Fallout 1 (PC)

Look at that Windows 95 logo. Just look at it! Then look at that Mature Rating.

 In 2077 the world was plunged into a wave of nuclear fire. A 2 hour barrage of non-stop nuclear weapon launching left the world an irradiated wreckage. Humanity endured in small part to a series of underground vaults that were constructed with the purpose of saving people– well except for all those experimental vaults that destroyed their denizens in a myriad of terrible ways. It’s 2161 now and Vault 13’s water purification chip has unceremoniously died and if they’ve elected YOU to go get a replacement somehow. You have 150 in-game days to find a water chip and return it to the Vault but surviving in the wasteland will prove more difficult than the search.

I like how the starting equipment matches this image. You’ve got a small pistol and a knife, go kill some giant scorpions.

 

History

Fallout was developed by Interplay Entertainment, it was meant to be a successor to the apocalypse themed game Wasteland. Interplay couldn’t get the rights to the Wasteland name so Interplay’s boss, Brian Fargo, named it Fallout instead. A team of 30 pumped this game out in 2 years with 3 million dollars to burn. The opening music was supposed to be “I Don’t Want to set the World on Fire,” but a copyright claim had it changed to “Maybe” instead. Eleven years later, “I Don’t Want to set the World on Fire” would grace our ears as Fallout 3’s opening tune.

Producer, Tim Cain, pictured here programming the whole engine of Fallout 1 himself. That bag on his head is magical because he performed this feat in a mere 6 months.

The game was supposed to have complicated moral dilemmas, working with the sheriff to kill a crime boss sends the sheriff on a head trip but killing the sheriff fills the crime boss with enough regret that he reforms– I think that’s really cool and if the game dropped enough clues to these men’s true natures it could have been a really compelling turn of events– but we got sort of simple moral choices instead. There’s no easy way to put it, but this game was one of the first that allowed, but heavily discouraged– seriously, some NPCs won’t even talk to the player if tale of this heinous deed reaches them– the player to kill children. This lead to heavy and buggy censorship in foreign releases, the children’s sprites were just made invisible. They’re dialogue still hangs in the air and they can still be killed, invisibly leaving no gore, with an errant grenade or other explosives.

The game gives you a “perk” that calls you objectively evil (twice!) for killing children. Good on you, game.

Fun Fact: Fallout was originally supposed to use the Generic Use Role-Playing System– or GURPS for short– rule set but Steve Jackson Games was so repulsed by the levels of violence and gore in the game that they refused to license their system for it.

Fallout was released on September 30th, 1997. It was going up against Hexen II (PC), Grand Theft Auto (PC, PS1), and Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II– that’s a mouthful– (PC). I guess it was just a time for violent videogames.

Nostalgia

Have any of you ever played a game that seemed like a game you played when you were a kid? I swear that I played Fallout when I was super young, too young to figure out what was going on or even how to play. I remember walking around in a wasteland town but that could have been any game that takes place in a dusty town. I probably didn’t play it at all actually. And why is it even important whether I did or not? Maybe I want to feel like I was part of the history, playing a game before it was classic. Maybe I just want to clarify the memory. Or maybe I need to accept that I might have dreamt it when I was 20 and that it doesn’t matter. I’m gonna go with option 3 and move on to the Gameplay section.

But it seems so familiar! Like every other dusty saloon in every other isometric game.

Gameplay

The main quest of the game is to get the water chip for Vault 13 so the player will have to do a lot of investigating and do a lot of travelling. An interesting point is that you can ask special NPCs about certain topics which requires you to actually type out the term you want to ask about. So, pay attention, it could lead to important information that’s NECESSARY to beat the game.

The wasteland is a dangerous place filled with raiders, mutant animals, mutant people, other mutant people, and mutant mutants– did mutant stop being a word for you too– so your character had also be really good at killing things unless he or she wants to end up on the menu for some mutant mutant. And I mean really good at killing dudes because you’ll typically be outnumbered, outgunned, or be facing an 8 foot tall beclawed monstrosity.

Or whatever this thing is.

The player enters combat automatically when he approaches an enemy or concludes dialogue that would lead to a conflict. The combat is turn based in which each character has a set number of action points determined by their perks and agility. Certain weapons and attacks cost variable action points so smaller weapons can get fired more in a turn as opposed to that honkin’ sniper rifle that takes 8 action points to fire. Moving, reloading, and opening your inventory also cost action points.

Check out this character sheet! I know that having a higher skill percentage is better but I don’t know what the actually difference between 50 and 52 small guns is.

