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I, INTRODUCTION or: Where Were You in 1993?

Monday through Friday, you sit in the back of the school bus near the weird kid whom no one talks to – his glasses taped up or some such trope – reading the same copy of Electronic Gaming Monthly until a new copy arrives, like clockwork, in your mailbox a few days after the first of every month.

The bus driver, a wrinkly old woman named Wanda or Bertha or something, keeps the kids quiet through the classic draconian tactic of screaming real loud, utilized whenever someone talks over her sacred Rush Limbaugh broadcast eerily timed with your bus ride home, blaring from a purple handheld radio dangling from a thick string on the rearview.

Wanda or Bertha or something has never yelled at you, your attention too focused on the cool gaming illustrations in Electronic Gaming Monthly and the new Smashing Pumpkins’ album – Siamese Dream – playing through your – even for this decade – vintage Sony Walkman Cassette Player, the left headphone speaker broken from repeated accidents, or at least that’s what you told the school counselor.

The bus stop is three blocks away from your home. You step off the bus into your neighborhood, walk up and down a few hills, climb the steps of your porch, and enter your home through the side door near the kitchen. You hear the sounds of Mom boiling water for your after-school Kraft Mac and Cheese, Sting’s “Fields of Gold” plays from a small black radio sitting on the windowsill near the stove, likely tuned to Star94, the only station that plays boring soft-rock ballads you won’t appreciate until you’re twenty-five years old.

*can you spot all the references?

Knowing you only have forty-five minutes to watch cartoons before Mom takes over the family television for her five o’clock episode of Days of Our Lives, you scarf down your Mac and Cheese while flipping through channels, quickly cycling through the lame shows your dumb sister watches – primarily Saved by the Bell and Clarissa Explains It All – and settling, finally, on Fox Kids.

X-Men is on; it’s the episode where Professor X tries to heal Sabretooth’s inner rage, only to find that, much like your own, it’s incurable – the rage is terminal.

You catch the tail end of the episode, quickly overwhelmed by commercials maliciously placed right before the end credits, likely to trick kids into sticking around in hopes of more content, and you fall for it: hook, line, and sinker. Sitting through a Crystal Pepsi commercial and Ronald McDonald enthusiastically telling you about the limited-time-promotional-six-inch-1957-McDonald’s-glass with every order of ten dollars or more.

And suddenly, the final commercial comes on: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for Super Nintendo, the game you’ve always wanted. “Now you’re playing with power – super power,” the ad seems intentionally designed to taunt you; and, much to your envy, your neighborhood rival has a copy and talks about it all the time – “It’s the best game ever made,” he says, knowing you don’t own a Super Nintendo and, also, knowing he will never let you come over to play it – because he hates you, or is secretly in love with you, or something.

Dad, opting for the cheapest route possible, bought a used Sega Genesis from the local Video Game Exchange instead of the Super Nintendo so meticulously outlined in your Christmas list, circled several times in frantic red ink. “It’s just as good, according to the guy at the store,” he told you as you opened the box that fateful Christmas morning. Unbeknownst to your father, this single act likely shaped all your gaming preferences, probably for the worse.

Along with the Sega Genesis, there was a copy of the game “Landstalker,” featuring an elfish blonde man wielding a glowing sword on the box art, reminiscent of a discount K-Mart-Link slicing at a skeleton, like Doom’s promotional art but for Dungeons & Dragons nerds and five-year-olds. Dad knew you wanted Zelda, but he picked up Landstalker instead. “The man at the store told me this is just like Zelda,” he said proudly.

You gave Dad a big hug that Christmas. None of this was what you wanted, but you loved it regardless.

*Shakedown, 1993

If you haven’t figured it out yet, the year is 1993. The year of the first World Trade Center bombing and the infamous Waco siege. The year of Black Hawk Down and the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, ushering in the European Union and the insufferable conspiracy theories of reactionaries for years to come. The year in which space probe Galileo reached Jupiter, the closest a hunk of Earth-metal has ever come to a Roman god; and, of course, most importantly: the year Landstalker for the Sega Genesis was released in North America.

Grandma Susu on my mother’s side would call Landstalker a computer game, making no distinction between the hardware the game is actually played on because it’s all goofy kids’ stuff anyway – a small hint as to the meaning behind this site’s name; and, keeping with the site’s theme of writing about computer games that are not computer games but actually console games, this article will cover Landstalker for the Sega Genesis in much greater personal detail than you asked for – and having not asked to begin with, this seems like a fairly good deal.

Landstalker, or Landstalker: The Treasures of King Nole, is a Japanese adventure game not at all inspired by Nintendo’s Zelda series. It was developed by Climax Entertainment and released on the Sega Genesis by the renowned publisher, you guessed it, Sega; originally released in 1992 for Japanese audiences and localized in English in 1993.

Landstalker was written and directed by Kenji Orimo, who immortalized himself within the game as the character Pockets, along with a team of developers who could best be characterized as misfit-sadists. This development team would eventually earn a cult-hero-like status among the most pedantic of niche computer gamers: Sega fans.

Individuals such as Yasuhiro Ohori, the map designer, and Masumi Takimoto, the key programmer, become particularly important in this development team’s mythos, something we will cover in the tentatively planned analysis of Alundra for PlayStation, which will most likely never happen.

*David Koresh, Kenji Orimo & Pockets, Alundra, and Jupiter

The year 1993 was dominated by Nintendo supremacy, with Star Fox and Super Mario All-Stars reigning supreme in the mushroom-crowned world of gaming. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Link’s Awakening captured the collective-computer-gamer-consciousness, and two out of the three Famitsu Hall-of-Famers were Nintendo titles, while eight out of the top ten highest-grossing games worldwide were on the Super Nintendo.

Sega already had Sonic, a rival to Mario, but something was needed to rival Zelda, which is where Landstalker comes in – Sega’s Zelda-Clone-That-Is-Not-A-Zelda-Clone. That being said, the arrival of Landstalker in North America did very little to change Nintendo’s stranglehold on the North American gaming hivemind. Although well-received at the time for its unique take on the action-adventure genre, Landstalker flew under the radar for most American gaming outlets, achieving true success only in Japan – a country where respecting your time is not a prerequisite for popularity.

And while I characterize Landstalker as a computer game that does not respect your time, experiences will differ for everyone. It’s all a matter of perspective, literally.

The color I perceive as blue could be perceived as red by another, or vice versa, with the common link being the words used to describe the thing. After all, how would you describe blue other than “blue” or “cool,” both words of nonsensical value when used by themselves. Much like describing a game as “fun” or “good,” meaningless terms that mean different things to different people.

One individual may have reveled in Landstalker’s charms upon its 1993 North American release on the Sega Genesis, while another might have embarked on its pixelated quest via the PC version on Steam; god forbid, there could even be a lost soul entranced in the forever cursed and truly evanescent Nintendo Switch Online version of the game.

The point being: subjective computer game ephemeral.

As for myself? I just downloaded the ROM and played it on an emulator.

II, EMULATION REVISITED or: Trip the Light Nostalgic

What drives someone to purchase a CRT television set from the ’90s, prop it up on a folding table in the corner of their office, and play old television programs, anime, and video games on it – in 2023? Is it a longing for the past? The lugubriousness of growing old – or simply a pretentious display of esoteric exoticism? An attempt at retro-coolness only a select few are unfortunate enough to be privy to. A peek into the antique mind, trendy retrograde highly resistant to the new-age; the adult version of wearing tripp pants and a Misfits shirt to your religious grandma’s 95th birthday party.

In this chapter, we will attempt to answer these questions, but first, let’s explore ancient plastic and trip the light nostalgic.

Some believe that old plastic must be respected, collected, and worshiped on the sacred altar of computer game ephemera. Others argue that by collecting old plastic, we are, in a way, preserving the intended state of the video game, as if we are doing some esoteric concept a solid by hoarding products that will one day release enough deadly chemicals to kill a small child – a sacrifice to the gamer gods so that we may be blessed with many future computer games.

Some may delude themselves into believing that buying an original boxed copy of EarthBound for $2,800 from some sweaty loser off eBay actually supports its niche director, Shigesato Itoi, and somehow increases the likelihood of a North American Mother 3 localization.

These hypothetical-strawman-people are insane; and, well, whatever they believe – I believe the opposite; and whatever they say I am, that’s what I’m not. I believe ancient plastic belongs in the garbage. Or, if you’re eco-friendly, recycled at your local electronics recycling plant. I believe any game older than 10 years might as well be laundered, and that stacking aged plastic on a shelf is peak human hubris, akin to Donald Trump filling his hotels with gold.

Developers are not harmed by downloading a 10-year-old game without paying for it. Ignoring the fact that within the retro gaming community, the majority of collected and played games are far out of fashion, to the extent that the original publishers no longer care about them or the game in question has been re-released by an entirely different company with none of the original development team’s involvement; the vast majority of developers are paid by the hour or receive a salary – they do not earn commission from computer game sales and are typically assigned to different projects immediately after the divine birth of a computer game.

Of course, the counter argument would be that by not supporting – buying – a computer game, you are potentially harming the studio as a whole, which could have a downstream impact on the job security of salaried developers in the long run. And yes, there is some truth to this argument; however, when it comes to 10-year-old computer games, this argument loses its validity. The development team has moved on – it’s time to let go.

Do you want to backup your old collection of Sega Genesis games? You are just a few clicks of a mouse away from doing so.

The only person upset about downloading ROMs is the cheap-suit Nintendo executive who devised the eligosian scheme of listing the Sega Genesis Collection as a free download on the Nintendo Switch online store, only to surprise you – with no warning in the listing – that you need an Expansion Pass after downloading and booting it up.

*Nintendo turns the Sega Genesis into a theme park with a $42.19 cost of admission

Do yourself a favor; if you want to support Sega, buy the SEGA Mega Drive & Genesis Collection on Steam – which includes uncompressed ROMS of every title in the collection. Yes – Sega is just giving you the ROMs to use as you see fit; a rare corporate attempt at true game preservation.

Buying cartridges is not game preservation, playing games on Nintendo’s demonic online service is not game preservation, and purchasing digital only releases is not game preservation. Modern developers, even those we revered as children, such as Square(Enix) and Nintendo, are now more interested in endlessly selling you the same classic games at full price on new consoles in perpetuity, selling an experience instead of a computer game; a theme park of fugacious feelings – emotional manipulation.

Install SoulSeek or go to your preferred ROM site and download all the games for free.

This is the obligatory point in the article where I state that the “on computer games” staff does not support piracy, and will be citing this paragraph when lawyers contact us; this whole chapter is satire, or something.

Anyways, I once engaged in an online argument about the viability of classic computer game remasters – a big mistake, I know. Of course, I took the position that these remasters don’t need to exist and that the original games are fine, offering the optimal way to play in the original developers’ intended vision.

The counter argument was that a new generation of fans would have the opportunity to experience the game. To this, I posed the question: why? Why can’t they simply play the original? The response I received was that it’s too expensive. Buying a physical copy of the game, the console, the controllers, and the optimal television – it all adds up and becomes too costly. After all, a Sega Genesis, two controllers, and a copy of Landstalker would cost about $300; and we’ve already covered how expensive an original copy of EarthBound is.

The barrier of entry is simply too high!

Well, while you’re debating which car title to leverage a loan to purchase that original copy of EarthBound from EpicLoliFan69 on eBay, I am just downloading the game – for free.

The purchase and collection of little cartridges and discs with data on them isn’t noble or necessary. The games don’t “last longer” for preservation’s sake and this act does not support the original developers; ripping the ROM image and keeping it on a drive is true preservation, or just downloading it online – it’s the same thing the cartridge is doing, only not proprietary, locked, or restricted in any way, and much easier to transfer to another medium if necessary. A ROM of Landstalker for the Sega Genesis on three million hard-drives has a much longer half-life than the coveted, but inferior, ancient plastic models that are no longer in active production.

If this offends your computer-gamer sensibilities, sit down, breathe, and think for a moment. Ask yourself: why? Why collect the games? Why give in to the consumerist drive to collect eco-waste?

You want to support the developers. You want more games from your favorite studios. I get it.

If you want to support a new game, that’s great; buy the new Grand Theft Auto game because you like Rockstar Studios and want more Grand Theft Auto games – that is completely valid and should be encouraged; just don’t pretend that buying the original Grand Theft Auto for PlayStation is helping anyone other than yourself and your own egotistical drive to tell people you own a copy of the original Grand Theft Auto for PlayStation.

So, in protest – and, importantly: not to be cool (I swear) – I purchased a translucent 13″ color SecureView CRT television set, model number S13801CL, from eBay, the type of television set used in prisons in the 90s and early 2000s; clearly-clear in make and model, so inmates couldn’t hide their drugs inside; and, “only slightly used.”

The SecureView CRT television set was delivered in a huge box filled with protective foam and peanuts on June 16th, 2023.

Each SecureView, typically, has a prison cell number carved into the casing, and mine is no different: R06190 – that’s the television’s name now.

*R06190; displaying Ranma ½ & Landstalker, prison cell number included

I often wonder who was watching this television set while it sat in a dank prison cell – and what programs were they watching on it? What were they in prison for? Did they kill someone, or was it a petty crime like smoking weed? Maybe it was never used, simply languishing in an unused prison cell. And most importantly, how did it end up in the possession of some seller on eBay? Was the seller the inmate who used the television set, somehow keeping it as a memento of their time in prison – or was it something more boring, like a prison auction someone was lucky enough to attend?

Naturally, I searched the cell number online alongside a variety of keywords; but, no luck – it’s a mystery, forever part of R06190’s charm.

Having done no research and making this purchase for aesthetic value alone, I quickly discovered that R06190 only connects to external sources through an RF coaxial port. So, I bought a cheap HDMI to RF adapter. I plugged my laptop via an HDMI cable into this adapter and then connected the coaxial cable from the adapter into the television set. As a final – and most crucial – step, I downloaded RetroArch, several console cores, and a vast 60gb ROM – ISO image pack.

And suddenly, just like that – I’m playing with power, super power; just like the Zelda commercial continuously taunted in 1993. I was playing with the power of every pre-2005 console at my fingertips, all on a cool see-through CRT television set that my 11-year-old self would have killed other kids to get his hands on.

Pressing the power button for the first time, R06190 hummed electric, and a surge of static jumped onto my fingertip as the magic happened. Within the ethereal realm of the clear-body-cube, a filament of tungsten became aglow with celestial energy, bestowing a fairy-fire upon the cathode nestled deep within the belly of the beast. Electrons, like little woodland sprites, woke from their slumber, harmoniously buzzing and guided by the electrode wizard to a phosphor-laden tapestry; all happening in one mesmerizing instant: an image born – the image of the divine, the eternal babysitter of children throughout the first-world: moving pictures composed of rainbow electrolight.

Or something like that.

Contrary to immediately playing computer games, I used this magical power to watch Toonami Aftermath and old anime. After bouncing around from the original Dragon Ball, Cowboy Bebop, and Yu Yu Hakusho, I eventually settled on Ranma ½; and the results were glorious – if I was chasing that early 2000s Toonami feeling, I had nearly caught up with it.

Sixty episodes of Ranma ½ later and I started to notice something: a staticky sparkle scaling upward on the screen. Like 90s cable television, but with a really bad connection. Hard to notice, but once noticed: impossible to ignore – how would I ever play computer games on R06190 with such an imperfection?

After much fooling around with settings and switching coaxial and HDMI cords to no avail, I made the decision to purchase a new HDMI to RF adapter; finally deciding on the elegantly named “HDMI Modulator RF Converter RCA Coaxial Composite VHF UHF SDR Demodulator Adapter w/Antenna in/Out & Channel Switch for Roku Fire Stick Cable Box HD Digital AV Component Video to Analog NTSC Coax TV” model.

This model was much bigger, bluer, and more expensive than my first adapter, and the “modulator” title made it seem far more serious – like giving a tier-1 technical support representative the title of “engineer.”

After purchasing the big blue box, I had to wait another week for its arrival. Fortunately, my short attention span was occupied during this time as I was in the midst of writing an analysis on the game Popful Mail for Sega CD. Being one-track-minded and having been diagnosed with ADHD when I was nine, I can only focus on one thing at a time. Hence, the few staticky sparkles that accompanied my television programs, used mainly for background noise while writing, didn’t bother me much at the time.

The modulator arrived the day after I finished my analysis, serendipitous timing since I was eager to play my next seemingly randomly generated interest – Landstalker for the Sega Genesis.

After some preliminary testing, the new modulator worked perfectly, the sparklies were gone; the image was crystal clear, well, as clear as an RF coaxial would output, and everything was good at that moment. My wild bet on “it’s more expensive so it must be better” actually paid off, for once.

Having prepared for this moment, I had multiple classic-console-controller-to-USB-adapters at the ready, including one for Sega Saturn and PlayStation. So, I hooked the Saturn pad up to my laptop, ran RetroArch, navigated the menus and booted up Landstalker.

*the three elements that make this setup work: laptop, hdmi to rf modulator, R06190, and a Sega Saturn pad

Sixteen paragraphs later and I have justified this ridiculous excess for long enough. What is the true reason for all this stuff? I could easily play any of these games on my PC setup with one of many 1080p flatscreen monitors – why purchase an old CRT television to do it?

I could make the excuse that a modern flatscreen doesn’t capture the intended essence of the classic games I wish to play; or that the large resolution stretches out the pixels, making the games look nasty; but I don’t really care about any of that.

What I care about is esoteric; capturing the nostalgic quintessence – that feeling of staying up late on those summer nights in Charleston at my grandma’s house; a time when I would call my highschool-girlfriend on a Nokia phone and fall asleep on the line while watching late-night Roseanne together, or just ignoring her calls altogether to play computer games instead, only to tell her, “Sorry, I missed your calls. I fell asleep” the next day.

It’s about chasing the dragon, knowing that dragons don’t actually exist.

It’s about being a kid again.

And, contrary to what I previously typed, I think it’s pretty cool to play old computer games on a translucent ’90s prison cell CRT television.

In conclusion, never trust someone who justifies their excess with over one thousand words.

III, FUTURE FOE SCENARIO or: Characters, Concepts, and Context

The ’90s were a time when every Japanese computer game’s artwork was run through the homogenization factory, the gentrification presser, and then systematically entered into the American hivemind – if the hero was lithe and pretty, they’re now buff and manly; if they were short and goofy, they’re now tall and handsome.

Nigel, the hero of Landstalker, is no different. Originally depicted in 1992 on the Japanese box art as a tall elf boy, thin and quick, executing a solitary slice of his saber with a dark specter looming behind him; the North American box art depicts him as a fairly-built man with chiseled jaw and mullet, standing upon a stone slab towering above a skeleton in a battle-ready stance. His sword held high and glowing with magical power, akin to Doom’s original box art but without all the nightmare-inducing demonic forces eager to rip your legs off – not surprising considering every computer game is now a Doom clone in some form or fashion.

*NA Landstalker, Doom, and JP Landstalker boxart compared

Our hero’s name, Nigel, isn’t even his true name. His original Japanese name is Ryle, a far more exotically fitting name for a 90-year-old elf who has maintained his youth through elven lineage; and, combining all these changes, we get a hero who, although possessing the same sprite throughout each regional release, somehow feels far more like an action hero — a mix of Walker Texas Ranger and MacGyver — than Lord of the Rings’ Legolas or Link of Zelda fame, of which – for the third time – Landstalker is not at all like.

Although much better suited for silent-protagony, Nigel has a personality and talks frequently, coming off as a one-track-minded individual who only cares about stuff as opposed to people. He is, after all, a treasure hunter by profession, and he is very arrogant in his abilities, which is personified in his perfectly animated walking animation, an overly confident strut to end all struts.

Hailing from the town of Maple, Nigel has ventured to the island of Mercator on a mission to find King Nole’s lost treasure, guided in this direction by a wood nymph encountered during the game’s prologue, the oddly named Friday.

The name “Friday” derived from Old English, meaning “day of Frig,” which itself is based on the Norse goddess Frigg. This either implies that Frigg exists in Landstalker’s mythology or that the writers simply didn’t care — an irrelevant tangent, but interesting nonetheless. Running this line of thinking to its conclusion, every game not set on Earth should have its own incomprehensible language, flora and fauna, and architecture; as it’s extremely unlikely for physio-and-socio-evolutionary-progress to be so similar from world to world.

Tangents aside, Nigel is accompanied by Friday throughout his entire adventure on the island of Mercator, serving as Nigel’s guide and, at times, his moral compass; notably reprimanding Nigel when he agrees to be a little girl’s boyfriend in one of the game’s early towns.

Friday resides in Nigel’s backpack when not popping out to save, lecture or provide guidance to Nigel – doing who-knows-what in there. It is heavily implied that Friday is in love with Nigel, as she is quick to verbally attack any female character he interacts with and often expresses her joy in adventuring with Nigel; a subtle touch not explicitly stated but left for the player to infer.

*Nigel and Friday, honeymooning on a raft

Friday is Nigel’s companion, through and through, much like Navi or Tatl from the Nintendo 64 Zelda titles. Surprisingly, these Zelda companions came after Landstalker, and the similarities to Friday are too obvious – all being small fairy beings that talk way too much. Clearly, the Nintendo team was inspired by Nigel’s relationship with Friday, prompting them to add a fairy companion of their own in future Zelda games; a rare case of the inspired inspiring the inspirer.

Nigel’s time on the Island of Mercator is fraught with a number of challenges. Just starting out, he ends up knocked out and awakens in the tribe of Massan, occupied by bear-like beastmen at war with the neighboring tribe of Gumi, also occupied by bear-like beastmen – just of a different fur-color.

Both tribes harbor hatred towards each other due to this minor difference in coloration, an obvious social commentary quickly undermined by the fact that Gumi tribesmen end up kidnapping a girl from Massan and attempting to sacrifice her to Orc Gods, validating Massan’s initially-irrational hatred. Nigel – of course – intervenes, saving the girl and slaying the Orcs; and, it turns out that the Orcs were mind-controlling the Gumi tribe, or something, so no harm no foul and they’re all friends now.

Afterwards, Nigel and Friday venture to the capital city of the Island of Mercator, which is fittingly named Mercator and is governed by Duke Mercator, a naming convention mirroring the song Black Sabbath by the band Black Sabbath on the album titled Black Sabbath.

In terms of town design, Landstalker is the type of game where the inn only has one room, consisting of the reception desk and six beds for everyone to sleep in. What the receptionist does when you’re sleeping, while a good question, is not something we will be exploring in this article.

Mercator is easily comparable to the various incarnations of Hyrule Castle Town, from Zelda – a series that Landstalker is nothing like – and the city itself is huge for Sega Genesis standards, encompassing multiple zones with five or six homes in each, and a huge manor with all manner of hidden passages, pun intended.

Each home in the city has a family of NPCs inside, all with their own weird stuff going on; the attention to detail and nuance of the world is impressive and, as a result, feels fleshed out and thoroughly lived in.

*Island of Mercator, as pictured within the in-game map

Duke Mercator, after a series of dubious quests, summons Nigel and two other heroes to his manor to partake in a “little game,” aimed at defeating the local wizard – Mir – who resides in a nearby tower. Duke Mercator claims that Mir is forcing him to fork-over exorbitant sums of gold, thus justifying his over-taxation of the locals; and, of course, the locals buy this story, all too eager to encourage Nigel to slay the wizard – gold being the ultimate motivator of human slaughter.

Like all political excuses, Duke Mercator’s story turns out to be a lie. As Nigel conquers the wizard’s tower and confronts the wizard at its pinnacle, it is revealed that the wizard is, in fact, Duke Mercator’s brother. Mir, being aware of Duke Mercator’s true nature as an evil man attempting to locate King Nole’s treasure for himself by using the locals’ tax money to fund his treasure-hunting escapades, is imprisoned by his brother in the tower to prevent the truth from being revealed to the local people of Mercator.

From this moment onward, Mir assists Nigel in his quest for King Nole’s treasure, and Duke Mercator becomes the main villain. Nigel often ends up chasing the Duke’s coattails, always one step behind the Duke until the inevitable final confrontation.

*Duke Mercator challenges Nigel

The Island of Mercator, both conceptually and thematically, is a lush landmass teeming with beaches, swaying palm trees, dense forests, and treacherous mountain ranges. Secrets and hidden passages await around every corner, with dungeons bursting with treasure scattered throughout the map – the perfect enclosed system for Nigel’s 16-bit adventure.

The dungeons, caverns, numerous pits, and wells that must be traversed for treasure all boast a level of graphical fidelity that is impressive for a 1993 computer game, especially when paired with the unique isometric perspective, something not found in many – if any – action-adventure games up to that point. The splotchy watercolor quality of the textures and the carefully selected color palette enhance the game’s overall aesthetic theme – one of cheeriness or gloominess, with no in-between; you’ll be in a town full of shiny happy people holding hands, then go into a cellar in one of the home’s only to find a sickly green colored dungeon littered with bones.

Whether in a moody dungeon or a cheery town, the art direction is impeccable, truly capturing the intended mood envisioned by the directors. Unfortunately, due to a very dumb choice on behalf of the development team, a huge black bar encompasses the full length of the bottom-fourth of the screen, literally cutting the visual space by 25%; a truly baffling decision, likely made to save space for dialogue boxes, which fill that space when there is dialogue, but the empty void remains even when the dialogue ends.

This big black bar makes Landstalker feel cinematic, in a way, like a letterboxed movie on a widescreen television, which – supposedly – some people actually like; however, I don’t believe it – these hypothetical people are fooling themselves.

Give me full screen or give me death.

*the bar, ever-present and never-ending – but why?

The music, while suitable for each environment, is mediocre at best. I typically consider a game’s soundtrack “good” if it has two or three tracks that I save to my “computer game music” playlist on YouTube. However, no such standout tracks are found here. The music is competent, but it lacks catchiness or memorability in any way.

The music does succeed in capturing the mood of each environment. Towns typically feature the same cheery, upbeat, and bouncy theme, while dungeons consistently have a dreary and despondent melancholic track that lacks much deviation. As you can imagine, this repetitive soundscape becomes tiresome after an hour or so of dungeon-crawling.

Similarly, Nigel’s overworld wandering is accompanied by the same musical score throughout the entire journey. The number itself is epic in scale but too upbeat for simply walking through the forest; however, it works well when a monster attacks you – and to the game’s credit, such encounters happen frequently.

If the music accomplishes one thing successfully with its ongoing epic pulsations, it’s instilling a sense of continuously moving forward, propelling the player to jump and slash their way into new adventures.

And you’ll be jumping and slashing a lot.

IV, GAMEPLAY or: Not a Zelda Game, Seriously

Landstalker is an action-adventure game with light role-playing elements. Some would say it’s a lot like Zelda – A Link to the Past, only coming out a year before the Japanese release of Landstalker in 1992. However, I wouldn’t make the Zelda comparison because it’s cheap, easy, and meaningless. One should not need knowledge of another thing to understand a different thing. It’s laziness, and while I am lazy to an extent, I am not lazy about computer games – computer games are very serious.

From the moment you boot up Landsalker, you’re presented with an in-engine cutscene of Nigel platforming through a dungeon called the Jypta Ruins in the year 312 of Gamul. This scene is a vertical slice of everything you need to know about Landstalker. Nigel is shown running from a boulder trap, jumping from platform to platform, in an odd isometric perspective. Nigel is then shown working through a jumping puzzle where platforms float and move around in the sky, and he must time his jumps carefully to land on each one, finally climbing up a vine rope into a room where he cuts down some obstacles blocking the path to a large treasure chest full of treasure.

If the prologue does not look appealing to you, turn the game off and move on to something else because Landstalker’s prologue represents the past, present, and future of your experience.

*part of the prologue, heavily compressed with every other frame removed

Landstalker is the type of game where you find a large treasure chest in the bowels of a dungeon, only for a lone solitary key to be inside. Who is putting these keys inside chests, and why have they never been used before?

Landstalker is also the type of game where a switch in the basement of a manor opens a door two floors above you for approximately thirteen seconds. The architect of the manor either lost his mind or was extremely concerned about security.

At its core Landstalker is a game about jumping and slashing through puzzles and platforms. The sound designers knew this very well when they made the jump sound-effect identical to Sonic the Hedgehog’s, a euphonious “whrr-oup!” noise that fits Sonic’s vibrant happy worlds and, at least early on, fits Landstalker’s as well.

Landstalker is, first and foremost, a platformer with a fully traversable overworld filled with monsters that must be slain before each platforming section. Sometimes, the overworld zones themselves are platformers. In between this platforming, there is travel, towns, and puzzles, all in an effort to do more platforming.

Controls make or break a platformer, so let’s discuss the controls. But first, we have to address the elephant in the room: the game’s perspective. Landstalker is presented in an isometric perspective, setting it apart from adventure games like Zelda or Crystalis which operate from a top-down or side-view perspective, where left, right, up, and down are clearly defined.

Directionals aren’t so well defined in Landstalker. Being a computer game that employs an isometric perspective, the playfield is viewed at an angle instead of a flat view, which gives Landstalker a faux-three-dimensional feeling, sometimes referred to as a three-fourth perspective or two-point-five-dee perspective.

The isometric perspective makes Landstalker visually striking and immediately intriguing to the uninitiated, pretending – successfully – to be more graphically advanced than it actually is, which is a feat all its own. However, this perspective presents an array of problems, such as challenges with depth perception and the controls themselves.

Landstalker has either the worst controls ever or the best controls ever, depending on your perspective of the perspective. Since directions are ambiguous based on how Nigel is standing and where he’s facing, it’s not as simple as left, right, up, and down. Instead, each direction on the d-pad functions as forward or backward depending on which direction Nigel is facing; additionally, since it’s a pseudo-three-dimensional plane, you have to be able to traverse the pseudo-plane, which involves moving in-depth – closer or further from the screen. To achieve this, the game uses diagonal directions to shift Nigel’s position on the plane, with the required diagonal varying depending on Nigel’s position; basically, pressing a diagonal turns Nigel to face a different direction, you then use the left – right – up – down directionals to move him forward or backward in that new direction.

*Saturn pad with crude paint drawings and official illustrations explaining the importance of diagonals

It’s all very hard to explain, and when you first boot up the game and are given control of Nigel, you won’t know how to move him around properly. Left, right, up, and down all move him forward or backward, creating an interesting “is my controller broken?” phase. Yet, somehow – and again it’s very hard to explain without experiencing it yourself – once you figure out that diagonals turn Nigel to face a different direction, it becomes very obvious how to move around properly; becoming accessible and natural after twenty minutes of play.

Landstalker, being an early Sega Genesis game, used the original Genesis pad, which consisted of three face buttons and a luscious d-pad that included all diagonals – a feature Sega kept on all their pads until the Dreamcast, where it was removed for an inferior four-directional pad.

The point being, Landstalker should be played with a pre-Dreamcast Sega pad, and that is exactly what I did. Using my Saturn pad, controlling Nigel – diagonals and all – felt natural and deliberate; playing with any other type of d-pad would have been a nightmare scenario.

Being designed around the Sega Genesis pad, Landstalker’s controls are very straightforward: press A to attack, press B to jump, and the third face button can also be used to attack. Oh, and press Start to access the item menu – that’s it; retro simplicity at its finest.

*Traveling the overworld; featuring phallic mushrooms and Nigel’s strut

Landstalker’s gameplay loop starts off strong and never changes: go to a town, there’s a problem, the problem is solved by doing something in a nearby dungeon, travel outside of town to locate the dungeon, complete the dungeon, and finally return to the town for your rewards; typically, after solving the problem, some new path opens to a new town. This formula was incorporated in several adventure games of the era.

Every zone is connected by large environmental “overworld” zones, which are not much different from dungeons, as both are complete with puzzles, monsters, and platforming; but you can’t simply go everywhere at the start of the game, various obstacles block progression until certain events are completed. For example, saving the kidnapped Massan girl causes the Massan tribesmen to clear a landslide, allowing you to progress to the next area.

Notably absent is the acquisition of equipment that gives Nigel new abilities that would allow him to reach new areas. This inclusion would have helped to keep things interesting, although it would have made the game more like Zelda, a game that Landstalker is not at all like — I swear.

Most of your time in Landstalker will be spent crypt-walking and dungeon-crawling. The first three dungeons really shine in terms of actively keeping you engaged without being too frustrating; showcasing the early freshman versions of each isometric puzzle and platforming trick you’ll encounter later on.

These puzzles include – but are not limited to – box puzzles where you pick up the box and place it on a button, box puzzles where you stack boxes to get on a higher ledge, timed button puzzles where you jump on a button then race to the door it opened before the time runs out, and the classic “stand in room for two minutes doing nothing until the door opens,” which is actually not classic – just stupid.

The Wizard Tower dungeon, where Meractor sends you to defeat his brother, is a high point of the game and where the difficulty starts to ramp up. Featuring a blue-gray tile set with putrid green flooring, giving the tower a foul swamp aesthetic. The wizard at the pinnacle taunts you along the way; and like any good Wizard’s tower, it’s full of trick rooms, invisible walls, spike traps, and illusions that – admittedly – forced me to use an online guide at least once.

The Wizard Tower is the type of level in a computer game that a kid in the ’90s would get stuck on for weeks on end; occasionally booting up the game and messing around only to accidentally stumble upon the correct answer to a puzzle weeks later. Depending on your perspective, this can be either really cool or unnecessarily cryptic. This type of experience is hard to replicate in 2023, where the temptation to access detailed online guides is always looming in the computer-gamer-subconscious.

The puzzles throughout the Wizard Tower, as well as the entirety of the game, are constantly surprising, incorporating a level of ingenuity that often comes as a shock within the confines of the game’s seemingly basic structure. While many puzzles involve “picking up the box and placing it on the button,” others require you to “pick up six boxes and stack them on top of each other at an angle to use as a ladder to reach a button that opens the exit for two seconds,” often utilizing timed gates and ladders to get the player’s heart racing.

*Landstalker gets creative with puzzles; button that moves statues, but you need to use Nigel’s head to ensure they move along the right path.

What happens after the completion of the Wizard Tower is the true highlight of the game. A scenario that illustrates the potential Landstalker possesses to create memorable moments that blend gameplay and storytelling into a perfectly woven tapestry.

Once you get back from the Wizard Tower and confront Duke Mercator, he steals all your MacGuffins and trapdoors you into the dungeon below his manor – a vast underworld with fiends in every room, quick but satisfying puzzles, and brisk platforming through the dungeon floors back up to the manor proper.

After fighting through filth to return to the main floor of the manor, you discover that Duke Mercator has kidnapped Maple’s princess and trained all the knights to attack you on sight, necessitating the slaying of knights who once spoke with you as a friend.

After considerable bloodshed, you ascend the top of the manor and enter the chamber where Maple’s princess is being held; but suddenly, the Duke’s winged dragon-knight swoops in through the window, snatches the princess, and swiftly departs. Hastily, you make your way to the window only to realize that the dragon-knight has absconded with the princess, taunting you as they fade into the distance. Turning back to the window to descend the manor, you find the knights have closed in on your position, compelling you to leap from the manor’s pinnacle and land in the courtyard below, directly in front of Duke Mercator’s grandiose statue of himself.

