MelosHanTani
BACKER
2022
Very cool game! Really recommend it, one of my top of 2022.
I love the camera-switching mechanic. The game puts you in what amounts to a platforming level, but the perspective makes it look like a world map out of Shin Megami Tensei 4/3, sim city, etc.
You can switch between a zoomed-out 3rd person view or a close-up, 1st person view. What's really smart is it changes your movement speed when you switch views. You can walk slowly through building interiors in 1st person, and zoom around the world in 3rd person. And the game uses its 'dual screens' to always show both views.
Design-wise this game reminds me of that new Super Mario Bowser's Fury game, but I liked this more. We're seeing more of this kind of design: islands platforming challenges set in an open world, where you travel between them. I guess it's the 3D platformer's response to the open world trend - Sonic Frontiers, Bowser's Fury. But in those you have a lot of walking around waiting for platforming..
Sanctuarium is nice because you get some of that fun 1st person exploring (I think there could have been more? That, or I missed a bunch of it -I think I sequence broke a little). Then the 3rd person feels breezy as you go between landmark to landmark, with simple platforming challenges. You still get that fun open world feel of seeing landmarks in the distance, but things here feel much more streamlined than an actual slogging open world.
The platforming controls were workable, the moveset very simple, but there was a interesting trick of being able to fly up very steep slopes, which led to some fun parkour-esque design.
The narrative theming was about a dead MMORPG. I felt like this part didn't quite execute as well as the others, but I generally like the idea of games that reflect on MMORPGs. Still waiting for someone to make the meta-Maple-Story game I desire...
I love the camera-switching mechanic. The game puts you in what amounts to a platforming level, but the perspective makes it look like a world map out of Shin Megami Tensei 4/3, sim city, etc.
You can switch between a zoomed-out 3rd person view or a close-up, 1st person view. What's really smart is it changes your movement speed when you switch views. You can walk slowly through building interiors in 1st person, and zoom around the world in 3rd person. And the game uses its 'dual screens' to always show both views.
Design-wise this game reminds me of that new Super Mario Bowser's Fury game, but I liked this more. We're seeing more of this kind of design: islands platforming challenges set in an open world, where you travel between them. I guess it's the 3D platformer's response to the open world trend - Sonic Frontiers, Bowser's Fury. But in those you have a lot of walking around waiting for platforming..
Sanctuarium is nice because you get some of that fun 1st person exploring (I think there could have been more? That, or I missed a bunch of it -I think I sequence broke a little). Then the 3rd person feels breezy as you go between landmark to landmark, with simple platforming challenges. You still get that fun open world feel of seeing landmarks in the distance, but things here feel much more streamlined than an actual slogging open world.
The platforming controls were workable, the moveset very simple, but there was a interesting trick of being able to fly up very steep slopes, which led to some fun parkour-esque design.
The narrative theming was about a dead MMORPG. I felt like this part didn't quite execute as well as the others, but I generally like the idea of games that reflect on MMORPGs. Still waiting for someone to make the meta-Maple-Story game I desire...
Spoilers
(update at bottom re final parts)
Some solid light-fiction writing half the time, but the other half of this game feels padded. My favorite moments were Swin/Nadia going to school, and working with Elaine in the prologue/Chapter 1, because it's putting characters into new situations that aren't just part of a Marvel Avenger's ensemble.
I liked a good number of the side quests up to the island, simply because by putting small groups of characters through events we actually do get to see them fleshed out a bit! The NPC dialogue in towns is still enjoyable as well. Edith is the biggest focus in the game.
But by Chapter 3, we get gigantic groups of characters behaving in expected ways in response to predictable threats. Chapter 3 does give some character backstory, but through the clunky method of turning the characters into temporary antagonists. It feels like fighting through no-stakes encounters just to get another character footnote.
A lot of the characters really aren't interesting enough to have the amount of screen-time they do (Cao, and that punching martial arts guy... Feri's brother...) - their development feels predictable or finalized. We might get a little 'trauma tater tot' to deepen a backstory, but ultimately a slightly-too-large-for-comfort portion of the events in Kuro 2 felt like rehashing a character's particular collection of tropes. I think such is the problem of light fiction writing so heavily relying on visual and speech shorthand, caricature to flesh out a character. It's hard to reasonably sustain more than one game's worth of development, so the character often falls to level of caricature by the second game unless there are enough scenarios Focusing On The Character to prevent that.
--
The final chapter (school festival) is nice, as is the character sendoffs. I actually like Ix/Yorda (so far), though I've yet to play past the final chapter to see how they unfold in the last dungeon.
--
Overall a mixed bag. Honestly you can really just skim the bad parts and play on Very Easy, but I would say the game'll be a slog if you're going to play on Normal or harder.
As far as fans of the overarching lore go, I think this game drops a lot of hints that Epstein could time travel (to maybe optimize his ability to develop technology), and we start to get some sense of how the Outside operates, but mostly it's left in the air. The fact there's going to be a 3rd game... will be nice from the overarching lore standpoint, but I'm a little worried because it truly does feel like all the characters are, more or less, "developed" as far as they can go. So even if the overarching plot develops, it might be a bit of a slog like like Hajimari's Rean or Crossbell sections.
---
update:
The ending in the... multidimensional octorarium or whatever... honestly a little contrived feeling. To me it kind of drove home the feeling of Crimson Sin feeling a bit like filler. The boss tries to set up stakes of all of the time-warp Chapter 3 problems 'becoming real', but since that too felt so contrived...
The character of Dingo more or less felt all said and done? Eh. Even Ix and Yorda showing up in the final dungeon - they even COMPLAIN about 'why the heck are we here?'
Well, anyways. The ending credits were nice. The post-game EX chapter was pretty boring - just grinding through more Marchen Garden floors, but it did hint a bit at going to space and the last part of the Kuro arc. Still, I'm not sure how interesting the game could be. Even though Van still has backstory left, it feels pretty predictable (tortured by a cult) and he's already fleshed out enough. Same with Ix/Yorda's 'mysteries' - probably straightforward. I guess the main thing that will be interesting are Hamilton's connections to Gramhart and the Septterrion of Time (there's a hint that we might be going east into the mountains), so I really hope that the next chapter introduces some new characters (like cold Steel 3) and 'retires' old ones (no more Aaron or Feri please...).
