright. Like, excessively sometimes. Layouts are varied, of course, but this sameness is also a double edged sword. Nothing is exciting to look at, but you do pick up on things like the location of hidden cities. It creates cohesion in the game. And the sprites follow suit. You know what your enemy team is, and even their leader, by the world map sprite. Bosses, I think, have unique sprites, but I wasn’t paying too close attention. Those fights are stressful. 

The world is…odd. You get a home base for every map, but where did we get that base from? As much as I hated Fire Emblem, being able to puzzle together an entire world map because your base is the same base you just captured in the last battle was hella rad. Ogre Battle’s world, though, is incoherent and strewn about. NPCs are, shockingly, along the same lines. Most aren’t named, and the ones that are are optional. Exploration is here, but it feels random. Buried chests are scattered around the world, but there’s rarely an indication of their location. 

But I have to reiterate how punishing it is to lose a town. It totally messes with the flow and goal of the game. 

To wrap it up, Ogre Battle is a flawed game, perhaps one of the most so. But I’m also having a lot of fun and kinda want to keep trudging on. I’m curious about the story beats and the enemies that join our team. I’m just gonna cheat. There are twelve different endings, with each having minor differences based on who’s on your team, too, which is huge! And yet, Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen is only a 26/50. It’s the lack of variety and conflicting mechanics that drag it down. I’ll give it some pity points and say it’s the second best 52% game I’ve played. 

The floor.

I should have kept my word and not played this. 

When I started this task, I had hoped to find some true hidden gems. Hell, maybe I’d find a new favorite game or something that could rival Chrono Trigger in its excellence. I knew I’d discover some wacky and different ways to play RPGs. I also expected to play some absolute duds that never should have been made. But I couldn’t expect something like this. 

Not only have I just dropped the worst game I hope to play on the SNES, but I just dropped the worst score I’ve given. A 0 out of 50. 

How does a game achieve this fabled score? You’d think it would be a lot of bugs, but I didn’t find a single one. From my short research, no one’s talking about bugs, so I assume there aren’t any. So the problems are intended! Let’s begin with the charm, if you want to call it that. 

The game is on rails, with no exploration. Maybe some additional dialogue if you bring two people together, and want to waste a turn, but that’s it. And none of that is cute. There isn’t anything neat to look at either. And even if something bad happens, like the girl who was the key component of the inciting incident, the story won’t change. It’s a fifty hour game, with every chapter taking three to four hours (or at least the first two), so to hell with replayability and length. The world is wholly connected, and I assume that at least a few side characters among the eight million NPCs are important. So that’s 2 points. 

The game in question was released in 1996. So why does it look like an NES+ game? There is no variety in units. Your allies are slightly different, but I still accidentally had my archer take to the frontlines too often because she looked like my cavalry units. And they did all look the same. And every enemy, generic or named, is an exact copy of each other. Oh, but the weapon changes! Whoopty do! Spells are rare, so the only animation is swinging your weapon. But at least the landscape looks good… 1 point. 

The music… fine. I kinda enjoyed two songs, both of which front end the OST as chapters two and three. For some reason, though, they’re not fitting with the story. These are relaxing songs in the middle of a war. Most of the game is just jingles when your characters attack or heal, so most of that doesn’t matter. I’ll be nice and give this portion 5 points. 

We’ll save the gameplay for last, which means we’re talking about the story. So this game has a lot of characters. You get twenty four of them in the first half. None of them are particularly fleshed out or feel relevant outside of the twenty minutes after they join. And the enemies are much of the same. Just orange/brown swabs. The second half appears to nearly double that. I can’t possibly care about that many. And I doubt the game does too. It’s just bodies for the sake of breeding. 

The plot itself is filled with melodrama, almost to the point of comedy. You’re dragged into war, with several other nations as well. You have a reason, but other countries are just opportunistic nonsense. During all this killing, you’re betrayed and branded a criminal, even in your own country, apparently. In exile, you fall in love with a fairy, but she’s eventually kidnapped and forced to marry your rival. She’s brainwashed and given amnesia. Your rival then kills you and all your friends and has two children with your wife. Fortunately, all of your friends had kids at the same time, so your son eventually raises an army with all those other kids to reclaim what’s yours and kills your rival’s son. Good thing one person survived to tell you all of this. There’s some nonsense about a cult and crazy incest along the way, too. Turns out the big bad bad, your half brother, is also an incest baby. Some of those twists seem silly to me, but I didn’t get very far in the game, so maybe the story is better than I believe. Still isn’t doing much to help the characters... Ultimately, it has disguised depth with convolution, which is a serious sin to me. Once again, I’ll be generous and say the overall plot gets a respectable 6 points. How did your son survive the massacre?