Duke Mercator has stolen all of your stuff, made off with the princess, and sailed off from his dock to the next town over. Moreover, he has destroyed the local lighthouse, preventing you from following him.

This set-piece utilizes every asset of the game to create an experience that feels exciting and worthwhile. Combat, puzzles, platforming, and cartoony storytelling blend together in a way that momentarily suspends your worldly awareness; the computer-gaming-end-goal of any worthwhile developer.

Sadly, such moments do not recur, and the game only worsens from this point onward.

*never trust a man with a large statue of himself in his front yard

In an effort to painstakingly detail every aspect of the game, monsters roam the Island of Mercator in abundance; Landstalker, after all, would be a fairly boring action-adventure game otherwise. There are only a few types of monsters, which can be summarized in one long comma-separated sentence: slimes, phallic mushrooms, orcs, giant cyclops, bipedal unicorns, some worms, armored knights, and mutant ninjas.

Each monster has multiple recolored variants, representing harder-hitting and bulkier versions of the originals. Slimes and mushrooms deviate from this pattern by becoming more aggressive and inflicting different status effects as their colors change; and, like all systems of this nature, there is a standard progression to these recolored variants, with green slimes being encountered early-on while stronger purple slimes lurk in the halls of the final zone.

Combating these enemies is not complicated. Pressing A makes Nigel slash with his sword, and jumping while attacking can reduce some of the frame data, enabling Nigel to attack slightly faster. Proper positioning within the isometric world is key to victory; however, if Nigel is too close to a tree or other obstacle — and sometimes it’s hard to tell — his attack will bounce off the environment with a small ding, leaving him vulnerable to attack, which happens all too often; additionally, the perspective can create an illusion that enemies are in front of Nigel when they’re actually slightly to the left or right in the foreground or background, causing Nigel to miss when attempting to attack them.

Bosses are a rarity, but when they do appear it’s typically at the end of dungeons; however, this is not always a guarantee, with some dungeons ending unceremoniously. When bosses do make an appearance, they often turn out to be altered versions of existing enemies. The first boss fight, for example, is two normal orc monsters recolored red, which you find as normal enemies later on.

As the game progresses, you will encounter enormous golem bosses brandishing hammers. To evade their attacks, you must time your jumps precisely when they bring their hammers crashing down to the ground. This adds an additional layer of complexity to the bosses, going beyond the usual button mashing that occurs far too often.

Though most bosses fail to make a lasting impact, Mir and the final boss defy this trend, outliers to the standard formula. Mir’s battle unfolds like a game of dodgeball, but instead of nerf balls, they’re fire balls. As for the final boss, well, find out for yourself – or don’t; whatever you want to do.

*golem boss approaches!

Landstalker’s combat can be likened to white bread, yet thanks to the impeccable sound design and elegantly simplistic animations, it takes on a lightly buttered, smooth, and satisfying quality. This remains true despite the tendency for combat to devolve into bunching enemies together and repeatedly pressing the attack button, exploiting monster recovery frames; a common characteristic found in 90s action-adventure games.

Combat doesn’t change much throughout your adventure; however, there are a few notable exceptions. From the very beginning, there’s a sword gauge on the UI. Initially, it serves no obvious purpose except to sit there, looking pretty, and to pique the players’ interest by teasing the idea that it’s – obviously – used for something, but what exactly?

Eventually, Nigel discovers the Magic Sword, which allows the sword gauge to charge up. When fully charged, Nigel unleashes a flame-slash that hits harder than the default attack. Ultimately this upgrade is nothing special; however, it marks the first of four attack upgrades that get progressively more exciting

In due course, Nigel acquires the Thunder Sword, which operates similarly but with electricity. This is followed by the Ice Sword, capable of shooting a small ice-tornado projectile. Lastly, Nigel obtains the Sword of Gaia, which triggers a full-screen earthquake, damaging everything on the screen, although the earthquake momentarily pauses the game to perform the full animation, temporarily removing you from the action for four whole seconds.

Nigel also finds new armor, boots, and rings throughout his journey. Armor serves the sole purpose of allowing Nigel to tank more damage, and surprisingly, the armor slightly changes Nigel’s appearance, which is a nice touch for an adventure game from the ’90s; especially considering that some computer games, even several modern games – such as a certain game released on Thursday, June 22, 2023 – don’t have this feature, the hero forever doomed to wear the same odorous garments for eternity.

] *the sword of gaia, earthquake doubles as time magic

While armor does not provide magical effects, the boots and rings do – offering abilities such as healing-while-moving and immunity to floor hazards. Three out of the five pairs of boots protect Nigel from different floor hazards; however, in an odd decision likely inspired by development-time-restraints, most of these boots are found in the final dungeon. This is unfortunate, as immunity boots could have easily been utilized to add variety to the early-to-mid-game platforming and puzzles; but not too unfortunate, as swapping equipment requires going into the menu, briefly taking the player out of the action – a criticism commonly directed at The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time’s Water Temple dungeon, which also utilized iron boots in a similar menu-based fashion.

In addition to weapons, armor, and rings, there are various consumable items as well, serving different purposes such as healing and temporary power-ups. Nigel’s bag is capable of storing all consumable items, including dungeon keys, with a maximum capacity of nine for each item.

Consumables can be purchased from shops or found in treasure chests throughout the Island of Mercator, along with the prized non-consumable item: Life Stocks. Life Stocks serve as the primary means of increasing Nigel’s life points and function similarly to a certain game’s heart container system. They also enhance Nigel’s attack power, making them invaluable for progression. Fortunately, Life Stocks are the primary reward for puzzles, so you won’t be lacking during your time in Mercator.

Although there are several consumable items, only one truly matters in Landstalker; that is the strangely-named EkeEke grass.

EkeEke grass serves a dual purpose: healing Nigel and reviving him from death. The idea is that Friday emerges from the bag and stuffs grass into Nigel’s mouth in the event that he falls in combat; resuscitating him and allowing him to continue his treasure hunting.

This feature functions as ‘extra lives’ and is integral to the Landstalker experience because death is as frequent and predictable as the sunrise, albeit lacking the beauty and tranquility of that celestial event.

*Friday reviving Nigel with EkeEke grass

While not immediately essential, EkeEke grass becomes incredibly crucial as the monsters grow more bothersome and the platforming becomes increasingly unfair. Leaving town without a full stock of nine grasses is a guaranteed waste of time since you will inevitably meet your demise and have to reload from your previous save.

Typing of which, Landstalker’s save system is very Dragon-Questian in that saving is only possible in a church through a priest who worships a Goddess. The priest even asks if you wish to continue playing once you have finished saving.

This method of saving functions as a checkpoint system, forcing you to reload at the last church upon true-death, courtesy of the Goddess’s benevolence. The underlying theory being that the Goddess governs time and space, summoning our hero back from the future to an earlier point in time, thereby facilitating the hero’s ultimate victory as long as the hero is willing to endure the time loop.

This checkpoint system ends up being a brutal cudgel that Landstalker hits you over the head with time and time again, especially when lacking EkeEke grass.

It’s safe to say that the revival properties of EkeEke grass were added late in the game’s playtesting after the developers received feedback that the playtesters were committing suicide en masse from having to redo hours of tedious platforming every time they fell into a pit of spikes, which – due to the game’s perspective – is completely unavoidable; so, instead of fixing the platforming issues they opted for giving the player extra lives.

Which is the perfect segue into why I will never play this game again.

V, CONCLUSION or: Reasons I Will Never Play This Game Again

Landstalker’s manual claims that the game takes place on the Island of Mercator but, in reality, Mercator is part of M. C. Escher’s world of “Relativity,” full of unknown and incomprehensible geometries. Actively hostile toward everything and everyone within it, like a demonic puzzle box in which every wrong move flat-out kills you – this death is not immediate or sudden; it’s slow, deliberate and painful – like prolonged torture.

And like a cat, you have nine lives to experience this torture.

*Landstalker by M. C. Escher

Like many computer games, Landstalker starts off relatively easy. A classic game design philosophy that has rarely ever been broken, slowly ramping up in difficulty around the half-way-point. This so-called “difficulty” is not really a matter of perspective – it is the perspective itself.

Monsters roam the halls; deadly traps litter the ceilings, waiting to crush you; and the floors sting with the sharp points of spikes. However, all of this is child’s play. The true enemy in Landstalker is the isometric perspective. The developers were well aware of this fact, utilizing the perspective like a ruler wielded by a 1940s teacher before laws against child abuse at school were instituted.

Landstalker feels like it’s purposely – and maliciously – designed to ruin the player’s day, utilizing devious tricks to deceive the player, all centered around exploiting the isometric perspective to fool the eye.

What you see is not true; it’s all lies. You may perceive an obvious platform to jump to, but as you leap, you find yourself plummeting into the pit below. In reality, the platform is situated on a plane slightly above you, an aspect impossible to discern without resorting to trial-and-error. Such jumps are scattered throughout every zone, sometimes occurring consecutively, which naturally prompts one to question the reality around them and, consequently, their own sanity.

*Perspective “puzzle”; sped up 3x; illustrating the absurd use of perspective to create mind-warping situations where the next jump is incomprehensible

This trial-and-error-platforming permeates your every pore. Within this hellish M. C. Escher painting simulator, you can never truly discern the placement of a platform. All you can do is leap and hope for the best. If you miss, you must climb back up and attempt a different direction, perhaps aiming for the platform this time – or perhaps not. Every jump is a gamble.

In comparison, computer games like Mario and Sonic present you with a clear playing field. The floating platforms in those titles require well-timed and precise jumps that, with enough skill, can be executed successfully on the first try. If you fail, it’s your own fault – just do better; however, this is not the case with Landstalker. Here, platforming becomes a series of mistakes, where successfully landing a jump on the first attempt is a feat achievable only after offering twelve sacrificial lambs on the dark altar of computer games.

In this way, Landstalker is a lot like Comcast Customer Support – it does not respect your time or sanity.

Picture this: your internet screws up, and you want to get back to doing your fun internet-things, so you call up Comcast Customer Support. The prompt says to press 1 to submit an issue; therefore, you press 1. It then asks you to describe your issue out of five different options, all with their own prompt. None of the options fit the exact nature of your problem, so you hit the 6th “other” option, thinking it will take you to a real person; however, for some mephistophelian reason, it loops you back to the start of the dialogue tree – forcing you to start over.

So, you start over; this time, frantically pressing prompts and saying “let me speak with a representative” repeatedly as if you just woke up inside a nasty – but warm – dumpster; before finally hearing the ringing noise of – possibly maybe – talking to a human being. Lo, hark and behold, a representative answers and asks what your problem is in the rudest tone imaginable; but you ignore this sleight; so desperate for resolution that you tell them your problem with an insane-looking smile behind the phone – “I’m getting a weird error message when I open the web browser.”

The Comcast representative gives you a fake apology; then, they say they have to put you on hold for a moment while they research your issue. At some point during this hold, the line drops, but the silence remains, and you don’t notice that you haven’t been on the line until five minutes have passed; they hung up.

Hands trembling in an alchemical mixture of rage and despair, you redial the Comcast Support line once again.

Eventually, after enough trial-and-error, your issue is resolved, and you’re back to playing cool online computer games; but at what cost? Yes, you got an $80 credit on your next internet bill, but the issue isn’t monetary – it’s cardiopulmonary.

*time to redo four rooms; the Comcast Customer Support experience

In many dungeons – and sometimes the overworld itself – the platforming process is so lengthy that failing results in such a setback that you have to redo four to five whole rooms of insane-perspective-platforming just to get back to where you trial-and-errored to begin with just to trial-and-error again; eventually, after three hours of redoing rooms, you know the perspective-trickery so well that you have memorized every absurd jump needed throughout the entire dungeon.

Games like Landstalker are why re-releases and remasters of classic computer games have built-in save-state functionality; and while I played this on an emulator of sorts, I purposely did not use save-states to preserve the original experience of the game; but if I had, the game would have been completed in less than half the time due to the sheer amount of tedious retreading Landstalker makes you do upon every slight-failure.

Consider the following: you enter a room with a large-dark-pit separating yourself from the exit. There are a number of floating platforms you can hop across to reach the exit. If you fall, you land in a basement cellar full of monsters waiting to eat you, and if you happen to escape that cellar, you have to climb back up to the room you’re in now, having gone through several similar rooms along the way.

You go to jump on the first platform, which is – clearly – right in front of you, but you miss – because of the perspective nonsense – and fall into the pit. You take several hits from monsters in the cellar below but manage to escape and make your way back to the pit-room again fifteen minutes later; eventually, you make it across the pit, but only after repeating this process three additional times – but, alas, you’ve done it: you’re in the next room.

The next room has three doors. Two of these doors lead to new areas, maybe with treasure or a boss – whatever. The third door, for some bezelbubian reason, transports you back to the basement cellar with all the monsters. So, of course, you pick the wrong door – the cellar door – and you’re back in the basement, forced to escape, climb back up the numerous floors, through the pit-room – again – and back into the room with three doors. By this point – as it’s been ten minutes – you’ve forgotten which door you chose originally, so you accidentally choose the cellar door again, and again, and again.

That’s Landstalker.

That’s why EkeEke grass revives Nigel. Many of these little mistakes lead to eventual death by a thousand tiny cuts. If the revive system didn’t exist, you’d not only have to redo all those rooms you just completed, but you’d have to redo traveling there from the last church you saved at, completing any additional absurd platforming along the way.

Landstalker feels like it has a mind of its own, and that mind has one singular thought: “I hate you. Yes, you – the player.”

*moving platform puzzle, one mistake is spike pit into a redo into a heart attack

Landstalker is one of the most unique games for the Sega Genesis. An action-adventure game with an isometric perspective that is – mostly – a platformer at heart; unfortunately, Landstalker’s perspective undermines its core gameplay, and while movement is fluid, combat is “fun” – whatever that means – and the setting and characters are entertaining, this is not enough to make up for the hours of frustration that come from the tedious and often mean-spirited platforming sections that rely solely on you failing repeatedly before figuring out that “oh, the platform is actually above me to the left six degrees!”

Much of this frustration could have been alleviated if there was a rewarding pay-off; for example, you get a cool new ability when you complete a punishing platforming section; however, the most common treasure in this game is EkeEke grass – stuffed in every other chest – almost as if the developers knew you would need it for their own brutal and unfair game-design decisions. Nigel, outside of the Sword of Gaia, doesn’t feel like he’s getting stronger throughout the game, more just managing not to break his legs or impale himself on a spike.

Landstalker tries to reward the player with satisfaction alone, but that’s not enough. Successful completion of unfair platforming sections does not feel rewarding – it feels like a relief.

Landstalker does not require skill; it demands mindless repetition and therapy. And when the final boss was defeated, I felt relieved. I was finally free.

As always, if you don’t succeed – try again; or don’t. If you get bored, do something else.

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(Originally published on 7/12/2023)

#ComputerGames #Landstalker #Review

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I, POPFUL PRELUDE or: Retroism Realized

The Sega CD was released in Japan in 1991 – a very long time ago, 31-years-long-ago, to be exact. I was barely even born at that point, not having truly been born until 2013 when I learned the true meaning of life (that there is none) and only physically born a few months before the Sega CD. And, despite knowing this in the recesses of my mind but always being surprised when remembering, the Nintendo Entertainment System, or the fancily named Famicom, came out in 1983 – one year before my favorite song, Talk Talk’s “It’s My Life,” and two years before Simple Minds’ “Don’t You (Forget About Me),” a song that, while incredibly popular because of The Breakfast Club, is just not that good and frankly kind of annoying with its melodically flat and monotonous chorus. Even crazier still, the NEC PC-8801, hardware Nihon Falcom’s Popful Mail was originally developed for, was released 41 years ago. The point is, this stuff is old – very old; Dad-had-a-mullet-old.

One might wonder: why play this old stuff? What’s the point? Well, as Dad always says, things were just better “back in my day.” Back then, platformers dropped you from a ledge and laughed; nowadays, weird sugar glider creatures fly in from off-screen, grabbing your character, placing them back on the ledge right before the fall, sometimes even offering to complete the jump for you – because if one thing makes a computer game better, it’s the ability for the computer to play the entire game for you. Humans not required.

Is one game design philosophy better than the other? It’s all a matter of opinion, but not really; because objectively, yes – one is better than the other: the one that doesn’t erase every dumb mistake you make, like rich parents who donate heinous sums of money to the local police department; above the law, and apparently above the tedium of actually playing computer games.

The game design philosophy favoring difficulty over automation, of course, comes with the existential dread of questioning the worth of video games altogether while pondering the time you’ve wasted mashing buttons on a controller; after all, you could have been doing something productive with your time, such as going back to college or earning a real estate license – even Dad cut his mullet at some point. But me? No – I refuse. I’m growing it out.

So, of course, I play old stuff. I play old stuff for the same reason I have a vinyl record player: so I can throw on the 7″ of “It’s My Life” while I rant to my wife about how overrated The Breakfast Club is, all while proclaiming Purple Rain the definitive ’80s movie. I wax nostalgic. I pine for a time I don’t remember, a time when getting the strategy guide for a computer game involved cutting out a card from the game’s official manual, sticking it in an envelope, mailing it off to the publisher along with $20, and then waiting three months; old-fashioned wholesome transactional methodology made entirely irrelevant by the final boss of the internet: Bezos, or something.

But, do I really care about this retro idealism? Not really – I just thought it would sound cool for the article; maybe I cared a little when I was in my twenties, but now? Now I’m mostly driven by a strong aversion to change, with just a sprinkle of nostalgia thrown in for good measure; sugar, spice, and everything wrong with the human psyche: a lot of contrarianism.

*Talk Talk’s “It’s My Life,” Popful Mail strategy guide mailer, old consoles; Breakfast Club backdrop

Anyways, Popful Mail is a quirky side-scrolling platformer developed by Nihon Falcom, of Ys fame. Popful Mail was originally released for the NEC PC-8801 home computer in 1991, then re-released on the PC-9801 in 1992, then remade for the Sega CD in April 1994, then remade again for the Super Famicom in June 1994, then re-re-released on the PC Engine CD in August 1994, then re-released again on Doja mobile phones by Bothetc in 2003, and finally re-released yet again on Windows PCs in 2006. Each version differs slightly (or wildly) from the others, with only one version released in North America – the Sega CD version, which happens to be the focus of this article.

When deciding to port Popful Mail from the NEC PC-8801 to the Sega CD, Sega originally reimagined the game as a Sonic spin-off titled “Sister Sonic,” with the aim of capitalizing on the immense popularity of the spiky-blue-mammal franchise. This rework would retain the core gameplay of Popful Mail but replace all the characters with new Sonic sidekicks. Notably, Mail would be replaced by Sonic’s sister, a completely new addition to the Sonic series that surely would elicit multiple inappropriate fanarts found only in the nastiest corners of the internet – primarily DeviantArt. However, much to Christian Weston Chandler’s frustration, this reimagining never came to fruition, leaving Sonic’s long lost nameless sister truly lost to the annals of time, forever trapped within some dumb executive-in-a-suit’s binder full of dumb corporate-friendly computer game pitches.

In light of Sister Sonic’s failed localization, the publisher Working Designs stepped in; taking on the responsibility of releasing the game in North America. Under the leadership of Japan-centric director Victor Ireland, who made it his personal mission to bring obscure Japanese games to the West, Working Designs quickly established itself as a publisher renowned for high-quality English ports of relatively unknown series in the West; including Exile, Lunar, Alundra, and Arc the Lad.

While the bulk of Popful Mail for Sega CD was already completed, localization needed to occur for the English release. This is where Working Designs worked their designs, rewriting most of the script to be more humorous, recording over 2 hours of English lines, and reworking over 20 minutes of anime cutscenes. They even utilized waveform analysis to match the existing character portrait mouth movements to the new English lines, a process that took over 4 months. The results speak for themselves: the English dialogue and the more humorous direction fit the overall tone of the game extremely well. And despite the choppiness of the low frame rate anime cutscenes, they shine through as a highlight of the Sega CD version of Popful Mail, helping to establish its charm as a playable ‘90s anime.

*while the anime cutscenes are typically very few frames, they are all beautifully drawn and fully voiced in English thanks to Working Designs’ localization

Much like Cartoon Network’s Toonami, Working Designs’ willingness to take risks on peculiar Japanese media earned it a place in the hearts of young kids throughout the ’90s and early 2000s, shaping the aesthetic tastes of an entire generation of reclusive nerds and weirdos; likely including the demographic that would be reading an online gaming blog titled ‘on computer games,’ or, heaven forbid, writing for one.

As a preface, this article does not intend to be a comprehensive comparison between all versions of Popful Mail, as I have not played every version, and frankly, I don’t want to; however, there are three main versions of Popful Mail that are easily distinguished: the original NEC versions, the Sega CD version, and the Super Famicom version.

Sega and Working Designs are responsible for arguably the most popular Sega CD release of Popful Mail, which incorporated a number of significant changes. The most obvious being the name change from Poppuru Mail to Popful Mail, made simply because it was a better fit for the bubbly goofball tone of the game and its titular main character. Other notable changes include reworked graphics, updated sound design, and new gameplay elements, such as the inclusion of an attack button instead of the strangely counter-intuitive “walk into enemy to deal damage” combat system of the original NEC versions; and while the Super Famicom version includes similar changes, it deviates so much that it might as well be considered an entirely different game deserving of its own article.

*NEC & Sega CD Popful Mail compared; Mail pictured in the same area in both, illustrating the near 1-to-1 level design between the two versions.

The Sega fandom seems built around liking stuff – in spite of quality – only because Sega did it first, making the first fighting game or racing game or whatever – not unlike the person who prefers The Vaselines over Nirvana only because they inspired Nirvana, even though The Vaselines only have one semi-decent song (that song being “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam” – and yes, that person was me in high school). I bring this up because whenever Sega CD is mentioned within the highly contrary Sega fandom (of which I’m being unfair and basing my entire analysis of the fandom on one insane acquaintance), Popful Mail is inevitably recommended every time; and considering its high praise, I had to play it myself.

To a lesser extent, “on computer games” needed an article covering a genre other than the role-playing genre; and before you leave a nasty reply proclaiming that Popful Mail is a role-playing game, let me clarify that Popful Mail merely pretends to be a role-playing game, incorporating only a few scant role-playing game elements; much closer to a platformer or Castlevania game than a role-playing game; an important distinction, as I firmly believe words and phrases should have meaning, and the term ‘role-playing game’ should have a clear definition. I am fed up with hearing how Zelda is “actually a role-playing game because you play a role and become stronger and stuff.”

Much like Popful Mail – short, sweet, silly, and not a role-playing game – this article intends to chronicle my experience with the Sega CD version of Popful Mail without being overly long or a chore to read; a rare occurrence for this site, known for long-form content and having no readers. Like all of our articles, this is not a review and it does not care if Popful Mail is your favorite game ever or whatever.

So, pass the aspirin and remember to abra instead of kadabra, because we’re going to talk about the game now.

II, TALKING ABOUT THE GAME NOW or: Goobers in a Nameless World

Popful Mail is a ridiculous computer game that evokes the feeling of playing a ’90s anime that doesn’t take itself seriously at all. It’s a goofy romp through a fantasy world full of swords and sorcery, where tanuki swordsmen and midget magicians roam giant tree forts with perfectly placed platforming logs, and the villain’s evil plot is often referred to as “crazy shenanigans.” In this nameless world, our hero, a bounty hunter named Popful Mail, hails from a town called Bountyville, which is blown up at some point by the dastardly wizard Muttonhead. Muttonhead is working alongside an evil puppeteer named Nuts Cracker, who has a detachable head and an almost-offensively-bad Italian accent. If none of this sounds absurd to you, it’s probably because you’re eight years old and shouldn’t be reading this article.

Popful Mail pretends. It pretends to be a role-playing game. It pretends to be an anime. It pretends to have a cohesive plot. It pretends to have important characters; however, the important bit here isn’t the absurdity of the setting or the characters but the namelessness of the world in which our heroes inhabit, illustrating just how unimportant the lore of this world is; lore being a key aspect in most role-playing games. Here, there is no world to reference; if you wanted to strike up a conversation about Popful Mail’s setting you’d have to use more words than you’re probably willing to invest – there’s no “in Tamriel,” only “in the world of Popful Mail,” a mouthful. And while this computer game does contain a prologue where seemingly important stuff happens, it doesn’t matter; as the famous Carl once said, “none of this matters.”

Popful Mail’s emphasis is on being a fun computer game, not on being a deep storytelling device with cool gods and clever world-building; none of that stuff matters – the world is nameless and the prologue is a pleasantry. The world, and the prologue, is there to facilitate the gameplay; as such, we have a fantasy facsimile; a generic world encompassing a forest zone titled “The Elf Woods,” two mountainous areas imaginatively referred to as “Mountains,” a polar penguin place creatively called “Chilly,” and a castle town complete with big tower that serves as the final hurdle of the game.

Each zone contains several levels, each with its own enemies, bosses, traps, and what I reluctantly refer to as ‘quests.’ Our heroes traverse these realms by traveling on a world map similar to the one found in Super Mario Bros. 3 – a world map where super-deformed representations of our heroes move from point A to point B, with each point representing a stage waiting to be conquered before our heroes can progress.

*the various zones of Popful Mail; showcasing the Super Mario Bros. 3 inspired world map

Our heroes form a triumvirate; each with different weapons, movement options, and personalities: the titular bounty hunter, Popful Mail; the aspiring wizard protege, Tatto; and lastly, a small blob of fat with wings named Gaw, belonging to the Gaw species, all of whom are named Gaw. Mail is available from the start, but the rest of the gang joins later after specific events. Each character is controlled separately and can be switched between at (almost) anytime through the pause menu, and as each character has their own health bar, you can switch between them when one gets low, effectively turning them into damage sponges when the need arises; however, if one character dies, it’s the game over screen – a screen you will be seeing a lot.

The magic happens when you interact with NPCs while controlling one of the three playable characters. Their distinct personalities shine through, leading to dramatic and often humorous changes in the way these interactions play out. Silly humor makes up the wit and soul of Popful Mail, and it’s overflowing in this regard. This is especially prevalent considering the number of absurd unskippable diatribes before boss battles, coupled with the fact that you will be dying a lot, forcing you to replay said unskippable diatribes; a major annoyance, but somewhat alleviated by the ample opportunities to see each character’s unique interaction with the boss.

Our titular hero, Popful Mail, is clearly based on the character Lina Inverse, of the light novel and cult anime series Slayers, which was very popular in Japan around the time of Popful Mail’s 1991 development. Both characters share the same design aesthetic, an excessively bubbly personality bordering on braindead, a fondness for money, and a fiercely independent nature. Unassuming and somewhat dimwitted upon first impression, both characters are actually highly competent and confident in their abilities. Most importantly, both consistently choose to do the right thing – despite vocal protest – and both are always left in worse financial situations than they were prior to starting off their quest.

The visual similarities between Mail and Lina are obvious at first glance. Besides their shared tendency to make super-deformed-over-exagerated faces, they both have striking red hair, prefer blue and red attire with big shoulder pads, have collars clasped with a jewel, and wear nearly identical headbands; however, Popful Mail’s concept artists couldn’t bring themselves to create a direct 1-to-1 copy, so some compromises were made, such as making Mail’s clothing more revealing and changing her eye color; another notable difference is the characters’ vocations: Mail is more physically oriented, similar to a fighter class in traditional role-playing game terms, while Lina is a powerful mage more likely to throw a fireball than swing a sword.

*Lina Inverse and Popful Mail; it’s up to the reader to figure out which is which

Being a fighter, Popful Mail is the fastest playable character and gains access to swords, throwing daggers, boomerangs, and even a blade-beam that Link would be jealous of. While she may not be the strongest character, she is the most well-rounded and, due to her agile nature, feels fluid and responsive to control, making her the preferred pick when facing dangerous opponents. On top of this, her in-game sprite looks great, with her instantly iconic heart-shaped breastplate.

The two remaining playable characters are less interesting but have their own charms. The first is the apprentice magician, Tatto, adorned in a long red cape and floppy hat. Although slightly slower than Mail, he makes up for it with his proficiency in ranged attacks; wielding various staves with magical properties, ranging from piercing fire bolts to homing balls of light. Tatto, or Tatt for short, serves as a foil to Mail as he possesses a more measured and thoughtful approach to conflict, whereas Mail tends to rush into danger without a second thought if the money is right.

The final playable character is Gaw, a blue-blob-dragon-thing with wings. As his simple onomatopoeia may imply, Gaw embodies the tropeful personality of a dumb but good-hearted barbarian. Unlocked late in the game, Gaw quickly becomes the only character worth playing. In a single stroke of poor game balancing, Gaw has the ability to jump ridiculously high and possesses the strongest attacks among the entire cast. He has access to a powerful flamethrower and later gains a full-screen beam that decimates enemies unlucky enough to be caught in its path, making him the de facto boss killer. Gaw’s only drawback is his slow movement speed; however, his advantages far outweigh his disadvantages. And while he’s a funny looking character with a cool beam, he doesn’t feel as fluid as Mail and manages to become boring to play; which is a shame, because not using Gaw is like purposely cutting off your own legs: dumb.

*all three heroes in their spritely glory

There are a number of supporting goobers you meet throughout the game, including an elf named Slick who, despite being well-intentioned, ends up causing more than a few ancient horrors to awaken from their slumber due to his obsession with blowing things up; Glug, a clean-shaven dwarf and master crafter who rebels against the old-dwarven-ways by shaving his face; King Lipps, ruler penguin of Chilly with a pronounced lisp, would likely be played by Patton Oswalt if Popful Mail were ever adapted into a live-action movie. Silliness abound; each of these characters share one thing in common: they’re goobers. They goobify the plot to goobtastic levels of gooberism that only a goober wouldn’t appreciate.

And, of course, no computer game is complete without a rogues’ gallery of dangerous villains. In Popful Mail’s case: a troupe of dimwits and idiots; ranging from hideous to bishōnen, nonsensical to practical. Each villain possesses their own little quirk, and it turns out that the stereotypically “cool” villains are the least interesting ones. The first villain we encounter is Nuts Cracker, Mail’s bounty target, who is a wooden puppet man with a detachable head. We discover that he is working for Muttonhead, an old bald wizard whose primary goal is to resurrect some ancient Overlord (or something). We then discover that Muttonhead is actually working for a seemingly-Swedish muscleman named Sven T. Uncommon, whom you fight in various forms throughout the game. Before each fight, he yells, “Listen to me now and believe me later,” and then proceeds to insult you by calling you a baby in sixteen different ways. He finishes it off with a “Prepare to be pummeled by my manly pumpitude.” Goobers galore.

Like any good Japanese computer game, the serious final villains are the coolest-looking, and it’s no different in Popful Mail. Kayzr, the white-haired wizard of many-a-fictional-anime-girl’s dreams, is a textbook bishōnen, adorned in a flowing cloak and always mysteriously vanishing in and out of scenes, commanding a small harem of women, notably Wriph and Wraph, beautiful elemental twins of fire and ice. Kayzr is the real mastermind behind the scenes, pulling the strings to get the mysterious Overlord resurrected for reasons. The trade-off here is that, much like real life, the more flashy and beautiful someone appears, the more vacuous and braindead they actually are – the qualities are directly proportional with very little exception; and it’s no different here. Kayzr and his gorgeous goons have the least amount of screentime and end up being pushover boss fights; and, in a game full of goofball characters, Kayzr and his groupies end up feeling out of place with no silly quirks of their own. But hey, they look nice, and that’s worth something.

Popful Mail’s gaggle of goobers galore is fairly diverse. Each character could easily slide their way into a ’90s afternoon anime, with many of the villains feeling like perfect filler-episode fodder; and although they may be extremely stupid, these characters play a vital role in elevating this computer game beyond simply another side-scrolling platformer that takes itself too seriously where you hit stuff and do the jumps. The humorous and bickering banter between the numerous conflicting goobers is constantly entertaining, adding a touch of levity to the sometimes frustrating and tedious platforming elements. It serves as a reminder to the player that, as Carl says, none of this really matters; sit back, take a breath, and relax.

*goobers galore

If you’ve read this far you already know the gist of the story. Some bad dudes are trying to summon an ancient evil named the Overlord. Popul Mail is a bounty hunter who gets mixed up in the plot during her bounty-hunting for Muttonhead, who’s in league with the strongman Sven T. Uncommon and the bishy Kazyr. Mail encounters a gaggle of goobers along the way, some of which join Mail on her quest to save the world.

And, of course, Mail does save the world – is anyone surprised? It’s all very rudimentary stuff; so let’s talk about how she saves the world: let’s talk about the gameplay now.

III, TALKING ABOUT THE GAMEPLAY NOW or: Game Over

Popful Mail is a platformer that includes several elements one might associate with the role-playing genre, such as equipment, items, shops, money to spend at those shops, a party of sorts, health points, stats, and that’s about it. Popful Mail is not a role-playing game (I swear), and these so-called “role-playing game elements” are found in multiple games throughout the decades that are not role-playing games. Grand Theft Auto has shops, Metal Gear has equipment, Castlevania has items, almost every game has health points these days. We don’t consider those games role-playing games, maybe partially inspired by ideas first popularized by games like Ultima and Wizardry, but they are certainly not Ultima or Wizardry or anything remotely similar.

Then, what is a role-playing game? In my expert opinion – I actually have no qualifications whatsoever – a role-playing game is a computer game inspired by Dungeons & Dragons; incorporating a cast of characters, preferably player-created but not absolute, and a level-based progression system that includes a hint of customization. A role-playing game features loot from multiple sources and combat governed by elements of dice-like-chance. Role-playing games embody a sense of “grand adventure,” where active exploration of the world is essential to uncover its secrets; a role-playing game does not simply plop you from one level to the next with clear objectives; and while not entirely necessary, meaningful player choices that impact the overall narrative help solidify a computer game’s status as a true role-playing game. Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule; and many exceptions exist; however, Popful Mail is not one of those exceptions.

None of these distinctions are important. More pedantic than profound, people pother plenty over genre labels in every form of media; bickering endlessly on forums; but ultimately, “none of this matters.” Labels are useful for one thing only, informing people unfamiliar with a thing of what to expect from a thing.

A chair is something with four legs that you sit on, but sometimes a chair has two legs, and sometimes a chair has one leg; dogs have four legs, and you can sit on a big dog provided they’re cool with it – so, are big dogs chairs too? Is a big rock a chair? Is a table a chair?

Who cares – when you see something that is a chair, you just know: that’s a chair; when you play a role-playing game, you just know: that’s a role-playing game.

Whatever labels you choose to use, my motto remains the same: if a computer game looks cool, play it. And indeed, Popful Mail looks cool, so I played it.