The game’s attributes effect your skills starting values and you tag 3 skills which get a 15% boost and level up twice as much when skill points are spent on them. Strength also effects your character weight carry limit and melee damage, Perception effects a lot of skills and effects how close enemies start in random encounters, Endurance effects a few skills and gives the player more health, Charisma increases Barter and Speech and allows the player to recruit more companions, Intelligence effects a bunch of skills and gives the player more skill points to spend at level up, Agility increases the amount of action points and when they act in a turn, and Luck effects all skills a little bit and increases the players critical hit ratio– luck also increases the chance of finding beneficial random encounters on the map.

LIKE FINDING THE TARDIS!

The Gush

There is stuff everywhere in this game. There are computer terminals with lore and lockers filled with items.

Just about every skill is useful– I’m looking at you Traps skill, YOU’RE ON THIN ICE!

There are traits that give the player useful attributes that come with penalties so you can customize your character in such a way that suits your play-style.

The claymation and voice acting for this game is really good. The claymation heads show a lot of emotional range, even if it’s a little simple as does the voice acting.

You can also use the Vault Assisted Targeting System– VATS for short–  to aim at particular areas to hinder your opponents.

This can prove to be really useful, blinding opponents or making it impossible for them to use larger weapons.

Did I mention the simple fact that this game has…

…UFOS!?

The world feels appropriately desolate. It will feel like you’re wandering around a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Kvetch

The camera lacks a zoom so it’s difficult to see small objects on the ground. If you drop a grenade in a cave it’s basically lost forever.

This game is unpleasantly difficult. I’ve started combats in which the first turn is just me taking three times my maximum health in damage and getting blown away. I guess I walked into the wrong neighborhood.

Time for a rant. You only have 150 days to get the water chip and if you fail it’s game over. I saved my game with 12 hours of play with only 10 days left on the clock to find the chip. Long story short, I was super far from where it was because I got a lot of lost. I didn’t have multiple saves so that save was just doomed. There was no way to salvage it and no way to get the water chip in 10 days so it was just in an infinite game over cycle. Veterans of this era in gaming would call me a fool for not having multiple saves for one character but I was indeed a fool… and I wasted 12 hours… so that’s “fun”.

It seems like 150 days is more than enough time but only if you spend all your time looking for that chip. Side questing has to be kept to a minimum. It’s all about getting that XP and those clues until you get the water. At least that was my experience– and it was a really stressful one.

It’s really easy to break the game, sort of. If your gambling skill and luck are high enough then you’ll never lose a gambling game, this gives the character a theoretically infinite amount of currency if they’re willing to mash some buttons for awhile. That being said, all the money in the world won’t buy you enough to live. No matter how many stimpacks you have it never seems like it’s enough.

The Verdict

It’s unfair to judge a game based on its sequels. This game was incredible for the time but I’ve been so spoiled by modern gaming that I found it to be un-fun levels of hard. I’d say that I’m playing it wrong but I looked up character building guides, quest completion guides, and full spoilers for wear to find the water chip but I still couldn’t get my shit in order enough to fight Super Mutants. If it’s the only game you’re going to play all year then it definitely has the content to support that through all the deaths. But there are so many games now that it’s unreasonable to ask for such a commitment from the player.

Bottom line, play this before you play any of the other Fallout games if you want to really enjoy it, however unlikely that is to happen. If you’ve already played Fallout 3 or New Vegas and still want to play the classics then go ahead, it’s fun just to experience the past. But if you want to play a classic that’s better designed then I recommend skipping to Fallout 2.

Next Week: Chrono Trigger

Final Fantasy VI (SNES)

The top image is the japanese box art and the bottom image is the US box art. Did we ever get shafted.

Introduction

1000 years ago civilization as we know it was nearly wiped from the face of the world in a conflict known as the War of the Magi. Humans and beings knows as Espers wielded magic in countless battles. Humanity had to rediscover the power of steam and the most basic of industrial technologies. The Empire– it’s seriously just the empire? Whatever, just remember kids empires are evil and kingdoms are good!– has rediscovered Magic now and is gathering power at breakneck speed. You take the roll of a group of 14 exceptional individuals that have gathered from the disparate corners of the world– even the Empire itself– to fight the Empire.

Whatever you like, this game has a character for you. It’s got 2 kids, an androgynous mime, a yeti, and a samurai–  if you want it, they got it.

History

I bet I know what all y’all are thinking right now, “If the game is final fantasy 6 then why does the box have a roman numeral three on it?” Good question with a simple answer. Final fantasy 2, 3, and 5 weren’t released in the US. Final Fantasy 4 was the second Final Fantasy game that was released in the US so they marketed it as Final Fantasy 2 to avoid confusion– which would eventually create the confusion you’re feeling now, presumably. So when Final Fantasy 6 came out in the US they called it three to continue the trend. So that’s why it’s VI on the Japanese box and III on the US. With that out of the way, let’s talk about some other stuff!