(update at bottom re final parts)
Some solid light-fiction writing half the time, but the other half of this game feels padded. My favorite moments were Swin/Nadia going to school, and working with Elaine in the prologue/Chapter 1, because it's putting characters into new situations that aren't just part of a Marvel Avenger's ensemble.
I liked a good number of the side quests up to the island, simply because by putting small groups of characters through events we actually do get to see them fleshed out a bit! The NPC dialogue in towns is still enjoyable as well. Edith is the biggest focus in the game.
But by Chapter 3, we get gigantic groups of characters behaving in expected ways in response to predictable threats. Chapter 3 does give some character backstory, but through the clunky method of turning the characters into temporary antagonists. It feels like fighting through no-stakes encounters just to get another character footnote.
A lot of the characters really aren't interesting enough to have the amount of screen-time they do (Cao, and that punching martial arts guy... Feri's brother...) - their development feels predictable or finalized. We might get a little 'trauma tater tot' to deepen a backstory, but ultimately a slightly-too-large-for-comfort portion of the events in Kuro 2 felt like rehashing a character's particular collection of tropes. I think such is the problem of light fiction writing so heavily relying on visual and speech shorthand, caricature to flesh out a character. It's hard to reasonably sustain more than one game's worth of development, so the character often falls to level of caricature by the second game unless there are enough scenarios Focusing On The Character to prevent that.
--
The final chapter (school festival) is nice, as is the character sendoffs. I actually like Ix/Yorda (so far), though I've yet to play past the final chapter to see how they unfold in the last dungeon.
--
Overall a mixed bag. Honestly you can really just skim the bad parts and play on Very Easy, but I would say the game'll be a slog if you're going to play on Normal or harder.
As far as fans of the overarching lore go, I think this game drops a lot of hints that Epstein could time travel (to maybe optimize his ability to develop technology), and we start to get some sense of how the Outside operates, but mostly it's left in the air. The fact there's going to be a 3rd game... will be nice from the overarching lore standpoint, but I'm a little worried because it truly does feel like all the characters are, more or less, "developed" as far as they can go. So even if the overarching plot develops, it might be a bit of a slog like like Hajimari's Rean or Crossbell sections.
---
update:
The ending in the... multidimensional octorarium or whatever... honestly a little contrived feeling. To me it kind of drove home the feeling of Crimson Sin feeling a bit like filler. The boss tries to set up stakes of all of the time-warp Chapter 3 problems 'becoming real', but since that too felt so contrived...
The character of Dingo more or less felt all said and done? Eh. Even Ix and Yorda showing up in the final dungeon - they even COMPLAIN about 'why the heck are we here?'
Well, anyways. The ending credits were nice. The post-game EX chapter was pretty boring - just grinding through more Marchen Garden floors, but it did hint a bit at going to space and the last part of the Kuro arc. Still, I'm not sure how interesting the game could be. Even though Van still has backstory left, it feels pretty predictable (tortured by a cult) and he's already fleshed out enough. Same with Ix/Yorda's 'mysteries' - probably straightforward. I guess the main thing that will be interesting are Hamilton's connections to Gramhart and the Septterrion of Time (there's a hint that we might be going east into the mountains), so I really hope that the next chapter introduces some new characters (like cold Steel 3) and 'retires' old ones (no more Aaron or Feri please...).
I most enjoyed the manga-panel style of cutscenes that would happen from time to time. Nice art.
The characters are fun although they weren't particularly fleshed out and one of the interesting pupil-student relationships gets killed off early on, replaced by a bunch of characters who barely say anything or vanish pretty quickly. Too many twists are followed by more twists that it starts to become predictable, and the dungeon design also gets repetitive. Some of the boss fights can be tricky although I rarely felt like I was using any interesting strategy besides carefully managing my healing. Some great music though, was fun to hear how it got remixed into some Phantasy Star Online music (e.g. the VR areas in PSO Episode 2)
The characters are fun although they weren't particularly fleshed out and one of the interesting pupil-student relationships gets killed off early on, replaced by a bunch of characters who barely say anything or vanish pretty quickly. Too many twists are followed by more twists that it starts to become predictable, and the dungeon design also gets repetitive. Some of the boss fights can be tricky although I rarely felt like I was using any interesting strategy besides carefully managing my healing. Some great music though, was fun to hear how it got remixed into some Phantasy Star Online music (e.g. the VR areas in PSO Episode 2)
1986
Much more of a 3 if someone were to release this today but gets points for being from the mid-80s. What stuck out to me the most was world 2 - and how the art and platforming challenges would smoothly change over a level. It reminded me of those giant , horizontal wall paintings describing an epic myth or the like - world 2 being like a contracted narration of Pit's journey across the world. The vertical worlds were okay, but not as visually interesting imo
The more glaring missteps aside, I like how precise Pit's movement and the economy of the arrows feel. At some times the enemies are a bit too fast and nimble to mesh well with the movement (the 'money rooms' with 8 of those quick-moving enemies often face this problem), but at other times the movement really shines (like the world 2 boss - I think that was an amazingly elegant application of the game's rules). Reminds me of some of the gunplay from later games like Cave Story or Kero Blaster.
I actually like the ways the vertical section's platforming gets trickier and trickier - world 3's areas where you need to shoot those demons while going back and forth from different sides of the screen were a highlight. (Even if the punishment of dying from falling is way too high...)
The money economy sort of made sense. I liked how you're encouraged to take a bit of risk to clear out screens of enemies so that you could buy health potions later. I feel like the healing springs were a bit overpowered, though...
That being said, this game reminds me of modern roguelites, especially Kid Icarus's room mechanic. The way you get a random assortment of items in the stores. As the game goes on and it gets easier to maintain a safe amount of health, the rooms become less interesting, although I appreciate the fortress levels removing your (overpowered?) weapon/armor upgrades.
The fortress levels were a cool twist, although they never amount to any kind of interesting spatial feeling - merely a labyrinth that feels randomly generated (despite being hand-authored). The need to buy the mapping items is a mistake - smaller dungeons without maps or automapping from the start would have been more interesting.