*the various shopkeepers you will encounter on your popful journey

The irony of proclaiming genres as mostly meaningless yet describing Popful Mail as a “platformer” is not lost on me. So let me explain. Popful Mail features multiple levels consisting of various areas that require precise jumping from platform to platform. These levels also include dangerous traps such as fire pits, spinning spiky balls, disappearing ledges, and various enemies that need to be defeated to progress – many of these enemies can be skipped by simply jumping over them, a common platformer characteristic.

Popful Mail differs from other platformers of its decade in a few ways, aside from its role-playing elements. The most noticeable difference is the absence of death pits, which are pits that immediately cause death upon falling into them. These death pits, often the bane of players in games like Mario or Sonic, are notably missing in Popful Mail. Instead, the game focuses on incorporating more verticality into its level design and ruining your day when you fall from a tall height.

This verticality is evident right from the first level, a forest zone featuring numerous ladders and tree branches that you must climb to progress. In these zones, falling doesn’t result in instant death but rather prompts a pseudo-redo. It’s like a death sentence in every aspect except actual death, as you are required to retread your steps and jumps to the point where you fell; and since all the monsters respawn, it’s déjà vu.

This game design choice was intentional, evidenced by the lack of fall damage. Instead, when your character falls from a great height, they exhibit an expression as if they’ve taken damage, but in reality, they haven’t; they’ve only come to the realization that they need to re-climb the entire level.

*it’s a platformer, I swear

Each of Popful Mail’s levels are based on the particular overworld zone you happen to be in. For example, Chilly levels are blue icy tundras and icicle undergrounds; mountain levels are stony-brown caves and mine shafts. Each zone contains similar monsters throughout its levels; the forest zone contains tanuki slashers, midget magicians, and hanging spiders that swing back and forth from treetops; while the mountain zone contains orc miners, bat beamers and silverfish digglers. The enemy variety is impressive, and each enemy has its own gimmick that you must learn and adapt to, like any true platformer.

The controls in Popful Mail are straightforward. As a side-scroller, holding forward moves the character forward, while holding back moves them forward in the opposite direction. Pressing A makes the character jump, and pressing B makes the character attack. These are the extent of the controls. Victory is dependent on how precise your movement is and how well you time your attacks. That’s all there is to it. Popful Mail is undoubtedly a skill-based computer game, one that can be completed without taking any damage and without purchasing new equipment; although, going for the latter option would significantly increase the time needed to defeat enemies, especially bosses.

Combat is simple. Each of the three characters has five weapons, each becoming obsolete once upgrading to the next weapon, with the final weapon – the Aura class weapons – being the strongest, naturally. All attacks have a stun-locking nature to them, meaning if your attacks are timed correctly, a monster can be locked into their recovery animation permanently, thereby preventing their movement and attacks. This tactic is often very useful, unless there are multiple monsters on the screen that you need to pay attention to. And while this is incredibly useful for dealing with threats, it comes across as lazy game design that facilitates boring enemy interactions such as: stand in front of enemy and press A precisely every seventh of a second.

A useful rule of thumb when trying to determine a game’s genre is that if grinding makes progression easier, then you’re likely playing a role-playing game or something very similar. Grinding is technically possible in Popful Mail, killing an enemy over and over for money, but that money can only be used on healing items from shops. No amount of healing items is going to compensate for a lack of skill; and you will definitely need some semblance of skill as enemies do a lot of damage in Popful Mail, especially bosses that send you to the game over screen in two or three hits.

The game over screen becomes your ever faithful companion in Popful Mail, a computer game that seems simple but ends up being extremely frustrating. Your character rides the edge of the screen, making enemies and hazards feel as if they’re materializing in front of you without any time to react. This makes getting hit by seemingly avoidable attacks or hazards a frequent occurrence – a common criticism levied at Sonic games where Sonic’s speed often leads to this same situation. This makes Popful Mail less of a “react to oncoming traffic” experience and more of a “get t-boned by a drunk driver with his headlights off in the middle of the night” type of experience, which can often make Popful Mail feel tedious and unfair to play; especially when some enemies, notably mages, can fire spells at you from off-screen, and do so frequently.

*all three game over screens; something you’ll be seeing a lot

Once the developers assume you have mastered the controls, they serve up the ice zone: Chilly. Every stage is covered in thick icy snow that causes our heroes to slide ever so slightly when walking and leads to uncapped acceleration when holding forward; almost as if every floor tile is a speed-up pad from Sonic, throwing a wrench into how you’re used to playing. Blast processing? It’s here, often blast processing you right into an enemy and straight to the game over screen.

Item shops in Chilly stock “Ice boots” designed to stop the slippage; but woe is me: they’re consumable and break after so many uses, making them nice but dumb and expensive to maintain. While the need for computer games to change things up is ever-present, this change in movement is more frustrating than fun; so despite the aesthetically pleasing Chilly zone, all borealis and blue: no thanks.

Touched on earlier, the world of Popful Mail includes a number of inhabitants, and a few of them have chores for you. Some of these chores are optional, while others are required for progression, necessitating backtracking to previous zones. Luckily, backtracking occurs only a few times; lucky because Popful Mail isn’t designed with backtracking in mind. There is no fast travel system in place, so you must traverse most of the level again to complete these sidequests and then double back once more to leave the zone and return to the NPC in question to deliver the goods. This often requires more platforming through levels already completed because the majority of these NPCs are located in towns maliciously placed in the middle of levels; the solution to this problem is obvious: don’t place towns in the middle of dangerous levels that require a bunch of platforming. Instead, make towns their own node on the world map – but hey, what do I know?

These poorly placed towns are where you’ll end up spending all of your hard-earned money. In Popful Mail, keeping with the bounty hunting theme, money effectively replaces experience points by serving as the only means to enhance your character’s attributes. While there are various consumable items available for purchase, such as healing food and an expensive invincibility amulet, the true value of money lies in acquiring new equipment.

Each character possesses a unique set of equipment: three pieces of armor and a weapon; weapons being the most important, as they offer significant upgrades in terms of damage output; of course, you could stick with the vanilla equipment throughout the game instead but this would be a self-imposed hard mode primarily because you would do pitiful damage to the bosses.

*Mail’s inventory screen; showcasing her armor, weapons and items

Before we move on to the bosses, let’s talk about the save system. In Popful Mail, you’re allowed to save anywhere at (almost) any time; and unlike some computer games discussed on this site, you can’t doom yourself by saving in the wrong place at the wrong time. The few instances where saving should be restricted are indeed prevented by the game, indicating that the developers were keen on avoiding soft-locking caused by a poorly designed save system; the ouroboros has been thwarted. However, you can forget to save, then die, and subsequently lose an hour of progress, something that happened to me a lot; with no checkpoint system, the great power to save anywhere comes with great responsibility.

Despite there being three save slots available, it’s possible to find yourself in a pseudo-stuck situation by saving when your characters have low health in the middle of a level. This is often followed by the realization that you have to make it through the entire level without getting hit, and depending on the type of player you are: this is either a harrowing game-ender or an exhilarating “get good” moment; but it is not a soft-lock, more like a will-lock – will you persevere or will you give up?

For instance, after completing the first zone, Treesun, and defeating the first official boss, the Wood Golem, I ventured into the Wind Cave level but saved about halfway through with only 5 HP remaining, meaning one hit would result in a game over; and with no easy means of healing, my path was clear: quit or backtrack to the first town to heal up. The latter required near-perfect platforming through almost two full levels. This backtracking journey ended up taking over 20 save reloads, navigating through both Wind Cave and Treesun with only 5 HP, dying repeatedly. I could have given up, and at a few points, I wanted to, but I kept on; getting better with each death until eventually, I made it through. Is this impressive? Not really. Am I a better person for doing this? Absolutely not. But it did feel good once it was over.

A “save anywhere” system makes situations like the one outlined above more reasonable, as once you hit a milestone, you can save and reload from that spot at any time; however, it also facilitates lazy gameplay, such as immediately reloading upon a failed jump or any slight annoyance whatsoever, which is something I admit to doing once or twice or a lot; it’s a hard temptation to resist: fall from a great height and don’t want to reclimb the level? Reload. Get hit by an enemy? Reload. A built-in savestate system.

This irresistible urge to reload comes into play most often when fighting bosses, which are prevalent throughout Popful Mail and a highlight of the game. These bosses range from push-over to extremely annoying with very little in between. Much like Mega Man, bosses are all pattern-based-games, and without foreknowledge, you’re going to die the first time and probably the second time and the third time as well; or you could just reload the first time you get hit so you don’t have to sit through the game over and continue screens. Bosses don’t fool around when it comes to damage, which emphasizes the pattern recognition aspect of their design.

*bosses, bosses, bosses!

Some bosses play fair, with lasers, fireballs, and punches that come out after a tell; all you need to do is pay attention. Other bosses are very intimidating, sometimes feeling impossible to defeat – until you stumble upon a gimmick to kill them. A perfect example of this is the first boss, the Wood Golem, whose rocket punch attacks are hard to dodge, and if you get too close, he rushes back and forth quickly in an almost unavoidable manner. I reloaded several times on this boss before realizing that if I get behind him, it forces him to do his backwards rush attack resembling a butt-bounce, and if I attack him during this, it puts him in a recovery animation. By timing attacks properly, I can stun-lock him in this recovery animation, making the fight go from dying repeatedly to defeating him without taking damage; which feels a little weird?

This stun-locking tactic comes into play a lot, especially with mooks, but also with a select few early-game bosses where this clearly shouldn’t be the case, as it feels like lazy game design; a poor solution to boss fights. Later bosses such as Kayzr, Wriph, and Wraph avoid this by vanishing or moving quickly after being hit, but these bosses are easy in their own way, as by that point, you have Gaw and his full-screen laser. A few bosses feel unfair, such as the Fire Golem, who launches fireballs out in a haphazardly random manner, making damage unavoidable – a frustrating exercise in repeated reloads.

Popful Mail’s bosses, all imaginative and goofy in its signature style, are a highlight; however, while occasionally frustrating, they are often underwhelming in terms of difficulty, with the difficulty curve being unusually frontloaded, and that’s not because of simply getting better at the game. The last three bosses of the game, for example, fall into this category, which is disappointing when one is conditioned by Mega Man and Castlevania to expect final bosses that require a high level of tell-reading, prediction, and near-perfect execution. The penultimate boss has one attack: a homing ball of energy; the final boss has two: a rocket punch and an energy ball, both of which are easily jumped.

But it’s not all boredom. There are a number of bosses that evoke the timeless satisfaction of slowly getting better through repeated failure, a feeling any platformer aficionado is familiar with; this feeling is just few and far between, with frustration and malaise filling the void between these fleeting moments.

IV, THE END or: Computer Games Are Very Serious, Aren’t They?

Popful Mail is a platformer; but really, it’s its own thing. The role-playing elements combined with the progression systems make it resemble Super Metroid in some ways and classic Castlevania in others; close to a “Metroidvania.” However, there is not enough gameplay variety or interesting backtracking to truly make that comparison.

In other ways, Popful Mail feels like Super Mario, especially with all the jumping and its world map progression; but the actual combat resembles the later Ys games, which makes sense as the original developer, Nihon Falcom, made both series. As with both series, the few actions you can do, jumping and attacking, feel great in all respects.

Ultimately, Popful Mail is a linear adventure in a world of swords and sorcery. The only meaningful backtracking involves retrieving chests that were previously out of reach before unlocking Gaw or talking to someone in an earlier level to obtain an item necessary for progression in a later level. There are no true movement upgrades, which causes the gameplay, while responsive and satisfying, to feel stale after the first few hours. Although new characters and weapons add some variety, they do not significantly alter the way the game is played. As a result, you find yourself repeatedly performing the same actions: jumping and attacking. One could argue that this is an unfair and reductive perspective but it could always be further reduced to simply “all you do is press A and B.” The point being, the inclusion of abilities like double jumps, hovering, or dashing would have kept the gameplay interesting.

Popful Mail’s role-playing elements are superficial; for a game that tries to lean into its role-playing tropes, it misses several low-hanging fruit. For example, equipment is always purchased from shops, with the exception of ultimate weapons, which are simply given to you near the end of the game. It would have been more engaging if Popful Mail required some form of light questing to forge these final weapons or acquired some from chests hidden throughout the world. Another example: there’s an attributes screen with various stats listed, but I couldn’t tell you what they are because it’s entirely pointless to look at, as the next tier of equipment increases your stats without exception. You’d think the Flame Robe would ward off fire damage, but no, it only increases your defense a little bit. The only true attribute that matters is money. Money and equipment function as experience points and leveling up, respectively, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s half-baked and linear, with every upgrade feeling samey by not adding any significant gameplay alterations.

Popful Mail misses every opportunity to be a good Castelvania game. Good thing it’s not a Castlevania game. And, although released before “Metroidvania” even became a word that people use, Popful Mail would have benefited from borrowing elements from the Metroidvania format, because it already comes incredibly close to begin with; considering time travel is seemingly impossible, I suppose it is unfair to criticize a computer game for not being like future computer games, but the feeling that something is missing is hard to shake.

*end game credits

The overall presentation is good, though. The graphics, powered by the Sega CD add-on, are colorful and poppy, fitting the goofy nature of the game. Every sprite is incredibly detailed, with enemies and bosses that feel like they jumped out of a ’90s anime. The cutscenes are beautifully drawn and add to the classic anime aesthetic that Popful Mail embodies so well.

The music, unfortunately, does not fare as well. Quintessentially Sega Genesis soundchipped, with chunky bass and grainy drum cracks, yet the tracks themselves are not melodically interesting enough to warrant listening to for hours on end. Every track plays at a high BPM in a short loop, sounding like a mixture between house and ’90s electronic – think Alice Deejay’s “Better Off Alone” but more cheery and less catchy.

Each of the five zones contains a unique track that plays continuously throughout, with one or two exceptions during the final stages of the game and when entering shops. The monotonous music, more suited to adventuring, even plays when you enter a town – a transition that one would hope to be accompanied by more relaxing music.

The lack of musical transition between platforming and towns further emphasizes the true focus of the game; the role-playing game that’s not a role-playing game. You have to keep moving; there’s no time to relax. Turning the game into a Sonic title, as was originally intended, makes sense in this regard. The towns full of non-playable characters are an afterthought. All jump and slash. There is no chill; only 168 beats per minute.

There are two types of computer gamers: one that is endlessly frustrated by the tedium of repetition, and one that feels an immense sense of satisfaction from getting better by repeatedly failing. Both end up turning the game off to cool down for a moment; both may lay in bed at night, close their eyes, and visualize playing the game perfectly. Then, upon getting that second wind, turning the game back on with this newfound confidence, only to immediately die again – the first player may move on to another game at that point; the second would continue forevermore until mastery.

Popful Mail, like many platformers, will teach you a lot about yourself. After all, computer games are very serious, aren’t they? Do you have the patience to overcome the frustration, or will you put the controller down and stop playing? Is one better than the other?

Maybe having the patience to overcome Popful Mail is indicative of how patient you will be with other hardships in life; or maybe giving up is indicative of a wise person who sees no true value in investing time in a computer game that is more frustrating than fulfilling, rather spending that time on something more important or enjoyable. What does one truly gain from completing a computer game anyways? Bragging rights – is that it?

Popful Mail, very much so, personifies these questions, and in this way, Popful Mail succeeds as a computer game.

Of course, you know my position: if you get bored, do something else.

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(Originally published on 6/25/2023)

#ComputerGames #PopfulMail #Review

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I, INTRODUCTION or: Please Kill Me

Romancing SaGa is a Japanese role-playing computer game developed and released by Square in 1992 for the Super Famicom, only in Japan. The fourth game in the SaGa series, following the Game Boy SaGa trio masquerading as Final Fantasy games in the West, Romancing SaGa is the culmination of lessons learned from the Game Boy classics before it; an evolution of sorts, except the evolutionary mutation messed up somewhere along the way and no predator was around to correct for it. I know this because I broke the cardinal rule: I got bored, yet I kept playing.

In 1990, spurred on by the success of the SaGa titles for the Game Boy, Nintendo reached out to Square and requested a SaGa game for their new Super Famicom system. Akitoshi Kawazu, series creator and director of the first two SaGa games, eagerly seized the opportunity and, disregarding all development efforts for SaGa 3 on the Game Boy, focused entirely on Romancing SaGa. The result is vaporwave, a highly aesthetic thing influenced by cool things that ends up being a very stupid thing. Like vaporwave, you might as well just experience the stuff that influenced it: Dungeons & Dragons, jazz, Final Fantasy Legend II, and 80s television ads; glimpses of genius mixed with terrible decisions resulting in a highly unfun computer game reveling in time-waste.

Don’t get me wrong, Romancing SaGa is a game full of great ideas. These ideas are just executed very poorly. Square also recognized this, which is why they re-released a far more complete version for the Wonderswan Color in 2001, a version in which half the quests aren’t incomplete and several skills don’t just “not work as intended.” Square even went on to remake the game as Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song in 2005, the only version to get a Western release. The latter shares the same setting, characters, and gameplay ideas as the original but could easily be considered an entirely separate SaGa title due to the large amount of game-design and aesthetic changes. These changes were likely necessary to avoid inspiring a riot among western gamers or simply selling more than ten units, keeping in mind the top-selling games in 2005 North America: Madden NFL, Pokemon Emerald, and Gran Turismo 4.

*Three Style Siff: Romancing SaGa concept art, mobile game sprite, and Minstrel Song concept art, respectively; the aesthetic difference in Minstrel Song being obvious (and ugly)

As a disclaimer of sorts, I’m writing this article coming off a six-week leave from my “real job” due to paternity leave. My wife and I had a baby, well, my wife had the baby, and I merely participated a bit. Our baby’s name is Arthur. Baby Arthur. I am typing this paragraph on a Dell G15 laptop, which I purchased almost two years ago on sale (and will most likely need to return via warranty due to power issues), while my son lies pressed against my leg on the cushion next to me, and my wife watches an episode of Gilmore Girls on Netflix on our budget-friendly 4K television; a snapshot of a certain period in my life – and nothing else matters, because everything is great at this very moment.

Everything is great except for one thing: going back to work.

With that in mind, while reading this article, you may find it carries a tone of contrariness or mean-spiritedness that, in all honesty, is entirely genuine; however, these emotions, which are absolutely present in my everyday psyche, are exacerbated by the circumstances of returning to the world I escaped for six weeks; a world I traded for one of changing diapers, staying up until 5am so my wife could get some sleep, playing handhelds on the sofa with a sleeping baby on my chest, and watching every episode of Columbo multiple times.

Now, I return to a world of pointless video calls with executives discussing software they take way too seriously and paid way too much for. Software that does far less than what was promised by our sales team. Software that breaks way more often than expected. Software that, for all intents and purposes, is not very good; but it’s my job to pretend it is; it’s my job to string these executives along long enough that they sign another year-long contract with us just so we can string them along again to sign yet another almost-identical contract at a slightly higher price next year – because last year’s prices are not this year’s prices! And, of course, inflation – or something.

*my thoughts exactly

I traded a world of corporate deceit for one of pure innocent bliss, and now the rug has been pulled. The “tradeback” has occurred. I am, once again, in the corporate hellscape that, surely, Dante would have included in Inferno if this type of thing existed back in the 14th century. Maybe the Fourth Circle already covers this; maybe not. Either way, it’s Hell. The Divine Comedy: work for five days to pretend you don’t have to work for two days, and maybe take a vacation in a few months – just to repeat the process over and over and over. Maybe I’ll retire early, or maybe I’ll get hit by a car.

Maybe antinatalists are right.

Typically, these are feelings I consider counterproductive to sanity and, consequently, healthy living. So, I try to suppress them, but I will be removing the limiters here, exposing my power level for all our readers (none). After all, what would a blog be without some angst-ridden existential dread injected into every furiously typed word? You weren’t here just to read about Romancing SaGa, were you?

Oh, you were? Too bad.

II, EMULATION or: Your Bookshelf Full of Dumb Computer Games Is Not Impressive

The original Romancing SaGa is one of the few Japanese-only SaGa games, which wasn’t true until 2016 when Square Enix decided to remaster both Romancing SaGa 2 and 3 and release them worldwide on mobile and almost every console. I suppose this treatment was not needed for the original Romancing SaGa, as it was already, technically, available in worldwide lingua franca as Minstrel Song, but also because it’s just not a very good computer game – something (I swear) I’m going to get to (maybe).

As a good ol’ American boy, lazy and rebellious in my youth, I never bothered to learn stuff, including other languages. I was laser-focused on my hobbies providing immediate gratification: video games, music, and occasional drug use. So, of course, you may be wondering, “If you can’t read Japanese, how did you play the original Romancing SaGa?” The answer is simple: I downloaded an English fan translation ROM and played it on an emulator. The translation patch, credited to “Eien Ni Hen” in the readme file, was surprisingly competent, so thanks to that person for the great work. Not only did I play it in an entirely unofficial manner, but I also used entirely unofficial hardware. As I type this, I can feel my cool-retro-computer-gamer club membership card being revoked.

Repulsed by the idea of playing Romancing SaGa on my desktop computer or laptop, too lazy to get it working on my PlayStation Portable (and not a fan of letterbox and black bars), and illiterate in Japanese, my hands were tied. Because of this, although originally averse to buying cheap Chinese emulation devices, I caved and purchased a Miyoo Mini Plus. I ordered the device in translucent-black-color mid-May, and it arrived from China well before its estimated arrival date that same month.

The Miyoo Mini Plus is a rectangle device of some-sort about the size of my hand with buttons and a nice 3.5-inch screen; modeled aesthetically on the Game Boy Color. With its 1.2GHz processor and aforementioned buttons running RetroArch, it can play almost any console era before 1995, ranging from NES to PSX, with varying degrees of success. Missing analog sticks, so games like Ape Escape are unplayable; but, it looks cool; an obvious contender for something one would play 8-to-16-bit Japanese computer games on. Plus, I can play it while lying on the couch with Baby Arthur on my chest, and that’s the most important thing: can I gracefully ignore my son while playing the computer games? With the Miyoo Mini Plus – yes, I can.

No, this is not a paid ad. Don’t buy this thing. I don’t care.

*Miyoo Mini Plus or Baby Arthur; which is more important?

There are some computer-gaming purists who may scoff at a device like the Miyoo Mini Plus. They may make arguments such as “the games don’t run like they should on those” or “that’s not how it’s meant to be played,” or some other dumb thing. According to these purists, my computer-gaming experience with Romancing SaGa is pure fakery, merely a pale imitation of the genuine enjoyment experienced by a true fan. They insist that unless I become fluent in Japanese, use my mouse to navigate to eBay dot com to purchase a Japanese copy of the game, and play it on a vintage 1992 13-inch CRT TV, I cannot truly claim to have played the game; my experience is invalid. Some might even insist that I “had to be there” in Japan when the game was originally released to get the true experience.

That’s because this stuff is very important – this stuff is the difference between unbridled joy and huddling in the fetal position in your super cool gaming room. The latter because you didn’t receive enough likes on the latest picture of your overpriced CRT TV adorned with the title screen of Romancing SaGa or whatever computer game you believed determined your self-worth that day; and while I wish these hypothetical (but completely real) people the best in life, I also hope they get trolley-problemed (in a computer game).

I warned you earlier.

I have been what they call ‘terminally online’ for a long time now. My mom bought me a Dell Dimension-something-or-other, a big black monitor and a big black tower, for my room in 2001, probably to get me to shut up about playing RollerCoaster Tycoon on her work laptop all the time. I had unfettered access during the wild west era of the internet. My first weirdo experience was at 11 years old when I made a phone call to someone I met on an anime forum. That person turned out to be much older than they claimed and wanted to know a lot more about me than I was comfortable providing, including which yaois I liked; somehow, I didn’t fall for it and learned from the experience at the same time.

Because of the aforementioned weirdo experience (and many other weird things), I can spot a crazy person online within four words of a social media post, and I can spot a narcissist within two, mostly because people make it far too easy, but also because I am one myself. Narcissists are everywhere, in every community. We all exist on a gradient scale, with a little bit of narcissism inside each of us. However, the communities with the most narcissists, by far, have to be the retro-gaming and game-collector communities; tied with the red-pill community for amount-of-people-I-would-never-be-caught-dead-associating-with.

Browse Twitter or Reddit for three seconds while the algorithm believes you’re interested in retro-gaming, and you’ll quickly realize: there are a lot of people who post pictures of their old TVs, bookshelves full of old computer games, and various console collections, many of which seem untouched. Unboxed NES collections. Rooms containing the entire Wii library with a Wii of every color, yes, even the ultra-rare light blue and red Wiis; collections worth anywhere between 10 to 50 thousand dollars, a cost that’s (apparently) worth 2 Reddit awards (whatever those are). There are even individuals who, in a thinly veiled attempt at modesty, will post their entire collection of unopened Final Fantasy games for the Switch; they gleefully emote, “Finally got the last one!” to their six thousand psychopathic followers.

While doom-scrolling past this apocalyptic consumerist hellscape, you may wonder to yourself – do they even play these games? How did they afford this? Where do they keep all this stuff? And if you’re (un)lucky enough, you may even see the occasional picture of four rare N64 cartridges with the caption of ‘which would you play first?’

*Well, which would you play first?

News flash: They don’t care which game you would play first. All they care about is you seeing the post, liking it, sharing it, and commenting on it. Nothing else matters except the recognition. Look at the collection and observe how much time and money I spent (wasted) on this collection. Witness how cool and expansive my taste in games is. It’s not a mystery why every collector insists on showing every person they meet their collection, including their sister’s obviously-uninterested boyfriend.

The number of dumb games collected is directly proportional to the self-worth of the individual. The bookshelves filled with rare Custom-Robo or Ms Pac-Man games, tables adorned with classic consoles, and cabinets brimming with odd computer game peripherals are not about the games themselves – they’re about the collector’s ego. It’s about status within a social circle comprised entirely of terminally online weirdos.

Multiple studies and real-life examples have long confirmed that narcissists are far more likely to engage in status-seeking behaviors, which include acquiring luxury items, in order to project an image of success to their social circle. Like a millionaire buying mansions they don’t spend any time in. This behavior is not limited to “luxury” items; rather, it extends to any item that would impress one’s social circle. This tendency is particularly evident in the retro gaming community, and a quick scroll through Twitter or Reddit is enough to witness it firsthand. If you have a modest sum of money to spare and lack any real talent, the easiest way to gain recognition is by purchasing old plastic and taking pictures of it for online clout.

*the retro gamer council convening to revoke my membership

In a community full of left-leaning individuals (including myself), it is incredibly ironic that collecting computer games is so prominent among computer gamers, especially considering how expensive, materialistic, and incredibly consumerist it is. However, it does make sense, as most of us, myself included, don’t possess much real talent; therefore, the more cool garbage we can show off online, the higher our self-esteem goes; perhaps that’s why the website you’re reading this on exists? I’m willing to admit: it’s a possibility.

In the world of retro-game-collecting, it is impossible to overlook the role of the ego in compelling collectors to accumulate opulent portfolios of eco-waste. This is the ultimate consumerist wet dream. A business model in which all your local game stores are based. Not only are we participating in a racket market that actively gouges individuals, but we’re also actively competing with other individuals to do so. And in many cases, the collector who doesn’t unbox the game, instead leaving it to languish on a shelf, is robbing someone who would actually purchase that same game for the purpose of playing it (you know, its intended purpose). Computer game collecting for the sake of computer game collecting is pure undistilled capitalism at its finest, fueled by egotism and insecurity: after all, if you have more plastic than the other person, you’re cooler, more sophisticated, you’re better than them – at least that’s what we trick ourselves into believing.

What is the difference between someone like Donald Trump, who is obsessed with amassing earthly wealth through luxury hotels filled with golden furniture, and a Redditor compelled to post their complete collection of Pokémon games on r/gamecollecting? Apart from having millions of dollars in real estate debt, there isn’t much of a difference. Both individuals are signaling their wealth through materialism, albeit to different social circles. At least gold can be melted down and reused, whereas computer games and consoles just end up in a landfill.

*Can you spot the difference? I can’t

Of course, some narcissists are worse than others, with Donald Trump being one of the worst. We all exist on a gradient, with a little narcissism in each of us. However, it is important to recognize the origin of this desire to collect. If you have ever attended a garage sale with the intention of finding a box of old computer games that you will never play, and then proceeded to take pictures of those games to post them online with a caption that includes the word “haul” anywhere within the text, you might as well surrender your decent-person card because you are a full-blown narcissist.

So yeah, I emulated Romancing SaGa on a cheap Chinese handheld – who cares.

III, AESTHETICS or: All Build Up and Smiles

Romancing SaGa is one of those games that forum users like to praise in a “things were better back in my day” kind of way, which also implies, “I lack the ability for self-reflection and fail to realize that I am extremely biased by nostalgia.” The only plausible explanation for someone considering this their favorite game would be childhood hormones mixed with adderall. Plus, the English-speaking audience for this game is so small since it is a Japanese-only Super Famicom game, that any online loser claiming to have played it “back in the day” is most likely a liar seeking online clout by beating a now-dead horse. However, let’s suppose there is someone who genuinely considers Romancing SaGa their favorite game. How could that be? Let’s delve into this mystery a bit; perhaps we’ll uncover the truth (we won’t).

So, in an effort to uncover this mystery, let’s start with the good stuff. Firstly, the soundtrack: Kenji Ito returns as the primary composer for Romancing SaGa, taking the reins fully from Nobuo Uematsu. Kenji Ito’s first computer game composer gig was SaGa 2, and he has evolved into his own style here. Romancing SaGa’s soundtrack, while not the best SaGa soundtrack, establishes the unique sound of each game going forward.

In the time between Final Fantasy Adventure and Romancing SaGa, Kenji Ito developed his own personal style and established the SaGa style as a whole. This style is characterized by high-fantasy horn arrangements, melodic yet gloomily-erratic fanfares, hard pounding drums, and heavy basslines, creating a continuous build-up-like quality in every arrangement. These elements work almost too well within the realm of turn-based computer games, and Romancing SaGa’s soundtrack showcases Kenji Ito’s remarkable talent for composing truly great yet nuanced battle music that fits the genre perfectly; even if he can’t create a decent town or overworld theme to save his life.

*David Bowie as the Goblin King, Kenji Ito, and David Sylvian of the 80s band Japan (respectively); all will become relevant in time.

Standout tracks include each battle theme, with the boss theme “Beat Them Up!” being a highlight. It features what I will refer to as the “Kenji Ito Build-Up.” This method starts the battle theme softly with a pulsing build-up, somehow accurately estimating the time it takes for you to input your first series of character actions. Then, it crescendos at the moment your characters start performing those actions, creating an exciting feeling of things “kicking up a notch” just as the attack animations begin.

In a (poor) attempt to illustrate this in writing, the first 10 seconds of “Beat Them Up!” consists of a down-tempo melodic horn arrangement with a repetitive bassline accompanied by a strong rhythm-section build-up, creating a steady rhythm mirroring the energy of a player inputting menu options. It then bursts into an erratic crescendo at the 17-second mark, coinciding with your characters playing out the inputs you just selected, and then returns to the build-up after 20 seconds of excitement, only to repeat.

The genius of Kenji Ito lies in his understanding of how battles play out, leaving the impression that he actually plays the games before making the soundtracks. As an example, it is evident that he intentionally made the boss theme build-up longer than the normal battle theme build-up, anticipating that players typically mash the confirmation button quickly for normal battles but need more time to carefully plan out their actions for boss battles. Hence, there is a longer build-up period for the boss arrangement when compared to the normal battle arrangement. While not always perfect, when it works, it really works. The moment you start a boss battle and hear that build-up, you know it’s about to get serious. Even if boss battles end up being brain-dead damage races with little-to-no strategy, Kenji Ito’s soundtrack makes the dumb stuff worth it sometimes.

Another positive aspect lies in Tomomi Kobayashi, a Japanese illustrator who had no prior experience in the computer game industry before Romancing SaGa. Yet, she ended up playing a significant role in the SaGa series by establishing the overall SaGa aesthetic going forward. Her contribution involved creating all the concept art for the series, shaping its visual identity. There are various stories surrounding her initial recruitment, but the general idea is that Square approached her after being impressed by one of her 1990 artbooks. Her shojo (“girls’ comics”) styled artwork a better fit for the new vision Akitoshi Kawazu had for the SaGa series, which moved away from science fiction and embraced a style or pure medieval fantasy, reminiscent of Lord of the Rings and Dungeons & Dragons.

Easily up there with legends like Yoshitaka Amano, whose almost psychedelic yet classically Japanese style artwork has captured the attention of Final Fantasy fans for ages, Tomomi Kobayashi’s work, equally unique and wondrous in its own right, often goes overlooked despite its beauty. One could argue that this is due to societal attitudes around gender in Japan, but it’s more likely because the SaGa series is not as popular as Final Fantasy, especially in my native land of trucks and guns.

*smiles and frowns; Kobayashi and Amano

Tomomi Kobayashi’s artwork is swirling with watercolor busyness that somehow manages to be clearly interpretable even though a million things are going on at once; often vivid and full of warm colors with a sense of merriment even when the situation presented in the piece seems dire. While it can be easily compared to Yoshitaka Amano’s artwork, there is something more grounded and jubilant going on with Kobayashi’s work, in stark contrast to Amano’s colorful melancholy; two sides of the same coin; darkness to light. A clear illustration of this difference can be found in the faces of the characters themselves. In Amano artwork, one will rarely ever see a character smiling; the closest thing being a smirk or malicious grin, and the occasionally twisted, insanity-driven flash of teeth. On the other hand, Kobayashi’s work is overflowing with bright, bubbly smiles and confident, summer jubilance.

One gets the impression that, being new to the computer gaming artistry scene, Tomomi Kobayashi took after Amano, adopting his style due to the success of Final Fantasy, but putting her own spin on it. As such, SaGa’s art is more akin to David Bowie’s cheerful Berlin-Era album “Low” than his dark cocaine-fueled romp of “Station to Station”. It’s a weird comparison, but not so weird when you consider that many Japanese computer game characters are, memetically, modeled on David Bowie, even some of Kobayashi’s artwork. The emperor in the image above is clearly based on David Bowie’s Goblin King, or perhaps pop singer David Sylvian during Japan’s “Adolescent Sex” era (told you that picture would become relevant in time). I’m about to go off on an 80s pop music tangent, so I’ll quit while I’m ahead.

While not an uncommon practice, Akitoshi Kawazu described the characters of Romancing SaGa to Tomomi Kobayashi, who then illustrated them based on those descriptions. Similarly, Kazuko Shibuya, the graphic designer and sprite artist for Romancing SaGa (and all of the classic Final Fantasy games), followed a similar method. Shibuya and Kobayashi worked together to create the in-game character representations; this process contrasting with the one employed by Yoshitaka Amano, who, contrary to popular belief, did not design the characters for the Final Fantasy series; instead, it was Kazuko Shibuya and the writers who created the character designs, and Amano subsequently drew them based on Shibuya’s designs.