This is the first game in the series that series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi was not intimately involved with, or at least not as involved as he wanted to be. Different characters were designed by different developers and it makes the game piecemeal but in a good way. They took the elements that they liked and turned them into wonderful quilt of a game. The game has no clear protagonist and I believe this large combined effort is the cause.

Fun Fact: This game was developed in a year– that’s just insane to me.

This game was released in the US on October 20th 1994. It’s competition was Sonic and Knuckles (Sega Genesis), Warcraft (PC), and Donkey Kong Country (SNES).

Nostalgia

Video Game rental stores– they were illegal in Japan and I can see why. Lemme just say that my family was super poor for awhile — they eventually started paying me in videogames for my good grades. In the meantime we would rent games because we couldn’t afford to purchase them. It was 7 dollars for 5 days. Now, that’s fine for a game that you can beat in 5 days but Final Fantasy VI requires an attention span that a 12 year old just can’t sustain in order to beat it in so short a time. I would rent it time and time again just to play through the first few hours because my save file would always get overwritten by the time I could get it back. Oh… damn… I should have written this section on limited save files– I am the worst blogger. God, I would play on a higher leveled save file and I couldn’t understand what was going on because I didn’t know the plot and I would feel bad for messing with someone’s game.

Bottom line, if we had saved the money we spent renting this thing over and over again without getting anywhere we could have bought it. It was a scam renting this game out pure and simple.

I’ll see you in hell.

Gameplay

As is usually the fair in Final Fantasy games there’s the plot and some combat, and ne’er the twain shall meet. The plot is rife with spoilers and learning as the story unfolds is most of the enjoyment so I’ll just talk about the basics. The world is split between free states and the Empire– I’m still harping on it for being just THE Empire. (This just in: It’s actually called the Gestahlan Empire. Named after it’s emperor, Gestahl.) The Empire is centrally located on one continent and the free states are divided and not militaristic so they’re having a hard time repelling the Empire, especially since the Empire discovered Magic and Magi-tek– Oh man, it’s like Magic and Technology put together! I just like the word, it rolls of the tongue — if the tongue was an assembly line. People from all the free states have banded together to form a group called the Returners, who are going to fight the Empire. I never understood why they were called the Returners. What are they returning from– are they saying not to call it comeback because they never left? I dunno, it’s a cool name but I don’t understand why they use it.

This world is filled with people who are willing to fight the Empire, some may need a push but they’re more than able. These people are Terra, the enigmatic woman who has been brainwashed by the empire and forced to use her natural magic powers to kill innocents– by the way, that natural magic thing is really important. Locke, a pure-hearted thief– I mean treasure hunter– who works for the Returners. Edgar, the flirtatious king of Figaro who appears to help the Empire but really colludes with the Returners. Sabin, Edgar’s twin brother who abdicated the throne in order to follow his dreams of becoming a martial artist. Cyan, an honorable samurai in the service of the Kingdom of Doma. Gau, a feral child who has survived the harshest wilderness in the world. Celes, a tomboy general for the Empire who is considering defection. Setzer, a gambling free spirit and pilot of the world’s only airship. Shadow– very original guys– a taciturn ninja who works for the highest bidder. Relm, a peppy young girl who can bring her drawings to life for a short while. She lives with her grandfather Strago, who can keep up with his granddaughter and has learned the ways of many monsters. Mog, the urbanite moogle whose dances can summon the forces of the world. That’s 12 characters! And it’s not including the 2 secret characters.

Look at all these guys!

Each character has different abilities that they can employ in combat. I find it super fun to find combinations of characters that compliment each other very well. Characters can attack as well as cast spells– did I say cast spells? I meant to say that magic is dead… dead forever… yup… forever.

The music in this game is some of the best for the Super Nintendo. It was composed by Nobuo Uematsu so you know it’s good– if you know who that guy is, I mean.

This music is so notable that there is an entire album devoted to remixing it. It’s called Balance and Ruin and I highly suggest checking it out.

The art and animation for this game is shockingly good for the time. Characters had more mobility than ever — They were able to blink, man! They could raise there arms and could move around out of pixel alignment which allowed them to express things that couldn’t be expressed in previous games. The animations of magic are also really satisfying, it looks like these enemies are getting messed up.

It might not look like much now but it was revolutionary at the time.

The Gush

Sabin suplexes a train, you heard me. Sabin can suplex a train, check it.

This could be the whole section, but I guess I should say more.