Other than that, I do love the kind of structural play Kid Icarus does with the labyrinth, vertical and horizontal levels...even if it's not executed great all the time
The finale was disappointing - to me, turning the game into a poorly executed shmup was not the best way to make finding these 'three great treasures' feel exciting. Pit's movement is slow and imprecise, the level often boring with lots of waiting, the only reasonable Medusa strategy (hanging to the back of the screen) feels like a cheese more than anything. If you removed the flying and made it a high or double jump, then built some enemies around pit's Light Arrow and the Shielding Mechanic, that could have made for a fun twist on what the game had been building up the whole way.
The more glaring missteps aside, I like how precise Pit's movement and the economy of the arrows feel. At some times the enemies are a bit too fast and nimble to mesh well with the movement (the 'money rooms' with 8 of those quick-moving enemies often face this problem), but at other times the movement really shines (like the world 2 boss - I think that was an amazingly elegant application of the game's rules). Reminds me of some of the gunplay from later games like Cave Story or Kero Blaster.
I actually like the ways the vertical section's platforming gets trickier and trickier - world 3's areas where you need to shoot those demons while going back and forth from different sides of the screen were a highlight. (Even if the punishment of dying from falling is way too high...)
The money economy sort of made sense. I liked how you're encouraged to take a bit of risk to clear out screens of enemies so that you could buy health potions later. I feel like the healing springs were a bit overpowered, though...
That being said, this game reminds me of modern roguelites, especially Kid Icarus's room mechanic. The way you get a random assortment of items in the stores. As the game goes on and it gets easier to maintain a safe amount of health, the rooms become less interesting, although I appreciate the fortress levels removing your (overpowered?) weapon/armor upgrades.
The fortress levels were a cool twist, although they never amount to any kind of interesting spatial feeling - merely a labyrinth that feels randomly generated (despite being hand-authored). The need to buy the mapping items is a mistake - smaller dungeons without maps or automapping from the start would have been more interesting.
Other than that, I do love the kind of structural play Kid Icarus does with the labyrinth, vertical and horizontal levels...even if it's not executed great all the time
The finale was disappointing - to me, turning the game into a poorly executed shmup was not the best way to make finding these 'three great treasures' feel exciting. Pit's movement is slow and imprecise, the level often boring with lots of waiting, the only reasonable Medusa strategy (hanging to the back of the screen) feels like a cheese more than anything. If you removed the flying and made it a high or double jump, then built some enemies around pit's Light Arrow and the Shielding Mechanic, that could have made for a fun twist on what the game had been building up the whole way.
It was nice to learn about Hiroji Kiyotake, one of the directors of Metroid II, and probably a leading force in the sheer personality and fun that a run of good GB platformers have - Metroid II, Super Mario Land 2, the Wario Lands...
Despite having played most Metroid games I'd never played Metroid 2. I bounced off of it a few times, but after roughing it through Metroid 1 (another brilliant game), I went ahead and played through 2.
At first I was hesitant about the structure of the game - seeming to move away from the chaotic maze of Metroid 1 for a more linear experience. But I think the structure of Metroid 2 - that of burrowing into an ant farm, exploring smaller labyrinths budding from a main path - works well. It enforces the narrative of Samus as this bounty hunter, cold bringer of death, her triumphant "overworld medley" song being replaced by the quiet nature and sounds of Metroids merely living at home.
The black and white graphics look amazing at times - especially level 3 with its mechanical sand maze and the vertical, overgrown shafts. At its best there's a real sense of encroaching into disturbing territory, the way it feels to peer from a safe path into a deep patch of forest. The variety of 'nests' the game manages to convey is inspiring! The game fully understands its visual format and how to exploit it. Metroid fights remain tricky to cheese, with the metroid becoming invincible offscreen, always feeling claustrophobic and chaotic, thrilling.
There are a handful of rough edges (the lack of save points, occasional missile/energy grinding) but I think the rest of the game makes up for it. I love the setpieces with the Metroid counter resetting in the lair, or the omega metroid attacking you after killing the alpha, or the lair of the omegas. I do think that the art could have been a bit more interesting at parts, especially with all of the vine background layers in level 3 - some later levels feel a bit empty .
That being said, the atmosphere never feels overexplained. It was fun to stumble upon the massive Chozo compounds, with dangerous robots, butted right up against Metroid caves and lush caverns.
Shoutout to the ambient music, which works really well! Unsettling, dark stuff, really understanding the 'texture' of the game boy sound palette.
--
Overall, it's a very strong game, but I can't give it the "5 stars'... I think it might be related to the economy of ammo and energy and how they inevitably shift way in your favor as you progress through the game - enemy encounters always feel a little less exciting once you have the screw attack, plasma beam, etc. It feels a bit counter to the narrative they're setting up with you diving into more dangerous lairs. The Omega metroid may look spooky, but it's not much of a threat with my 150 missiles, varia suit, and 500 energy.
Despite having played most Metroid games I'd never played Metroid 2. I bounced off of it a few times, but after roughing it through Metroid 1 (another brilliant game), I went ahead and played through 2.
At first I was hesitant about the structure of the game - seeming to move away from the chaotic maze of Metroid 1 for a more linear experience. But I think the structure of Metroid 2 - that of burrowing into an ant farm, exploring smaller labyrinths budding from a main path - works well. It enforces the narrative of Samus as this bounty hunter, cold bringer of death, her triumphant "overworld medley" song being replaced by the quiet nature and sounds of Metroids merely living at home.
The black and white graphics look amazing at times - especially level 3 with its mechanical sand maze and the vertical, overgrown shafts. At its best there's a real sense of encroaching into disturbing territory, the way it feels to peer from a safe path into a deep patch of forest. The variety of 'nests' the game manages to convey is inspiring! The game fully understands its visual format and how to exploit it. Metroid fights remain tricky to cheese, with the metroid becoming invincible offscreen, always feeling claustrophobic and chaotic, thrilling.
There are a handful of rough edges (the lack of save points, occasional missile/energy grinding) but I think the rest of the game makes up for it. I love the setpieces with the Metroid counter resetting in the lair, or the omega metroid attacking you after killing the alpha, or the lair of the omegas. I do think that the art could have been a bit more interesting at parts, especially with all of the vine background layers in level 3 - some later levels feel a bit empty .
That being said, the atmosphere never feels overexplained. It was fun to stumble upon the massive Chozo compounds, with dangerous robots, butted right up against Metroid caves and lush caverns.
Shoutout to the ambient music, which works really well! Unsettling, dark stuff, really understanding the 'texture' of the game boy sound palette.