In the case of Romancing SaGa, Tomomi Kobayashi often took the lead in character design or collaborated directly with Kazuko Shibuya to develop the characters. This approach results in a more consistent portrayal of the characters between the concept art and the in-game sprite work, even though such consistency shouldn’t necessarily be an issue with either method; Amano is known for deviating from established designs, possibly due to creative differences or simple rebellion. This, however, is not the case with Romancing SaGa, which maintains almost one-to-one parity between concept art and sprite work.

*Tomomi Kobayashi concept art compared to Kazuko Shibuya’s sprites; also Mime Bartz sprite from Final Fantasy V (bottom left) to illustrate just how similar both games look

While chainsaws and laser beams are all well and good, and frankly something I prefer over pure medieval fantasy, especially when the genre is spliced, the decision to replace the previous concept artist, Katsutoshi Fujioka, was likely a beneficial move. Not only do Tomomi Kobayashi’s works exhibit a significantly enhanced visual aesthetic compared to Fujioka’s previous contributions to the SaGa series, but the shift in artistic style also aligns well with the transition from science fiction to the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy setting.

The setting shift itself is fine (I guess) and works for Romancing SaGa, but ultimately, a continuation of the sci-fantasy genre mixing from the first three SaGa games would have been preferred. It’s something that won’t be revisited until the release of SaGa Frontier for the Sony PlayStation in 1997. The sci-fantasy setting is what set the SaGa series apart from other role-playing games of the time, and the shift to pure fantasy makes Romancing SaGa feel far more generic than previous SaGa titles, losing some of the series’ aesthetic magic.

And that’s an okay-ish segue into why this game just isn’t very good.

IV, VAPORWAVE or: Worse Than the Sum of Its Parts or: The Actual Analysis

To say that I had no idea what was going on while playing Romancing SaGa would be an understatement. My memory of playing the game is like a bootleg vaporwave track only found on YouTube, all swirly and vacuum-cleaner-esque; kind of like a My Bloody Valentine song but not good. Stuff just “happens” after wandering around for a few hours, with no real sense of direction or focus – a computer game that encourages exploration and chilling out, better suited as background entertainment; however, the game demands so much from you that you cannot treat it as background entertainment.

Romancing SaGa allows you to start the game as one of eight characters, each with their own introduction story. This introduction lasts about two to three hours and is unique for each character. This, in itself, is a creative innovation in the fairly linear story-telling medium of Japanese role-playing games at the time. But, it is only the first step. The game doesn’t really present the characters as separate characters; rather, they are more like nameless “classes” with unique sprites, and each story is very rudimentary, reminiscent of “my little brother’s first Dungeons & Dragons campaign.” I played a few of these introduction scenarios and eventually settled on Albert’s. He is, for all intents and purposes, the main character of the game, being the son of Lord Rudolf and the prince of Isthmus. His introduction scenario is to purge a local cave of monsters that are attacking Isthmus Keep. Truly riveting stuff.

The first thing you’ll notice when stepping outside of Isthmus Keep is the vibrant world; actual colors being a significant improvement over SaGa 2. This improvement is only natural considering that SaGa 2 was a Game Boy game. Yet, SaGa 2 still manages to look better in terms of overall presentation, despite its green-tinted Game Boy goofiness; the shading, shadows, and creative tilesets of SaGa 2 make Romancing SaGa seem like child’s play in comparison. One gets the impression that the developers were learning how to program for the Super Famicom as they were creating the game, and this is indeed the case, as Romancing SaGa is the first game Akitoshi Kawazu and his team worked on for the Super Famicom.

One would imagine that the graphical differences between SaGa 1 and 2 mirror those of Romancing SaGa 1 and 2, representing more of a “we know what we’re doing now” improvement rather than a graphical leap. Regardless of the excuses, Romancing SaGa looks and handles very similarly to Final Fantasy IV, a game that came out a year earlier, even using suspiciously-similar tilesets in some areas. This similarity is acceptable on its own since there’s no need to reinvent the wheel when starting out; however, there is an overwhelming sense of familiarity that begins to give the impression of an “off-brand” knockoff, contributing to the game’s overall bland presentation. If Final Fantasy IV is “Honey Nut Cheerios,” then Romancing SaGa is “Honey Nut O’s.”

*Final Fantasy IV, Romancing SaGa, and SaGa 2 compared

The second thing you’ll notice after stepping out of the castle is the ridiculous number of monsters surrounding the walls of the keep. If you’re familiar with the previous SaGa games, you may find it intriguing to see the monsters moving about, seemingly tracking your every move even though they are behind a massive wall that they couldn’t possibly see through. This illustrates the first significant change from previous SaGa games: the absence of random encounters. Instead, monsters roam around on the map, and bumping into a monster sprite triggers a battle – something fans of the genre are all too familiar with in 2023, but this was an innovative idea for turn-based games in 1992.

In theory, this is really cool – the idea that, with the elimination of random encounters, players have more control over which battles to engage with. Chrono Trigger, released in 1995 (three years after Romancing SaGa), executed on-screen monsters very well. Unlike Chrono Trigger, which I find myself mentioning frequently in many of my articles, Romancing SaGa did not handle on-screen monsters well at all. In fact, it’s one of the worst aspects of Romancing SaGa and a primary reason why it’s such a frustrating computer game.

Maybe the developers thought that the removal of random encounters would facilitate laziness and result in underleveled characters, thereby making the game too difficult. Or, maybe the developers were simply sadistic individuals who intended to drive the unfortunate souls who paid 8,000 yen for this game in 1992 insane; after all, there is a monster lurking on nearly every tile of every map.

Monsters are ubiquitous, and narrow pathways are frequent. This leads to numerous “hell zone” situations where fighting multiple packs of monsters back to back is unavoidable. Entering a new room? Six monsters await just outside the door. Trying to leave that room because you don’t want to deal with that at the moment? Four monsters have huddled around the opposite side of the door. Entering a narrow one-tile-wide, twelve-tile-long hallway? Monsters have lined up on all twelve tiles. The main issue here is that every dungeon features narrow pathways that are designed, hopefully by accident, to render monsters unavoidable. This results in being forced to engage in back-to-back battles as the monsters position themselves in such a way that avoiding them is impossible. To top it off, monsters on the map move just as fast as you, and in some cases, faster, so good luck outrunning them.

Ultimately, you are fighting battles for what feels like an eternity before you get a break, which ends up being worse than any random encounter rate I have experienced in a Japanese role-playing computer game – and I’ve played a lot of them. Romancing SaGa’s monster-on-the-screen method defeats the purpose of eliminating random encounters because it ends up being worse in every way imaginable. There is nothing worse than seeing a line of six monsters, knowing you will have to battle each pack, bashing the action button over and over for the next ten minutes without any significant use of brain power, just to progress a few steps to do it again; and while this results in a lot of skill-ups, it’s just not fun – it’s suicidal.

And to make matters worse, dungeons are very big, often taking several hours to traverse. This is partially due to the influx of monsters, but also because the design of each dungeon is vast and maze-like. The tilesets often look so similar from one room to another that, after three back-to-back battles, you forget which direction you should be going and end up going the wrong way. This results in accidentally backtracking, wasting twenty minutes before realizing you’re heading in the wrong direction. And yes, monsters respawn, so all that backtracking provides more hell zone opportunities.

So yes, I broke my own rule: I got bored, yet I didn’t put the controller down.

*two of many “hell zones”, areas you need to go highlighted in red; blocked up by monsters, each you will have to defeat, no exceptions.

The battle system is straightforward enough, picking up where SaGa 2 left off with some minor yet important changes. Battles take place on a 3×3 grid, which represents a front, middle, and back row. This system serves as a precursor to the complex formation systems used in later SaGa games and is itself an innovation on Final Fantasy’s front and back row system. SaGa simply adds a third middle row. You position your party members based on their roles, with melee fighters typically occupying the front row since the majority of weapons, aside from spears and bows, can only be used there. On the other hand, magic and certain special attacks can be utilized from any row; but it is generally preferable to place mages and polearm users in the middle or back row, as it keeps them out of arm’s length of monsters. Characters can also use a turn to reposition themselves in battle, which is something that comes in handy when monsters engage you from behind which breaks your set formation.

The battles themselves are more engaging than in previous SaGa titles, but not enjoyable enough to endure for thirty minutes straight without a break (which happens frequently). Like the SaGa games that came before it, Romancing SaGa utilizes a basic turn-based system, with certain special attacks and spells influencing turn order. There’s nothing revolutionary here, and the battle animations themselves are a bit slower than they should be, or perhaps modern re-releases of classic role-playing computer games have spoiled me with their ever-present “speed up” functions, which Romancing SaGa would have benefited from.

Considering that I played Romancing SaGa on an emulator, I could have used the emulator’s native speed-up functions. However, emulator speed-up is not great: the music speeds up, and the gameplay becomes choppy – it’s just not ideal. So, I ended up playing the game without speeding it up at all, experiencing it in the way the developers intended. Initially, it felt painfully slow, but like all unpleasant things in life, one eventually reaches a state of homeostasis. That does not excuse the slowness, however, which is real and jarring since Romancing SaGa doesn’t even include a simple “run” option, making the default speed of movement a very leisurely walk.

Battle strategies themselves are reminiscent of SaGa 2, meaning there isn’t much strategy at all, with the only exception being the final boss. A typical normal encounter consists of three to five monsters, each with their own various tricks, but essentially ends up being a simple damage race. If you outspeed the monsters and attack first, and you’re not severely under-leveled (which is basically impossible thanks to all the monsters), you’ll defeat the enemies before they defeat you. Magic helps with this, as it is slightly overpowered early on, being one of the few means of damage to multiple monsters at once; however, weapons eventually unlock powerful attacks that do similar area damage at a much higher rate, making physical weapons and bows the far superior choice when it comes to dealing damage later on; a big difference from previous SaGa titles where magic ruled over all.

*Red dragon battle; notice the characters lined up in rows and the awesome sprite work on the drago

Tangentially related, let’s talk about character progression. Romancing SaGa, unlike SaGa 3, returns to its roots by utilizing a skill-up system where your characters’ actions in battle determine their proficiencies. An Akitoshi Kawazu signature. Similar to mutants and humans in SaGa 2, if your characters use physical attacks frequently, their strength will increase frequently. Conversely, if you have them use magic often, their intelligence will increase more often. Stats also increase randomly after battles to ensure no character is completely underpowered, maintaining a semblance of balance; however, the specialized nature of “using lots of magic makes you better at magic” is very apparent, particularly in the end-game when your characters are masters at what they have consistently used throughout the game.

One major difference that Romancing SaGa pioneered, and something that has remained a staple in the series ever since, is the weapon proficiency system; representing a natural evolution of the skill-up system, where not only do individual stats improve based on your actions, but the weapons used also gain skill-ups. This means that your characters become more effective with the weapons they use most and unlock new special skills after every couple of weapon skill-ups.

This weapon skill-up system is still in its nascent stage, as skill-ups only pertain to individual weapons rather than groups of weapons. For instance, leveling up an Iron Sword to its maximum proficiency will allow your character to deal significant damage with that specific Iron Sword and unlock special attacks for use with that specific Iron Sword. However, if you come across a more powerful sword, you must level it up separately. The proficiency level achieved with the Iron Sword does not “carry over,” despite the fact that both fall into the sword category.

Additionally, if you accidentally unequip the Iron Sword, you will lose all the proficiency levels you gained with that Iron Sword, and you’ll have to start over. The game appears to have no memory of the characters’ specific levels with specific weapons, wiping the slate clean every time a weapon is unequipped. These quirks may lead one to think that additional grinding is necessary to “catch up” every time a new weapon is found, but that’s not really the case; due to the excessive amount of encounters, grinding isn’t an issue.

Personally, I only had to grind once at the end of the game to level up the final sword, the Left-Handed Sword, for Albert. The rest of the weapon leveling handled itself through the unavoidable and mind-numbingly infuriating endless battles found every step of your adventure.

*skilling up after winning a battle; weapons skill up in the same way

Curiously, some of the weapon skills just don’t work, which is a recurring theme in Romancing SaGa, a game often regarded as “incomplete.” For instance, the skill “Dragon Slayer” for the Iron Sword only inflicts 1 damage and fails to slay dragons; a comprehensive GameFAQ guide written by Fox73 mentions that it is “bugged” and “does not work as intended,” statements I encountered multiple times in various guides.

Unlocking and using unique special attacks is a highlight, but there are only two types of attacks that actually matter: powerful single-target attacks and powerful area attacks. Multiple skills just aren’t useful because they don’t fulfill either of these roles. This contributes to the “damage race” nature of combat, especially considering that status effects and stat buffs are more beneficial for the enemies you face than for yourself, since status effects rarely land on enemies.

Additionally, since weapon skills have usage limits, you will often find yourself resorting to using only normal attacks throughout a dungeon crawl to conserve weapon skills. There are simply too many encounters to utilize your best skills throughout the entire dungeon, and you don’t want to get stuck without weapon skills when facing a dungeon boss.

In Romancing SaGa, every boss essentially becomes a damage race, where you need to spam your hardest-hitting attacks before the boss strikes you. If executed correctly, the majority of bosses can be defeated in one to two turns. However, if executed incorrectly or if you find yourself with few weapon skills left, you can easily get stuck in a cycle of reloading saves, trapped in a frustrating loop of attempting to defeat the boss only to be defeated repeatedly, the dreaded savestate ouroboros.

Counter-intuitively, despite the game containing spells like “quicken” and other status-buffing spells, using these during a boss fight typically results in death after the first turn; this is because many late-game bosses can kill any character in one to two hits, regardless of their skill level. Of course, you could have your back-row mages cast buffing spells, but then they wouldn’t be dealing any damage, which ensures the boss survives longer, which ensures the boss wipes out your party.

If I’m making Romancing SaGa sound like a difficult game, let me assure you: it’s not. Due to the frequent and monotonous battles, you will find yourself overpowered for most of the game; able to effortlessly tear through normal encounters and most bosses as long as you use your strongest attacks consistently and never deviate. This gets old quickly. In fact, the only boss that presented a challenge, aside from one where I ran out of weapon skills prior to the battle (due to my own poor decisions), was the final boss; and while this is how it should be in role-playing games, even the final boss was a glorified damage race, albeit a slightly more strategic one that required creative use of healing magic and a lot of trial-and-error.

*What happens when you get to the boss without any weapon skill uses left and a previous save file that would erase three hours of play; this boss took me 20+ reloads to defeat, finally getting lucky on the final try with a low-success rate 1-hit kill spell with 1 charge left.

For the second time, I had no idea what was going on in Romancing SaGa. If you were to ask me what happened between the intro and the defeat of the final boss, I wouldn’t be able to tell you much. Something definitely happened because I did a lot of stuff, but the haphazard narrative progression system, while aiming to make each playthrough unique, ends up causing more confusion than anything remotely enjoyable or coherent.

Romancing SaGa utilizes what Akitoshi Kawazu calls a “free scenario system” to advance the story. Essentially, random events occur at random times, and you just have to go along with it – not really the case but that’s what it can feel like. The system operates by employing a hidden “battle counter” that keeps track of the number of battles you’ve fought. At certain thresholds, different scenarios can be accessed. For instance, the “Knights of Mirsaburg” scenario, which involves assisting two knights in defeating monsters, can only be done very early in the game and is only available if you have completed fewer than thirty or so battles. Once you exceed this number, the scenario is lost forever. Some of these scenarios lead to unlocking other scenarios later in the game, with “Knights of Mirsaburg” being one of them; therefore, if you miss it, you miss out on two additional scenarios and the opportunity to recruit a specific character by completing those scenarios.

Like the bugged weapon skills, there are a number of scenarios that you can start but inadvertently lock yourself out of completing. Some scenarios can be started despite already meeting the prerequisites to lock yourself out of completion; jury is out on if this was by design or a development oversight. One such scenario is the Elder Dragon quest-chain that involves gathering relics for each legendary dragon in the game. If you fail to recruit a certain character early on, an area where you gather one of these relics will never be unlocked, rendering the relic unobtainable; as such, you were doomed before you even started.

Some scenarios are undeniably unfinished, like the “Island of Evil” scenario, where you ascend a tower to rescue kidnapped sailors. Upon reaching the tower’s summit, the kidnapper casually dismisses you, making a swift escape through the window, leaving you with no meaningful reward except for the skill-ups acquired along the way. This peculiar occurrence unsettled me to such an extent that I promptly resorted to online research, fearing that I had made a crucial error at some point. To my surprise (actually not that surprising), the very same guide I consulted for the glitched Dragon Slayer skill confirmed that the scenario had never been fully completed during development, thus dooming the unfortunate sailors to perpetual captivity.

*boss at the top of the tower on the Island of Evil; climbs out the window shortly after this interaction

True to the enigmatic SaGa style, the game doesn’t explain any of the scenario systems to you. Instead, it relies on you talking to every NPC you encounter, many of whom will subtly hint at the existence of these scenarios if you meet the battle counter requirements. This vague progression system leads to a distinct experience with each playthrough; and since character recruitment and story progression are intertwined with this unique system, every player’s save file is likely to be significantly different. Thus, Romancing SaGa earns a high score on the “Save File Test,” a test I created a few weeks ago and extensively discussed in my article on Final Fantasy Legend III. This test doesn’t provide any real insight other than being a good indicator that the game you’re playing is not Crash Bandicoot.

In this way, Romancing SaGa feels somewhat like a 1992 Japanese role-playing version of the Elder Scrolls, just without the extensive character customization or depth of choices found in that series. Often, after completing a scenario, you find yourself lost, wandering from town to town in an attempt to figure out what to do next, only to be approached by a random NPC who informs you that King Thoedore has gone mad and suggests you investigate; one can imagine a mini-map and quest compass appearing after speaking with such an NPC, but Romancing SaGa lacks such features – which is undoubtedly a good thing.

There’s a sense of randomness present in Romancing SaGa, and a feeling that everything is a side quest, without a cohesive narrative in sight; reminiscent of Daggerfall, particularly if you ignore the main questlines and simply wander through all the similar-looking towns, talking to people in the hopes of finding something to do. Some players may enjoy this style, but a game like Daggerfall executes it much better, as there’s almost always something to do, even if it’s partially randomly generated content. Romancing SaGa, on the other hand, lacks randomly generated content and instead relies on hand-crafted content; a good thing, but not when there’s a disappointingly small amount of content, and what is there tends to be more melatonin than caffeine; out of the thirty or so scenarios more than twenty of them are about clearing monsters out of caves.

If only I could make Baby Arthur play Romancing SaGa, maybe he would get some real deep sleep. The most exciting scenario I completed involved being awakened in an inn by an assassin attempting to murder me in my sleep, only to discover that I was wanted by the assassin’s guild (or something) and had to defeat them; the Elder Scrolls did this same questline ten years later in Morrowind – a random fact that doesn’t add much to the article.

*marked for death by the Assassin’s Guild, or something; kudos to Eien Ni Hen for the great translation work

Romancing SaGa’s story can be summed up in about one sentence: you inhabit a world called Mardias and you have to stop an evil god named Saurin from returning to the world. There’s no cohesive overarching plot beyond this, and no real mystery to uncover. Romancing SaGa is sparse; nothing to write home about; nothing to write here about, really, but I continue to type – why?

Anyways, you encounter a minstrel in every town; sometimes this minstrel provides hints, but mostly he just asks if you want to hear a cool song and changes the background music to one of Kenji Ito’s boring town themes if you say yes. At a certain point, however, when you have completed an arbitrary number of scenarios, the minstrel (spoilers for a 30-year-old computer game) reveals himself to be the God of Light (or something), the mortal enemy of Saurin, and opens the path to the final dungeon. The path he puts you on is determined by your actions throughout the game; with certain good deeds earning hidden “charity points,” and negative actions earning “evil points.”

Depending on the accumulation of these points, you will be set on a good, neutral, or evil path. There are only a few scenarios that grant these points, through extremely obvious or extremely ambiguous dialogue options; and in true old-school computer game fashion, each path locks you out of powerful equipment, and with no “new game plus” option (a feature that probably didn’t exist in any game at that time), there’s no way to obtain all equipment in one playthrough, which is more of a simple fact than a negative drawback.

*Hmm, I wonder which option would award evil points?

The “free scenario system” and different endings draw significant inspiration from Dungeons & Dragons in their structure, as the randomness of events often feels like an invisible dungeon master pulling the strings on your adventure. It is evident that Akitoshi Kawazu aimed to create a Dungeons & Dragons style game that would also resonate with Japanese audiences, who were more enamored with the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series than western tabletop games; and as a result, we have a Japanese computer game with several partially developed D&D-inspired ideas yet bearing a stronger resemblance to early Final Fantasy games. Although half-baked in execution, these ideas served as precursors to more refined and fleshed-out concepts found in later SaGa games.

When all of these elements combine, the whole package is something akin to a computer game. Not a very good computer game, but a computer game nonetheless. A computer game that is worse than the sum of its parts; like vaporwave, just listen to the stuff that inspired it instead.

V, CONCLUSION or: The End of an Era

Last week, I had seven WebEx conferences, five Microsoft Teams meetings, and two Zoom calls. I created four quotes, composed eighty-three emails, boiled five bowls of ramen, and bought two boxes of cheap wine.

That’s because no one has killed me yet, so I’m back at work. This article took longer than normal because of that. I started writing this a day before my impending return to work and finished it a week later. I haven’t played any computer games during that time.

It’s funny how quickly six weeks go by when you have nothing to stress about. Six weeks at work feel like six years, whereas my parental leave felt like two days, reminiscent of summer breaks during childhood. At the time, especially in the early stages, it seemed as if I had an infinite amount of time before I had to return to work, but in hindsight, it slipped away faster than a shooting star. It slipped into a nostalgic place in my mind, destined to resurface in fleeting moments of feelings, smells, and sounds that briefly remind me of that short era where diaper changes and baby pats were all that mattered. Perhaps playing Romancing SaGa a year from now will transport me back to that place, but for now, it remains lost in time – the end of an era. The divine comedy starts anew, and the ouroboros continues to consume itself.

That’s not to say my life is terrible. It’s fine. Sometimes, it’s even really good. It’s just that I have to do things I hate to get to the good parts. Those things I hate enable me to sit around for hours at a time and play thirty-year-old computer games on cheap Chinese handhelds while bouncing a baby on my knee. And yes, I’m aware of how immature all of this sounds. My father always told me that I have to do things I don’t like in life, and I’m sure his father told him the same thing. I even tell my own daughter this. But it’s my blog, and I will cry if I want to.

*somehow Square captured the vaporwave aesthetic thirty years before its inception

So, if given the choice, would I choose Romancing SaGa over work? Absolutely. Would I choose any other computer game over Romancing SaGa? Also, absolutely.

Romancing SaGa is best admired from afar: through art books, fan-sites, and this article, for starters. Perhaps watching a longplay. While it has an excellent soundtrack, fantastic art direction, and much-improved battle mechanics compared to its predecessors, it can also be frustrating, backward, and almost as tedious as writing about subpar computer games.

It is frustrating due to the overwhelming number of unavoidable battles that can lead to hair loss. It is backward because of the strange scenario system that constantly makes you second-guess your actions while wandering around in a confused stupor. And it is tedious due to my inability to think of another adjective and lazily using a synonym for the word “frustrating,” and also because of the overwhelming amount of unavoidable battles.

Really, the battles are what make this game so frustrating. If only I didn’t have to fight something every step; and while the battle system is better than the Game Boy SaGa games, too much of a good thing is a bad thing. The free scenario system, while adding a layer of uniqueness to each playthrough, is more akin to a chicken running around with its head cut off than to an engaging storytelling vehicle, often resulting in accidentally missing a lot of the better content that the game has to offer.

Romancing SaGa sabotages itself.

But things aren’t all bad. The large number of playable characters, weapon skill system, soundtrack, and overall art direction elevate this otherwise poor computer game to something beyond truly bad vaporwave. Many of the gameplay systems present in Romancing SaGa will be refined in future SaGa games, all of which are much better than this game.

A much more complete version of Romancing SaGa is available on the Wonderswan Color, which is the recommended way to experience a close-to-original version of the game. However, it’s worth noting that no English translation is available for that version. There’s also the remake, Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song, a modern retelling of the game with enhanced gameplay and graphics, although only vaguely reminiscent of the original.

Would I recommend playing Romancing SaGa? If you’ve read this article, then you already know the answer: no, I would not. After a thirty-hour playthrough, the most rewarding thing the game can offer you is the credits screen and more free time to play a better game.

Don’t be like me. If you get bored, put the controller down and play something else. Life is too short, and you have to go back to work.

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(originally published 6/11/2023)

#ComputerGames #RomancingSaGa #Review

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I. Prelude to Pedantry

Final Fantasy Legend III is a computer game. It possesses computer-game-like qualities and does things typically associated with computer games. It contains some of the same tropes one might expect to find in computer games, particularly ones of the role-playing variety and especially those released on the Game Boy in the ’90s; complete with green-tint and bite-sized gameplay best characterized as “bite-sized gameplay”, something I can’t (won’t) extrapolate on in this paragraph.

If it seems like I’m biding my time or beating around the bush, that may (or may not) be because I am. Maybe I just want to drink wine and play something that distracts me to the point where I don’t think about my mortgage, or maybe I simply don’t want to write about Final Fantasy Legend III. This mystery, and more, will be explored in detail throughout this collection of words – if I feel like it. Maybe I will gloss over the existential crisis bit entirely, maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll gaslight you into believing that I never mentioned it at all, a magical feat considering the words are right here in all their (faded) glory. Either way, you will get what you came for, an article of some sort about a niche computer game for the Game Boy.

Developed by Square and released in 1991 in Japan as The Ruler of Time and Space ~ SaGa3 [Final Chapter], and released in North America two years later as Final Fantasy Legend III; the same year as Haddaway’s hit song ‘What is Love’ and William Gibson’s novel ‘Virtual Light,’ both completely unrelated; although Gibson could be credited with a modicum of influence on the SaGa series with his cyberpunk-grandfathery, and ‘What is Love’ is a funny, if overplayed, song that personifies going to the movies with your parents in ’93, perhaps with a Game Boy in the backseat, perhaps with Final Fantasy Legend III inserted in the cartridge slot of that Game Boy, and perhaps with your parents arguing about stopping at the Dollar Store for candy before heading to the theater. Whatever the case, it’s more likely you wanted to stay home since Gunstar Heroes was released that same year, and you would rather just play some Funstar (not a typo).

*Penguin publishing cover art for William Gibson’s “Virtual Light”, SaGa 3 box art, Red from Gunstar Heroes and Haddaway’s “What is Love” single

Gunstar Heroes, a game completely unlike Final Fantasy Legend III and not the subject of this article, was developed by Treasure, a developer that has gone down in computer game history as one of the most celebrated for run-and-gun platform shooters. Every game Treasure puts out is met with widespread praise – yes, even their McDonald’s commissioned fast-food platformer, McDonald’s Treasure Land Adventure – Masato Maegawa, the producer of Gunstar Heroes and the aforementioned Hamburglar game, is revered in the Sega fandom almost as much as Hironobu Sakaguchi in the Final Fantasy fandom.

As fans, we tend to gravitate toward the meteoric figures involved in a game’s development, typically the concept-people, “idea guys”: the directors and producers. We raise these individuals to celebrity status and treat them with 13th-century-BC-peasant-levels of Zeus idolatry. However, these “gods of gaming” had a whole team of people who brought their vision to life – the programmers, those who painstakingly keyed and clicked out the pixels, made the music play at the right time, and all around ensured the game wasn’t an unplayable mess. Despite this, in almost every medium, an “ideas guy” garners far more recognition than those who made their ideas possible to begin with. Hideo Kojima, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Shigeru Miyamoto, Will Wright, the list goes on. But why do we do this? Well the answer is simple: Final Fantasy Legend III.

It should be noted that, especially in Japanese game development, these “idea guys” often moved up the ladder by proving themselves; many went to university for something games-adjacent, and most programmed for other games before they became directors. Many directors and producers help with the nitty-gritty programming of their own game as well. Akitoshi Kawazu, creator of the SaGa series, is one such person. What I’m trying to convey is, these people are not without technical game-smithing talent; however, the point stands: we throw their names around far more than the traditional programmers involved with a game’s creation. I include this paragraph out of fear of being attacked online by someone who knows far more about their gaming-heroes than I do (please don’t hurt me).

*out of respect for the brave souls messing with the 1s and 0s; full endgame credits roll for Final Fantasy Legend III, played upon defeating the final boss

Development of Final Fantasy Legend III was handled by an entirely different team at Square than the previous two titles, Square’s Osaka Department; a new development team that later went on to spearhead Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. Akitoshi Kawazu, the “ideas guy” behind the SaGa series, was preoccupied with the development of Romancing SaGa for the Super Famicom. Consequently, the responsibility for Final Fantasy Legend III fell into the hands of a new “ideas guys” named Kouzi Ide and Chihiro Fujioka, the latter primarily recognized as a composer for their work on Earthbound. While Fujioka also contributed to the game’s music, the primary composer was a newcomer named Ryuji Sasai. Among the previous SaGa team members, the only returning member was Katsutoshi Fujioka, concept artist who helped establish the series’ science-fantasy and occasional-cyberpunky aesthetic.

The resulting game is one that – while competent and complete – is not a SaGa game. The vision was lost somewhere in the handoff between Akitoshi Kawazu and the Osaka Department. Without Kawazu to guide the game’s direction, it spiraled out of control and morphed into something entirely non-SaGa-like; more akin to a Final Fantasy game than a SaGa game, something Kawazu was clearly trying to avoid from the beginning. One gets the impression that Kouzi Ide was given the SaGa handbook but didn’t bother to read it; at best, he might have skimmed a few pages.

William Gibson wrote in his novel Neuromancer, “Cliches became cliches for a reason; that they usually hold at least a modicum of truth, and the following cliche is truer than most: You can’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been.” I had an art teacher in highschool tell me something similar. I was a rebellious kid and fancied myself an artist of sorts, also a writer and a musician; hell, I was in a “band” with the only other writer on this site (“band” in quotes because we were awful primarily because I wasn’t a musician). I considered myself an overall genius at everything; with the perfect excuse if I failed at anything: I just “wasn’t trying very hard” or “didn’t care”; but I could do it, and I could do it better than you if I actually applied myself, or so I believed.

Around that time, I was interested in the “dada” or “anti-art” movement; a concept that questions the true meaning of art, denies the accepted definitions of what constitutes art, and rebels against the perceived pretensions of modern art. In this way, “anti-art” is the most pretentious of all artistic philosophies, an irony lost on my high school self. Hindsight being perfect vision, the idea of taking a picture of a toilet and being praised for it was appealing to me, in a clearly narcissistic and lazy way. So, when the teacher assigned a project to paint a picture of a house in black and white as an exercise in shading, I painted the most gaudy and colorful house I could possibly paint. I turned in that assignment, thinking I was the coolest person on the planet.

*Marcel Duchamp Fountain, 1917; seminal work of “dada” art movement

Needless to say, the teacher failed me and told me something I didn’t care for at the time: “you can’t break the rules if you don’t know the rules to begin with.” Shortly after, I learned even the most famous “anti-art” artists knew how to draw a realistic person in perfect detail. They were artists and they knew what they were doing. They mastered the rules so they could break the rules. I, on the other hand, was skipping a step. I was a fraud.

All of this serves a purpose: the new creative team behind Final Fantasy Legend III broke the rules established by SaGa creator Akitoshi Kawazu, but they did so without fully understanding those rules. What we end up with is an ambitious title lacking the SaGa-soul, which is obviously crucial for a SaGa game. This is precisely why “idea guys” achieve celebrity status, particularly in the realm of Japanese computer games. Their ideas are so deeply ingrained and realized in their work that their absence is keenly felt. The best directors leave a piece of themselves in their work that is almost impossible to replicate without a true understanding of their vision.

II. Anyways, Let’s Talk About Chrono Trigger

Final Fantasy Legend III follows a group of adolescent adventurers led by a spiky-haired boy as they embark on a quest to prevent the destruction of their world by a Lovecraftian cosmic horror. On this quest, they discover a palace housing a jet-like craft that allows them to travel through time. Our heroes repair and use this vehicle to influence past and future events in an effort to subvert the destruction of their world, making friends and enemies along the way; and no, this is not a retelling of the plot of Chrono Trigger with the names swapped out. Final Fantasy Legend III predates Chrono Trigger by almost four years.

In Chrono Trigger, we control a red-haired teenager creatively named Crono; a silent protagonist who serves more as a player insert than a fleshed out character. In Final Fantasy Legend III you play as Arthur, a brunette boy from the future, sent back in time to save the world. Coincidentally, my son’s name is Arthur; actually, this is not so much a coincidence as it’s the only correct name to give the protagonist of any role-playing game – King Arthur did wield Excalibur after all – meaning most developers have really dropped the ball in this regard; for example, Tidus? Half of the world’s population can’t even pronounce the name Tidus properly. Arthur is a far better choice and any half decent writer knows this.

*cast of Chrono Trigger, drawn by Akira Toriyama; a much better cast of characters than those found in Final Fantasy Legend III

Tangent aside, Final Fantasy Legend III sets itself apart from previous SaGa games by introducing a fixed cast of characters, each possessing unique names, races, and other typical default attributes one may expect to find in a role-playing computer game. These characters include Arthur and Sharon, both of whom are humans. Sharon’s unrequited crush on Arthur is hinted at through a single line of dialogue at the outset of the game, but oddly never explored further, even in post-game credit scenes where you would expect something like this to be expanded on in older games (like a shot of Arthur and Sharon living together in a town or something). The last two characters are Curtis and Gloria, mutants who have almost no dialogue worth mentioning at any point in the game. As such, if Sharon, Curtis, and Gloria were replaced with player-created characters, there would be no impact on the plot whatsoever; ultimately, Arthur is the only necessary piece for the plot to play out in its intended fashion.

This change is where we begin to witness Osaka Department deviating from the established SaGa rules and basically losing the plot entirely. With the inclusion of predetermined characters, the sense of crafting your own unique party is gone, a fundamental element of the Game Boy SaGa games that has been lost in the ether. You are forced to live out the developer’s fantasy instead of your own. In this regard, Final Fantasy Legend III bears a stronger resemblance to a Final Fantasy title rather than a SaGa title. Moreover, considering the limited depth of each character’s personality and lack of important dialogue, it falls short of achieving even a hint of Final Fantasy’s character driven goodness.