 

The villain’s motivation is wonderfully simple. There’s nothing wrong with crazy being a character’s motivation especially when they have so much character behind it. I also rate him as one of the greatest villains of all time just because of the sheer amount of havoc and death he causes. He also rates as one of the most glamour filled final fights in game history. His boss fight has 4 stages. These aren’t multiple forms mind you, this guy’s just got 3 waves of minions to fight before you even face him. And to top it all off, the music is fucking wonderful.

I’m just going to say it again, but the art for this game is beautiful.

Just take a look at this image. That’s the Imperial capital and you’re going to infiltrate it with that airship. How small, defenseless, and exposed do you feel right now? They’ve got you beaten dead to rights, if that searchlight hits you that airship is getting shot down. They out-man, out-gun, and over-power you in every single way. And if you don’t defeat them then no one will– that’s some Lord of the Rings stuff right there. Good luck.

The sketches are just jaw-dropping.

Is anyone ready to be a Samurai yet?

Or maybe a ninja? Whichever you choose, you win.

There are 14 characters in this game and it never feels like any of them are being shortchanged. By the end ten of them get closure to their personal stories. The game was designed to have no protagonist and it gives the player the opportunity to pick their own.

If you asked me to pick a favorite character I wouldn’t be able to. Every time I choose one I immediately think of a reason to pick someone else. I want to choose Shadow because he’s got a mysterious past that we get to piece together but then I remember some spoilery things that happens with Locke but then my mind turns to Relm’s spunky attitude and it never ends! They’re all just so goddam compelling.

You know what’s awesome!? Dogs! Shadow’s got a dog. It takes hits for him and dishes out the pain. It’s something small, but it gives him so much character and life. The dog’s name is Interceptor and he “eats strangers,” if that’s not cool I dunno what is.

This game runs the gamut of emotions. I cried, I cheered, I laughed– did I mention that this game can be really funny. And it’s not just the translation, but that doesn’t hurt it.

Mistranslation or non-sequitor? You decide.

This game has serious choices with serious consequences. I’m not going to spoil it but just remember, leave no man behind.

The Kvetch

Do you remember that part where I said you could pick your protagonist? Well sometimes the game chooses which characters you have to play and that can rob you of your protagonist…ness. But hey, you’re favorite guy or gal is probably busy doing something else in another location– certainly something really awesome — while these guys also do something important.

This game is really buggy. Thankfully most of the bugs are so obscure that you’re unlikely to find them but some are just game changing. The evade stat doesn’t work, you heard me. You evade attacks based on your Magic Block stat, not the evade stat. In addition, the dark status effect doesn’t do anything. Try blinding an enemy? It has no effect. Then again it doesn’t effect you either so it’s not all bad. Then again, the dark status effect indicator makes it look like you’re character is wearing sunglasses so…

Certain spell combinations can break the game, enabling the player to defeat all enemies in two casts with the exception of some bosses. Some would say this is a plus but I disagree.

This game can be a completionist’s nightmare. There are a lot of segments that are points of no return with sweet loot behind you. Some abilities can only be acquired in certain parts of the game and are LOST FOREVER if you don’t get them. Certain scenes only trigger in mutually exclusive circumstances, so if you did A and not B then something happens but you can only see the other thing if you restart the game and then do B and not A.

Get your strategy guide kids because there are secrets hidden in senseless places all over this game. It wouldn’t be so bad but some of them are only available the first time you enter the room and that just seems unfair.

The Verdict

It might come as a shock to you, dear reader, but I fucking love this game. I still play through it once a year. I don’t feel nostalgia blinded by this game, I feel nostalgia enriched. When I got the full version and could stop renting it my world was splite between high school homework and this game for 2 weeks until I beat it. I personally think it’s the best in the series. Agree? Disagree? Hash it out in the comments.

Next Week: Fallout 1

Seven Kingdoms (PC)

Introduction

There have been many cultures in the world but this game only cares about seven of them– ten in the expansion patch. Your kingdom begins small, your king and 40 villagers but your empire will grow. Make treaties, research weapons of war, then build said weapons– that would be the next logical point, train armies, fight monsters– wait what happened the historical accuracy thing we had going?

History

Seven Kingdoms was developed by Enlight Software with a team of Trevor Chan– who’s name merits being on the front of the game box. That’s top billing for someone that was doing consulting for programming of airline sales systems. Actually, that sounds shockingly complex. As far as I can tell he was the only designer for this game, but obviously not the only programmer. Enlight Software would go on to publish another of Chan’s games, Capitalism.

Fun Fact: It’s one of the few games from the 90s that was made to be Linux compatible.

Seven Kingdoms was released on November 30th, 1997. It released alongside Total Annihilation (PC), Fallout (PC), Diddy Kong Racing (Nintendo 64), and Megaman Legends (PS1).

