This is a seminal game for the PC-Engine that I've wanted to get to playing for a long time, and I've actually bought three different times (this being the third). Once on PSN, once via my PCE Mini, and then this GameCube port that Hudson put out exclusively in Japan in the middle of the GameCube's life (as they did with so many other franchises of theirs). I've always known of this as the sort of Mother series of the PC Engine: a Dragon Quest-clone that's well remembered not for its mechanics but for its memorable presentation, setting, and characters. Granted this isn't exactly that iconic original version, and it has quite a few quality of life improvements from that original version on top of its graphical overhaul, it's still quite the faithful port. It took me about 50 hours or so to beat the game (which is a pretty impressive final time, given this game has virtually no side-content and I only spent a couple hours grinding and another couple being lost at several points).

Far East of Eden 2 is the story of its subtitle's character, Manjimaru, and takes place in the Japan-parodying fictional country of "Jipang" (a parody of Japan as imagined by modern Japanese through the lens of how 19th century Westerners imagined Japan to be). The descendant of the legendary Fire Clan who sealed away darkness a thousand years ago, he must follow in his ancestor's footsteps and join up with other Fire Clan members to seal away the dark Root (like those of a plant) Clan once again. It's overall a pretty straightforward story, but it made up for it at the time with some really impressive anime-style animated cutscenes and tons of voice acting for them in addition to major story moments (all of which have had their quality bumped up a bit but otherwise been left more or less totally unchanged for this remake). There are a few moments that present themselves as more serious, but it's more often a sort of comedy than anything else.

Although those more serious moments go HARD when they come around or go by basically untouched upon. One of my biggest criticisms with the game is the way it so poorly maintains a sense of tone or decency in regards to its comedy and seriousness. There is some incredible tonal whiplash over the game's eight or so chapters (which aren't really chapters so much as they are just incremental "YOU DID THE THING!" of which there are 8, so I call them chapters :b). You go from a super silly transformation fight cutscene in the middle of chapter 2 to later that chapter getting full VA and animated character portraits as a family is slowly dissolved into the man-eating forest. You get to watch as silly, lovable side characters are brutally executed one by one in cruel and narratively cheap ways that just feels so trashy every time it's done.

This also easily holds the new mantel for the most shockingly homophobic/transphobic game I've ever played, not only having it's very bluntly gay-coded villain both be an animal abuser, but also very heavily implied (they stop the adventure to directly repeat it to you several times) to be both a pedophile and into bestiality. While the funny moments did make me genuinely laugh out loud several times, I think this game's writing has too easy a tendency to use human suffering and triggering topics like sexual assault as lazy plot dressing to do no more than gratuitously drive home how evil the villains are. It's overall aged like fine milk and is trash better left in the dustbin of history.

Mechanically, it's really just Dragon Quest but more annoying, more often than not. The combat is DQ save for just how needlessly overly complicated and confusing the UI is (SO many menus that don't need to be there or could be condensed into less boxes), it's first-person combat encounters, you have a party of four. The more annoying parts take shape in not only the bad menus (which have been improved for the GC port but are still very annoying) but also your absolutely puny character-specific inventories which hold anywhere from nine to a mere three items (depending on the character) and each character only being able to hold six equipment items (four of which are the equipment they're presently wearing). The game has had its leveling system at the very least made a bit higher, as my party's level of mid-80's was way higher than the PCE-version guide's recommended levels of several dozen levels lower, although it's difficult for me to gauge just how much of that is actual rebalancing or if they just made the same growth curve spread out over more levels. Granted even if that were the case, you do get significantly more powerful in even a level up or two, and you thankfully get a full heal with every level up, which is also nice.

There are a few more notable changes from the typical DQ formula present in the early 90's. One of the most important is how spells work. Each character does have their own special, unique skills that they learn as they level up and require no mana. However, I found these skills to be too situational at best and utterly worthless at worst (I barely ever used them). The actual magic spells come in the form of scrolls that you acquire by visiting huts of tengu spread all over Jipang. Many spells can only be used by certain characters, but the spells themselves can be passed around between party members freely. While it does mean that you only get one copy of each spell at maximum, it also provides interesting opportunities for strategy in who gets what spells and when, especially in a game with small inventory space, no item stacking, and very limited options when it comes to mana restoration that isn't via sleeping at an inn.