*cast of Final Fantasy Legend III; Arthur, Curtis, Gloria, and Sharon, respectively; original concept art compared with Americanized NA manual art

In Chrono Trigger, you have Lavos, and in Final Fantasy Legend III, there’s Xagor – an evil being hailing from Pureland, a beautiful world inhabited by monsters. Instead of completely obliterating our hero’s world with his tremendous power, Xagor devises a brilliant plan: summon a colossal jar of water in the sky that unleashes an endless torrent, flooding the land. The inhabitants of the hero’s world aptly name this water-filled jar the Pureland Water Entity (a name that passes the on computer games “rule of cool” test for its stating-the-obvious-mysteriousness). This flooding process is very slow, spanning generations, as evidenced by our time-traveling escapades. Xagor’s flooding scheme is similar to a James Bond villain securing Bond to a chair, poised before a crossbow triggered by a taut string slowly burning under a flickering candle flame, affording our heroes ample time to devise a solution to the problem; in other words, it’s dumb, but also cool.

The solution to the problem is, of course, time travel. In Chrono Trigger, there was the time machine Epoch, and in Final Fantasy Legend III, there’s Talon. Both serve as main fixtures in the hero’s journey for both games, functioning as hubs of sorts and later as vehicles to travel the world. Utilizing the timeship Talon, our heroes embark on a journey through three distinct time periods in an effort to stop Xagor and the Pureland Water Entity. These three time periods serve as separate worlds, reminiscent of the worlds found in SaGa 1 and 2, although lacking the same level of creativity. They can be compared to the last Christmas gift your grandma gave you (likely socks), although my grandma once gifted me Quiet Riot’s album “Mental Health” on vinyl, which, admittedly, is cooler than most gifts but not an album I would ever admit listening to.

Unlike Chrono Trigger, which encompasses multiple time periods ranging from prehistoric to end of the world, Final Fantasy Legend III’s time periods range from last week to Mom’s next birthday. The characters encountered throughout each time period remain the same, albeit at different stages of their lives, and the world’s scenery undergoes minimal changes between time jumps, except for the gradual increase in water levels caused by the Pureland Water Entity, this is especially apparent in the future where the world is more waterful than Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire (“waterful” being the third word I’ve made up for this article so far, a practice I plan to continue as long as it sounds good).

*Pureland Water Entity and world map of Final Fantasy Legend III, per the Game Boy manual; see the Pureland Water Entity in the far right

This lack of worlds, specifically lack of unique worlds, illustrates another miss by Kouzi Ide and his team; simply adding time travel to your game doesn’t make up for a lack of creative world-building. In SaGa 1, you traveled through a post-apocalyptic world while being chased by a giant flame bird. In SaGa 2, you went to Edo era Japan, stopped a literal banana racket, then fought a demonic shogun on a roof with a crescent moon backdrop. In SaGa 3, you go to your world in the future and there’s a bit more water and your grandma dies of old age.

The primary objective of most time travel in the game is to acquire new units for your timeship, Talon. These units grant Talon various powers and weapons. For instance, there is a unit that enables travel to the future and another that allows travel to the past. As such, these units serve a similar plot progressing function as magi in SaGa 2. Consequently, the progression unfolds as follows: begin in the present time (although the notion of a fixed “present” is dumb and arbitrary, considering any moment experienced is inherently the present, ok, taking off my redditor hat now), locate the unit for “future” to enable travel to the future, find the unit for “past” within the future to facilitate travel to the past, and ultimately, discover the unit for “Pureland,” enabling our heroes to journey directly to Pureland and confront Xagor head-on. The sequence of these events may be incorrect as the time periods in Final Fantasy Legend III end up feeling samey and boring; idea being cooler than execution, much like a highschool crush. In fact, you jump back and forth so much early on in the game that it almost feels like you’re not time traveling at all.

Oh yeah, you also go to a floating island and the underworld at one point, both highlights in an otherwise bland adventure.

Towards the endgame, it is revealed that our timeship, Talon, is actually built around a human brain. The impression conveyed is that the timeship consists of a blend of metal, wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey stuff, and a human brain integrated into the hardware, as suggested by in-game text. This revelation raises intriguing implications. Just imagine, trapped within a hunk of metal, manipulated by kids who use you as a tool for their heroic play, silently witnessing the weird-kid-things kids do when they believe no one is watching – enough to drive anyone insane. If I were tasked with creating the sequel to this game, it would revolve around Talon subjecting these kids to brutal torture, locking them inside its metal body and forcing them to kill each other, only to rewind time and make them do it again. The title of this sequel would be “Final Fantasy Legend IV: I Have No Fun and I Must Scream.”

As I typed the previous paragraph, I found myself nervously pondering my own mental state, considering I have two kids of my own – let’s just attribute it to edginess and move on.

In actuality, Talon is the coolest character in the game. As previously mentioned, it is revealed that Talon was created using a human brain. Throughout the game, Talon unexpectedly takes independent action at crucial moments to assist Arthur. Incorporating this concept into the gameplay, once you acquire a specific unit and install it in Talon, you gain the ability to fly Talon across any world map and when encountering random foes while riding Talon, it immediately initiates its weapon systems and attacks the enemy before your first turn, often eliminating the enemy outright without any input from the player.

In the final dungeon, Talon emerges out of nowhere and blasts a hole in an obstacle, enabling your progress; and in one of the most remarkable instances of Game Boy storytelling I’ve ever experienced, during the final boss battle, when all hope seems lost, you hear a loud Game Boy soundchip buzz – it’s Talon, swooping in, firing its cannons at the boss. Talon continues its assault on the boss for the rest of the battle.

*concept art of Talon found in Final Fantasy Legend III’s Game Boy manual; alongside Talon’s in-game sprite

The player gets the impression that Talon is its own character, capable of independent thought and deeply invested in aiding the heroes in achieving their objectives; and the player is right, as it turns out that Talon is Arthur’s father, who embarked on a quest to defeat Xagor but was ultimately defeated. His body was salvaged, and his brain was transplanted into Talon – Arthur’s father was with him the whole time.

Before the credits roll, you revive Arthur’s father using science (or magic), and he asks for the name of the hero who saved him, to which Arthur provides. Arthur’s father then states, “That’s a good name. I think I’ll name my son after you.”

But hold on, because this is where things get complicated.

III. Time Travel and Causality Loops

If I were the writer of Final Fantasy Legend III, the aforementioned plot summary would only be Chapter 1. The rest of the story would involve correcting the universe-shattering causality paradoxes caused by what just happened.

Let’s start from the beginning. Two young men named Jupiah and Borgin travel to Pureland to confront Xagor. They are defeated, and Borgin manages to escape. Jupiah’s body is salvaged, and his brain is transplanted into a time machine called Talon. Using Talon, Borgin sends Jupiah’s son, Arthur, back to a time period before his birth in order to prevent the destruction of the world. Arthur, after a series of heroic adventures, eventually triumphs over Xagor in Pureland. As a final act of heroism, Arthur restores Jupiah to human form thereby allowing Jupiah to live out the remainder of his life in peace. Jupiah, feeling grateful to the hero who saved him, decides to name his future son after this hero. Presumably, at some point after these events, Jupiah meets a woman, and they have a child named Arthur.

All of this checks out until we introduce the fact that Arthur is Jupiah’s son. This is where things start to become complicated.

It is assumed that Arthur was born during a time of peace before (or maybe after?) the appearance of the Pureland Water Entity, which initiated the flooding of the world. When the Pureland Water Entity emerges, Jupiah is motivated to defeat Xagor to stop the flooding, but unfortunately, he fails. However, Jupiah’s son arrives from the future and rescues him. Jupiah then proceeds to meet a woman and eventually they have a child. Jupiah names this child Arthur, in honor of the hero who saved him – unbeknownst to him, this hero is actually his own son from the future, Arthur.

*the paradox begins

This raises two primary questions. The first question is, where did the name Arthur come from? It is illogical for someone to be the cause of their own birth or naming. To put it simply, it would be akin to me traveling back in time before my own birth and instructing my father to name me Forrest. By doing so, I would essentially be naming myself. However, if I had not already been named Forrest without my own intervention, how could I possibly go back in time and suggest that particular name?

In essence, this represents a form of causality loop known as the bootstrap paradox, also referred to as a predestination paradox. It entails a temporal loop in time travel where one event triggers a second event, which was in fact the cause of the first event. This creates an illogical and unsolvable loop, a paradox. In the case of Final Fantasy Legend III, Arthur’s birth serves as the first event, while Arthur saving his father’s life serves as the second event. The second event causes the first event which causes the second event which causes the first event which causes the second event, etc.

This concept is later explored in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time through the “Song of Storms” quest. Link, who is capable of time travel, learns the song from the windmill man at Kakariko Village in the future. The man mentions that he learned it from a child in the past. Utilizing this knowledge, Link travels back in time and plays the song for the windmill man, thereby teaching him the song — so, where did the song originally come from? While I doubt Zelda was inspired by Final Fantasy Legend III, it is an interesting bit of trivia that the latter did bootstrap paradoxes before Zelda made it cool.

*bootstrap paradox illustration created by yours truly

I did mention two questions, and we have addressed the first. The second question is: If Arthur successfully defeated Xagor and prevented the emergence of the Pureland Water Entity, which event initiates the events of the game? It cannot be Xagor, as he has already been defeated by Arthur in the past. In this predicament, one might assume that once Xagor is vanquished time for those in the future rewinds to a point where Xagor never manifested. However, if time were to reverse, the defeat of Xagor would never occur, resulting in Xagor’s reappearance, leading to another loop! This type of loop is known as a “grandfather paradox”, which we will loop back to in a paragraph or two.

There are two main schools of thought around time travel and its consequences. The first school of thought is that time travel to the past would be extremely dangerous, to the point where you could prevent your own birth or even drastically alter the course of human history if you interfered in any way. This is encapsulated in the concept of the butterfly effect, which is supposedly illustrated in the movie titled “The Butterfly Effect” (a movie I’ve never seen). It suggests that even a small, insignificant change in the past could cause a ripple effect that drastically alters the future.

For example, let’s say you go back in time and accidentally kick a small pebble onto a sidewalk. An hour later, a roller skater skates down the same sidewalk and hits the pebble, tripping. This roller skater then tumbles into the road and hits a moving car, causing a fifty-car pile-up resulting in the death of a woman who would have become the president of the United States in 2032. That president would have gone on to prevent World War III. So, when you return to your own time of 2099 (or whatever), the world is ravaged by nuclear holocaust.

The second school of thought suggests that any interference with the past would result in a multiversal effect, causing the timeline to branch off into a new timeline.

Let’s consider the “grandfather paradox” mentioned earlier: if you were to travel to the past and kill your own grandfather, you would effectively erase your own existence, as the circumstances leading to your birth would no longer unfold. However, this implies that you were never born in the first place to carry out the act of killing your grandfather, ensuring his survival, which in turn ensures your birth, enabling you to travel to the past and kill your grandfather. Obviously, this presents a significant problem because it makes no sense, which is why it’s a paradox.

However, in the second school of thought, killing your grandfather would result in the emergence of a new timeline (or “universe”, a term I’ll use interchangeably) that is separate from the timeline you originated from; thereby, no paradox would occur. And while this theory provides a less paradoxical explanation for meddling with the past, one gets the feeling it was created solely to solve the multiverse of issues that time travel to the past presents. This theory also implies the existence of an infinite number of universes as every choice would branch off into a new timeline, which poses significant narrative problems, especially in superhero fiction where “multiverses” are as abundant as, well, a multiverse; for a superhero to truly maintain their superhero status, they would have to save each doomed universe, a potentially endless task.

*crude illustration of the split timeline theory, preventing grandfather paradoxes

This is partially why I find the idea of a “multiverse” in literature dumb and incoherent, especially in comic book narratives, particularly when the heroes are deeply committed to saving lives. After all, if there are infinite universes, there are infinite people in need of saving – the ultimate humanitarian crisis. Can a hero truly be considered a hero if they only care about the people in their own universe? Sure, one could argue that there is an alternative version of Superman in each universe, thereby circumventing the need for Superman Prime to go around saving every universe. However, this is not guaranteed, and Superman is not invincible; he has likely died in several timelines.

There exists a third, less-discussed school of thought, which happens to be my personal favorite. In the Doctor Who episode “Waters of Mars,” our titular hero, the Doctor, succumbs to an arrogant impulse and decides to save someone who was destined to die, as their death played a crucial role in the future advancement of humanity. However, the Doctor, being the last Time Lord and believing he has dominion over time itself, goes ahead and saves this individual. To the Doctor’s surprise, this person ends up committing suicide, thus allowing history to unfold as intended – only the “little details” were changed.

This particular school of thought revolves around the notion that time, like a sentient entity, corrects itself to ensure that history (or the future, depending on your perspective) remains unaltered. It’s a cool concept, albeit one that raises certain philosophical dilemmas such as the idea of predetermination and fate.

To finish off this section: this is why time travel, particularly time travel to the past, exists only in fiction. If it did exist in our reality, we would be meeting our unborn future family members far more often than we do now (never), and we would most likely already be caught in a temporal causality loop, similar to the movie “Groundhog Day” or that one episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” where Willow casts a time loop spell (or something).

Consider me a disbeliever – although, we could already be caught in a causality loop and not even know it.

IV. Gameplay or: The Save File Test

While we’re discussing loops, consider this: You’re holding the forward direction on the d-pad as you walk through a door. The door transports you to a new area with a reversed perspective from the one you just exited. Despite intending to conserve your forward momentum by continuing to hold forward, the perspective change flips your direction, and you inadvertently walk right back into the door you just exited. If you continued to hold the forward direction, due to the reverse perspectives, you would go through the initial door again then immediately walk back through the door you just exited from – again! An endless loop!

If this hasn’t happened to you before, it’s probably because you haven’t played many 3D computer games, where this type of situation is common due to poorly conceived camera cuts. It’s far rarer in 2D games, where clever door-tile placement prevents the issue entirely. However, in the case of Final Fantasy Legend III, it happens all the time, especially in hub zones like the timeship Talon – an area where you would expect the developers to catch this detail and correct it, considering how often you have to go through this zone.

*an example of an endless “one direction” door loop; still more interesting than Harry Styles; developers, don’t do this.

The first chapter of this article is called “Prelude to Pedantry” for a reason. Expanding on this pedantry, imagine for a moment that you’re playing Contra for the Nintendo Entertainment System. To fire your gun, you have to rapidly tap the A button. This quickly puts a strain on your finger, so you decide to invest in a third-party controller with a turbo switch – a switch that changes the behavior of holding a button down to “on and off and on again, etc.” from “the button is being held down.” This effectively allows you to hold the A button and continuously fire your gun – a helpful thing for run-and-gun shooters. However, it’s not necessary for Gunstar Heroes because it has native turbo, like any good run-and-gun game should (this is Treasure we’re talking about, after all).

Now, imagine that, like Gunstar Heroes, a role-playing computer game has this feature programmed into it natively. Perhaps the thought process behind this decision was, “this will help players rush through battle text!” or “this will make it faster to input previous selections again!” Whatever the reason, the result is that when navigating any menu, holding the confirmation button for longer than a millisecond selects whatever option the cursor happens to be on, taking you to the next menu option. Now, imagine you unintentionally hold the button for three milliseconds – suddenly, you’ve accidentally selected a bunch of menu options!

Let’s suppose you’re trying to input character actions in battle, and you mistakenly hold down the confirmation button for a millisecond longer than you should. Now, instead of selecting “cure,” you’ve selected “flare,” and as a result, you’re dead.

I bring this up because this is how Final Fantasy Legend III behaves – constantly accidentally selecting options you don’t intend to, as the turbo function is permanently applied to all confirmation button presses. But it would be unfair for me to deduct points from Final Fantasy Legend III alone, as this is an issue present in all the Game Boy SaGa games. Besides, I don’t give out points to begin with; nevertheless, this turbo issue seems to occur more frequently in this game compared to the others, so I thought I would mention it. In truth, I wanted to bring it up in my SaGa 1 and 2 articles, but it slipped my mind.

The game design follies mentioned above are not game-breaking by any means; rather, they are minor quirky annoyances. In fact, Final Fantasy Legend III does not have any “game-breaking” issues. The true problems that exist are more conceptual than technical, and there are several of these conceptual issues that we will delve into. However, before we explore those issues, let’s focus on the positives.

The first positive, and something I didn’t realize I needed until I experienced it firsthand, is the addition of jumping. A minor annoyance I encountered while playing the first two SaGa games was the occasional, but not infrequent enough, occurrence of NPCs blocking pathways and entrances. In the past, when this happened, I would try to push past the NPC, hoping they would move. However, in Final Fantasy Legend III, you can simply jump over any NPC! It may sound insignificant, but it’s actually one of the best improvements over the previous two SaGa games.

Another advantage of this jump mechanic is that, although the dungeons themselves may not be the most interesting to look at, there are plenty of dungeon jumping puzzles that require you to leap over holes or obstacles on the floor to progress. This adds a twist to dungeon exploration that is not commonly found in other 90s role-playing computer games, especially those of the 2D variety, and especially the previous SaGa games which featured highly linear exploration, albeit through significantly more eye-popping dungeons.

*a dungeon jumping puzzle that took me far too long to figure out

And you’ll find yourself jumping around a lot due to all the stuff in Final Fantasy Legend III – the content, there’s a lot of it. If you were able to clear SaGa 1 in three hours and SaGa 2 in six hours, SaGa 3 will likely take about ten hours to clear, maybe a bit less. Final Fantasy Legend III offers far more content than its predecessors, including several optional quests – something that was completely absent from previous entries in the series, not including SaGa 2’s sole optional dungeon.

Aside from traveling through time to collect remnants of magical swords and shields; one particular optional quest has you gather a magic seed in the future, travel back in time to plant the seed, and then return to the future to interact with the magical tree that grew as a result of your time meddling; similar to the situation with the Deku Tree or magic beans in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, just done seven years earlier – the similarities are getting suspicious now.

Final Fantasy Legend III’s new development team deserves praise for creating a competent turn-based combat system that surpasses both previous SaGa entries in terms of engagement and complexity; placing greater emphasis on immunities and exploiting elemental weaknesses in battle, it takes the strategic elements introduced in SaGa 2 and levels them up, maybe by one or two levels, not actually by much. Unlike the previous entry, which lacked meaningful exploitation of weaknesses (or perhaps I overlooked it, if so that’s simply evidence that it wasn’t necessary), such tactics are now required to achieve victory, sometimes – better than never.

Final Fantasy Legend III also includes numerous buff spells that were not present in older games, adding a new tool to utilize in battle. Additionally, “ancient magic” was added, which requires items to create and results in extremely (over)powerful spells like Nuke and Flare.

*a battle scene; return to sea monke

In contrast to the first SaGa, where one could rely on mindlessly pressing the confirmation button to win every battle, like a trust fund baby mindlessly relies on their inheritance to subvert every life struggle, the aforementioned weakness and immunity changes require players to actively focus on battles. Otherwise, prepare to become very familiar with the returning “Would you like to start this battle over from the beginning?” death prompt introduced in SaGa 2. However, this mechanic had a lore reason in SaGa 2 that is missing in Final Fantasy Legend III, implying our characters can just resurrect themselves and rewind time whenever they want – more pedantry.

It’s important to note that combat in Final Fantasy Legend III is not groundbreaking or very complex compared to other turn-based games from the same era, such as Dragon Quest IV or Final Fantasy IV, which incorporated more advanced battle gimmicks to shake things up. For example, Final Fantasy IV featured bosses like Mist Dragon, who could decimate your party if attacked at the wrong time. Nothing like this exists in Final Fantasy Legend III, although it comes close to achieving similar effects at times, primarily through its reliance on immunities that force you to change strategies when dealing with certain enemies. This becomes especially apparent when facing bosses, as they now pose a greater threat than random encounters.

*Ashura, a recurring boss, with two Lizalfos from the Zelda series

Bosses in Final Fantasy Legend III have increased health and deal more damage per turn compared to previous games in the series. Although many bosses can still be defeated by spamming attack magic with two characters and group heals with the other two, the game manages to subvert this strategy often enough that it doesn’t feel like complete child’s play. Another interesting bit of trivia is that Ashura returns, being a staple boss in the previous two SaGa games. Like Gilgamesh of the Final Fantasy series, Ashura appears in every game without explanation, considering they’re all separate universes. Perhaps, opposite of Superman Prime, Ashura travels the multiverse destroying every universe instead of saving them.

Balance changes also extend to random encounters, as the game no longer throws dozens of monsters at players all at once. Instead, all monsters are now displayed on the screen, unlike in SaGa 1 and 2, where the monster sprites only represented the type of monster you were fighting, not the number of them. As a result, there are significantly fewer monsters to contend with in each battle, although these monsters are usually more dangerous to compensate. It feels more manageable overall. This makes Final Fantasy Legend III feel less “cheap” than its predecessors, where being overwhelmed was a frequent occurrence that could easily lead to throwing the controller or pouring lighter fluid on the console and setting it on fire, something I haven’t done (yet).

The monster sprites themselves, although frequently reused, have undergone either a significant upgrade or a notable downgrade. It’s hard to tell, as the sprites range from extremely high quality to comically low quality, sometimes showcasing a “so bad it’s good” aesthetic. As a result, the monster sprites are always interesting and unquestionably the best in the Game Boy SaGa series; at least in this writer’s entirely subjective opinion.

*small collection of some of my favorite monster sprites: cat mummy, ronin, low-quality merman, Ghouls and Ghosts demon, and brain-in-a-vat-bro

Final Fantasy Legend III’s inventory and weapon systems have undergone a significant overhaul. In past games, each character had their own inventory with limited item slots. This has been entirely removed in favor of a free-for-all system, where any character can access a shared inventory during battle that is separate from their own equipment. The drawback is that characters can no longer carry multiple weapons simultaneously, so there is no more waving a chainsaw around while propping a nuclear rocket launcher over your shoulder, like in the SaGa 1 concept art. In fairness, the SaGa 3 concept art shows our heroes holding only one weapon at a time, so you can tell Katsutoshi Fujioka was on point in regards to knowing the gameplay systems at work within the games he was drawing for.

Circumventing the drawback of weapon restrictions, our heroes can now swap weapons mid-battle without losing a turn. Additionally, weapons no longer have durability, making them immune to breaking. One minor issue is that the new user interface for character equipment is dumb, as it doesn’t clearly indicate which line corresponds to which type of equipment. Regardless, these changes contribute to an inventory system that requires far less micromanagement compared to previous SaGa games, where battling with limited inventory space was as common as random encounters.

*dumb equipment UI: someone please explain what “Bronze” is referring to

The combat presentation underwent a complete overhaul, drawing inspiration from Sega’s role-playing series, Phantasy Star, by showing the back sprite of each character during battle. This change adds an aesthetic flair to the battles while also serving the practical purpose of visualizing the combat in a more intuitive way. Since the text-based combat log from previous titles has been significantly toned down, this change was necessary to fully convey what was happening in combat. Now, our characters exhibit movement when they attack, and damage numbers and status effects are visually represented on the screen rather than in the combat log.

Somewhat unrelated but some say Star Trek predicted the cellphone, citing the frequently used communicator as proof of this. Well, Final Fantasy Legend III didn’t predict anything, however, it was one of the first games to include an auto-battle function, following in the footsteps of Dragon Quest IV, which was released one year prior. Auto-battle functions as a toggle you can switch on for any character except Arthur; once switched on, the characters will proceed to use every buff and healing spell they have, often resulting in a slow and very stupid death. This auto-battle feature, while innovative for its time, is a completely useless addition, only serving as a precursor to the automatic nature of mindless gacha role-playing mobile “games” that I will instead be calling lottery software from now on. Auto-battle is a feature to avoid, but a feature nonetheless; akin to WiFi on a microwave – nobody asked, and nobody cares.

*Dumb equipment UI: Someone please explain what “Bronze” is referring to

It’s unfortunate that these improvements weren’t added in SaGa 2, as they are now confined to a game that fails to grasp the essence of what makes SaGa so special. In a departure from previous SaGa games, and another example of the Osaka department losing the plot, Final Fantasy Legend III abandons the established “activity-based” skill progression system in favor of a traditional leveling system. As such, each character starts at level 1 and progresses through the game in cookie cutter role-playing fashion, their stats increasing in a predetermined manner.

With this change, the concept of specializing your characters through focused training is gone. Characters are only proficient in what the developers want them to be proficient in, leaving practically no room for meaningful character customization. As a result, one would expect every endgame save file to have the same party with the same equipment and spells, with only the character names being different. However, even the latter is unlikely as every character has a default name.

Compounding this lack of customization, the baffling decision to remove a player-created party in favor of a bland group of predetermined teenagers has a number of downstream effects on the gameplay. For one, you don’t pick the race of your characters anymore; this is predetermined by the developers: two of the characters are human, and two of them are mutants – another point of customization lost.

Mutants lost their ability to learn spells naturally and, as a result, lost everything that made them unique. Since both races now learn magic from magic shops, the need for mutants to learn magic innately has been eliminated. This also ensures that both mutants in your party will have the same optimized spell selection by the endgame.

Mutants now only differ from humans in that their magical stats are higher, making them more akin to standard fantasy wizards instead of the unique SaGa staples they once were. However, one thing remains true: mutants are still overpowered, a SaGa staple thus far. This is because magic is still incredibly useful for blasting multiple enemies at once, and since mutants excel at magic, they are the ones most suited to do the blasting.

*Gloria, the mutant, casts Quake on a group of monsters, decimating them all; also meat

The robot and monster races still exist in some capacity technically, albeit in a very strange, backwards way. Robot parts can now be grafted onto a character, transfiguring them into a robot, or a character can eat monster meat to become a monster. Both of these actions are accessed through a menu prompt after battle. And in a case study on why you shouldn’t default prompts to “yes,” it is entirely too easy to accidentally body-mod your characters if you’re holding the confirmation button a little too long at the end of a battle; early in the game I accidentally turned Arthur into a weird robot and couldn’t figure out how to change him back until an hour later when I got the “toilet unit” for Talon. Yes, the toilet reverts transfiguration, don’t ask me why or how.

Ignoring the fact that grafting robot parts onto a person is a little weird and horrific, this mechanic ends up being unnecessary; something you can just do if you feel like it for fun (or something). I didn’t find any benefits in transforming any character into a robot or monster. In fact, they always ended up being worse than their original state whenever I experimented with these body horror transformations. It seems like the creators added these transfiguration mechanics simply to claim that robots and monsters were still part of the game.

Final Fantasy Legend III does not score very high on the “Save File Test,” a term I just made up. This test assesses the level of variety found in a role-playing computer game, specifically concerning character building. Essentially, it examines the extent to which completed save files from different players would resemble one another. For instance, a game that offers extensive character customization, including features like race selection, stat distribution, a robust class system (especially those that allow multi-classing), unique equipment that goes beyond simply choosing the one with the highest attack stat, and (surely) some other stuff, would score very high and serves as the primary criteria for evaluation. Basically, if you load up a 100% Crash Bandicoot save, you know what you’re expecting – this should never be the case with a role-playing game (that I like).

As a measure of this test’s reliability, consider The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall the highest scoring game while something like Final Fantasy IX is the lowest, as the latter, if min-maxed, would have every character identical across every save file; Zidane would always have Ultima Weapon and all learnable skills, Steiner would have Excalibur II and all his skills, Vivi would have Mace of Zeus and all spells; you get the picture. On the opposite end of the spectrum, a Daggerfall save would be different between every player in significant ways; one save file may have a traditional orc warrior main character, another may have a dunmer mage who moonlights as an assassin, and another may have a personality-based imperial who tries their best to avoid conflict by smooth talking all the npcs; basically, it has variety – maybe too much.

*the save file test graph, simplified; ignore the “pain” bits (typo, seriously)

Final Fantasy Legend III would score a 2 or 3 on the Save File Test, narrowly missing the lowest score due to the inclusion of monster and robot transfiguration mechanics; these mechanics, although unnecessary, provide a level of depth that games like Final Fantasy IX or IV do not have, offering some semblance of choice beyond the RPG basics. Alternatively, SaGa 2 would score a 6 (or something, this isn’t an exact science or a science at all) since it allows full character creation for each party member, including race selection, and enables you to train your characters according to your preferences, all of which are missing in Final Fantasy Legend III.

Of course, this does not tell us if a game is “good” or “fun,” both of which are dumb terms based around subjective experience. One could argue that a game boasting the most intricate character customization ever created, but can be completed within three minutes after character creation, would be deemed a “bad” game. I would likely agree with that sentiment, highlighting that character customization alone does not solely determine a game’s worth. However, it is important to note that the Save File Test does not aim to evaluate a game’s overall worth; its purpose lies in serving a specific niche by assessing the level of customization and depth in a role-playing computer game – that’s all.

Why is character customization so important anyways? Well, like most things in life, it’s not. But it’s important to me.

I enjoy creating things, which is one of the reasons I write these articles. The other reason is that I want to catalog the games I play since they take up a large portion of my time, and not documenting them in some type of “permanent record” feels like losing the experience to history.

Anyways, I like creating things. A game that provides me with tools to create stuff is always more appealing to me than one that lacks such tools; primarily why I find role-playing computer games so appealing, which have historically been known for character creation and branching stories ever since their tabletop ancestors established this trend back in 1974 with the original Dungeons & Dragons. However, an excessive amount of creativity can be overwhelming, so a balance is necessary.

Games like Daggerfall, I would say, score a 10 on the Save File Test. They offer an abundance of choices and freedom, which can be overwhelming. On the other hand, a game like Final Fantasy XI, an MMO with races and multi-classing, sits at about an 8 on the scale, which is a fair balance. Some people prioritize story, while others value presentation above all else. Personally, I appreciate a combination of all these elements, but player choice is what I value above all else.

A game where the predetermined hero saves the day in a predetermined way with the predetermined hero sword and predetermined hero spells does not appeal to me, both in terms of gameplay and narrative – this is precisely why I find Final Fantasy Legend III so offensive.

V. Conclusion or: Let’s Stop Talking About Chrono Trigger Now

As a foreword, I hate writing conclusions. I hate reiterating things I’ve already written just in a slightly different way; conclusions are the hardest part of an article for me to write, but I feel like this article needs a conclusion, so here we go; let’s stop talking about Chrono Trigger.

The developers of Final Fantasy Legend III were either time travelers or trailblazers, maybe both; incorporating ideas that were ahead of their time, such as a loopy time travel plot later recycled and greatly improved on by Square in Chrono Trigger, temporal hijinks that later became core Zelda gameplay mechanics, auto-battling that became a staple in role-playing games by 2023, and even a mechanic resembling HMs (hidden machines) later used in Pokemon (which came out 5 years after Final Fantasy Legend III); the latter of which I failed to mention in the main body of the article because there was just too much going on, but, yes, you can teach your characters to fly or swim with specific spells, although this is only used in the early stages of the game; quickly abandoned, like most ideas in Final Fantasy Legend III.

And that’s the problem. Final Fantasy Legend III, ambitious and grand in its scope, ultimately falls short in its half-baked amateurish execution, sometimes feeling like something I would write if I were tasked with coming up with a role-playing computer game about time-travel – obviously not a compliment; I bring stuff up, never circle back to it, abandon it, act like it never existed. I believe there was something I mentioned earlier in this article that I never circled back to, or maybe I didn’t. Anyways, the point is: wait, what’s the point?

Oh, right. Final Fantasy Legend III, good or not? Well, the narrative often jumps from one time period to another with no sense of gravity or cohesion, leaving the impression that several opportunities to utilize the time travel concepts were missed. Plot threads simply vanish, bizarre transitions occur out of nowhere to progress the story, character deaths are quickly circumvented with magical devices, and glaring plot holes masquerade as deep science fiction time travel paradoxes, sometimes feeling as if the developers accidentally stumbled upon paradoxical gold instead of intentionally including it. All these random tropes are piled into one crazy and ultimately confusing narrative, so carelessly constructed that not even Columbo could crack it.

*Columbo trying to understand the hidden logic of Final Fantasy Legend III

And while the majority of the game feels like aimlessly doing stuff just to be doing stuff, none of that is important because Final Fantasy Legend III made me write over a thousand words on temporal paradoxes, which I would consider a significant achievement.

In terms of gameplay, the act of cutting through monsters with a laser sword continues to be just as gratifying as before, requiring strategic focus in combat rather than mindless button pressing. However, the combat experience could have been improved if we weren’t forced to control four heroes deemed so important to the plot that they had to be included by the development team. This odd choice diminishes the sense of achievement that comes from successfully utilizing a distinctive ensemble of player-created characters in the game’s hostile environment.

The implementation of an experience-based leveling system, as opposed to the skill-based progression system seen in previous SaGa titles, removes any significant character customization. This change has the potential to make every save file and replay identical unless players make use of the monster and robot transfiguration mechanics, which is more akin to picking between cat urine and orange juice than an actual choice. The overall experience quickly becomes bland for those who value a certain level of customization in their role-playing computer games.

*we did it! wait, what were we doing again?

Contrary to my sometimes overwhelming negativity, Final Fantasy Legend III is not a bad game. In fact, it stands out as one of the more comprehensive role-playing games available for the Game Boy. With its strategic turn-based combat, abundant levels of bite-sized content, and an overall sense of time-travel grandeur, it successfully encompasses many essential elements that make a computer game “fun”, whatever that means. However, it does lack a key role-playing game component, that of player choice. Essentially, if it didn’t fall short in this one aspect, which could be argued as the most important aspect for a SaGa game, it would be the perfect Game Boy SaGa game.

The new development team’s failure to grasp the essence of SaGa is evident, as they completely missed the point. SaGa has never been about controlling predetermined characters and leading them along a linear path of progression. The series’ original vision drew inspiration from games like Dungeons & Dragons and Wizardry, prioritizing non-linearity, especially in character development — this crucial aspect is absent in Final Fantasy Legend III, underscoring the significance of the original director, Akitoshi Kawazu, to the series. The absence of his influence is keenly felt in every facet of gameplay.

Much like my highschool shading project, Osaka Department turned in a game that, while technically competent, missed the mark because they didn’t understand the rules they were trying to break to begin with.

Final Fantasy Legend III is not a bad game. It’s just not a SaGa game, and I wanted to play a SaGa game.

As always, stop playing if you’re bored. Put the controller down. Go outside. Do something else. If you’re not having fun, it’s not worth it.

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(Originally published on 5/27/2023)

#ComputerGames #SaGa3 #Review

If The Final Fantasy Legend was the blueprint, the rough draft, the demo; Final Fantasy Legend II is the genuine article, the “real McCoy” as they say. Dropping “The” from the Western title wasn’t the only improvement here; from the gameplay systems to the presentation and music, everything is turned up to eleven on a dial that goes to five. Playing Final Fantasy Legend II feels like a grand adventure whereas The Final Fantasy Legend feels like a series of set pieces with RPG coating designed only to showcase cool ideas to a board of lifeless corporate executives who cheat on their spouses every other night because they lack real passion for anything other than the almighty dollar; a harsh hyperbolical, I know, but a necessary one to illustrate just how much better this game truly is over its predecessor.