But let’s talk about the main interactivity of the game: the battle system. It’s an SRPG with far too large battlefields. 32x32 fields. They take forever to traverse, and the bland combat doesn’t help. That in and of itself is boring! The prologue chapter took me three hours to get through, and chapter one looked like it would be something similar. I have to imagine later battles will be even longer because of epicosity. The areas themselves look different, but there’s no variety otherwise. So the basics are troubling, but then they try to get fancy with it. 

Transferring inventory items costs money. 

Weapons degrade with every use; one for every swing, with a max of fifty. 

And there is perma death. Every action can result in a stupider story, a weaker party, and less fun. And there isn’t much fun to be had here anyway. 

There is very limited healing in battle as well. At most, you can heal two units a turn. One way uses a staff’s durability, and the other involves paying a church because god needs money. 

It’s all an exercise in tedium. In total, the game has 17 points of negativity. 

For those not doing math, I lied. This game doesn’t get 0 out of 50. It actually has -1. A negative score! I know I gave Magic: The Gathering Arena a negative score, but that is a digital game meant to recreate a tabletop card game. It’s different than this one. This negative one feels truly damning. But I’m apparently the only person who thinks this, as the game in question has decent review scores. 

But enough tattling around. What game gets a negative score? Fire Emblem IV: Genealogy of Holy War. I told myself I wasn’t going to play this, but I did. And I’m filled with regrets. But FEIV has everything I hate about the subgenre. The battles are too large, there are too many characters, perma death, and inventory nonsense twice over. The melodramatic story about using long lost half siblings is creepy, and everyone existing simply to mate is silly. What happens if everyone dies and there’s no bloodline to make? The idea that a game could unfun itself is awful. I know I only played five hours of FEIV, but I’m already so bored. I probably could take a few more points off, but I’d rather just move on and forget I ever played this garbage. 

Enjoy your -1/50. 

Isekai the game!

This was almost a joy…

The Magical World of Wozz, or Chou-Mahou Tairiku Wozz, is a cute romp through a world of magic and war. You play as Leona, Shot, and Chun, three humans from the real world who are mistakenly warped to Wozz to prevent a tyrant from taking over that world. The elder of Wozz, Sullivan, meant for one great hero but accidentally called forth three kids. He was just as shocked as the kids were. But they’re here, and they’re stuck, so they might as well hero it up. If they want to return home, they need to defeat Balam!

Sullivan gives the three their first task: stop the Fear Rain from turning people into monsters. This hits rocky ground early as Shot is focused on the main task and runs off to do that. And this is our introduction to another of the game’s neat mechanics of branching storylines. Each of the three main characters gets a slightly different view of the world. These times are short lived and infrequent but are welcome nonetheless. They find the culprit of the Fear Rain and end that, but now they need more power. And the best way to do that is to find the magic fairies! 

Our next bit of divergence is how the three play. Chun, the shy Chinese boy, is the resident mage and gains new spells by finding the eight elemental fairies. Bomb is an element. Meanwhile, Leona, the Japanese genius, is an inventor who creates new weapons for everyone and even alternative ways to traverse the world, like an elephant tank. She allows us to reach the final dungeon when she constructs the airship. I weirdly enjoyed warping around the world, buying the materials, and turning them into new things. And then there’s the American Shot… Shot shoots things. But with a bow! 

Along the way, they’re joined by an assortment of fourth party members who fill out the battlefield. They range from the short term important to the “why are you here?” types. Ceramic did not need to be here, but Elise and Ramue could have been expanded. Ultimately, they’re all just generic units to be switched out at any phone booth at your leisure. 

It’s cute, humorous, and low stakes, but is, most importantly, a lot of fun. I spent thirty five hours in Wozz and enjoyed thirty of them. The last five were fine enough, but I think the worst thing Wozz does is it Necron’s itself. The real final boss didn’t need to be here. There was little foreshadowing for him, and the tone of the game shifts. Body horror and generic experimentation kinda kill the vibe. But it’s short, relatively easy, so maybe you won’t mind as much as I did. 