--
Overall, it's a very strong game, but I can't give it the "5 stars'... I think it might be related to the economy of ammo and energy and how they inevitably shift way in your favor as you progress through the game - enemy encounters always feel a little less exciting once you have the screw attack, plasma beam, etc. It feels a bit counter to the narrative they're setting up with you diving into more dangerous lairs. The Omega metroid may look spooky, but it's not much of a threat with my 150 missiles, varia suit, and 500 energy.
A game based on the fantasy world, "Iblard", of Inoue Naohisa. He has a bunch of "Natural Encyclopedias" (https://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%82%A4%E3%83%90%E3%83%A9%E3%83%BC%E3%83%89%E5%8D%9A%E7%89%A9%E8%AA%8C-%E4%BA%95%E4%B8%8A-%E7%9B%B4%E4%B9%85/dp/4906268587) of Iblard, featuring many of his paintings from the 70s-present day, with little poetic descriptions of the things or places in the scene. I've know there's a game set in this world for a while, but never got around to playing it, and...
... sadly, some things are better in their original medium. The paintings are fun because they have a game-like spatial composition to it, their descriptions are "random" in that we see bits and pieces of Iblard (such as the cone-like Laputa, the trains, etc) , described in a way that's fun to imagine.
The game, instead, ties a bunch of these visual motifs into a game in a way that feels a little awkward. The game misunderstands how the wonder of Iblard works in its original medium, instead creating this 'assorted bag' of what amount to references to Iblard. The story involves a boy sucked into a picture book of Iblard, he's apparently trapped there but can do something regarding creating a "Laputa" (the flying saucer thing in the cover) to escape. As he goes along he meets some characters that pop up in the Iblard manga.
It's indeed cool, in theory, to explore and see places that the Iblard paintings and manga feature, but at some point in between the simple Myst-like puzzles and clunky 1st-person movement, the game feels like an awkward disservice to Inoue's paintings. Occasionally you literally see a painting from one of his art books, with a description that is sometimes the same as the artbooks themselves, offering info about the world. That's a neat approach, I guess, not much different from the way item lore functions in Dark Souls.
The spaces in the game are boring to walk around, occasionally you can tilt your camera or see over a small vista to get a nice sense of place, but honestly compared to the paintings I don't think this game does much visually... perhaps some games are better unplayed...
In some ways I wish this game waited a few years to be made. While I'm hesitant to say 'more graphics = better!' I think a few more years of better 3D controls and visual practices could have really helped out here. Of course, granted that they get rid of the terrible game design... enjoying Iblard's paintings is very much about vibing with and imagining yourself there, so in that sense I think a game similar to My Summer Vacation (Boku no Natsuyasumi), Attack of the Friday Monsters could work really well with the setting, depending on how willing the painter would be with letting a team write their own stories into the world.
Lastly, while I wasn't personally a fan of the music, it did resemble some of the Japanese ambient/new age/environmental music that is being uploaded to YouTube a lot nowadays, so it's worth checking out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zuiq93gh0lk
... sadly, some things are better in their original medium. The paintings are fun because they have a game-like spatial composition to it, their descriptions are "random" in that we see bits and pieces of Iblard (such as the cone-like Laputa, the trains, etc) , described in a way that's fun to imagine.
The game, instead, ties a bunch of these visual motifs into a game in a way that feels a little awkward. The game misunderstands how the wonder of Iblard works in its original medium, instead creating this 'assorted bag' of what amount to references to Iblard. The story involves a boy sucked into a picture book of Iblard, he's apparently trapped there but can do something regarding creating a "Laputa" (the flying saucer thing in the cover) to escape. As he goes along he meets some characters that pop up in the Iblard manga.
It's indeed cool, in theory, to explore and see places that the Iblard paintings and manga feature, but at some point in between the simple Myst-like puzzles and clunky 1st-person movement, the game feels like an awkward disservice to Inoue's paintings. Occasionally you literally see a painting from one of his art books, with a description that is sometimes the same as the artbooks themselves, offering info about the world. That's a neat approach, I guess, not much different from the way item lore functions in Dark Souls.
The spaces in the game are boring to walk around, occasionally you can tilt your camera or see over a small vista to get a nice sense of place, but honestly compared to the paintings I don't think this game does much visually... perhaps some games are better unplayed...
In some ways I wish this game waited a few years to be made. While I'm hesitant to say 'more graphics = better!' I think a few more years of better 3D controls and visual practices could have really helped out here. Of course, granted that they get rid of the terrible game design... enjoying Iblard's paintings is very much about vibing with and imagining yourself there, so in that sense I think a game similar to My Summer Vacation (Boku no Natsuyasumi), Attack of the Friday Monsters could work really well with the setting, depending on how willing the painter would be with letting a team write their own stories into the world.
Lastly, while I wasn't personally a fan of the music, it did resemble some of the Japanese ambient/new age/environmental music that is being uploaded to YouTube a lot nowadays, so it's worth checking out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zuiq93gh0lk
1997
Visually this game is very pretty - lots of early 3D spaces, interesting color palettes, especially the overworlds. I played the first hour here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxhU8zYErJ8
(Here's a full Japanese Let's play https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jexo53nqjHI&list=PLYGbdsIp2Ktrw9Y2ula58B1u7yrNXfHV2&index=1 )
The game uses 2D sprites in 3D areas to neat effect, I love the cactus towers (sabokuri), and it was fun to see what areas each new kingdom held.
The writing was... pretty bare bones. The arcs in each kingdom feel sort of like a broken JRPG - you might stick a thorn into a train to slow it down. Or rescue a clan of chickens from an invasion. Or fix a rainbow bridge by finding 7 items, or help a marriage that's going to go wrong... most of the time it's fairly unremarkable, but occasionally some situations are surreal and unique - a guesthouse owner in the middle of a jungle, with a single guest - a man who can't wake up. Other humans trapped in the storybook, forced to work as clowns forever.
Due to how the game works, it's possible to miss entire kingdoms based on very unnoticeable decisions (I did). I might do a playthrough again to see those areas. Which leads to my next point - as an adventure game Fantastep... sucks lol. Puzzle solutions range from obvious to impossible to guess (one involves you having to return to the same room 5 or 6 times to find a different clue in the same spot). At one point I beat the final boss before saving each kingdom, and it set flags in such a way that some kingdom's quests were automatically completed. It's possible to miss items to complete quests! The game requires you to find 5 flower rings. The game actually has 7 or 8, relying on clues from hidden fairies to decipher which are the ones you want to use. I used the wrong rings and got the bad ending, but at that point I was locked out of the good end, and didn't really care...