After the roaring success of The Final Fantasy Legend on the Game Boy, being the first Square game to ship over 1 million units, it was only natural to make a follow up. That follow up is the brilliant SaGa 2: Hihou Densetsu (translated to SaGa 2: Goddess of Destiny), or Final Fantasy Legend II in the West. Akitoshi Kawazu takes up the mantle once more as director and main designer; bringing along the original SaGa graphic designer, Katsutoshi Fujioka, and composer, Nobuo Uematsu, along with a second composer, Kenji Ito. The stars aligned at the precise point in spacetime to create a blinding constellation of pure talent culminating in the supernova known as Final Fantasy Legend II; much like Synchronicity-era Sting or Richard Dean Anderson’s haircut in Season 6 of MacGyver, if you don’t immediately see the appeal then there’s something wrong with you.

*Sting, Japanese SaGa 2 box art, and Richard Dean Anderson

Immediately upon starting a new game, it becomes apparent that the presentation of Final Fantasy Legend II is of a much higher caliber than its predecessor; likely due to more experience developing for the hardware and a higher overall budget. The presentation is such an upgrade that it often feels like playing a modern demake of a newer role-playing game. Every tile seems to contain twice the detail of what may be found in the first game. Particularly notable is the use of blacks for shading, adding considerable depth to scenes that would have fallen flat in the previous title. These improvements make exploring the various sci-fantasy worlds optically interesting and visually spellbinding.

Although existing in a separate universe, Final Fantasy Legend II’s setting builds upon the foundation established in the first game, incorporating a compelling blend of sci-fi and fantasy elements across multiple worlds. These worlds span from sprawling futuristic cities governed by the Goddess Venus, where only the beautiful may live, to an abandoned realm of giants, where the giants have shrunk themselves to coexist with humans on another planet. Even Edo period Japan makes an appearance, featuring an amusing localization quirk replacing all mentions of the drug “opium” with “bananas”, courtesy of Nintendo of America’s family-friendly guidelines. Even the dungeons are memorable: one taking you inside a human body, while another features horrific faces all over the walls, inspired by horror mangaka Kazuo Umezu. Progression through these worlds often requires revisiting previous worlds, which makes the game feel like a large interconnected universe rather than a series of set pieces.

*Dungeon scene, notice the shadows on the columns and general sense of depth

Compared to The Final Fantasy Legend, the plot is more detailed and emotional, with glimpses of humor sprinkled throughout. Our heroes are traveling the universe in search of the main character’s father, an adventurer on a quest to collect all of the sacred ‘magi’ stones to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands, even though they already have. Along the way, you encounter god-like beings, some based on mythological figures like Apollo, Venus, Ashura, and Odin, who were once ordinary people but gained power by hoarding magi. Each of these beings lusts for control over the universe and, of course, it falls on you to stop them and save the world.

Composers Nobuo Uematsu and Kenji Ito create an astounding soundtrack that perfectly compliments the Final Fantasy Legend II’s unique setting and consistently odd situations; containing some of the best music ever produced for the limited four channel Game Boy sound chip, including the brilliant final battle theme, “Save the World” – one of Nobuo Uematsu’s best works; if you haven’t heard it, stop reading this article and go do that instead.

Kenji Ito was brought on as the second composer to ease Uematsu’s workload, as the latter was also working on the music for Final Fantasy IV at the time. Ito’s output impressed the executives at Square, who couldn’t discern between an Uematsu track and an Ito track during production, resulting in Kenji Ito emerging as a prominent composer for Square moving forward, eventually becoming the primary composer for the SaGa series. This is especially impressive as Final Fantasy Legend II was the first computer game Kenji Ito worked on.

*Dungeon scene, notice the shadows on the columns and general sense of depth

Voted Nintendo Power’s hardest game of 1990, Final Fantasy Legend II can ruin your day about as much as getting stabbed on the subway. That’s in spite of all the “casual” changes over its predecessor, such as the removal of permadeath, multiple save slots so you don’t get locked into game breaking death loops, and the ability to restart a battle after a full party wipe; the latter made possible by Odin, of Norse mythology, who resurrects the party personally so he can one day do battle with our heroes. In a cool bit of continuity, defeating Odin removes the resurrection feature entirely, sending you to the title screen upon death for the remainder of the game.

In a mechanic unique to SaGa 2, the magi that Odin and others use to make themselves so powerful is not exclusive to the Gods. Our heroes find magi throughout the game and can equip them to receive a number of useful effects, such as significant stat increases, powerful attacks, and even utility options like teleportation. By the end of the game, you’ve slain so many Gods and taken so much of their magi that you might start feeling like a God yourself. However, after a certain event, all the magi you’ve grown so accustomed to are stripped from you, leaving you like Alucard at the beginning of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, a computer game trope that I appreciate, especially when it happens very late in a game as opposed to the beginning.

If some of these changes offend your hardcore sensibilities, worry not because the creators of Final Fantasy Legend II were acutely aware of this sentiment and ramped up the difficulty considerably to (over)compensate. Without changing any of the core gameplay mechanics from the first SaGa, battles are now deadly turn-based chess matches that can take a devastating turn with just one wrong move. This legendary difficulty is primarily accomplished by the game constantly throwing packs of fifteen or more monsters at you, requiring you to know your enemy and carefully plan every action to survive. This makes random encounters far more dangerous than most boss battles. In contrast, SaGa 1 was mostly a ‘hold A to win’ affair, making SaGa 2 feel far more strategic and fully realized than its older brother, albeit more frustrating at times.

*A battle scene resulting in death, watch to the end to see a brief glimpse of Odin reviving the party

As an additional compromise for the game’s high difficulty, running from battles is now much easier, to the point where it tempts abuse. While running isn’t useful early on, it becomes extremely helpful late game when skilling up is less important, especially when exploring large dungeons where you need to conserve your resources for bosses; in this way, the game encourages running, which is unfortunate because Final Fantasy Legend II is a role-playing game, not Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles.

With permadeath now a thing of the past, guilds are no longer necessary for recruiting new party members. Instead, you create a party of four heroes at the start of the game by choosing between four races; one race being a new addition to the series; move over, Tetsuya Takahashi – we’ve got robots.

Continuing SaGa’s tradition of general weirdness, robots have a unique progression system that forgoes skilling up through battle in favor of an equipment-based system that increases your robot’s stats based on the armor they wear. This results in slower overall progression when compared to other races. Additionally, due to their reliance on armor for stat growth, robots have limited inventory space for weapons, and any weapon they do equip has its ammo cut in half. These drawbacks are partially mitigated by the fact that robots do not deplete weapons like other races; instead, they recharge by resting at an inn. These quirks ultimately result in a suboptimal party member that, despite the “rule of cool” dictating you include at least one in your party, is outclassed by every other race.

*Robots as portrayed in the NA game manual, the Japanese manual, and the actual game

Humans, on the other hand, received a buff compared to their counterparts in SaGa 1, as chugging potion is no longer the only method to enhance their stats. They now skill up through normal battle, similar to mutants but with significantly faster progression, compensating for their lack of proficiency in magic. Similar to SaGa 1, humans excel at physical combat and serve as perfect frontline fighters, now even more so.

Mutants received a slight nerf from SaGa 1, where they were far too overpowered, resulting in a slower rate of stat progression. They still possess the unique ability to learn spells from battle, although the intricacies of this process still remain a mystery, and there is still a risk of overwriting previously acquired spells, a point of criticism left over from the first game; however, I have come to accept this quirk as an inherent part of mutant lore. Interestingly, there appears to be a way to permanently retain specific spells on mutant characters; yet, in typical SaGa fashion, the exact method to achieve this remains unexplained.

The monster race is still present and remains unchanged from SaGa 1. Monsters are total garbage unless you utilize an online guide to obtain the best monster type, a method not readily available to the typical ’90s kid. This emphasizes a significant point of contention that applies to all SaGa games: a lack of adequate explanation for the game’s systems, something SaGa fans just learn to get used to.

Outside of the four main party members, SaGa 2 includes several fully playable guest characters that join your party for brief periods as dictated by the story. Being a game that is more character-driven than its predecessor, guests joining is a frequent occurrence, and these guests vary in strength from overpowered to completely useless. This aspect can be seen as a precursor to the guest system in Final Fantasy XII, another game Akitoshi Kawazu worked on in a producer role.

*Our hero with two guest party members in Edo

The creators of SaGa 2: Hihou Densetsu insisted that the retail box be larger than any other Game Boy game box at the time of its release in 1990. This effort was made to make the game more noticeable to Japanese consumers as they browsed their local computer game stores. Like the big box it came in, SaGa 2 had big shoes to fill, and it did so in spectacular fashion. If young Richard Dean Anderson is the peak ’90s action celebrity, then Final Fantasy Legend II is the peak ’90s role-playing computer game for the Game Boy. Yes, I realize the oddly niche nature of this comparison; however, it requires someone with exceptionally good taste to understand, much like the SaGa series itself.

Final Fantasy Legend II builds upon the blueprint laid out by The Final Fantasy Legend, incorporating a plethora of improvements that culminate in a truly must-play game for the Game Boy. Its art direction, music, difficult gameplay, and overall green-charm leave an immediate imprint on the brain, potentially evoking a sense of nostalgia even if you’re experiencing it for the first time in your thirties (like myself).

Frequently brilliant and never boring. Radiant and refined in its execution. If you’re going to play just one Game Boy SaGa game, make it this one. Save the world.

As always, if you get bored, do something else.

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(originally published on 5/21/2023)

#ComputerGames #SaGa2 #Review

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Introduction or: So Begins Our SaGa

The year was 1989, Square’s president Masafumi Miyamota wanted to push Square into the handheld realm by releasing a game similar to Tetris for the Nintendo Game Boy. The big boss chose Akitoshi Kawazu and Koichi Ishii to work on this new title; both having worked on Final Fantasy II, and the bigger names at Square were already engaged on Final Fantasy III at the time. Kawazu was renowned for introducing some of the unconventional elements in Final Fantasy II, such as the keyword and activity-based progression system; both features either loved or vehemently hated by the fans (no in-between), as they were considered highly unorthodox at the time, veering from the more vanilla systems found in the Dragon Quest series and Final Fantasy I.

Miyamota’s plan to create a Game Boy game inspired by Tetris was a sound business decision at the time, but it took an unexpected turn when Akitoshi Kawazu, renowned for his unconventional approach, went against the boss’s decision and decided to develop a role-playing game instead. This move, partially motivated by Square’s primary audience of role-playing enthusiasts, was also the perfect chance for Kawazu to act on his ambitions and spearhead his own series. Seizing the opportunity like Oda Nobunaga in the face of overwhelmingly bad odds at the battle of Okehazama, Kawazu chose to build on the concepts he introduced in Final Fantasy II, with the goal of creating a series of his own quirky machinations.

To bring his vision to life, Kawazu enlisted a wide range of Square talent, including artists Katsutoshi Fujioka and Takashi Tokita, producer and designer Hiroyuki Ito, and renowned computer games composer Nobuo Uematsu (a true Final Fantasy Legend), to create the blueprint for his new series. The result was Makai Toushi SaGa (roughly translating to Devil Tower Saga) for the Game Boy, later released in 1990 in the United States under the name The Final Fantasy Legend; Square hoped this brand-naming-trickery would capitalize on the popularity of the Final Fantasy name in the west, which most likely annoyed Kawazu immensely. Nevertheless, Makai Toushi SaGa marked the beginning of a new series characterized by the strange and unorthodox – the SaGa series (note the capital “G,” which is necessary and cool); the weird little brother of Final Fantasy, always inclined to break the rules whenever the chance presented itself.

*SaGa logo and concept art by Katsutoshi Fujioka, humans alongside their in-game representation; nuke launchers, machine guns, and chainsaws in tow.

In the end, Akitoshi Kawazu’s ambition and Square’s marketing tactics paid off, as Makai Toushi SaGa became the company’s first game to ship over 1 million units. It has the unique distinction of being the first role-playing game for the Game Boy, and is even cited as having a significant influence on the creation of Pokemon. This was the beginning of the SaGa series, and while not super popular in the West, it has over 10 titles to its name and is beloved in Japan to this day; solidifying itself as one of the major players in the Japanese role-playing computer game pantheon and sits among Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest as part of the Square Enix “warring triad” of sorts.

Through the writing of this article (which I hesitate to call a “review” due to the subjectivity inherent to experiencing computer games beyond the most basic of artistic and programming competency), I intend to begin a series of articles covering each game in the SaGa series. Naturally, this will only include SaGa games that I can play in English, and may eventually culminate in a scathing critique of the mobile gaming scene by analyzing the mobile SaGa gacha game; something to look forward to for all my readers (none).

For this article, I played Makai Toushi SaGa, or The Final Fantasy Legend (which is the name I will be using going forward), on the Nintendo Switch version of Collection of SaGa. All screenshots and videos featured in this article were taken from my May 2023 playthrough unless otherwise noted.

Without further ado, let’s begin our SaGa.

A Short SaGa Story

As you wake up in your ragged bed and avert your gaze to the window, the bright yet somehow sickly sunbeams cause you to cover your eyes for a moment before focusing on a Tower in the distance; this Tower appearing to stretch through the green-tinted clouds forever. You sluggishly climb out of bed, put on your tunic and trousers, and attach your worn-out bronze sword to your belt. After nibbling some stale bread, you ready yourself to head outside; wishing you could rest longer, but you know the monsters become more active as the day goes on and Base Town needs protection. With that in mind, you gather your wits and make your way out of the dilapidated shack you call your home, stepping out into the town you know so well.

Almost immediately you hear screams of women and children outside the town walls, you rush through the gate and witness a terrifying scene: a massive mechanized goliath, armed with a gun-arm, mercilessly attacking a family, most of which have already been gunned down. However, a woman manages to avoid slaughter and rushes towards you, crying out for help. As one of many protectors of Base Town, you hastily charge towards the robot, drawing your blade and executing a quick upward slash toward the exposed tubing around the front of its shiny carapace. The blade makes contact with the demon’s metallic skin, but only grazes it. You realize that you have only a few uses left of your bronze blade before it shatters.

*A deadly robot approaches!

The metal monstrosity retaliates by knocking you back with its left arm, sending you crashing to the ground. As you lay there, staring up at the lone red light that serves as the robot’s eye, it raises its right arm – the blaster – and aims it directly at you. Panic sets in; you quickly grab the holster on your hip and pull out your laser pistol; dad’s old gun, nearly out of charge; a last resort at best. You take aim at the bright red light and pull the trigger; a blue bolt escapes the barrel; traveling elegantly through the air, piercing the eye of the beast. Almost instantly, the robot drops its arm and collapses to the ground, spewing sparks like blood as a sickeningly loud buzz emanates from the thing.

You have managed to survive this encounter, but how much longer can you continue living like this? The locals at Base Town claim that ascending the massive Tower in the middle of town leads to Paradise. However, those who have attempted the climb never return; likely why they call it the “Devil Tower.” Did those brave souls perish in their frailty, or did they reach Paradise?

Setting and Plot or: Devil Tower and Pals

The short story above may have been something my ten year old brain imagined when playing The Final Fantasy Legend on the Game Boy using one of those tiny light accessories that clipped on the console while riding in the back seat of my dad’s car at night on a road trip to one of my grandparent’s houses in Athens, Georgia (that I, of course, did not want to go to); maybe not quite as detailed or elegant, but something along those lines. In retrospect, the brilliance of these “low-graphics” games lies in their ability to inspire players to imagine a much more detailed and nuanced world than what is presented on screen, filling in the gaps imposed by the hardware’s limitations. Much like reading a good novel, playing these games encourages the player to develop their own unique interpretations and, at times, come up with their own character backgrounds and lore; quintessential role-playing personified with a green tint.

*Carpet? Beach? Giant Pineapple? You decide!

Final Fantasy Legend may not have the most visually stunning graphics, but that’s not to say the game lacks an imaginative story or rich setting. The game uses its limited tilesets to portray a grim world spanning from medieval castles to futuristic skyscrapers; unforgivably sci-fi in its presentation; mixing multiple genres of fiction into one, much like an Ursula K. Le Guin novel. This blending of genres is key to the SaGa aesthetic, and The Final Fantasy Legend is the perfect “blueprint” of sorts, showcasing things to come in future SaGa games, even if it is a bit unfocused in its execution.

The Final Fantasy Legend’s overarching plot revolves around an unnamed hero’s journey to climb a Tower in order to reach Paradise, venturing through four different worlds along the way. The player starts in Base Town, making their own party of four heroes by hiring help from the local guild, selecting heroes from three different races: human, mutant, or monster. This level of party customization, which includes the ability to name your characters, contributes to the “fill in the gaps” nature of the game. In true role-playing fashion, as characters do not have their own backstories, players are encouraged to come up with their own; although, I was lazy and named my heroes after family members; the monster in my party being named after my wife.

*The Tower, as depicted in the game’s manual.

The game’s world is composed of four distinct “world-layers,” each accessible by different floors of the Tower. These world-layers are the World of Continent, Ocean, Sky, and Ruin. Each of these world-layers features its own overworld map, distinct towns and dungeons, and different modes of transportation. Continent is a medieval fantasy world, Ocean is a waterworld that must be traversed by the use of moving islands, Sky is a world of clouds traversable only by a flying machine, and Ruin is a gritty post-apocalyptic hellscape. Trying to understand the absurd sacred geography of this land proves impossible; how does a Tower pierce each level? How is an ocean floating above a large continent? What force is holding this together?

The hero’s journey starts in the world of Continent, where three power-hungry kingdoms are locked in a constant state of war. To progress beyond this world, the hero must acquire a magical sphere that serves as the key to a sealed door in the Tower. After unlocking the door and ascending several floors, the hero reaches another sealed door that demands a new sphere. To progress further, the hero must locate the entrance to the next world and overcome its own unique set of challenges to obtain the next sphere. This process repeats through each world until you reach the top of the Tower. Each world resembles a new computer-gamey level of sorts, a problem to solve in pursuit of Paradise; feeling like different universes altogether, separated only by doors in the Tower; similar to the paintings found in Super Mario 64.

*The entrance to the Tower in the World of Continent, sealed by magic of black.

As you ascend the Tower you encounter the archfiends – four kings who govern each world. These archfiends are based on Japanese spirits, which themselves were based on the four symbols of Chinese mythology: Genbu the Black Tortoise, Seiryu the Azure Dragon, Suzaku the Vermillion Bird, and Byakko the White Tiger. Each serves as an obstacle in your path to Paradise, often in possession of the spheres needed to climb the Tower.

As a side note, each of the archfiends encountered in The Final Fantasy Legend have become staple bosses in the Final Fantasy online computer games. In Final Fantasy XI, they are referred to as “Notorious Monsters,” while in Final Fantasy XIV, they appear as bosses in dungeons and trials; as a side-side note, Final Fantasy XI features a skill-based leveling system and hits on several hallmarks of the SaGa series; like its pseudo-openworld, odd story structure, unique character progression systems, and genre mixing; to top it off, the original director was Koichi Ishii, who worked with Akitoshi Kawazu on the SaGa series. One could argue that Final Fantasy XI shares enough in common with the SaGa series that it should be considered an honorary SaGa title.

One example burned into my brain illustrating the prominence of the archfiends is the majestic fire bird Suzaku, who resides in the World of Ruin. Once you arrive in this world, you find a futuristic post-apocalyptic wasteland leveled by what appears to be a nuclear holocaust, complete with roaming zombies and mutated animals. Before you have a chance to gather your bearings, you encounter Suzaku; seemingly invincible and ready to destroy your entire party. It quickly becomes apparent that the nuclear holocaust was not the work of humans but of Suzaku herself. The player has no choice but to run, escaping underground where Suzaku can’t follow. You are relentlessly pursued by Suzaku until you discover the secret to defeating her. This game of cat and mouse, combined with the unique arena it takes place in (and the fact you get to ride a cool Akira-like motorcycle), creates one of the most memorable and engaging experiences in the game.

*Suzaku relentlessly pursues the party.

Late in the game, In true “grimdark” fashion, while climbing the Tower, our heroes come across a room containing four corpses, some of them children. The room is filled with bookshelves, and upon reading some of their contents, it becomes apparent that the bodies belong to a family that attempted to ascend the Tower but perished right before reaching the top; one wonders how they made it that far without the spheres, but that’s a question for another time. The family left behind a series of messages about the Creator, who constructed the Tower, but the messages are incomplete and leave the player guessing over their actual meaning. Without spoiling anything, unraveling the mystery of the Creator and discovering the secret of the Tower make up the remainder of the game’s story.

The Final Fantasy Legend is certainly not winning any Hugo or Nebula awards for science fiction story of the decade; however, the game’s unique genre blending and mature tone are undoubtedly remarkable for its time, particularly considering it was released for the Game Boy, a console with a primary demographic of children, in 1989.

Gameplay or: Unknowable Systems, the Savestate Ouroboros, and Computer Game Crypticism

SaGa games have a reputation for gameplay systems that are mysterious or downright nonsensical in their machinations. This reputation likely stems from the very first game in the series, which happens to be the subject of this article. From random stat increases to miraculously learning (and unlearning) spells, there’s a lot that doesn’t make immediate sense in the first SaGa game. Many of these elements are retained in future SaGa games, albeit far more refined and, in most cases, sufficiently explained. However, The Final Fantasy Legend fails to explain most of its gameplay systems, relying on the player to have the original paper manual to discover these details, but even the manual (which is available on the Internet Archive) is lacking sufficient information to fully explain the underlying clockwork at play. As a result, you will most likely end up dying multiple times early on, wasting powerful items and spells while trying to figure out what they do, even losing characters permanently if you’re not careful.

The core mechanics of The Final Fantasy Legend are reminiscent of its predecessors, especially Dragon Quest. You take control of a party of up to four characters; navigating towns and dungeons in pursuit of finding Paradise while completing quests and contending with random encounters along the way. The initial challenge may seem overwhelming, but with just a few minutes of grinding and trial and error, the game quickly becomes more manageable, feeling more like a brisk stroll than a competitive marathon. Unlike other games of its time, there is a surprisingly low amount of grinding required to complete the game. In my last playthrough, I only needed to grind once early on, which was a refreshing change of pace.

The game’s turn-based combat is refreshingly old-fashioned, devoid of any fancy tricks or gimmicks, and identical to Dragon Quest in its straightforward “select actions, characters perform actions, monsters perform actions” simplicity. Attacks can only be made with equipped weapons or spells, and there are no flashy super moves except for certain weapons that have special effects. These weapons range from medieval armaments to science fiction lasers and even nuclear bombs; each weapon has a specific number of uses, making inventory management as important as the battles themselves. Because turn order is solely based on a character’s agility stat and nothing else, battles become pleasantly predictable albeit somewhat samey and boring later on once the “new game” excitement wears off.

Overall, The Final Fantasy Legend’s battle system is not particularly remarkable, especially given its age, and you may have already played games with similar combat systems that are more refined and engaging. As such, this is very much a “you have to be in the right mindset to appreciate it” type of experience.

*A battle with the archfiend Byakko.

The topcoat of paint may seem conventional, but The Final Fantasy Legend starts to differ from its role-playing computer game contemporaries by way of its underlying systems, specifically its lack of traditional experience based leveling, instead favoring a three-pronged approach to leveling character statistics, otherwise known as a convoluted mess. Clearly inspired by Akitoshi Kawazu’s “usage based” skill up system in Final Fantasy II, but also not really. In a bizarre decision, perhaps to align with the game’s lore, the three playable races utilize different leveling systems entirely. Imagine three role-playing game leveling systems jammed into one game – that’s The Final Fantasy Legend. Don’t worry, we’ll get into it.

What’s a role-playing game without a bunch of normal humans running around? Somehow permeating every fantasy realm, breeding like rabbits, with their pale clammy skin and overall poor hygiene; naturally, humans are the default choice when making a character in The Final Fantasy Legend. While they can do anything, the concept of them being a jack of all trades, master of none (better than master of one) falls flat as they aren’t passably good at anything, especially compared to their peer: the mutant.

Humans have the ability to use any item in the game but cannot naturally learn spells. Instead, they must equip spell books, which are useless since humans are terrible with magic, this allows you to ignore magic completely on a human character which frees up their limited inventory space for lots of weapons, armor, and healing items. This makes humans most suitable for carrying around lots of atomic bombs, pistols, plasma swords, and elixirs.

Human stats progress in a very unconventional way. They can only increase stats by chugging potions purchased from shops; each potion raises a specific stat by a random number. No amount of actual battling will make a human stronger, it’s all about chugging those magic potions. While this means players who have enough cash can easily max out their human’s stats, it can be tough at the beginning of the game when you don’t have much money to spare, leaving your poor human vulnerable to being quickly devoured by a zombie or melted by a robot.

*The races of The Final Fantasy Legend; concept art from the Japanese strategy guide.

The human system of progression is reminiscent of modern life, as it can be interpreted as a commentary on first world capitalism, although this comparison was probably unintended. After all, If you’re born into wealth, you have a leg up on those who aren’t, with access to private schools and pricey sports programs, your soccer mommy truly does love you and is willing to spend spend spend to give you an advantage over the other kids.

Mutants follow the progression system laid out in Final Fantasy II; their actions in battle determine their stat increases. Attacking frequently will boost their strength, while taking hits or winning battles will increase their HP. However, the mechanics that govern mutant skill growth are an unknowable system. The documentation is limited, and it doesn’t seem to behave as it should. Consequently, mutants skill up very quickly, almost too quickly, making them a potent force in your party from the very beginning.

Mutants aren’t just quick learners, they also excel in everything else, especially magic, which makes them a go-to choice for dealing group-wide damage. The catch is that the magic learning process is another unknowable system in a game full of unknowable systems. Instead of relying on spell books like humans, mutants have a “chance” to learn a new spell after every battle, but since there are a limited number of spell slots, any new spell they learn will overwrite an existing one; similar to a genetic mutation, hence the name “mutant.”

At times, mutants may possess powerful spells like Thunder, but in the next moment, those same spells may have mutated into a useless spell that quite literally does nothing. Sometimes, spells can even transform into passive abilities that only appear on the status page, randomly leaving a blank space in the battle menu where a powerful spell once was. Furthermore, as spells consume inventory space, mutants can only carry a limited number of items at a time, meaning they must carefully select which items to bring into battle. These are their only true drawbacks; however, their rapid stat progression and ability to use spells at all more than make up for any inconveniences. Mutants are easily the most powerful race in the game, by virtue of being unbalanced, and as such a good strategy for steamrolling the entire game is picking four mutants to start with.

*Source: The Final Fantasy Legend English manual, circa 1990; observe the “Americanization” of the concept art in all its cringey glory.

Monsters are the third playable race and as the name implies … they’re monsters. They mirror the monsters you encounter throughout your journey, except they’re friendly. Monsters boast the most peculiar progression system of all, a system that may as well be called cannibalism; defeating other monsters in battle yields their meat which your monster can then consume to morph into a (seemingly) random new monster. As such, the core of their progression system is simply morphing into stronger monsters; similar to Pokemon’s evolution system, but not really, because the underlying mechanics that govern these evolutions are another unknowable system unexplained in the game or its manual.

The morphing system is as enigmatic as the mutant skill up rates. Like one of those scammy mystery box subscription services, you never know what you’re going to get, but it’s surely less than what you paid for. After eating meat, your monster could end up significantly more powerful or, conversely, something like a worm that only knows how to wiggle around. Thankfully, consuming boss meat consistently results in a substantial upgrade, but in terms of stat progression, monsters never keep pace with mutants or even humans. For the most part, they’re dead weight, but if you’re fortunate enough to have a monster morph into a healer, you can keep them in your party as consistent support; or you can just not recruit monsters, which is probably the best option.

Another issue with monsters is their inability to carry items or use weapons and armor, which is crucial since items play a critical role in general combat and overall survival. Since there are no inherent special attacks outside of magic and a few monster abilities, weapons are your primary source of damage; varying wildly while adding to the series’ genre-blending aesthetic, you’ll find futuristic laser swords, nuclear bombs, and submachine guns alongside classic iron swords, bows, and axes. Like most role-playing games, there are traditional medicinal items such as potions, remedies, and elixirs, all of which are pivotal in keeping your party healthy during long Tower climbs. As such, a character who can’t use even the most basic of items is a liability.

Each character has eight inventory slots for spells, weapons, armor, and consumable items. While the player’s bag can only hold about twenty items. This makes battling with inventory space as frequent as random encounters. Furthermore, weapons have a limited number of uses before they break, which is similar to the weapon degradation system in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild; however, SaGa was doing this before it was cool (and by “cool” I actually mean “widely hated”). This weapon degradation system necessitates stocking up on weapons before leaving town, which adds to the already existing inventory management struggles.

*Mutant (ARTH) and monster (VERO) inventory and stats compared; end-game. Note the large difference in stats; also note the numbers next to XCLBR, indicating how many uses the item has left.

In typical role-playing fashion, a hero’s fate in battle is determined by their HP, dying if their health is depleted. The dead can be revived in town, but there is a unique twist to the standard formula here with the introduction of permadeath. Each hero in the game has three hearts, in addition to their HP, and when they die in battle, their heart count decreases by one. If a hero loses all their hearts, they die permanently and cannot be revived. Since enemies tend to target the party leader before other characters, your initial hero, like all other heroes, is not immune to this mechanic and is likely to be the first to succumb to permadeath if you’re not careful.

This heart system can be seen as a precursor to the LP (life point) system introduced in later SaGa games, where LP serves a similar purpose to hearts; however, not all SaGa games have permadeath, most just force a game over if your main protagonist runs out of LP. In this way, The Final Fantasy Legend is far more punishing than later games in the SaGa series.

Fortunately for your heroes, the game offers several ways to mitigate permadeath. The first option is obvious: save scumming. If your characters die, simply reload a previous save. This method, while valid, always feels cheap to use, like you’re circumventing core game mechanics by using a technicality; I don’t like doing it but I do it regardless; cognitive dissonance be damned. The second option is to purchase hearts from shops, though this is not viable early on since you will be constantly low on funds. However, as you progress through the game, battles start rewarding large sums of money, making it less of an issue; so if a character dies, just buy them a new heart – If only it was that easy in real life! As a last resort, you can recruit additional heroes from town guilds, which is useful in the event of permadeath; however, new recruits need to be trained entirely from scratch, making this final method a huge time sink.

Expanding on the save scumming, The Final Fantasy Legend features a generous “save anywhere” system that ends up being a double-edged sword. While it allows you to save progress at any time, this is not always advisable since certain areas can be difficult to escape from, especially if you only have one hero alive and very little health left. This, combined with the fact there is only one save slot, can and will result in nightmare scenarios where you become “trapped” without a previous “safe save” to revert back to; feverishly forced to reload your bad save over and over until you miraculously make it back to town to heal up; something that happened to me more than once.

The final boss area is a prime example of this nightmare in action, with no option to return back to town, a save here could easily result in a death sentence forcing you to restart the game entirely; making the true final boss the Savestate Ouroboros, Ruiner of Computer Games With Poorly Conceived Save Systems.

*A new encounter in one step!

One potential solution to prevent the Savestate Ouroboros’ signature move, the Dreaded Soft Lock, is to incorporate a way to manipulate the encounter rate, which is either too low or frustratingly high with no middle ground. At the beginning of the game, the encounter rate seems low, but as you progress higher in the Tower, the encounter rate rapidly increases; in many cases, you encounter a new battle after taking just one step. An option to prevent or lower the encounter rate would help avoid getting “trapped” after a bad save decision. Another potential solution is to have more accessible teleportation options; while there are a few options allowing you to teleport back to town, they are consumable and so rare that you most likely won’t have them when you need them. Finally, there could be more than just one save slot, which would solve these issues entirely. Unfortunately, we’re stuck without these improvements, so “soft locking” your save file in a bad save situation is all too possible, so be careful.

The Pokemon series, which drew inspiration from The Final Fantasy Legend, features items which prevent encounters and early access to abilities that allow for easy teleportation back to safe zones. In their genius, GameFreak recognized a potential issue with their one save system and implemented features to prevent it early on; a step in the right direction and a direct improvement on what we have in The Final Fantasy Legend. Of course, Pokemon also includes a feature that sends you back to a safe zone when all your Pokemon die, so they’re fully immune to the Savestate Ouroboros’ attacks.

A computer game’s difficulty should not rely on getting stuck in a bad situation; this just leads to frustration and rage quitting. Instead, a game should use its gameplay systems to create fair situations that are difficult only due to player failures that can be learned from and corrected, not core system failures like a bad save system.

*Thanks for the tip, mysterious top hat man!

Gameplay systems are important, but how does the player actually progress in the game? Like most role-playing computer games from this time, progression is facilitated through the completion of quests, these quests are revealed through highly mysterious dialogue with NPCs scattered throughout each world. Discerning the exact steps needed to complete said quests can be challenging at times because the dialogue can often be vague and cryptic, such as “look for the old man” or “the king has the shield.” Fortunately, the game’s overworld is relatively straightforward, with only a few places to explore in each world; meaning that even during moments of confusion, you will quickly stumble upon something that propels the story forward, even if it’s by accident.

That being said, there are several instances where progressing isn’t as straightforward as it should be; almost as if the developers intended for you to seek help outside of the game by consulting with a tip line or a knowledgeable friend who already beat the game. For example, there is a quest where you must solve a riddle that goes something like “what is three long swords and a gold helmet?” The objective is to obtain the item being referred to in the riddle. While not immediately obvious, you are supposed to calculate the total price of each item, find an item that is sold for the same amount, and then bring that item to the riddler to obtain the reward. Some may say this type of computer-game-crypticism adds charm, but I find it simply shows how old fashioned The Final Fantasy Legend is when it comes to game progression. Yes, the game was made in 1989, so it’s understandable to an extent. However, there is a point where cryptic nonsense negatively impacts any game regardless of age. Thankfully, moments of extreme crypticism only happen twice (that I counted), so it’s not a huge issue, especially in the internet age when you can just look it up.

And in case you’re wondering, the answer to that riddle is “Battle Sword.”

Conclusion or: Reaching the Top of the Tower

The Final Fantasy Legend, known for its unusual character progression and genre-hopping science fiction setting, serves as the perfect blueprint for future SaGa titles. With its brooding post-apocalyptic atmosphere and strange creatures that seem to have crawled out of a horror movie, playing the game is like stepping into an 80s dark fantasy or otherworldly dreamscape; similar to reading a Vampire Hunter D novel (minus all the vampires and misogyny). The score, composed by Nobuo Uematsu, perfectly complements the setting despite the limitations of the Game Boy sound chip; and the graphics somehow do a great job facilitating the imagination to build upon its green-tinted world.

Although The Final Fantasy Legend offers solid gameplay, some players may find the confusing systems and simplistic graphics unappealing after being spoiled by modern computer games; while playing games of this nature comes naturally to those born in the 80s or 90s, others may find it too outdated to enjoy. This is OK, as many older games are simply not worth playing outside of partaking in nostalgia or contrarianism, observing historical significance, or attempting to bolster your self-esteem by seeking attention and validation online by bragging about all the cool old games you play (something I may or may not be guilty of; this author prefers to leave that open to reader interpretation).