The music adds to the whimsy of the world. It’s filled with fluttery, airy notes that make me think of wind and other fairy aspects. But there’s the occasional earthy bass underneath some tracks. But all that goes out the window when battle starts or when the scene gets heavy. Or when the villages are filled with zombies, skeletons, and ghosts. 

The artwork is consistent with these vibes. High quality sprites and spell animations (eventually) show off the power of magic. Enemy sprites are reused frequently, but our playable cast, the main three especially, shine and can be compared to some of the best on the system. But maybe I just have a weakness for legs. There aren’t a lot of lower body garments in the world of Wozz. 

But I can’t get over the twist at the end. The painfully slow walking speed is also a drag. There is no running through towns in this game, which turns getting from the phone booths to the shops and then to the workshop four times longer than it needs to. 

Before I give my final score, I want to talk about a new review system I’m dabbling with. I’m not gonna stray far away from my usual fifty rankings because it’s nice and simple, but I’ve worked on a weighted system. I’m probably using that word wrong, but whatever. I’ve expanded and added more qualifiers, so it’s now out of 200 points. I’ll skip the meat and say that, with that new system, The Magical World of Wozz gets 142.83 points and ranks in at twenty two on my SNES list. But it could be more. If we could run through towns, and the game ended at Balam, it might be a top ten. Instead, Wozz wallows with an official 34 out of 50 points. 

Wozz is a low stakes game that’s more fun than anything else, which is really all that matters at the end of the day. It’s a solid experience with few downsides that I’d recommend. 

The best 5 out of 10 game.

What happens when you mix Fallout, Xenogears, and Dragon Quest, but it’s wrapped in the cloak of 1995? Metal Max Returns! 

The remake of the NES’ Metal Max remains an open world, post apocalyptic, life simulator JRPG with no real plot or characterization. The world is yours, assuming you can get there. And that’s the only real blockade in your path of being a hunter. And your lack of a tank at the start. To say nothing of your dad kicking you out of the house…

Travel the ruined world, dispatching outlaws and weirdos along the way, exploring what remains, finding new friends, and maybe even discovering remnants of the old world. Buuuuuut, if you ever want to, you can come home whenever you want and end this journey. Surely, your dad won’t hold a grudge? 

Why is this review so weird? BECAUSE NOTHING HAPPENS IN THIS GAME!!!

Metal Max Returns can be a lot of fun, but you need the right mindset. Everything happens because you set it off, but everything is also optional. The other two characters? Not important. Gathering tanks, hunting criminals, walking through destroyed skyscrapers? Only if you want to. You’re able to get to the final dungeon instantly, presuming you know the map and the proper paths. The concept is tremendous, but that’s all it is. You’re a silent protagonist just living his own dream. The game even ends whenever you want it to; you just have to apologize to your dad. Does that come after your first death, your first kill, or when you take out the strongest foe? That’s the only story here. 2/10

Gameplay is where it’s at. You take your tank and customize it however you want. Flamethrower and armor piercing cannons, or a group barrage fitted alongside something that shoots lightning? You’ll need to upgrade your engine to carry all that weight, but it’s doable. You also have to do that for the characters themselves. Hell, I’m wondering if it’s possible to totally askew tanks and go it all on foot? Probably not, but if you’re good enough… Along the way are a handful of minigames, if you want to seek them out, along with ancient tech to help you out. Apparently, you can find New Vegas’ Euclid’s C Finder somewhere. 8/10

The music might be the best part. It’s shockingly upbeat, but in a way that compels even me forward into the dangerous world we now live in. There is plenty of variety despite being only forty five minutes long. The biggest problem is tied to the lack of story. There’s one sad song because there is no reason to be sad. It hinders the variety and mood. 8/10

The artwork is problematic. Since we’re all tanks shooting at each other, most of the animations are bullet storms or shell launchers. Occasionally, you’ll see something like a Tesla Arc, or the enemy will have a cool, unique animation, but the game is usually kinda bland. And the excessive pallet swaps and dungeon tileset reuse help the visual monotony. There is one rad cutscene, though. 6/10