At least it would present more interesting opportunities for strategy if the game were balanced and designed a bit better. On the balancing front, the game is designed much more on the easier side. I'm not sure if that's a reality of rebalancing done for the GC port or if it's a reflection of how things were in the PCE original as well, but regardless of the cause that was the reality of my playthrough. It's pretty easy save for certain brutal difficulty spikes, particularly through the entirety of chapter 4 as well as the final boss gauntlet. Thankfully, however, this is the rare early 90's game (or at least a port of one) without true game overs, as you simply get kicked back to the last big inn you stayed at when you die, just like Pokemon. It also thankfully (even in the PCE original) is kind enough to show you remaining enemy health, which makes it one of a very few number of games from that era to do so, at least in my experience.

The other large mechanical problem is that spells by and large just kinda suck. The only stats in the game are attack, defense, and speed. While I think magic attack IS some stat that exists, it's not one you can see or affect visibly through equipment (This is part of a larger problem of very poor player information that's been lovingly preserved from the PCE port, in that you're never told what passives equipment has or what items do, but that's a totally separate problem). Offensive spells are often too weak to bother using as soon as you get them, and even then, they're far too expensive to warrant using in the first place compared to healing spells. Simply just attacking things until they die with normal attacks and using the MP you do have for healing up afterwards is a strategy that will get you through virtually the entire game save for a small handful of boss fights where using buffs or debuffs can prove useful. Not TOO useful, however, as buffs and debuffs wear off very quickly and need to be reapplied every so often (when they go away seems to be entirely up to RNG). It's a game whose combat system is both overly complicated and also lacking any and all depth, and that winds up making it difficult to understand AND boring to engage with at the same time, which is a fascinating achievement in and of itself, in a way.

The GameCube port's biggest changes are in the realm of presentation, but also in a small amount of quality of life features, most significant of which is the mini-map (which also has the added bonus of showing town, dungeon, and tengu hut locations on maps!). All cutscenes have been preserved in content but had their resolutions increased significantly, and the same goes for the voice overs, so far as I can tell anyway. It also makes the menus a little easier to navigate and the text far easier to read. To lean harder into the "old Japan" theme, the game uses a lot of old lexicon and obsolete names and kanji for things even in the PCE version. That made the PCE version's tiny 16-bit kanji very hard to understand for me, and the poorer audio quality didn't help me understand the subtitle-less cutscenes any better either. They still don't have subtitles for those cutscenes (something I find MUCH harder to forgive in 2003 than it was in 1992), but the text is far easier to read and the menus are a bit easier to navigate and understand. It's still very clunky, but it's better than it was at least.

The presentation of this version as a whole is very good. Enemy design is super diverse, with the game's dozens of areas having a huge amount of monster sprites which are only reused twice at most (very impressive for the time, to be sure). The enemies and bosses all get small animations to how they move, giving them a bit more life than their PCE counterparts had. The music also ranges from good to excellent, really flexing the power of remixed tracks that were also just good all around to begin with. The biggest sticking point for people will likely be the new graphics style, which blends 2D character sprites (and entirely 2D first-person perspective fights) with 3D environments. I thought they looked nice, but that has been one of the most divisive elements of the presentation when I've shown the game to friends (both retro-loving and otherwise).


Verdict: Hesitantly recommended. This game overall holds up okay, but really only in the context of being a DQ-clone from 1992. I think it really outstays its welcome with trashy, bad writing and a really dull combat system that extend over a run time that's at least ten hours too long, but for those of you who like more simple older games like this, that might be just your cup of tea. It isn't outright bad, but it's a difficult game to return to that I don't think stands up all that well even for when it was released (outside of the notable presentation aspects). I'm glad I have some experience with the series now to speak about it firsthand, but honestly, outside of historical curiosity like I had, I think this is a game best left ignored for better contemporaries of early 90's JRPGs, even in its improved GameCube format.