*Congratulations! You have reached the top of the Tower! Thank you for reading!

The Final Fantasy Legend is not a game that falls under the category of “not worth playing”, but it is not necessarily a “must play” title either. Games from the same time period, such as Dragon Quest III and Final Fantasy II, featuring comparable turn-based combat and character progression systems, did the same things and arguably did them better; however, neither of these games match the level of quirky originality found in the first SaGa game.

Clocking in at about 5 hours to complete, it doesn’t hurt to give The Final Fantasy Legend a try, especially if you’re interested in the origins of the SaGa series or just want to experience the first ever role-playing game for the Game Boy. Love it or hate it, you’re not wasting much time either way.

As always, if you get bored. Put the controller down and do something else. If you’re not having fun, it’s not worth it.

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(originally published on 5/14/2023)

#ComputerGames #SaGa1 #Review

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Introduction or: Brief History of the Japanese Raccoon Dog or: Tanuki Tales

The tanuki, a charming and beloved creature also known as the Japanese raccoon dog, holds a special place in Japanese culture. Its likeness is almost omnipresent in Japanese media, as well as in daily Japanese life, where it appears in the form of statues, posters, and figurines. These depictions are particularly prominent in the country’s Buddhist temples and restaurants, where the depiction of a tanuki is thought to bring good fortune. It is not uncommon to spot a tanuki scavenging for food in the alleys of Japanese cities, as many have been displaced from their natural habitats due to historical deforestation. Computer games, of course, have not failed to pay homage to this endearing animal either, with Mario’s statue form in the Super Mario Brothers, only accessible through the tanuki form by shapeshifting, immortalizing the legendary raccoon dog for a more casual gaming audience.

Despite their name, the Japanese raccoon dog is not related to what us Americans call raccoons. Tanuki belong to the canidae family, which places them closer to dogs and foxes than to American raccoons, which belong to the procyonidae family. Unlike American raccoons, tanuki are renowned for their remarkable ability to shapeshift, much like foxes. While chameleons are capable of changing their color, a limited form of transformation, only a select few creatures possess the power of true transformation, which manifests as complete shapeshifting. This extraordinary ability is reserved for a small group of animals, including foxes, tanuki, and some cats.

*Ponta, a tanuki merchant in Shiren 5, selling bad lottery tickets

In Japanese folklore, the tanuki was once considered a harbinger of misfortune, blamed for every mysterious sound and occurrence within the woods where they dwelled. However, in more recent history, this perception has undergone a significant shift, and the tanuki is now celebrated as a bringer of good fortune, benevolence, and overall good-times. They are enshrined in lore as the “bake-danuki”, a family of yokai found throughout Japanese folktales and literature. According to legend, the tanuki is known for being a skilled shapeshifter with the ability to morph into almost anything, including humans. They often use this ability to play pranks on humans or live among them for long periods of time without being noticed. A key component of their shapeshifting ability is their pouch, or in cruder terms, their ball sack. Frequently using their ball sack as a secondary object of transformation; for example, a tanuki may shapeshift into a samurai, armor and all, but shapeshift their ball sack separately into a sword; or they may shapeshift into a merchant and use their ball sack as their vending stall. Although this ability is impressive and potentially dangerous, tanuki are characterized as absent-minded and more focused on the pleasures of life than any serious long-term endeavors. So, if you are tormented by a tanuki, it is likely not out of malice but rather pure jovial curiosity, fun, or pure necessity.

Of course, not all tanuki are the same. While most raccoon dogs are typically associated with their playful and whimsical personalities, some tanuki pursue more serious means to survive. Many become adept at salesmanship and often disguise themselves as merchants. This depiction is commonly found in various forms of media, particularly in computer games where tanuki merchants are a frequent occurrence. For instance, the Shiren the Wanderer series (hey – that’s what this article is supposedly about!) features several tanuki merchants. Other popular games, such as the Animal Crossing series, also include clever tanuki merchants like Tom Nook (whose name is a play on the word “Tanuki”). Tom Nook is a cunning real estate mogul who entraps the player with crippling debt, tricking you into working for him to pay it off; fortunately, he is a jovial tanuki who doesn’t care how quickly the debt is actually paid off. One wonders if Tom Nook’s store is his own ball sack, but that is a question for another article.

*tanuki statue, tom nook, and artwork depicting a tanuki holding his big pouch

Tanuki are often depicted as protectors of nature who will do anything to prevent the destruction of their homelands. For instance, in response to a human-led campaign to destroy a forest, tanuki may band together to plot the protection of their homeland. However, their efforts are more likely to result in long nights of partying and fun rather than anything productive, similar to my attempts at writing.

In one story, after numerous unsuccessful and half-baked pranks by the tanuki to halt the construction of a new residential housing district in their forests, which resulted in the loss of many tanuki lives, the surviving tanuki had no choice but to transform into humans and integrate themselves into Japanese society for survival. Today, it is said that whole families of tanuki still live in and around Tokyo, disguised as humans and engaging in everyday activities such as office work, street performing, and vending to make a living; ironically, some may have ended up working as contractors and real estate agents, selling the very same lands they were forced to flee all in an effort to make ends meet; after all, tanuki are far more concerned with survival and fun-times over more noble principles.

Legend has it that a few of these tanuki have forgotten their shapeshifting abilities, now permanently trapped in human form, forever doomed to live out the rest of their lives as humans. While this is certainly just a fanciful story, it contributes to the allure of the tanuki, leaving you to ponder whether the person beside you is truly human or actually a tanuki in disguise, or if the bench you’re sitting on is really a tanuki ball sack. This story is brilliantly portrayed in the Studio Ghibli film Pom Poko, which comes highly recommended by our staff (me).

*scene from Pom Poko, animated by Studio Ghibli, 1994

As mentioned earlier, kitsune, or foxes, are the opposite side of the tanuki coin, known for their shapeshifting abilities and closely aligned with tanuki in terms of common goals, although there are some significant differences between the two. Tanuki and kitsune can be seen as rivals competing for shapeshifting supremacy; however, only the fox would care about this rivalry as they are more intelligent and envious than the tanuki; or as the saying goes, they are “as clever as a fox.” The tanuki is far too concerned with eating and goofing off to care about such things.

It is often said that while the fox has seven disguises, the tanuki boasts eight, making it technically superior in terms of shapeshifting abilities. However, quantity does not necessarily outweigh quality. The fox, for instance, focuses on mastering a select few transformations to maliciously trick people, while the tanuki tends to shapeshift haphazardly out of necessity or just for fun. As a result, foxes are generally perceived as more malicious and dangerous shapeshifters, whereas tanuki are considered lazy but fun-loving shapeshifters. Regardless, if you manage to end up on their bad side, you are undoubtedly in for a world of hurt.

To illustrate this distinction between foxes and tanuki, consider their differing approaches to stealing food from human villages. While a family of foxes may resort to scheming and backroom dealings with humans, using their shapeshifting abilities to pose as businessmen offering seemingly attractive deals with hidden strings attached, akin to the treachery of organized crime or a pact with a demon, a tanuki family is more likely to transform into an alien spacecraft or ghostly apparition to scare the villagers away, thereby allowing them to sneak into the homes and steal the food.

Foxes would argue that their methods result in more sustainable food procurement long-term, while the tanuki methods are shortsighted and foolish; however, one thing is certain: the tanuki methods are far more fun.

Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate

You may be wondering, “why all the tanuki talk?” Well, this is because Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate, which I will be calling Shiren 5 from now on, is a game that perfectly captures the essence of the tanuki. It not only incorporates all the characteristics that define a tanuki, but it also includes multiple appearances of the animal throughout the game, primarily as merchants who run the lottery but also as wandering merchants in dungeons. From its reliance on chance to its overtly Japanese aesthetic, Shiren 5’s gameplay feels like a mischievously playful trick played by a tanuki. At every turn, the game is merciless and seemingly out to get you, but it can also be extremely generous and offer unexpected rewards; eating some grass could make you sick and lead to your death, or it could make you gain three levels and become super-fast; this playful unpredictability is quintessentially tanuki-like, and Shiren 5 captures this essence in less than 600 megabytes. Shiren 5 feels like a celebration of the tanuki’s mischievous, silly, and random nature; constantly fun to play, even when it seems the odds are not in your favor.

*eating some bad revival grass

To preface this paragraph, the plot of Shiren 5 is not important. Shiren 5 is a game’s game about gaming and high scores. With that out of the way, you play as Shiren the Wanderer, accompanied by his faithful ferret companion named Koppa. Shiren is a silent protagonist, while Koppa acts as his mouthpiece at key moments in the plot, often stating Shiren’s intentions and making decisions for him. Much like Kenshin Himura of Rurouni Kenshin, you get the impression that Shiren is a kindhearted soul with a storied past who can’t help but help the helpless.

The prologue of the game hints at Shiren’s previous adventures, which ultimately lead him to stumble upon the village of Inori. Here, he encounters Jirokichi, a young man whose girlfriend is on her deathbed, suffering from an incurable disease. Inori is situated near the Tower of Fate, a massive structure where it is rumored that the god Reeva makes his abode at the very top. Luckily, Reeva is the god of fortune, which fittingly ties into the game’s central theme of chance by serving as a literal stand-in for one of the game’s core mechanics: RNG, specifically “random number generator”, or just plain randomness. He may or may not grant your wish, based on a dice roll, but also based on his own whimsy; much like a tanuki playing a trick on someone wandering into their territory.

The god Reeva requires one to gather the Dice of Fate from the Tower of Past, Present, and Future, then travel to the top of the Tower of Fate and roll the die to grant a wish. Of course, Jirokichi wants the wish for his girlfriend’s disease to be cured, and Shiren and Koppa can’t help but tag along for the ride; and in typical gaming fashion, doing almost all the work for Jirokichi. This makes up the driving motivations behind our mystery dungeon tour, and to be fair, Jirokichi does help a good bit as you travel up the tower.

The people of Inori constantly speak of fate; a common talking point is that of predestination. It is believed that some people are just “born with bad luck” and destined to be destitute and downtrodden for their entire lives, driving many adventurers and tourists to climb the tower in an attempt to change their fate. Much like the game mechanics themselves, sometimes the tanuki are not kind, a dungeon-run can seem doomed from the start or, on the flip side, extremely favorable. It all depends on the roll of the dice. Shiren’s plot, while simple, is clever in this way as it mirrors the core gameplay based around random chance and luck; very self-aware of its purpose. Was eating that grass that killed you predetermined, or random? Is random actually just an illusion we create to feel better about our predetermined destinies? Are we doomed from birth? All questions without answers.

*Kenshin Himura, the Tower of Fortune, and Shiren the Wanderer respectively

Shiren the Wanderer is part of the Mystery Dungeon series, a collection of role-playing computer games primarily developed by Chunsoft. The series was inspired by Rouge, a classic dungeon-crawling computer game that co-creator of Dragon Quest, Koichi Nakamura, played one day and wanted to replicate. Thus, the Mystery Dungeon series was born, starting with the Super Famicom and continuing to this day, almost exclusively developed by Chunsoft (now known as Spike Chunsoft). The first Mystery Dungeon game was based on Dragon Quest: Torneko’s Great Adventure: Mystery Dungeon, but it was later adapted for Pokemon, and Final Fantasy with the Chocobo Mystery Dungeon series. At this point, there is a Mystery Dungeon for every major JRPG franchise that actually matters, all that’s missing is Shin Megami Tensei.

Shiren, like other games in the Mystery Dungeon series, follows the formula laid down by Rogue. You assume control of the protagonist, in this case, Shiren, and venture through a series of randomly generated dungeons. Each dungeon contains several floors, with each floor being entirely randomized based on its designated tileset and a set of underlying rules. In this way, dungeons often feel like a shapeshifting tanuki trying to block you at every turn; playing the ultimate trick on the player.

A major gameplay component in Shiren and other Mystery Dungeon games is the reliance on chance, also known among seasoned computer gamers as RNG. This “luck” determines the items you’ll find lying around, which monsters you’ll encounter, if those monsters will have any buffs, how many traps you’ll inadvertently step on, and literally everything else. Ultimately, if fortune favors you, you can have incredibly good luck, or conversely … extremely bad luck; all depending on how the tanuki are feeling that day. To top it all off, you are graded at the end of each dungeon-run and provided a score in very computer-gamey fashion, something I highly appreciate.

*pummeled to death by an Eligan, score displayed at the end of the run

The core gameplay in Shiren is centered around turn-based combat. Each player and monster gets a single move per turn, more if buffs come into play. If you move one tile, the monsters move one tile; if you attack, the monster attacks, and so on. At the beginning of each dungeon, you start at level 1 and gradually gain experience as you progress through each floor. Along the way, you’ll discover various items to aid you, such as storage containers, grass with various beneficial (or detrimental) effects, weapons, shields, magic scrolls, and much more; ultimately which items you find are based on the whims of RNG, or as I like to call it, the will of the tanuki.

Part of the charm of Shiren 5 is the vast array of bizarre monsters you encounter on your adventure. Most of these monsters are based on yokai spirits, which gives them a distinctively Japanese feel. It’s easy to imagine a tanuki shapeshifted behind some of the silly creatures you encounter, from fur balls to seed-shaped creatures that consume items to multiply their experience point yield, mage birds, creatures that put you to sleep, robots that lay traps, goblins riding carts, dragons, demonic children who dress up in grass, and many others. The variety of monsters is impressive, with each having its own gimmick. For instance, kappas throw items at you, which occupy a slot in your inventory, while some birds fill up available slots in your storage pots with dirt, rendering them unusable. Moreover, some items on the ground are disguised enemies that spawn a monster when used, and other monsters can grab you and throw you at party members or off ledges. Often, you have to respond to certain monsters in unique ways, requiring you to get creative with your item usage, so you better pray the tanuki favor you on your travels.

*sleep stun locked by a pesky Naptapir, more common than you’d think

In Shiren 5, when you die, all your progress is lost and you have to start over from floor 1 at level 1. Initially, this might seem overwhelming, but the game offers a way to reduce the impact of death by using specific items, such as Undo Grass. This item presents two choices upon death: return to the village while retaining all of your items, or instantly revive in the dungeon. Both options consume the grass, creating a risk/reward situation that can result in catastrophe if players make the wrong choice at the wrong time. Choosing to return to the village and keep your items is often the wisest choice, but it means starting over from floor 1 of the dungeon. Nonetheless, doing so gives you the advantage of retaining all your items for your next attempt and forms the foundation of the game’s power progression system, which is almost entirely loot based.

The loot based power progression system revolves around upgrading weapons and shields through usage and magical means, and combining them to create new weapons/shields with combined effects. This is the primary way to increase your wanderer’s power beyond simply leveling up, which only provides temporary benefits that are always lost upon death. It’s possible to start every run with an effective power level of 0 if you don’t know what you’re doing. However, the cheat death mechanic allows you to keep upgraded weapons and shields through dungeon-runs, which can provide a huge advantage on future dungeon-runs. For example, I was able to obtain a powerful tri-directional sword, combine it with almost every other weapon in the game, and upgrade it to max. Through careful use of Undo Grass and patience, I was able to hold onto this weapon throughout the entirety of the main game and even ended up defeating the final dungeon with it.

All of this creates gameplay that, while very simple, keeps you on the edge of your seat, as everything is at risk, especially if you forget to bring your Undo Grass, or choose to use it to revive in the dungeon instead of taking you back to the village upon death. The items you invest significant time in, like my tri-directional sword, become the backbone of your wandering skeleton, since losing them permanently can set you back hours of progress, crippling you by effectively forcing you to start from scratch. As a result, you become quite possessive and neurotic about how you approach dungeon exploration and progression. No matter how many tanuki tricks are thrown at you, you are determined to hold onto the weapons and shields you’ve invested so much time and effort into; as you bond with these weapons, they become a part of you, and the thought of losing them becomes a nightmare lurking in the back of your mind at all times.

In the end, once you have a good understanding of the game’s mechanics and master the art of managing your items effectively, permadeath becomes less daunting. The sense of accomplishment that accompanies your progress with your chosen sword and shield is genuinely gratifying. It is a unique experience only made possible by the curious mix of permadeath and risk/reward systems at play in Shiren 5. However, losing everything feels terrible and can be discouraging at times, but this is a necessary evil to maintain the uniquely rewarding nature of the game.

It’s worth noting that the progression systems are not present throughout the entire game. Once you finish the main story dungeon, numerous optional dungeons open up, offering even greater rewards. However, many of these dungeons require you to start from scratch with nothing on hand. Shiren 5’s main story dungeons are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the game’s content, and due to the randomized nature of every little thing you encounter, the tanuki tricks never stop and the replayability never ends.

This is the part where I give my recommendation for the game, and I wholeheartedly recommend it. Even if you have no prior experience with “rougelike” games, Shiren the Wanderer: Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate is an excellent starting point. Furthermore, it is likely already available on a platform you own. The footage for this review was captured on the Switch version of the game, but it’s also available on Steam, Nintendo DS, Android, PlayStation Vita, and iOS. Shiren 5 lends itself to portability, as it’s easy to pick up and play in short bursts, making it an excellent game to play on-the-go. As such, I would recommend the Vita or Switch version over the Steam version, unless you own a Steam Deck; and, of course, I would never recommend a mobile version of any game.

One of the things that makes Shiren 5 stand out is its deceptive simplicity and straightforwardness. I played the game for about 30 hours originally, then took a break to play something else for a few months, and came back to Shiren 5 afterwards. I started my same savefile and was not lost in the slightest. The game’s design is such that it’s nearly impossible to lose track of progress, even after extended breaks. Its random and charming nature, quintessential tanuki-ness, and “start over” gameplay have a unique allure that will keep players coming back, even after completing the main story.

And remember, if you get bored, put the controller down and do something else. If you’re not having fun, it’s not worth it. And in Shiren’s case, if you get frustrated, put the game down and play something else, the tanuki will still be there when you return.

Tanuki Bless.

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(originally published on 5/7/2023)

#ComputerGames #ShirenTheWanderer5 #Review

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Introduction or: a brisk summer breeze and fishing in the pond

Every summer as a child, my parents would send me to stay with my grandma in Charleston, South Carolina. It was during one of these summers, when I was around nine years old, that I met a boy who quickly became one of my closest friends. He lived just three yards away from my grandma, behind a huge pond with an ever-flowing fountain. And when I say “yards,” I mean literal yards, not the unit of measurement. I would walk through those same yards to get to his house, much to the annoyance of their owners. We would often fish in the pond behind his house, but I never caught anything. I was always lousy at fishing as I didn’t have the patience for it. On the other hand, my friend was very good at it – he was good at a great number of things. He would always release the fish back into the pond, “catch and release” he would call it. On one occasion, he accidentally left a hook in a fish’s mouth before releasing it. I remember this vividly because someone else caught the exact same fish, hook and all, later that summer, right in front of my friend and me.

My grandma still lives in the same house. I still visit there often. Not much has changed, which helps ensure I don’t forget these little things.

My summer-friend was far more athletic and charming than myself. He was very interested in outdoor endeavors, while I was, and still am, a more reclusive, indoors-oriented person. He had many friends in the neighborhood, most of whom I did not get along with due to my “strange” disposition. Despite our differences, we were both sharp and like-minded in many ways, and we both enjoyed playing computer games. I had unfettered access to all types of computer games, which could be considered questionable parenting, while he was on a much tighter leash and lived vicariously through me when it came to gaming. Every summer, I would come to Charleston with new games, and he would be fascinated with them, often coming over just to watch me play for hours.

During the summer of 2001, my summer-friend’s friend lent me their Game Boy Camera to “play with for the week,” and I subsequently traded it at the local Babbages for in-store credit. Babbages was like a proto-GameStop. Looking back, I have no idea what I was thinking; it was a bad idea. I wasn’t the nicest kid in the world, and I didn’t particularly like the girl who lent me the Game Boy Camera to begin with. Later, after a series of dramas, my grandma and I had to return to that same Babbages, repurchase the Game Boy Camera, and return it to its rightful owner – a story my summer-friend still tells to this day.

These events are significant because thanks to that in-store credit, I was able to purchase a used copy of Final Fantasy 7. At the time, my ten-year-old brain was drawn to the spiky-haired guy holding a big sword on the cover. Throughout the remainder of that summer, I spent countless nights playing Final Fantasy 7, and looking back, I realize this game played a pivotal role in shaping my current gaming preferences.

*The same 2001 copy of Final Fantasy 7, purchased with dirty in-store credit (it’s missing disc 2)

It’s funny how such a careless action on my part would eventually result in a lifelong passion for oversized swords, messy hair, and, most importantly, Japanese role-playing games. Despite being a bad decision at the time, trading that girl’s Game Boy Camera for in-store credit ultimately led to some positive outcomes.

I wonder, if my younger self were given the power to turn back time and rewrite history, would I still make the same decision to trade in a borrowed Game Boy Camera for in-store credit or would I erase the whole situation to avoid the shame and subsequent verbal lashing from my grandmother, and in doing so, repair my relationship with the kind girl who had lent me the camera in the first place? What would I be doing now if I hadn’t played Final Fantasy 7 that fateful summer? Would I be obsessed with the Madden series instead, or something equally as dull? Maybe I would be making seven figures as the CEO of a successful company instead of writing this article? Perhaps I would have been hit by a car while riding my bike in 2018? I guess we will never know.

How is this related to Tactics Ogre? Well, having played Final Fantasy 7 in 2001, I was inclined to play anything with the name Final Fantasy on it. In the summer of 2004, the Game Boy Advance was all the rage, and having saved up my allowance, I purchased Final Fantasy Tactics Advance by virtue of brand-name and cover art alone. Oddly enough, that same summer, my friend picked Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis with his allowance money. We played both games in tandem that summer. He often suggested that I give his game a try, claiming it was fantastic, and I would occasionally glance at his screen and notice how similar it looked to what I was playing. However, as the contrarian that I was (and arguably still am), I believed that Final Fantasy Tactics Advance was the better game and that I, with my superior gaming wisdom, had made the better choice. I had no need to play Tactics Ogre.

Due to this left over contrarianism from 2004, I was always hesitant to play the Ogre Battle series. Little did I know at the time, Tactics Ogre was created by the same team that later went on to create the Final Fantasy Tactics series. The original developer, Quest Corporation, was absorbed by Square in 2002 and renamed Square Product Development Division 4. Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis was their last official game as Quest Corporation, having made the original Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen in 1993 and its sequel Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together in 1995, both for the Super Nintendo and both named after Queen songs. Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together would later be remade for the PlayStation Portable in 2010 and then re-released again as Tactics Ogre: Reborn for multiple consoles, the final version being the one covered in this article.

*Two great GBA games battle for the attention of two 13-year-old kids

In conclusion, it turns out my friend was playing an older game that could be seen as the spiritual precursor to what I was playing that summer. Would this additional knowledge have made a difference to thirteen year old me? Would I have been more open to my friend’s recommendation? Probably not. However, one thing is certain: if I could turn back time and try Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis back then like my friend had suggested, I would have gotten into the Ogre Battle series much earlier than, well, a month ago. Perhaps my entire gaming history would be different?

Plot or: choices choices choices

Tactics Ogre: Reborn is a remake of Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, and it doesn’t deviate much from the original game’s plot. The player assumes the role of a young man named Denam Pavel who travels the islands of Valeria in an attempt to end the seemingly endless power struggles by unifying the multiple warring factions; eventually leading an army of his own to make this dream a reality. Valeria is split by multiple factions vying for control of the islands, such as the Walister, the Galgastani, the Bakram, and the Dark Knights Loslorien, to name a few. Denam’s journey is marked by numerous decisions that shape the future of Valeria, for better or worse.

*Denam, the map of Valeria, and the crests of warring factions

Prior to the events of the game, Denam resided in the town of Golyat with his sister Catiua and closest friend Vyce. They led peaceful lives until the Dark Knights Loslorien swept through, brutally massacring most of the town. As a result, Vyce lost his family, and Denam’s father was kidnapped, igniting a burning desire for revenge within our three main characters. This culminates in our heroes planning retribution against the Dark Knights and eventually joining the Walister Resistance, a group fighting against the Dark Knights, to further this goal.

The Walister Resistance consists of people who identify themselves as Walister, a “race” of people that inhabit the region around Golyat. Although they are categorized as a separate race within the game’s fiction, they appear and sound much like every other race of people in Valeria. In Tactics Ogre, the concept of race is more akin to nationality than any physical characteristics, and this idea plays a significant role in several of the game’s overarching themes. For instance, despite their similarities, the races are still constantly warring and killing each other, but why? Something we’ll get into later.

Under the shrewd leadership of Duke Ronwey, the Walister Resistance professes to seek only the end of the occupation of their territories by the Dark Knights and Galgastan. However, their real objective is to attain power and claim the entire land of Valeria. It remains uncertain whether Denam, Vyce, and Catiua share the Walister’s nationalist agenda, as their primary motivation is revenge against the Dark Knights, but they are more than willing to tag along killing those who oppose the Walister Resistance unquestionably, at least early on.

The Dark Knights Loslorien, the Kingdom of Galgastan, and the Bakram have formed a tentative alliance to suppress the Walister resistance, with all factions ultimately vying for control over the islands of Valeria. As one can imagine, this creates a politically complex situation, as all alliances in Valeria exist on a razor’s edge. Denam fights alongside Duke Ronwey’s resistance until a rift develops between him and Vyce due to objections with the Duke’s methods, ultimately revealing the fragility of their friendship. This conflict marks a crucial turning point in the game’s narrative, and the player’s choices at this intersection determine the ultimate fate of Valeria.

*Denam, about to make a very important choice

Tactics Ogre is the type of game where you seemingly make all the right choices but your entire family still ends up brutally murdered. These choices are a fundamental aspect of what makes the game’s plot so captivating. There are three primary routes determined by choices you make throughout the game: chaos, law, and neutral – similar in nature to the Shin Megami Tensei series. Each route unfolds differently, dictating who joins your resistance, who perishes, and ultimately how the story ends. In each route, numerous smaller choices impact less significant events. Therefore, even the most mundane choices have significant consequences, often leading to decisions made long ago returning to haunt you.

Tactics Ogre stands out from other role-playing games due to the absence of clear “good” and “bad” endings, as each plot-thread was given equal care and consideration by the writing team. Additionally, all choices within the game are somewhat ambiguous – what may seem like the morally righteous decision at the time can lead to dire consequences later on. As a result, players may encounter numerous “what the @#$%” moments as they witness the aftermath of their seemingly righteous choices.

Tactics Ogre’s ambiguous choices have a downside in that they can prevent access to certain characters and sidequests. For instance, in the early stages of the game, I wanted to recruit a certain cool character, so I made what seemed like an obvious choice to align myself with her side. However, as a consequence of that choice, she immediately died. Conversely, if you make the opposite choice, that character will hate you, and you’ll need to make a series of correct choices going forward to persuade her to join your cause. None of this can be deduced simply by playing the game as is, which is why a guide is essential if you want to unlock all the game has to offer.

While I am usually of the opinion that a guide should not be necessary to fully experience everything a game has to offer, the uncertain nature of Tactics Ogre’s choices can be exhilarating at times. Watching the unforeseen consequences of your decisions unfold can be an enjoyable experience, even if they occasionally result in unsatisfactory outcomes. This helps reinforce one of the game’s primary themes, that of loss and regret – the notion of “if only I could go back and do it all over again.”

*Introducing the World Tarot

But don’t fret – you can go back and do it all over again! To further add to the game’s complexity, Tactics Ogre: Reborn incorporates a unique time travel system, known as the World Tarot, which enables players to revisit previous points in time and make different choices, effectively rewriting history. This allows players to explore alternate paths and outcomes, and a substantial portion of the game’s endgame is dedicated to utilizing this feature to recruit previously missed characters and observe the various consequences of different decisions.

The themes of regret and consequence are central to Tactics Ogre’s narrative, and the time travel aspect reinforces these themes by providing the player with a glimpse of what could have been – oftentimes, the results are equally as dire. However, the brilliance of this system lies in its optional nature; the game never forces you to use the time travel mechanics, allowing your choices to remain as permanent as you desire. It’s akin to save-scumming, just more sophisticated.

With that in mind, my recommendation on a first playthrough is to play completely blind. Even if you don’t get all the characters or outcomes you would like, you can always rewrite history.

Themes or: ruminations on resentment, regret, and retribution

In Chapter 4 of Tactics Ogre, a little girl is shot in the back with an arrow and dies instantly; a random act of violence highlighting the game’s dark tone; sometimes bordering on Berserk-levels of chaos. Tactics Ogre harnesses this darkness to explore weighty themes concerning human nature, power, friendship, envy, chaos, regret, and war; also delving into philosophical concepts such utilitarian ethics. The game challenges players to reflect on its themes and arrive at their own conclusions without imposing a specific message; and in line with the game’s intent, I will attempt to do that.

Envy serves as a potent driving force behind human motivation in the game’s narrative. The deadly sins of greed, envy, and pride are exemplified most in the character Vyce, Denam’s childhood friend. Through the interactions between Denam and Vyce, their long and storied history is revealed. However, despite their long friendship, Vyce always maintains a slightly holier-than-thou attitude when speaking with Denam and tends to adopt a tone of mockery around him.

Denam’s upbringing was filled with love and attention from his caring father. In contrast, Vyce was raised solely by his abusive and alcoholic father. Vyce frequently references this difference, revealing his envy towards Denam’s favorable circumstances. Additionally, Vyce hints at his love for Denam’s sister, Catiua, and drops subtle clues that he feels jealous of the attention she lavishes on Denam, while ignoring him completely. Despite initially viewing Denam as a role model of sorts, Vyce’s perception of him shifted at some point, morphing into envy and resentment instead.

Early in the game’s plot, Denam is tasked with committing a village massacre to advance the Walister agenda. The slaughter is to be disguised as a Galgastani attack to help rally the local villages to the Walister cause. Denam has a choice: either comply with this plan or refuse and be branded a traitor, thus risking the blame for the massacre and losing all ties with the resistance. If Denam refuses to carry out the slaughter, Vyce scolds him, accusing him of being a traitor and betraying the Walister cause; Vyce argues that Denam should “see the big picture” and declares him his mortal enemy. Conversely, if Denam agrees to the slaughter, Vyce still scolds him, labels him a murderer, and claims they are mortal enemies. In both cases, Vyce appears to be taking the moral high ground over Denam.

*Vyce has no real principles

Upon examining both outcomes of Denam’s decision, it becomes apparent that Vyce’s opposition is not based on genuine principles, but is rather an excuse to assert his dominance over him, driven by feelings of insecurity. Vyce conceals his true envious motivations, using the situation as an excuse to justify his long-felt jealousy and hatred toward Denam. This envy alone drives his behavior, nothing else. In the “chaos” route, during Denam and Vyce’s final confrontation, Vyce even admits to this, confessing his jealousy towards Denam outright, including his upbringing, kind-hearted nature, athletic ability, and relationship with Catiua.

The relationship between Vyce and Denam captured my attention since I have experienced similar emotions of envy towards my own friends, specifically jealousy towards their perceived superiority in certain aspects of life when compared to myself. For example, my summer-friend was more athletic and popular than I was. My high-school friend could play multiple instruments and was motivated enough to complete college. Why can’t I be like them? It’s easy to play the victim instead of examining your own faults and improving yourself. Vyce’s behavior reminded me of what I might do if I succumbed to the darker facets of my own personality. Ultimately, I saw myself in Vyce; and that’s a tad bit scary.

Denam opting to spare the lives of innocent people is undoubtedly a morally correct decision. However, if he were to choose to carry out the massacre instead, Vyce’s opposition to this act would place him in the morally superior position. This situation raises an ethical quandary because Vyce’s motivation for opposing the massacre is purely driven by his envy for Denam. Therefore, he opposes the slaughter only out of contrarianism, not because it would be the morally righteous course of action. This presents an intriguing dilemma in which individuals can inadvertently do good deeds, even if their initial motivations stem from a negative place; begging the question, does motivation really matter or are outcomes the only important thing to consider when evaluating a situation?

*Trolley Problem: Reborn

Arguably the game’s most important theme is moral ambiguity, and this is illustrated in almost every scene. It also raises questions around utilitarian ethics. For instance, in the previous example of the town massacre, ironically, the decision that results in better overall outcomes for our main characters is the slaughter of innocent townspeople. This raises an interesting point that morally reprehensible acts can sometimes lead to overall positive outcomes. It’s like a hyper-utilitarian game of chess or the trolley problem, where the question is whether slaughtering an entire village now could save hundreds of people later; but how could anyone ever truly know that? In Vyce’s situation, even though he has no real principles, his hatred and drive to kill Denam could inadvertently save a village full of people; he’s acting out a version of the trolley problem that he’s not even aware of.

Tactics Ogre constantly reminds the player that despite Denam’s pure motives, he is still taking lives and imposing his moral philosophy on the lands of Valeria, much like the factions he fights against. This begs the question: how is Denam’s resistance any different from the Galgastani or the Bakram? Ultimately, all parties seek to end war and rule over Valeria; they simply use different ethical frameworks to justify how they achieve this result. After all, every would-be conqueror believes they are doing what’s right. Even the Dark Knights of Lodis, arguably the most morally reprehensible faction in the game, seem to grasp this concept, their leader often using it to justify their survival-of-the-fittest philosophy.

Expanding on the theme of moral ambiguity is the concept of the “ogre,” which is referenced throughout the narrative. While the game’s lore features a historical “Ogre Battle” between humans and ogres, the term “ogre” in the context of the story refers to the idea of doing monstrous things to achieve one’s goals. Denam is repeatedly asked whether he has the wherewithal to “become like the ogre” in order to achieve his vision, or in other words, if he is willing to do whatever it takes for the betterment of Valeria. This concept permeates the narrative, adding another layer of complexity to the game’s exploration of morality, raising questions about the cost of achieving one’s goals and the limits of acceptable behavior in pursuit of a noble cause.

* The Ogre Battle rages on

The question of why people go to war is one that Tactics Ogre does not attempt to answer, but it certainly raises thought-provoking questions and provides some clues. Despite the existence of multiple races in Valeria that share similar appearances and cultures, the factions still engage in conflicts that are obviously not based on race or nationality directly, even though the faction leaders may say otherwise; it would be easy to unify Valeria if those were the only points of contention. In my view, two primary motives underlie these wars: revenge and moral sunk cost.

The first reason is simple: revenge. This is exemplified time and time again through a recurring motif that I call “generational despair.” This concept is depicted in characters seeking retribution for their loved ones who were killed in previous battles, even those that occurred generations ago. The game’s battles feature countless enemy leaders citing reasons such as “you Walister dogs killed my mother” to justify why they fight. Even the protagonists themselves become motivated to fight out of a desire to avenge their murdered families. This concept of “generational despair” highlights how the pursuit of revenge can spiral into a cycle of violence, perpetuating conflicts that span generations.