The charm is also muted by there being zero story. The cities often interconnect in some way to form a larger subplot, and the single main NPC gets a rollercoaster of an experience, but I found myself asking “why am I doing this” too often. 6/10

Sadly, inventory management rears its ugly head too frequently. Equipment doesn’t fill up item slots, thankfully, but the game throws stuff at you to fill up your backpack. And the lack of in game help tooltip to explain what this is is damning even further. Will this small rock help me somewhere like MMR is a secret adventure game, or am I just having a lark? -2

Metal Max Returns is a faithful remaster of a regular Nintendo game. And it shows. Get ready to menu your way through twenty hours. There is no reason games need a separate button to talk to people and inspect something. And a talk button being the cancel button is asking to repeat dialogue. -2

I think I liked Metal Max Returns. The mid game difficulty can be a wall, and the lack of anything to sink your teeth into makes me think I won’t be finishing it, though. I’m just…why am I doing all this? For the thrill of adventure? That’s rad and all, but give me some stakes. Dying isn’t even punishment. You just end up back at home, in the lab of a necromancer… I just want more out of a game. 26/50. Probably the best pallet cleanser between longer RPGs. 

So what was that dragon?

 Let me know if this sounds familiar. 

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. And let's not forget that some games can do nothing while accidentally doing a lot. Dual Orb II is one of those games. 

Where do I begin with Dual Orb II? The beginning, probably. The opening scenes depict a dragon attacking a modern city while scientists panic. They shoot something that stops the dragon, and then we skip ahead. We'll later learn that it's way ahead. A man is walking through the snow with a crying baby. The man arrives home to inform his king that he has been recognized as the High Priest. En route home, he was ambushed by a group of people and given a baby and told to raise it to be a good man. Yes, I consider that an ambush. The king is thrilled because his son will have a friend. Aleth and Lagnus become fast friends, as seen when we skip forward again to the two of them building a fort in the woods. They practice their swordsmanship there while taking a break from their duties of priest and prince. One day, they're attacked by bandits, saved by a bard, and as punishment, have to go to church. They sneak into the back cloisters and find god, which, as one would expect, takes them on a journey across the world to save humanity from an evil empire. The setup is great, and the actual plot beats line up Dual Orb II to be amazing. It's rare we get to experience why an ancient civilization collapsed, how they were benevolent, and how they successfully (sorta) reignited the spark of humanity. But we do here! But there's a plot hole that ruins it. More importantly, the gameplay lets it all down. 

For starters, what the HFIL does it all mean? Rather than buying new weapons at every city, Dual Orb has us upgrading ones we already have. I don't know if this is financially stable, as you'll find mid tier weapons until the late game. Is it best to buy the +10 ones or upgrade as we go? Not that it matters, as damage numbers don't seem to correlate with better weapons. My +10 sword did comparable damage to my +20 one. And even leveling didn't help. I was doing the same damage at level 99 as I was at 40. And don't get me started on defense and armor. How did rows work? Asking these questions is ultimately pointless because the difficulty is entirely artificial. Late game bosses don't obey speed stats and go multiple times between your turns, dealing damage that isn't easy to recover from. The lack of a team heal is nonsense. The gameplay, like the plot, has me asking "why" too often. 

But how's the presentation? Well... It's a lie. The battle sprites look amazing, but they're surface level in depth. There are about ten enemy sprites in the game. This includes (non final) bosses as well. It's all color swaps here. And there's only one architect on the planet as the villages all look alike. The layout is different, thankfully, but those tilesets are reused often. 

And the music is along the same lines. They're of high quality and fun to listen to, but there isn't all that much here. There are just over thirty tracks, with most of them being front loaded. To make matters worse, the song doesn't remember its position when you transition away from it. Meaning, when you get into a random battle on the overworld, which are plentiful, you're gonna hear that annoying opening fanfare again and again. Get ready to hear seven seconds of seven tracks for thirty hours. 

Eternal Filena was a basic game that I walked away from happy. Dual Orb II is a game that tried to be something bigger than it really is. And it almost did that. I thought the story had the makings to be top ten, if not five, on the console for a while. Most of the plot twists are heavy hitting, and the general theme is something that resonates with modern society thirty years later. But it's killed by a poor presentation. I walked away happy from Eternal Filena, but I'm running away frustrated and annoyed from Dual Orb II. 

27/50