Nostalgia

This is the first game that I ever beat on the highest difficulty setting. It was a harrowing gamble with enemies on all sides. I relied on manpower to supply my military but researched weapons of war and sold them to the highest bidders. Soon, my enemies turned on each other with vast armies made of machines. When there was only one left standing the tax on his coffers lead his weapons and kingdom into disrepair. He killed so many civilians that his people despised him. The rampant rebellions left his army without food and when the dust settled there was nothing left of him. Conquer? I have people to do that for me.

Something like this but with less cohesion. There were little pockets of encroaching people all over.

 

Gameplay

The beginning of the end. Watch that reputation plummet.

Unlike other strategy games of the time this game is not about resource management. The only resources are money, food, and reputation. Food is produced by villagers that don’t have other jobs, money is produced by taxing villages and mining and selling resources that are randomly placed on the map, and reputation is gained slowly over time and by killing monsters and lost by breaking treaties, killing civilians, and getting your spies caught. Low reputations can cause rebellions which lead to more civilians getting killed– which creates a viscous cycle of civilian death and reputation loss.

The seven kingdoms are the Normans, Greeks, Japanese, Vikings, Chinese, Mayans, and Persians and Deadly Adversaries introduces the Egyptians, Mughuls, and Zulus– all other civilizations go home. Each of these civilizations has their own stats and gain combat abilities as their combat score gets higher. Some races have shields that can protect them from ranged attacks, some races have ranged attacks, some unlock berzerker attacks that do intense amounts of damage, some attack quickly or start with higher damage than others. They feel really different from each other and I think that’s interesting.

So many people to destroy, so little time.

The kingdoms also interact differently with each other, each kingdom is more agreeable to its own. If you want to take over a Mughul village you’d best send a Mughul general to convince them to join.

The monsters on the map come in over 20 varieties with slightly different stats. The design of these monsters are really cool. Some are the basic giant rock people, rat people, and skeletons. But some are weird reptilian creatures.

Look at these guys. They’re man things with giant whip arms. What more could you want?

This game has a really in depth espionage system. You can bribe other people, steal technology, start wars, create unrest, assassinate generals, and claim forts out from under enemy noses. Unfortunately it’s handicapped by a weird AI bug– at least I think it’s a bug. Most of the time when you send a spy into an enemy kingdom they get found out immediately. So, the system is really interesting even though it’s just working against you. The AI will send scores and scores of spies at you and most of them will fail in their missions.

I assume those are friendly counterspies otherwise I call shenanigans.

Maps can have different goals. You can destroy all kingdoms or see who can get an economic score of 1000 the highest. Set a time limit, how many kingdoms there are, how many independent villages there are and how resilient they are to attack.

The Gush

I mentioned the Fryhtans before but I’ll mention them again. Their designs are just so cool. I used to use them as monsters in my dungeons and dragon’s campaigns, I don’t know why I stopped. They also create more lairs. I spent one game destroying my enemies and seeing how many fryhtans it would take to overwhelm me.

There’s something mindlessly fun about setting the game to the highest speed setting and just waiting to see what happens, hoping that you can slow it down in time to deal with whatever issue comes up.

Even if you get eliminated you can keep the game going to see how the rest of the campaign unfolds. You can also interfere with certain activities but it might cause the game to crash.

The cheats in this game are so fun. Turning the enemy civilization into a melting pot by adding different races to his villages causing revolt is silly fun.

The Kvetch

It’s just so annoying that the touted espionage system doesn’t seem to work. The sequel doesn’t have the instant elimination problem so you actually get to play with the system. But that’s the sequel not this game– the sequel that came out 11 years after the original.

The naval mechanics in this game are needlessly complex. Performing sea trade or getting men across oceans are giant hassles. I usually play on large land masses to counter this.

You see that little fort and village on the other side of the ocean. It can rot for all I care.

The game AI isn’t spectacular. Sometimes your soldiers won’t react to enemy units until they’re uncomfortably close. Unless your units have ranged attacks which creates a dominant strategy for units with range.

The Verdict

This game holds up surprisingly well if your machine can run it. It’s also abandonware so it’s free. Sometimes it gets a little micromanaging heavy but I can wholeheartedly recommend it.

Next Week: Final Fantasy VI

Lords of Magic (PC)

Introduction

The world of Urak is one divided between eight faiths. The elemental faiths Earth, Wind, Water, and Fire and the  derived faiths of Order, Chaos, Life, and Death. Golgoth, the god of Death– where were the other gods? Having lunch or something, I guess– , has enlisted his most vile minion, Balkoth, to conquer and kill all the other peoples– which sort of eliminates the need to conquer them. Pick a faith, manage your units, cities, and buildings to destroy Balkoth or play as Balkoth yourself and have a grand old time.