Overall a pretty rough game with some great art and music. I really like the strange storybook fantasy atmosphere, even if it's roughly and poorly rendered. Definitely makes me want to check out similar vibe games from the mid/late 90s, like Napple Tale.
(Here's a full Japanese Let's play https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jexo53nqjHI&list=PLYGbdsIp2Ktrw9Y2ula58B1u7yrNXfHV2&index=1 )
The game uses 2D sprites in 3D areas to neat effect, I love the cactus towers (sabokuri), and it was fun to see what areas each new kingdom held.
The writing was... pretty bare bones. The arcs in each kingdom feel sort of like a broken JRPG - you might stick a thorn into a train to slow it down. Or rescue a clan of chickens from an invasion. Or fix a rainbow bridge by finding 7 items, or help a marriage that's going to go wrong... most of the time it's fairly unremarkable, but occasionally some situations are surreal and unique - a guesthouse owner in the middle of a jungle, with a single guest - a man who can't wake up. Other humans trapped in the storybook, forced to work as clowns forever.
Due to how the game works, it's possible to miss entire kingdoms based on very unnoticeable decisions (I did). I might do a playthrough again to see those areas. Which leads to my next point - as an adventure game Fantastep... sucks lol. Puzzle solutions range from obvious to impossible to guess (one involves you having to return to the same room 5 or 6 times to find a different clue in the same spot). At one point I beat the final boss before saving each kingdom, and it set flags in such a way that some kingdom's quests were automatically completed. It's possible to miss items to complete quests! The game requires you to find 5 flower rings. The game actually has 7 or 8, relying on clues from hidden fairies to decipher which are the ones you want to use. I used the wrong rings and got the bad ending, but at that point I was locked out of the good end, and didn't really care...
Overall a pretty rough game with some great art and music. I really like the strange storybook fantasy atmosphere, even if it's roughly and poorly rendered. Definitely makes me want to check out similar vibe games from the mid/late 90s, like Napple Tale.
1986
Pleasantly surprised at parts with Metroid! Dark Souls bonfire runs have nothing towards the run through Tourian, or making your way through ridiculously precise rooms of Kraid or Ridley's Lair before having to win at equally ridiculous fights.
The silence of Metroid's world works great - the art feels creepier and more organic as you go deeper into the planet, only to at times be replaced by the metallic architecture of Ridley or Kraid. It really conveys the sense of being in an alien planet, one that we'll never see all of, and one that wants Samus dead.
I found the moveset to be really well designed - not being able to shoot down and Samus being two tiles high means you have to really be aware of what's at your feet as well as how that distance affects where you shoot and jump. The screw attack adds an interesting (if chaotic) extra layer of strategy to later levels - although it feels powerful at first, it has an element of the unreliable against the flying beetles, and can feel slightly stiff to pull off in certain situations.
Enemy patterns can be very difficult but I feel like every room had some kind of 'solution', even if it was very hard to pull off. I found some of the timing windows too intense - the very long, narrow corridor in Ridley's lair with endless flying beetle pipes come to mind. Likewise, it can be hard to get your bearings as your health meter quickly depletes, with the game severely lagging when multiple enemies are on screen, and Samus's slightly limited movement conflicting with enemies that are somewhat too quick.
Health is hard to come by: this feels balanced throughout brinstar and Norfair, but takes a turn for the worse in Ridley and Kraid's areas. Part of this was that I never found the Varia suit (50% damage reduction!), but I do think that some of the long runs from the elevator to the bosses were just Too long, especially when you have to grind your health back after dying.
I thought the long beam, bombs, ice beam, missiles were all great additions to the arsenal, having their place within combat. Having the ice beam the whole game led to a really weird dynamic of having to be more precise with shots so as to not unfreeze enemies.
Room designs were generally pretty varied, and I liked that! It really felt like I was just stumbling across loot that the pirates left around - not as much like it was just a big world full of upgrades to find, designed just for me. That worked thematically with the setting. I liked that some rooms had an element of humor - the hidden hole near an energy tank, the secret morph ball passage beneath an otherwise very hard gauntlet, etc.
The copy pasted rooms felt a bit cheap, but it did add to the sense of being in a maze. I had a lot of fun drawing out my own maps for this game.
Overall I was pleasantly surprised! There's a lot to this game that could be improved, but I don't think improvement looks like Super Metroid. Key to this game are the arcade-y, yet nonlinear, stretches of making it to the next elevator or boss, and the way the game demands you to intimately know how to handle enemies and be on your guard. Things can go south really fast relative to other metroid games.
The silence of Metroid's world works great - the art feels creepier and more organic as you go deeper into the planet, only to at times be replaced by the metallic architecture of Ridley or Kraid. It really conveys the sense of being in an alien planet, one that we'll never see all of, and one that wants Samus dead.
I found the moveset to be really well designed - not being able to shoot down and Samus being two tiles high means you have to really be aware of what's at your feet as well as how that distance affects where you shoot and jump. The screw attack adds an interesting (if chaotic) extra layer of strategy to later levels - although it feels powerful at first, it has an element of the unreliable against the flying beetles, and can feel slightly stiff to pull off in certain situations.
Enemy patterns can be very difficult but I feel like every room had some kind of 'solution', even if it was very hard to pull off. I found some of the timing windows too intense - the very long, narrow corridor in Ridley's lair with endless flying beetle pipes come to mind. Likewise, it can be hard to get your bearings as your health meter quickly depletes, with the game severely lagging when multiple enemies are on screen, and Samus's slightly limited movement conflicting with enemies that are somewhat too quick.
Health is hard to come by: this feels balanced throughout brinstar and Norfair, but takes a turn for the worse in Ridley and Kraid's areas. Part of this was that I never found the Varia suit (50% damage reduction!), but I do think that some of the long runs from the elevator to the bosses were just Too long, especially when you have to grind your health back after dying.
I thought the long beam, bombs, ice beam, missiles were all great additions to the arsenal, having their place within combat. Having the ice beam the whole game led to a really weird dynamic of having to be more precise with shots so as to not unfreeze enemies.