“The circle of life has no beginning or end,” booms the narrator at the faith selection screen.

 

History

Lords of Magic was created by Sierra Entertainment, you might know them as the guys that made The Incredible Machine, Homeworld, and the King’s Quest series. When it was originally released there was only 1 map of Urak. The player could make more with a very diverse map editor, but the sheer amount of time required was daunting. An expansion pack of sorts was released called Lords of Magic Special Edition which included a few short campaigns called the Legends of Urak that took Modern myth and translated it to Urak and a new set of normal capaign maps. The game shipped with a manual the size of a small novel filled with an abridged history of the rise of Golgoth and other Urakian events.

Lords of Magic was released on November 30th 1997. It was up against Fallout (PC), Diddy Kong Racing (Nintendo 64), Quake 2 (PC, Playstation1, and Nintendo 64), and The Curse of Monkey Island (PC).

The map editor allows for a lot of customization but this is how every map starts. A few buildings on blank dirt background, I find it a little overwhelming.

 

Nostalgia

What happened to game demos? Demos were incomplete versions of games that someone could play to see if they wanted to buy the full version. In this day of preorder incentive and special editions it doesn’t behoove the gaming market to let players try something. Because if they try it and think it’s trash then they won’t buy it but if they don’t have a choice the player might go all in on a deluxe mega special edition preorder or something.

The story being that I played this game’s demo. The only faith available was Life and most of the upper tier structures and units were locked. But playing that demo showed me how much I would love the full version. I don’t care if it only got a 7/10 in gaming magazine, the demo showed me this was the game for me. My youth was spent playing a lot of PC game demos because my computer couldn’t run the full version or I couldn’t afford them. I would play them over and over again wondering if even though I didn’t have all the tools if I could beat the game– the short answer, no… no I can’t.

This is the full list of different Watchdogs preorder packages, this is ridiculous. Back in my day we didn’t have any of this raderfredermagurf…

Having a demo means not having anything to hide. Sierra had faith that people that wanted to purchase the game would and I did– eight years after the fact long after Sierra had been purchased by Blizzard… but that’s beside the point.

Gameplay

As the game begins the player must choose a faith. Each faith begins with different diplomatic relations with other faiths, opposing faiths like Air and Earth don’t get along whereas Fire and Death get along pretty well to begin with. And each faith has different strengths and weaknesses that favor different playstyles. In addition to choosing a faith the player must choose whether their lord is a warrior, thief, or mage. Each faith favors different lord types so choosing a lord that matches the faith will lead to an easier game than playing a lord that doesn’t.

Or you could just choose which faith you think has the coolest units in it, like I did. Fire giants and dragons for the win.

If your lord dies then the game is over. This leads to warrior lords being very effective because warriors are very skilled at not dying– seriously, it’s their job. That being said powerful spells can destroy entire enemy armies in single casts so a mage has a lot of late game benefit. It’s difficult to play a thief lord overall because they excel at being alone, and a lone lord tends to get dead.

The game starts you off with a small army to accompany your lord. The map is dotted with locations to explore– and by explore I mean kill all the locals and use, if there’s anything of use there. If there’s nothing of use there then hey, free XP and loot. Before the player can really do anything they need to liberate the great temple of your faith. I always found it bizarre that the game was so gated by this quest. Until the player liberates the temple they can’t hire more troops, research spells, acquire followers to allocate to buildings in town to get resources, anything really. After that it’s a giant game of exploration, politics, and war.

The standard map is the same every time so memorizing it can lead to finding sympathetic faiths quickly and avoiding your opposing faith– no need to waste good scouts.

You can also customize your starting, resources, units, spells, artifacts, and whether your great temple begins liberated.

 

The Gush

There are so many cool things you can do in Lords of Magic. From spells that can create land where there was once water– allowing super sneaky land attacks via bridges that didn’t used to be there. To starting a custom game with a single Warrior with an immensely powerful artifact. The custom options allow a different way to play every game.

The game has some pretty good cinematics, especially for the time. Every time another faith gets knocked out Balkoth approaches Golgoth and informs him of the “untimely demise” of yet another pretender. The final scene and destruction of Balkoth is super triumphant!

Balkoth’s conversations with Golgoth were always spooky. It was so sad to think a faith had been taken out. Unless it was Water, FIRE 4 LIFE!

I really like the voice acting in this game. Every unit has a voice and all of the lords have unique voices.

There’s only one combat track but it perfectly suits the feel of Lords of Magic’s combat. The overworld has a few different randomized and very atmospheric tracks.

The overworld map looks really good. Every faith’s terrain gives them stat bonuses in combat and affects the movement of other faiths out of combat.

Those roads actually speed up a party’s movement. And most units have unique movement noises overworld. I totally wasn’t able to recognize certain units by how they sound, nope, that ain’t me.

The strengths and weaknesses of each faith is really intuitive. I know that Order is going to have some powerful knights in heavy armor– because of course they do.

The mythos of Urak is Tolkienian yet totally it’s own. The lore of each of the faiths is interesting to unfold and understand. Every spell, description, and voice over clip reveals more about the personality of the faiths. And that personality leads to an immersive experience.

The most powerful spells are usually really flashy and satisfying. It’s a great payoff for a big investment.

Kvetch:  Important Things the Game Doesn’t Tell you Edition

Liberating the great temple of a faith that has good relations with you will cause their lord to swear fealty to you, giving you their territory and units based on how much they liked you. If your lord dies, this lord will take their place– it’s like having an extra life.

The Fame resource determines how many followers you get in your capital every week. These followers are the only way the player can have a sustainable army, acquire resources, or upgrade their capital.

Villages between each major city can be used to construct useful buildings but can also be destroyed to deny other faiths the advantages of these buildings.

Putting a Thief in the Thieves guild, or a warrior in the barracks, or Mage in the Mage tower will raise the amount of experience points new Thieves, warriors, and mages start with based on the level of the tutor.

Wandering monsters spawn from dungeons. The more dungeons that are around the more wandering monsters that will appear.

Wandering monsters won’t attack a structure with a unit in it. Might be a cat or an imp but it’ll stop them from retaking your rank 7 Gold mine.

Mages can research new spells in libraries, each spell requires a certain number of days to research which is researched at the rate of 1 day per level of mage. EG, if it takes 10 days to research a spell and there’s a level 2 mage in the tower it will only take 5 days for that mage to research it.

Battles can also turn into a giant ball of dudes hitting each other with sticks until you win or you lose. It’s hard to strategise and unit movement can be really stiff.

Higher level dungeons have artifacts that you NEED in order to stand a chance against Balkoth.

Balkoth cheats. He starts the game with an artifact that gives him free resources. He can cast spells, has the strength of a warrior, and a ranged attack like a thief. You can also never defeat him by autoresolving combat.

Actually, the whole game cheats. If my intelligence reports are anything to go on then other faiths can have negative resources and not lose their troops. But sometimes they start suffering desertions like crazy. I don’t understand the logic to it.

And the occasional glitch, like this boat floating around on dry land.

I have no idea what most of the stats do for units. There’s a luck stat, what does it do? Iunno. There’s a wisdom stat, what does it do? Iunno.

Never autoresolve combat unless you know you’re going to win. It almost always works out poorly for you.

If you destroy the lord of another faction all of his soldiers will track your lord down and do their best to try and kill him. They will gang up in giant armies along the way.

The Verdict

I am super blinded by nostalgia when it comes to this game. I recommend looking up a walkthrough if you want to play it just so you can understand all those things the game doesn’t tell you.  If you ever wanted to play a Lord of the Rings like adventure and didn’t want to buy one of the Lord of the Rings games then I can suggest this game to you.

Next Week:  Seven Kingdoms (PC)

Legend of the Mystical Ninja

 

Introduction

Dr Yang goes to Kid Ying’s house and tells him about a ghost woman that lives in the temple to the North. This investigation leads them on an adventure to save the Princess of Japan. Run, jump, attack, and discover– and by discover I mean, you’d better figure out what’s going on because it doesn’t tell you and I don’t know.

I’m certain this makes sense in context.

 

History

Oh, hey. I’m calling this section History now because sometimes I don’t have development to talk about but I do want to talk about the facts around the past of the game. Hence, History.

Legend of the Mystical Ninja is known as Ganbare Goemon (Translation “Go For it, Goemon)  in Japan and is based on two of Japan’s most legendary thieves. Kid Ying is actually supposed to be Goemon, as in Ishikawa Goemon. Ishikawa Goemon was basically Robin Hood, taking from the rich and giving to the poor. He didn’t get Maid Marrion in the end though. Goemon’s wife was killed and his son was kidnapped by a Japanese warlord. When he went to kill this warlord and liberate his son he failed and both he and his son were boiled alive.

That’s right, he’s holding his son out of the water to give him a few more moments of relative peace. HEROIC!

Dr. Yang is supposed to be Ebisimaru, named after Nakamura Jirokichi, AKA Nezumi Kozo. He was a thief that was popularized after his death and there are less Robin Hoodesque reports about him. If records are correct then he stole from over 100 Samurai families and accrued nearly 36 million dollars worth of goods. They say there are no old bold thieves and Nakamura was certainly bold, he was executed after being caught for the second time.