Room designs were generally pretty varied, and I liked that! It really felt like I was just stumbling across loot that the pirates left around - not as much like it was just a big world full of upgrades to find, designed just for me. That worked thematically with the setting. I liked that some rooms had an element of humor - the hidden hole near an energy tank, the secret morph ball passage beneath an otherwise very hard gauntlet, etc.
The copy pasted rooms felt a bit cheap, but it did add to the sense of being in a maze. I had a lot of fun drawing out my own maps for this game.
Overall I was pleasantly surprised! There's a lot to this game that could be improved, but I don't think improvement looks like Super Metroid. Key to this game are the arcade-y, yet nonlinear, stretches of making it to the next elevator or boss, and the way the game demands you to intimately know how to handle enemies and be on your guard. Things can go south really fast relative to other metroid games.
didn't have time to finish but i had a good time. Even on Very Hard the combat still felt too easy though? Maybe I overrelied on the stunning weapons. fun and fast paced though. story was kind of hit or miss, had a fun 3D cartoon movie vibe at the best parts, and felt kinda tired/played out at the worst parts.
1998
played the japanese version. still 5 stars. the way it imagines 3D landscapes for a classic RPG story is really nice. yes the battle systems are broken but that's okay. Really wish we saw more JRPGs of this scale/style
1990
Update after finishing: except for a few interesting plot twists, the gameplay remained the same. A few dungeons had you needing to escape a bit to not run out of heals, but it never got intense enough that I had to run. (And more grinding was always the answer)
The stat curve balloons bizarrely near the end- you go from like 1000 to 3000 hp in a few levels.
Curious about the 2nd now!
---
Haven't finished but I don't think my opinion will change much:
This is the first installment of a bigger series. Apparently this first game is pretty bad (according to the fan translator), I would have to agree.
You play the role of a... Japanese person... who also has powers to transform into an Oni/demon. To discover your power, you travel between different islands (set in Japan, although it's often unclear where you are at any time) and explore dungeons/towns, alone, Dragon Quest 1-style.
I think this game was rushed. Every village looks exactly the same, stores aren't labeled, it's possible to overlook entire towns (and sets of armor). Often entire villages will be murdered or die but the shopkeepers will still be there speaking normally.
The progression between continents is strange, completing a key task (getting a ship) will actually just instantly warp you from one continent to the next. There's no world map.
The writing is sort of funny - villages are plagued by pretty straightforward tropey occurrences - demons requiring sacrifices, kappa or tanuki gangs threatening villages, demons impersonating others... you'll go up into mountains or into caves to look for stones to let yourself transform. NPCs seem to be sort of exasperated about their lives ("I hate farming!") or ("The taxes are so high!") . It's a little amusing, but there's not much depth there.
I liked the enemy sprites. The battle system is fairly flat so far. The one on one combat hasn't felt interesting yet - pretty much it's always healing every other turn and making sure you have enough attack power to take down the boss. You get a wide variety of spells but they don't seem to do much more damage than your sword.
One interesting idea is the ability to transform into... an Oni form? I'm not sure, but you get this cool suit of armor. However, it makes your attacks like 50% weaker, although you gain a huge boost in defense. It reminds me of Lightning Returns' costumes system, except... extremely minimal and clunky, haha. No battles have required using this to any interesting extent. You get access to some powerful spells, though, but even that hasn't been used too much.
You can only save at towns (which costs 5 gold, always, for some reason), and dungeons are fairly boring/repetitive as you're always choosing Attack and fighting one of three enemies, so not using save states in this game seems like it'd be frustrating and rough, if one were to die to the boss.
--
Overall, definitely feels rushed. Historically amusing but not that great of a game. Curious about the later installments.
The stat curve balloons bizarrely near the end- you go from like 1000 to 3000 hp in a few levels.
Curious about the 2nd now!
---
Haven't finished but I don't think my opinion will change much:
This is the first installment of a bigger series. Apparently this first game is pretty bad (according to the fan translator), I would have to agree.
You play the role of a... Japanese person... who also has powers to transform into an Oni/demon. To discover your power, you travel between different islands (set in Japan, although it's often unclear where you are at any time) and explore dungeons/towns, alone, Dragon Quest 1-style.
I think this game was rushed. Every village looks exactly the same, stores aren't labeled, it's possible to overlook entire towns (and sets of armor). Often entire villages will be murdered or die but the shopkeepers will still be there speaking normally.
The progression between continents is strange, completing a key task (getting a ship) will actually just instantly warp you from one continent to the next. There's no world map.
The writing is sort of funny - villages are plagued by pretty straightforward tropey occurrences - demons requiring sacrifices, kappa or tanuki gangs threatening villages, demons impersonating others... you'll go up into mountains or into caves to look for stones to let yourself transform. NPCs seem to be sort of exasperated about their lives ("I hate farming!") or ("The taxes are so high!") . It's a little amusing, but there's not much depth there.
I liked the enemy sprites. The battle system is fairly flat so far. The one on one combat hasn't felt interesting yet - pretty much it's always healing every other turn and making sure you have enough attack power to take down the boss. You get a wide variety of spells but they don't seem to do much more damage than your sword.
One interesting idea is the ability to transform into... an Oni form? I'm not sure, but you get this cool suit of armor. However, it makes your attacks like 50% weaker, although you gain a huge boost in defense. It reminds me of Lightning Returns' costumes system, except... extremely minimal and clunky, haha. No battles have required using this to any interesting extent. You get access to some powerful spells, though, but even that hasn't been used too much.
You can only save at towns (which costs 5 gold, always, for some reason), and dungeons are fairly boring/repetitive as you're always choosing Attack and fighting one of three enemies, so not using save states in this game seems like it'd be frustrating and rough, if one were to die to the boss.
--
Overall, definitely feels rushed. Historically amusing but not that great of a game. Curious about the later installments.
1999
Very nice art and some funny humor with the useless crafting results. Remarkably hard to progress in without a guide - you have to craft stuff like torches to make your way further into the game, but it's often unclear what exactly needs to be combined. The process is often trial-and-error, and worse, you can craft a useless item like a baseball bat, which makes you lose the items...