It might seem like there’s a bunch of stuff in this game that doesn’t make sense. But you’ve got to believe me here, it all has roots in Japanese culture or mythology. Let this video by Gaijin Goomba serve as a guide to some of the aspects. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WnFMWreP6Y

Legend of the Mystical Ninja was released by Konami on June 20 1992. It’s competition included Wolfenstein 3D (PC), Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (DOS), Super Mario Kart (SNES), and Ecco the Dolphin (Sega Genesis).

 

Nostalgia

My family was pretty broke when I was a kid. They eventually got out of the hole but while they were in it I got a new game every Christmas or so and that was it. In the meantime I would beg and be good in exchange for a visit to our local video and game rental store. This was the game that I rented again and again. I did it mostly for the box art because I didn’t really understand how the game was played– I’m still a little foggy actually. But I kept renting it with this weird thought that it had been so fun even though I hadn’t had any idea how to play it.

This is the first boss. I rented the game 3 times before I saw her. And she scared the crap out of me because ghosts are scary.

 

Gameplay

Each level has two different sections, the 2.5 dimensional exploration stage and the 2D action stage. The exploration stage is basically about defeating wandering enemies by hitting them with Goemon’s smoking pipe and getting power ups like money, weapon upgrades, and scrolls– I have no idea what the scrolls do but they must be important. Some buildings hold shops where Goemon can buy useful things like sandals that make him move faster and jump higher. Dying in the exploration stage loses the player a life but they come back right where they died, if the player dies in the action stage then they go back to the beginning– brutal but fair.

Pizza in ancient Japan? Well, there are shockingly modern areas in the game so… don’t worry about it.

Ebisimaru is playable but only by the second player. His weapons and maneuvers are the same as Goemon’s but aesthetically different and more silly.

This game is hard for a few reasons but I think that the big one is that whenever Goemon gets hit he loses 1 rank from all of his upgrades and gets knocked back. He’ll lose a weapon rank, two health, and a set of sandals. It’s crippling to get weaker attacks or to move slower especially in the middle of a boss fight. I’d be more willing to farm gold from enemies to stockpile these things but each level has a timer and I don’t know how long it will take to beat the level so I worry and rush. The kicker to all this is that the timer is measured in actually seconds, so each level gives the player about 15 minutes to complete it. The penalty for letting the timer run out? You lose a life… that’s it. It seemed so much scarier when it was unknown

The Gush

For a Super Nintendo game the visuals in this game are really good.

And the opening scene sets the tone and looks nice. Also, I love that line.

This game is filled with fun and interesting Japanese cultural references. Enemies wear masks from Japanese culture, some of which with meanings that are evident from the game itself.

Drum ceremony surrounded by silly masked men. I wonder if that mask represents silliness? Spoilers: They do.

Some levels have really interesting platforming aspects like turning upside down or have secret areas that are cleverly hidden but not impossible to find.

This game is meant to be played with two players. It’s just more lives to go around on the most pragmatic level, it’s like playing a beat em up. Goemon and Ebisimaru can even team up for combo attacks which are super cool.

Strangely enough, I kind of like not knowing what things mean because I get to try to figure things out on my own. When I figured out the Straw Coat protects Goemon from attacks I thought I was a genius, but it made perfect sense! There’s something about self-discovery that’s very satisfying. But there are so many things in this game I haven’t been able to figure out.

 

The Kvetch

The translation in this game nearly cripples it. Maybe the manual explains what everything means and does but I’ve played this game for years and I still don’t know how most of the game works. It’s not rapidly apparent what some items do– what does the Straw Hat do? I have no idea!

Is Goemon fighting a giant squid on a bridge? Yes. Why? I have no idea.

This game is ungodly amounts of long and hard, I’ve made it to level 5 once but apparently there are 9 or 10 levels. This would be okay if it weren’t for the crazy password system. Passwords are 60 characters long and aren’t just letters, there are all sorts of weird symbols. Passwords also include lower case and uppercase along with numbers– is that an I or a 1, I dunno. It might be better to play on an emulator and use the save states are certain points, seems like cheating but the passwords are ridiculous.

The Story is super threadbare, the plot only happens after Goemon defeats a boss. And the plot pushes things as far as the next area and that’s about it.

The Verdict

If it were easier to figure out how things worked or if I knew what I was doing the whole time then this game would be really fun! As it stands, it’s alright. The platforming is solid, enemies are satisfying to defeat, and the game looks good.

It’s something I’ll spend 3o minutes on and then go play something else. If you can find a good guide about this game then go for it– and send me a link so I can figure this game out.

Next Week: Lords of Magic (PC)