The loop of the game involves managing hunger, thirst, health and fatigue. It's quite perfunctory to manage most of these. Thirst is extremely boring: you can fill a water bottle 3 times or drink from a river. Hunger is not much more interesting: you either have to grind for a piece of meat, then grill it, or eat berries. Fatigue limits how much you can explore to a few minutes, unless you have berries.
I didn't find balancing any of this to be very exciting or fun to manage, most of the time I was cutting my exploration short by having to attend to a system. And then there's health, where you get murdered instantly by night pigs or something.
I'm not very experienced with the survival genre but this doesn't seem to be a great representative of it!
On the plus side though, the general progression of the game is a nice, cute adventure game. Finding the 7 shape gems to restore some magic ship, and apparently there's a dating-esque part to the game where you find another kid? I didn't get there yet.
The loop of the game involves managing hunger, thirst, health and fatigue. It's quite perfunctory to manage most of these. Thirst is extremely boring: you can fill a water bottle 3 times or drink from a river. Hunger is not much more interesting: you either have to grind for a piece of meat, then grill it, or eat berries. Fatigue limits how much you can explore to a few minutes, unless you have berries.
I didn't find balancing any of this to be very exciting or fun to manage, most of the time I was cutting my exploration short by having to attend to a system. And then there's health, where you get murdered instantly by night pigs or something.
I'm not very experienced with the survival genre but this doesn't seem to be a great representative of it!
On the plus side though, the general progression of the game is a nice, cute adventure game. Finding the 7 shape gems to restore some magic ship, and apparently there's a dating-esque part to the game where you find another kid? I didn't get there yet.
EDIT: (See bottom. Finished the post-game)
--
Finished the first playthrough. There's a lot of extra story stuff in the 2nd playthrough, so I want to do that at some point.
Overall this is a pretty brilliant and personable feeling children's adventure game. You live in a place called Color town - which is a 3x3 grid of different villages, with separate themes: "Old Japan", "Modern Japan", "Future", Desert, Downtown, Jungle, etc. In order to have the carnival, the town needs a lot of power, so it needs 8 stars - which you have to get from the dieties at each of the 8 towns' shrines. To get the stars you need to give them their desired offerings (a red hat, a laptop, etc), and finding those items is the meat of the gameplay.
Finding the items involves meeting shopkeepers, doing simple minigames or tasks, and exploring the townsfolk's home pages, sometimes looking for clues on who to give what item, or how to do something (e.g. there's a minigame where you need to cook a dessert, so you need to do some reasoning to find a recipe for it in the game's internet).
Exploring characters' home pages is pretty fun - they link to each other's, so you can see who's friends with who. People even have little blogs, so you get a sense of their humor, quirks, personality in a rich but succinctly stated way.
Every NPC in the game (about 70 in the first playthrough, and about 50 more in the 2nd) can be invited to the carnival - sometimes through just speaking to them, or by doing other things first (often bringing an item, or clearing some other condition). Since every NPC is named and has a unique design, it's actually manageable to faintly remember each person's job or role.
I loved the little stores and shops - you can't buy stuff, but you get a sense of the types of places in a 70s-90s-inspired japan. Dagashi stores, shoe stores, libraries, tailors, fireworks, bakeries, etc.
Anyways I love the scope of the game - the first playthrough took me about 8-10 hours, which is a reasonable length. Some repetition does set in by the end (e.g. in each of the 8 towns you need to answer a 5-question quiz about the town in order to get the golden star - which can be kind of cute at first but eventually feels repetitive), and there start to be a lack of any interesting item puzzles, but for the most part it's a strong game, and it's fun to just poke around and read the webpages. Or to receive e-mails or BBS requests from people.
The 2nd playthrough involves a lot more puzzles relating to the webpages (e.g. finding hidden links, solving quizzes), so I'm curious about that.
--
Other than that... the game features a lot of "Monpi", these monster/object humanoids. E.g. a talking eggplant. They're quite quirky and represent maybe a relation to the lives of inanimate objects? There's some 'lore' to the world of Uki-Uki regarding these natural ecosystems outside the borders of the town you never visit. Like a lush jungle, or a mountain range with no humans, or a desert that was once an ocean. They're not the focus of the game, but they give this simple depth of fantasy to the game's atmosphere that's appreciated. In some ways, the 2nd playthrough of the game can be seen as trying to 'mix' this inaccessible world of the Monpi with that of the humans.
Finally, this game was directed by Noriko Miura, older sister of famous manga artist Sakura Momoko. I wonder what she's up to now! Seems like she didn't do any games after this, unfortunately, although the studio, indieszero, did go on to make some cool games (electroplankton, sennen kazoku).
Makes me pine a bit for this era of Nintendo games, where around 40 people would make a short and unique game. Oh well!
----
POST-GAME ADDENDUM
The post-game is a fairly different-feeling experience. What happens story-wise is that you are chosen, once again, as the carnival organizer. This time though the goal is to have a night carnival! Luckily everyone you invited last time is still up for it. What happens this time around are the following:
- Under-construction webpages of monpi are now open, and thus there are a couple dozen more monpi you can invite
- There are more monpi to chat with (chat works by choosing between two conversation options until you manage to invite the monpi - it's fairly trial and error to pick the right choices)
- Various new events are triggered once you've invited the correct monpi.
- These new events include interesting things like: visiting the "hidden sides" of the towns' webpages to find clues that will open up a storeroom under a statue (Which gives you confetti for the fireworks lol)
- Finding a hidden maze underneath a "stone circle" in the town square. Here you meet a queen who allows the carnival to happen at night. There's a (simple) mystery hunt to open up this area involving angel NPCs and new links on monpi's webpages
- You start to get deliveries from Monpi, which can be used in small quests. Likewise, a big sidequest involves collecting candy box stickers to mail in for prizes.
- You're free to explore all 8 towns from the start.
Despite some of the events and the newness of some monpi webpages, it's more repetitive than the first playthrough. Because you don't have the discovery of new shops and towns to balance out the simple quests, you're pretty much doing simple fetch quests in between meticulously sweeping the web for monpi pages.
The monpi have an assortment of webpage-based minigames to play - they're often luck based, stuff like, "Simple Blackjack" or solving a timed maze, or a sliding tile puzzle. There are some that even require coming back on multiple days, like planting and watering a seed. The worst require massive amounts of luck (winning blackjack 5 times in a row) while allowing you only one try per in-game-day, meaning they're missable.
Overall it's something I think I'd have liked as a kid, but I really was just grinding by the end for the sake of it.
In the end though, you're greeted with an even livelier carnival than the first round! That was kind of neat.
--
Finished the first playthrough. There's a lot of extra story stuff in the 2nd playthrough, so I want to do that at some point.
Overall this is a pretty brilliant and personable feeling children's adventure game. You live in a place called Color town - which is a 3x3 grid of different villages, with separate themes: "Old Japan", "Modern Japan", "Future", Desert, Downtown, Jungle, etc. In order to have the carnival, the town needs a lot of power, so it needs 8 stars - which you have to get from the dieties at each of the 8 towns' shrines. To get the stars you need to give them their desired offerings (a red hat, a laptop, etc), and finding those items is the meat of the gameplay.
Finding the items involves meeting shopkeepers, doing simple minigames or tasks, and exploring the townsfolk's home pages, sometimes looking for clues on who to give what item, or how to do something (e.g. there's a minigame where you need to cook a dessert, so you need to do some reasoning to find a recipe for it in the game's internet).
Exploring characters' home pages is pretty fun - they link to each other's, so you can see who's friends with who. People even have little blogs, so you get a sense of their humor, quirks, personality in a rich but succinctly stated way.
Every NPC in the game (about 70 in the first playthrough, and about 50 more in the 2nd) can be invited to the carnival - sometimes through just speaking to them, or by doing other things first (often bringing an item, or clearing some other condition). Since every NPC is named and has a unique design, it's actually manageable to faintly remember each person's job or role.
I loved the little stores and shops - you can't buy stuff, but you get a sense of the types of places in a 70s-90s-inspired japan. Dagashi stores, shoe stores, libraries, tailors, fireworks, bakeries, etc.
Anyways I love the scope of the game - the first playthrough took me about 8-10 hours, which is a reasonable length. Some repetition does set in by the end (e.g. in each of the 8 towns you need to answer a 5-question quiz about the town in order to get the golden star - which can be kind of cute at first but eventually feels repetitive), and there start to be a lack of any interesting item puzzles, but for the most part it's a strong game, and it's fun to just poke around and read the webpages. Or to receive e-mails or BBS requests from people.
The 2nd playthrough involves a lot more puzzles relating to the webpages (e.g. finding hidden links, solving quizzes), so I'm curious about that.
--
Other than that... the game features a lot of "Monpi", these monster/object humanoids. E.g. a talking eggplant. They're quite quirky and represent maybe a relation to the lives of inanimate objects? There's some 'lore' to the world of Uki-Uki regarding these natural ecosystems outside the borders of the town you never visit. Like a lush jungle, or a mountain range with no humans, or a desert that was once an ocean. They're not the focus of the game, but they give this simple depth of fantasy to the game's atmosphere that's appreciated. In some ways, the 2nd playthrough of the game can be seen as trying to 'mix' this inaccessible world of the Monpi with that of the humans.
Finally, this game was directed by Noriko Miura, older sister of famous manga artist Sakura Momoko. I wonder what she's up to now! Seems like she didn't do any games after this, unfortunately, although the studio, indieszero, did go on to make some cool games (electroplankton, sennen kazoku).
Makes me pine a bit for this era of Nintendo games, where around 40 people would make a short and unique game. Oh well!
----
POST-GAME ADDENDUM
The post-game is a fairly different-feeling experience. What happens story-wise is that you are chosen, once again, as the carnival organizer. This time though the goal is to have a night carnival! Luckily everyone you invited last time is still up for it. What happens this time around are the following:
- Under-construction webpages of monpi are now open, and thus there are a couple dozen more monpi you can invite
- There are more monpi to chat with (chat works by choosing between two conversation options until you manage to invite the monpi - it's fairly trial and error to pick the right choices)
- Various new events are triggered once you've invited the correct monpi.
- These new events include interesting things like: visiting the "hidden sides" of the towns' webpages to find clues that will open up a storeroom under a statue (Which gives you confetti for the fireworks lol)
- Finding a hidden maze underneath a "stone circle" in the town square. Here you meet a queen who allows the carnival to happen at night. There's a (simple) mystery hunt to open up this area involving angel NPCs and new links on monpi's webpages
- You start to get deliveries from Monpi, which can be used in small quests. Likewise, a big sidequest involves collecting candy box stickers to mail in for prizes.
- You're free to explore all 8 towns from the start.
Despite some of the events and the newness of some monpi webpages, it's more repetitive than the first playthrough. Because you don't have the discovery of new shops and towns to balance out the simple quests, you're pretty much doing simple fetch quests in between meticulously sweeping the web for monpi pages.
The monpi have an assortment of webpage-based minigames to play - they're often luck based, stuff like, "Simple Blackjack" or solving a timed maze, or a sliding tile puzzle. There are some that even require coming back on multiple days, like planting and watering a seed. The worst require massive amounts of luck (winning blackjack 5 times in a row) while allowing you only one try per in-game-day, meaning they're missable.
Overall it's something I think I'd have liked as a kid, but I really was just grinding by the end for the sake of it.
In the end though, you're greeted with an even livelier carnival than the first round! That was kind of neat.
One of the earliest Korean MMOs, some of the devs who would go on to work on Maple Story.
I never played this as a kid but played for a few hours recently to see what was up. The English localization was surprisingly good, the game, of course, fairly simplistic and awkward to get around. The UI is like.. proto-maple-story which is interesting. Very calming, acoustic soundtrack, historically-researched setting that I didn't get much into (the game feels a bit impenetrable... I picked the healer class by accident and of course, have no intent on figuring out how to party, so quit immediately).
Also has a charming pixel art style when people were still figuring things out - strangely realistic rabbits combined with these cartoony people and realistic architecture.
I never played this as a kid but played for a few hours recently to see what was up. The English localization was surprisingly good, the game, of course, fairly simplistic and awkward to get around. The UI is like.. proto-maple-story which is interesting. Very calming, acoustic soundtrack, historically-researched setting that I didn't get much into (the game feels a bit impenetrable... I picked the healer class by accident and of course, have no intent on figuring out how to party, so quit immediately).
Also has a charming pixel art style when people were still figuring things out - strangely realistic rabbits combined with these cartoony people and realistic architecture.
2005
i once found god in this game
i played it again as an adult and god was gone
i played it again as an adult and god was gone