Even the game mechanics serve to further emphasize this theme by demonstrating how minor battles can escalate into more revenge-driven conflicts. For instance, after eliminating an enemy unit in one battle, their spouse may appear in the next battle, seeking revenge. Of course, in the interest of unifying Valeria, you have to eliminate the vengeful spouse as well, thus continuing the cycle of violence.

*Young Denam; a case study in generational despair and moral sunk cost.

This brings us to what I believe is the final motivation behind these wars: moral sunk cost. Similar to the sunk cost fallacy, which causes people to persist in a certain course of action simply because they have invested a significant amount of time or money into it — after all, why waste all that effort? — moral sunk cost applies this principle abstractly to the morality of one’s actions.

Suppose you embark on what you believe to be a morally righteous goal, such as a religious crusade. However, along the way, you cause death, destruction, and injustice to everyone you encounter, all without making any real progress towards your goal. At this point, upon reflection, you have only two options left: stop your crusade altogether or continue. But why would you stop now? Were all those lives lost in pursuit of your crusade really worth nothing? Was the destruction you caused truly meaningless? Surely, this was all for the greater good, right?

I believe that this mindset drives much of the fighting in Valeria, and perhaps in the real world as well. Often, we convince ourselves that we are doing the right thing, even if there is collateral damage along the way. We may discover later on that we were mistaken, our goals were actually not morally righteous after all. However, the thought of admitting to such a mistake is unbearable, as it would mean accepting true responsibility for all the bad things we did while attempting to achieve our goals. We would effectively be admitting that we became like the ogre. Consequently, we resort to justifications such as “we must continue, or their lives were lost for nothing!” or “my father died fighting for this goal!” as a means to ignore the wrongs that have already been committed. Much like the vengeful spouse who seeks retribution for their fallen partner and will do anything to achieve this retribution, we simply cannot move on.

Lastly is the theme of regret. By the end of the game, Denam and others have a great many regrets, especially around some of the pivotal choices made throughout the story. At the time, everything seemed for a greater good, but looking back later on … was it really worth it? In pursuit of this grand vision of unification, did Denam sacrifice too much? Was there anything he could have done differently?

Back in high school, I broke the heart of my high school sweetheart, ruining our relationship forever. If only I hadn’t made that one tiny decision, maybe we would still be together? It’s hard to say. I can’t help but wonder what could have been if I had acted differently.

Everyone has regrets – I guess you just have to live and learn.

Gameplay or: more time travel shenanigans

Enough about the narrative elements of the game. Tactics Ogre: Reborn is a computer game, after all, so what about the gameplay? Is it actually fun to play? The simple answer is: Yes. At the time of its release, Tactics Ogre was revolutionary in its design, and it had a significant impact on the tactical role playing game genre that we know today. Although similar games preceded it, such as the Shining Force or Langrisser series, Tactics Ogre propelled the genre into the limelight and ultimately perfected the formula.

Tactics Ogre’s battles take place on large, isometric battlefields of various settings, such as mountains, tundras, grasslands, volcanoes, castles, and towns. You control a party of up to 12 units against the opposing party. The typical objective of each battle is to defeat the enemy leader, and in rarer cases, defeat every enemy on the map. Each unit moves in a turn-based fashion based on its recovery time or speed, and each unit has a specific role with strengths and weaknesses determined by their class.

During a battle, you need to consider various factors, including the weather and the terrain of the battlefield, which often impedes movement. Smart movement decisions are pivotal to securing victory. Additionally, you can adjust the camera left and right in a “bird’s-eye view” mode, which provides a flat-plane view of the battlefield from overhead. This perspective is particularly useful since the terrain on many battlefields often blocks visibility of units.

*The battle begins!

Influenced by Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, Tactics Ogre incorporates a fairly robust class system with over 15 classes, including several unique classes that are exclusive to specific characters. A standard unit can only have one assigned class, which can be changed at will outside of battle. In the Reborn version of the game, there is no class level, so changing a unit’s class does not reset their level to 1. Instead, the level they had before carries over to their new class, resulting in less overall grinding – always a plus for any role-playing game. Moreover, Reborn eliminates the archaic need of having to hit your own units to gain extra experience points during battle. Instead, experience is now aggregated and distributed equally to every unit that participated in the battle at its conclusion.

Classes in Tactics Ogre may appear boring at first glance, but there is a sneaky level of depth that is revealed when you peel back some of the layers. There is no dual-classing, which means there’s no skill mix-and-matching. A Knight is always a Knight, regardless of which unit uses that class. You cannot transfer Archer skills over to a Knight, as you can in the Final Fantasy Tactics series. However, every class can only equip four skills and four spells, with over 20 skills at their disposal. This means that even if you have two Knights in your party, they are unlikely to be using the same skills. Therefore, the same classes can fulfill different roles depending on their build or skill loadout.

For example, Knight 1 could have the following skills: Swords, HP+, Rampart, and Phalanx. This skill set would make Knight 1 a very tanky sword-wielder, capable of blocking enemy unit movement with Rampart and taking half damage from attacks with Phalanx. Meanwhile, Knight 2 could have a different set of four skills, such as Hammers, Pincer Attack, MP+, and Sanctuary. This skill set would allow Knight 2 to use hammers more effectively, function more as a damage dealer with pincer attack, have more MP for healing magic, and block the movement of undead units with Sanctuary. In this way, each knight fulfills a different role based on their specific skill loadout. On the other hand, if you have only one Knight in your army, you can select and adjust their skills before a battle based on the situation. For instance, if the battle includes undead units, it would be beneficial to use Sanctuary, but if not, it would be wiser to choose a different skill to optimize your chances of victory. This customization makes every unit distinct even if they share the same class, more akin to a chess piece than a computer game character.

Reinforcing the chess-like nature of Reborn over its predecessors, it’s not possible to simply overlevel your characters to overpower every encounter. Each stage of the story has a predetermined level cap, and surpassing that cap is impossible. This makes the act of powering through battles a thing of the past, particularly on your initial playthrough, and truly highlights the emphasis on this game being more about strategy than a typical role playing game where level holds way more significance.

The changes in the class and level systems in Tactics Ogre: Reborn create an experience that feels more like an advanced game of chess than a typical strategy game. Every decision made before battle regarding party formation, as well as every decision in battle, feels crucial, and even a single mistake can lead to dire consequences, really emphasizing the “Tactics” of “Tactics Ogre.”

*A battle scene, showing the birds eye camera and isometric gameplay

As mentioned earlier, each unit can utilize four skill slots, with two different types of skills available. The first are normal skills that can be used in battle, while the second are “auto-skills” that have a chance of activating on a unit’s turn and can provide bonuses such as increased damage, reduced damage, or extra MP, among other things. In addition to skills, there are various types of magic available, including healing, damaging, and status ailment spells. MP is used for both skills and magic, a change from previous versions of the game that used both TP and MP. However, this consolidation works well in Reborn, putting the focus more on building and managing your resources to maximize your effectiveness in battle; as such, it is essential to prioritize positioning your units strategically and accumulating MP gradually, as MP begins at zero and increases with each turn; making MP a very valuable commodity.

A major change introduced in Reborn is the addition of buff-cards that randomly appear on the battlefield. These cards consist of “Physical Damage Up”, “Magic Damage Up”, “Auto-Skill Trigger”, “MP Gain Rate Up”, and “Critical Hit Rate Up”, and can be immensely helpful if you manage to collect them, easily turning the tide of battle in your favor. The unit that lands on the space where the card spawned will get the buff of that card, and a unit can have up to four of these buffs at once. A unit with four “Physical Damage Up” buffs will plow through enemy units, whereas a unit with four “Auto-Skill Trigger” buffs will activate their auto-skills almost every turn; depending on which auto-skills the unit has equipped, this can make the unit incredibly powerful.

The addition of buff-cards in Tactics Ogre: Reborn introduces a diabolical twist where enemies can also collect these cards and often prioritize doing so. This discourages stalling tactics as collecting buff-cards offers a significant advantage for whoever gets them first. If you try to stall out your enemy and wait for them to come to you, enemies may collect buff-cards during those turns, putting you at a disadvantage. Furthermore, enemy leaders are typically pre-buffed, making them more dangerous to begin with. Ultimately, the buff-card system encourages early and frequent movement, creating a high-risk, high-reward scenario that is actually very enjoyable when it pays off.

Although the buff-card system is interesting, it has a downside. The cards litter the battlefield midway through every battle, which is ugly and distracting. It would have been better to use less intrusive visual effects, such as small floating balls or auras, to avoid detracting from the beautiful isometric battlefields. Look no further than the screenshot below to see what I mean. It is a wonder that this design element made it beyond the testing phase without a workaround of some sort. Make no mistake, I like the addition of this mechanic as it adds additional strategic depth to the gameplay, however, it could have been implemented more elegantly.

*A battlefield littered with buff-cards

Like many strategy role-playing games, Tactics Ogre includes permadeath for all units. Once a unit loses all their HP, they become incapacitated. Incapacitated units have a three-turn timer over their heads. If a unit is not revived after three turns, they die permanently. There are various methods of reviving incapacitated units, such as using a revival item or having a priest resurrect them mid-battle; but once the timer reaches zero, they are gone for good. This permadeath system fits well with the game’s overall dark themes, especially since loss and regret are so prominent within the game’s narrative. It makes sense that your soldiers can die permanently, and even significant characters can meet the same fate, which can significantly alter the story’s development.

However, it is unlikely that your characters will die permanently, if ever, and this is not because the game is easy. In fact, Tactics Ogre: Reborn can be quite challenging at times. The reason they won’t be dying often is because you can just go back in time and prevent a character’s death altogether – even mid-battle.

Playing on one of the game’s primary motifs, that of altering choices and consequences, the game features time travel not only as part of exploring the narrative but also within the battle system itself, using a system called the “Chariot Tarot.” This system allows you to return to any turn within the last 50 turns and start over from that point – if this sounds overpowered, that’s because it is.

*Save-scumming with the chariot tarot after the enemy parries my attack

The Chariot Tarot system is effectively a glorified save-scummer built right into the game. Moved your unit to the wrong spot, resulting in their death? You can go back five turns and prevent that from ever happening. Missed a critical attack on an enemy unit? You can go back and do something else, such as moving away and casting a buff spell instead, or just choosing a different attack such as in the video above. The possibilities for abuse are pretty much endless.

The Chariot Tarot system is really interesting and unique, but ultimately somewhat game-breaking as it trivializes much of the decision-making process during a battle, removing the element of permanence from your decisions. However, the beauty of this system is that you don’t actually have to use it; it is entirely optional. On the other hand, it takes considerable will-power not to use it, especially in the event of a character death. Truly this is the ultimate weapon of any battlefield, the power to manipulate time itself.

Outside of the core mechanics, Tactics Ogre: Reborn excels at the little things as well. For example, the sound design is incredible; from the satisfying click of every menu decision, to the way the main battle theme crescendos right when you start your first turn; everything comes together incredibly well. Even the voice acting, which was added for this version of the game, feels like it should have always been included. Truly everything about this game is polished to a tee, you can tell so much care was put into every little thing. There’s very little to criticize.

Conclusion: or an apology to my summer-friend

Tactics Ogre: Reborn is an outstanding game with engaging gameplay, a compelling story, and narrative themes that prompt introspection in a way that you may not have experienced since your broody teenage years, as evident from this article.

After six consecutive days of playtime, without playing anything else, I can confidently say that Tactics Ogre: Reborn captivated me from the start and kept me returning, even after completing the story for the first time, just to indulge in more of what the game had to offer; the amount of content this game provides is truly bordering on levels of generosity so great that even Bill Gates himself would be envious. Additionally, its flaws are so minor they aren’t really even worth talking about.

From the lofty themes and dark nature of certain parts of this article, one might assume that the game wears its themes on its sleeve in a pretentious manner, prioritizing its story and striving to seem intelligent over actual gameplay; however, this could not be further from the truth. The game tells its story in such an non-intrusive manner that you barely feel like you’re being taken out of the gameplay at all, as everything is done in engine without the need for cutscenes or other modern extravagances.

Looking back, I owe an apology to my summer-friend who had recommended the series to me earlier in life. He was right and, like Vyce, I was just being a contrarian. I missed out, but I am here now.

*My final savefile on the Nintendo Switch version of Tactics Ogre: Reborn

If I were given access to the World Tarot, would I turn back time and play the series earlier? Probably not. Experiencing Tactics Ogre: Reborn now allowed me to appreciate it in a different way, and if I played it earlier, I might not have enjoyed it as much. Besides, it was so long ago that the magic might have worn off by now. Also, I would seriously run the risk of becoming one of those “the original SNES version was better” purists; such hipsterisms frustrate even my own hipster sensibilities.

In conclusion, if you haven’t played the series before, Tactics Ogre: Reborn is a great place to start. If you’ve already played the earlier versions, it’s worth trying this version for the new gameplay mechanics, voice acting, and beautifully upscaled visuals (ignore the naysayers who complain about “smoothing”, the game looks great). If you’ve already played Tactics Ogre: Reborn and just wanted to read someone else’s thoughts on the game, then thank you for sticking around this long.

And remember, if you start to get bored … turn the game off and do something else. If you’re not having fun, it’s not worth it. Although, you won’t have this problem with Tactics Ogre: Reborn.

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(originally published on 4/25/2023)

#ComputerGames #TacticsOgre #Ethics #Review

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INTRODUCTION, or a foreword and some brief nostalgic ramblings

Final Fantasy XII was released for the PlayStation 2 sixteen years ago. Coincidentally, at that time, I was sixteen years old and eagerly awaiting a new single-player Final Fantasy romp to satisfy my adderall-addled brain; always hungry for more fantasy worlds to get lost in. Back then, I didn't care who wrote the story or created the world of a particular game. I knew some trivia, such as Nobuo Uematsu being the composer for most of the series (and thinking it was cool to say he was the best composer of all time), Hironobu Sakaguchi creating the series, and Yoshitaka Amano being the artist behind most of the concept art (and still my favorite artist to date). As a teenager, I assumed these fundamental Final Fantasy truths were still the case here, but I was (mostly) wrong. This, I believe, encapsulates the typical frustrations around Final Fantasy XII – everything's different. Fans, including myself, expected more of the same with familiar monsters, concepts, and themes ... but what we got instead was Final Fantasy XII.

Whether intentional or not, being “different” is what Final Fantasy XII is all about. Although many big names at Square were involved in its creation, its setting and plot were spearheaded by Yasumi Matsuno, who is famous for “Ogre Battle” and “Final Fantasy Tactics'' and infused his brand of “down-to-earth” settings and politically driven narratives into everything he worked on. As such, the protagonist is no longer some brooding jerk or mysterious youth with a dreary backstory; instead, they might be a fallen knight framed for murdering a king, a secret princess with conflicting thoughts of revenge, or a homeless thief with dreams of becoming a pirate. The plot no longer involves traversing space/time to kill a sorceress or injecting people with alien sperm; rather, it focuses on countries at war and the politics involved in such affairs. The music is no longer poppy with elements of prog-rock and upbeat catchy tunes; it's orchestral, moody, and atmospheric. The battle system is no longer based on random encounters and turn-based combat; instead, it's automated and MMORPG-esque. No longer is there a world map but a sprawling interconnected series of environments all linked together to form almost an open-world of sorts. I think you get the point: Final Fantasy XII is very different from what came before; and while Final Fantasy XII features familiar crystals, magic, and summons, it only does so in the most subtle of ways; like a weird Final Fantasy fever dream.

So, is being “different” bad? Obviously not. Final Fantasy XII is very good for some of those very same reasons, but it is not without its flaws. For everything Final Fantasy XII does right, it seems to do a few things wrong. Throughout the body of this review, I will attempt to cover all elements of the game, including the plot, setting, characters, battle systems, and overall gameplay loop. Surely, I will miss some things, and of course, this is all my opinion, so feel free to take everything written here with a grain of salt. Ultimately, this is an exercise to try and make sense of my experience with the game so mileage may vary. Also worth noting that all screenshots and footage found within this review come from my recent February – March 2023 playthrough of Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age for Nintendo Switch. Lastly, if you don’t want to read through 9000 words of text, skip to the conclusion section for my final thoughts. Enough with the disclaimer.

PLOT, or can I get a brief rundown?

While I could analyze and criticize the entire plot, that would be far too time-consuming; so, for the purposes of this review, I will only be providing a brief rundown. Final Fantasy XII is like a blend of Final Fantasy II and the Star Wars prequel trilogy. It takes place in the world of Ivalice, made famous by Final Fantasy Tactics, and revolves around an evil empire, the Archadian Empire, that aims to (essentially) conquer the world. Before the events of the game, the Empire seized control of Dalmasca, the homeland of our heroes, and overthrew its political body. At the start of the game, you are thrown into Rabanastre, Dalmasca's capital under Archadian occupation, and take charge of what amounts to a resistance group; it's all very patriotic and in this way is similar to Final Fantasy II's plot. As you progress, you confront a seemingly benevolent but actually wicked man who later becomes the emperor of the Archadian Empire, much like Star Wars' Palpatine, and his Judges, who are committed to serving and protecting him, designed to look a lot like Stormtroopers of Star Wars fame. Many of these influences are evident in the plot's structure, world-building, and overall design.

The setting of Ivalice and the impending war provides the backdrop for our heroes to venture through numerous cities, fight various uglies, and perform in their own dramas. The story explores themes of togetherness, revenge, overcoming adversity in the face of overwhelming odds, dealing with grief, and being one part of a whole to accomplish seemingly impossible things. Final Fantasy XII is unique in that the characters themselves typically take the bench in favor of the overarching plot and themes; but, of course, some characters are more important than others, which we’ll explore later on.

While the plot of Final Fantasy XII may not have significant depth, it is still enjoyable to watch unfold on screen, despite its cliched nature. Like Final Fantasy games before it, XII does not skimp on the cutscenes, but many of them are only there to showcase some of the beautiful cities and environments; almost as if the directors were showing off; a lot of the action sequences happen within the confines of the game’s engine, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing as the game looks amazing overall (especially for a PlayStation 2 game). There are two cutscenes in particular that are really fun to watch, one of which being the final cutscene of the game (or close to it), so if you’re a cutscene aficionado you have something to look forward to.

SETTING, or the bustle of the capital and the necessity of fast-travel

Final Fantasy XII takes place in Yasumi Matsuno's famous world of Ivalice, which is also the setting for Final Fantasy Tactics. However, XII is set far before the events of Tactics, making Ivalice an “ancient civilization” within the overall lore. This is an interesting piece of trivia, but ultimately meaningless since there are no direct ties to events from either game. While there are some tenuous links between the two, including certain names and places, the connection is weak at best.

*A distant view of Rabanastre

The setting of Final Fantasy XII is a mix of ancient Greek and Middle-Eastern influenced cities, classical castles, and magic-powered technology with a more sandy-natural look (unlike the cyberpunk-influenced technology of FF6 or 7), all separated by vast plains and deserts, and populated by several distinct races. It’s important to note that XII is not a sequel or prequel to Final Fantasy Tactics, so going into the game with those expectations will only lead to disappointment. While there are differences between the two games, such as the absence of airships, flying cars, and non-human races in Tactics, these changes were made to incorporate new themes and concepts that are more in line with what series regulars expect. Ultimately, Final Fantasy XII benefits from these additions overall.

In recreating Ivalice, Final Fantasy XII builds upon the foundation laid by Tactics, adding many additional layers of world-building to create something new and exciting. It’s like a phoenix being reborn – a summon that does not appear in either game. That said, let’s move on from Final Fantasy Tactics and focus on what makes Final Fantasy XII so unique.

Final Fantasy XII’s world of Ivalice has three major cities: Rabanastre, Bhujerba, and Archades. Each city has its own unique theme and place within the plot; however, much like an MMORPG, there is one city you will be spending the majority of your time in, and that is Rabanastre.

Stuck between the Giza Plains, the Estersand, and the Westersand — Rabanastre is the quintessential “hub city” of Final Fantasy XII; likened to Bastok, Sandoria, or Windurst of Final Fantasy XI. Rabanastre has all the hallmarks of a “Triple A” role playing game city: multiple zones, shops, npcs, and a sprawling underworld that is fully explorable. To top it off, there is a robust sewer system that you will end up hating by game’s end. Rabanastre’s overall aesthetic design seems to be influenced by middle-eastern architecture with bazaars aplenty and a big brutal cathedral-like castle stuck in the middle. The musical theme of the city fits so perfectly it feels like you’re actually there. A nice plus is the moogle service allowing you to teleport throughout the city. Rabanastre is easily one of the best cities in the entire franchise.

*The bazaar of Rabanastre

Our next main city is Bhujerba, a sprawling island city floating in the sky. Home to sky pirates and rough looking people in general — for some reason several NPCs are wearing a loin-cloth or very little clothing, not just unique to Bhujerba. The city has the same “brown” and “dusty” feeling as Rabanastre, just with less going on. The music isn't as memorable and ultimately the city functions as a waypoint before a major dungeon you will be revisiting several times. While this city is floating in the sky, you don't get that impression from how the actual visuals are designed while exploring on the ground-floor; there may be one part of the city that overlooks clouds but the majority looks and feels grounded, leaving Bhujerba unspectacular as a result. Like all the cities in this game, there are multiple connecting zones; however, unlike Rabanastre, there is no teleport service to facilitate fast travel between these large zones, which makes traveling through Bhujerba a chore after the first few times.

Last but not least: Archades. This city is teased throughout the entire game, mentioned multiple times and shown in multiple cutscenes. A foreboding specter that sparks endless curiosity; ultimately built up as a “must see'' location. Archades is a marvel of modern Ivalician technology, and home to the game's evil Empire. A sprawling city with sky-scrappers and personal flying ships akin to cars. The city is so obviously based on Coruscant that you would be forgiven mistaking some cutscenes as coming straight from the Star Wars Prequel trilogy. Unfortunately upon actually arriving in game, Archades does not live up to its name, as the visuals for each section of the city are underwhelming at best — barely outlining what made the city look so cool and enticing in the cutscenes. It ends up feeling like another brown dusty city, not dissimilar from the cities we've already visited. Archades on the ground floor feels like an afterthought, perhaps added toward the end of development — a major missed opportunity. And there's a total of only one flying vehicle (a taxi), which is a travesty.

*A vertical slice of Archades

Archades explores themes of class division and rampant capitalism. There is an “undercity” where the destitute live, and a lavish main area where the upper class reside. This theme is mirrored in Rabanastre, which is similarly oppressed by the Evil Empire. Given the political nature of the overall plot, Final Fantasy XII had a great opportunity to delve into themes of poverty, class, and status. However, it ultimately uses these ideas only to reinforce the notion that the Archadian Empire is evil. A more in-depth exploration of these themes would have added some much needed philosophical depth to the narrative, something it is sorely lacking.

*Archades undercity; showcasing the class divide

A key aspect of Final Fantasy XII's setting is the presence of races other than humans (or Humes, to be precise), including Seeq (pig people), Bangaa (lizard people), Viera (bunny women), Moogles (Kupo!), and Nu Mou (dog people). While the presence of different races makes the world feel more lively and robust, more depth around each race's culture and how they interact with the world would have been appreciated. One might expect there to be a breadth of themes and concepts to be explored by the inclusion of new races, such as their relations with each other and their cultures. However, outside of the reclusive bunny race, Final Fantasy XII fails to explore themes around cultural or racial disharmony, perhaps choosing the safe route instead of trying to champion a message. This is fine, but ultimately the races end up feeling like different-looking humanoids representing different personality types, which I do not think is a good overall message. The fact that there is only one non-Hume playable character reinforces the idea that most of the races are simply there to make the world seem more interesting. While I am not asking for Elder Scrolls-level racial detail, something more than what we got would have gone a long way in helping to flesh out the world a bit more. Really I would have just been happy with a Moogle playable character, but who am I kidding.

*Bangaas and Seeqs, oh my! Not playable characters

Final Fantasy XII contains a number of beautiful overworld zones filled with monsters, traps, and various dangers. Similar to an MMORPG, the main overworld areas are sprawling environments that must be traversed to accomplish your tasks, often composed of multiple interconnected sections sometimes connected by intricate cave and tunnel systems. The majority of these areas are deserts, mines, and nondescript grasslands, which makes the overworld feel very real and livable. There are a few weird places that you would expect from a Final Fantasy game, like an ethereal crystal dungeon and the insides of various airships; however, these are few and far between and typically you can’t return to these areas.

Final Fantasy XII does a great job of immersing you in its large world, and while the sheer size and count of these zones help with that, it cannot be understated how sprawling these overworld zones actually are. One area in particular, the Sandsea, takes over an hour to traverse in full, and while it may be fun the first time, having to backtrack through this zone later on makes the entire experience a chore. This also highlights one of the main gripes I have with Final Fantasy XII: backtracking and travel in general — and the fact that your party never avoids traps on the ground, constantly killing themselves, but that’s beside the point.

*Aforementioned weird crystal dungeon, a cool zone that you can actually return to

Ivalice is an interesting world to get lost in by choice. The art direction plus world building is top-tier, even if the environments feel the same here and there. After all, environments in the real world can feel a bit repetitive too. However, Final Fantasy XII seems too aware of this fact as it forces the player to backtrack through every environment multiple times. Unlike Super Metroid, where backtracking is fun because you’re unlocking secrets and hidden passages after acquiring new weapons and equipment, Final Fantasy XII has you return to the same areas with very little changes outside of a new mark to kill or a new shiny on the ground to collect. A quick way to solve this problem is with the addition of more robust fast travel options. And yes, I am aware this sounds like petulant post-Oblivion criticism. While some fast travel options do exist, it is simply not enough, and Final Fantasy XII suffers from it. At the very least, the option to teleport back to a homepoint after a long trip would have been immensely helpful. Instead, you have to walk all the way back to where you came from or to the nearest crystal — in a game that overemphasizes the process of obtaining tasks from NPCs, traveling to a far-off destination to complete said task, and then returning to the NPC for a reward, this is not a fun system.

Final Fantasy XII is not an MMO that aims to milk players of all their time and money under the guise of immersion, yet it ends up feeling that way. Watching your character’s back for ten minutes straight while they run through the Giza Plains for the tenth time is the opposite of exciting gameplay. One may forgive this drawback due to its original release date (March 16, 2006 – four days before The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion). However, the simple fact remains that travel is a chore that detracts from the overall experience. While there is a honeymoon period where each new zone is exciting and fresh, the issue arises after having to traverse the same areas time and time again. Thankfully, the Zodiac Edition adds a 2x and 4x speed-up option, and unless you are a principled purist, you will be using this feature a lot, especially at endgame. Sadly, Final Fantasy XII feels like it needs this speed-up option to prevent becoming a slog, and that is a shame.

*backtracking with 4x speed enabled after hunting a mark

CHARACTERS, or the six scions of staleness and the villain ladder

Final Fantasy XII features a cast of six main characters and multiple guest characters, who are more interesting than any of our protagonists. For the first time in the history of the Final Fantasy series, none of these six playable characters can be seen as the true main character. Although some vie for this position, such as Ashe, the Princess of Dalmasca, or Basch, the fallen knight, each character is so devoid of presence and personality that the whole thing ends up feeling like a bunch of people just doing stuff to advance the plot. The characters do have their own motivations, goals, and aspirations; however, they are so clichéd that it’s hard to see them as anything more than plot pawns or odd business decisions to entice specific demographics to purchase the game. On the plus side, Final Fantasy XII allows you to pilot any character as your “main character” in overworld environments, which helps drive the idea that there is no single main character. On the other hand, the game forces you to play as Vaan in every city and town, which negates that idea completely. Regardless, we will explore each character in the order of meeting them throughout this section.

*Our six heroes, staring off into the blue yonder

The first character we meet on our journey isn’t technically Vaan, but it might as well be. Vaan is a thieving street teen who dreams of piloting his own airship and becoming a sky pirate. His outfit and personality are reminiscent of Zidane Tribal, the protagonist of Final Fantasy IX fame, with the major difference being that Zidane was given a last name due to being a fully fleshed-out character. Like Zidane, he is loyal and has a strong sense of right and wrong. Zidane also has a vivid backstory explaining how he lived, where he lived, and what he was doing before the events of the game, whereas Vaan seemingly just didn’t exist until he first popped up on your screen. The majority of Vaan’s depth comes from his brother dying at the hands of the Empire and, initially, a drive for revenge that inspires him to steal from the castle, getting him involved with the rest of the cast. Around the game’s halfway point, Vaan becomes completely irrelevant to the plot and feels more like a player-inset than anything else.

Next, we have Penelo, a bubbly teen girl with pigtails and Vaan’s best and (maybe) only friend. While she also lacks a last name, she has far more personality and is easily more endearing than Vaan. And while Vaan dreams of becoming a sky pirate, Penelo dreams of becoming a dancer. This is obvious from her very detailed and unique battle animations in which she spins to attack and idly bounces up and down. She (like many other female Final Fantasy characters) is often used as the damsel in distress to advance the plot. In general, Penelo is one of the better characters, not because of her importance to the plot, but because of the little details around her personality. Like Vaan, she becomes completely irrelevant to the plot after she is rescued from bandits very early on.

Next up is Balthier, a character with an actual full name, Ffamran mied Bunansa, which makes him one of the few direct links to Final Fantasy Tactics as an ancestor of Mustadio Bunansa, a character from that game. However, that’s as far as the connection goes. Balthier is a sky pirate and one of the few characters with a fully fleshed-out backstory that relates to several key points of the plot. His sarcastic Wilde-like wit and mysterious motivations make him easily the most interesting character in the cast. Vaan clearly looks up to Balthier as a role-model, as he’s achieved Vaan’s dream of becoming a sky pirate and even has his own airship; but this dynamic is only explored briefly. Always partnered with his Viera companion Fran, they make up an intriguing duo that is always fun to watch. Balthier’s absence in a scene is truly felt, but this is a very rare occurrence as the writers wisely knew this and rarely removed him from the action. All this, on top of being the son of a main antagonist, makes it easy to mistake him for Final Fantasy XII’s main character — he is the leading man, after all.

Fran, Balthier’s ever-present companion and possible lover, is interesting by virtue of being the only non-Hume playable character in the game, and Balthier’s sidekick. As a Viera, her bunny ears make her immediately recognizable from the rest of the cast, as do her lack of clothes and over-sexualized mannerisms. While most Viera are reclusive beings that live in the forests, Fran left that world early in life and lives among the rest of Ivalice. Fran is the “sage” of the cast, rarely speaking outside of providing wisdom through brief generic idioms. While this may seem cool and mysterious at first, upon closer inspection, it highlights how little personality Fran actually has, which is a shame because there was a lot of potential here. Unfortunately, Fran ends up feeling like Balthier’s accessory more than anything else — making Balthier more interesting simply by virtue of being attached to him, which is just a little problematic.

Moving on to Basch fon Ronsenburg, a fallen knight accused of murdering a king and Vaan’s brother. Basch is a fairly likable character, wise and stoic with age, but with glimpses of humor that hint at him being a fun guy to have a drink with. Overall, his design is a bit basic for a Final Fantasy character, with a slightly unkempt slicked-back blonde mullet and facial scruff. The most outlandish thing about him, like Vaan, is his odd outfit consisting of an uneven sleeveless jacket adorned with seemingly unnecessary belts. After saving Basch from a dungeon, Vaan wrestles with the fact that Basch may have killed his brother, but very quickly comes to realize that Basch is a good man who would not commit those crimes simply because Basch said so. I am not sure if this is a stroke of genius commenting on Vaan’s young naivety or just lazy writing. Regardless, Basch is a good and honorable man, a knight for all intents and purposes, but that’s all he is. Like much of the cast, Basch fits into a specific character archetype and does not deviate from it. Being 36 years of age during the events of the game makes him one of the oldest playable characters in recent Final Fantasy games, even surpassing Auron from Final Fantasy X by one year.

When it comes to selecting the true main character for Final Fantasy XII, the top choice undoubtedly would be Ashelia B’nargin Dalmasca, commonly known as Ashe. This theory is supported by the fact that she faces numerous character-defining choices throughout the game, has the most screen time, and undergoes the most development out of any of the cast (although this isn’t saying much). As the former princess of Dalmasca, she is the last true descendant to the throne and thus the most significant character in the game. Although you are required to explore towns as Vaan, Ashe is the true main character, as most of the plot revolves around her decisions. Ashe is a determined, slow-to-trust, stubborn, and somewhat tomboyish character who reminds one of Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII. In many ways, Lightning probably would not exist without Ashe, as they both share similar personalities, outfits, and even facial features. In fact, Lightning is likely a combination of Cloud and Ashe, borrowing from Cloud’s undeniable rule of cool demeanor and Ashe’s overall femininity and personality. Ultimately, I always choose Ashe to lead my main party, as it feels natural for her to be leading the charge. Overall, I like her, even if she comes off as a bit bland and one-dimensional at times.

*Ashe, Fran, and Vaan celebrate a tough victory; their win poses highlighting a bit of their personalities

Enough about the protagonists, what about the villains? And how do they stack up compared to other Final Fantasy villains? Final Fantasy XII has, in my estimation, two main antagonists, and a number of less important ones. We will explore each main antagonist and briefly touch on some of the others as well.

Vayne Carudas Solidor serves as the primary antagonist of Final Fantasy XII. He is driven solely by his desire for power, preferring treachery and political maneuvering over outright violence. Vayne is more akin to a Final Fantasy Tactics villain than a Classic Final Fantasy villain. He is more concerned with politics than anything else and is much more willing to bide his time than, for example, Kefka from Final Fantasy VI. If we had to draw parallels to previous Classic Final Fantasy villains, Vayne would be most similar to Seymour from Final Fantasy X, and to a lesser extent, Kuja from Final Fantasy IX. Like Seymour, Vayne will lie and manipulate his way through the ranks, only revealing his true colors when absolutely necessary. And like Kuja, he is willing to put up with lesser beings and annoyances if they serve his end-goal.

In terms of “coolness,” Vayne sits lower on the Final Fantasy villain ladder, with Exdeath at the top (of course, a tree wizard can’t NOT be at the top of the ladder), followed by Sephiroth (yes, Sephiroth is cool, stop being a contrarian), and then Kuja or Kefka. Vayne Solidor is somewhere in the middle, like many of the character designs in Final Fantasy XII. There is nothing overtly cool about him, and even his long black hair, parted to the side, is strikingly uncool. If he succeeds at anything, it is being very punchable. From the moment he is introduced, you are rooting for his downfall, which, to me, is the opposite of a good villain as there’s nothing to think about or sympathize with. Like all main antagonists, he has several forms when you do end up battling against him, culminating in a “Safer Sephiroth”-like form where Vayne is basically a magic-infused mecha with a Megaman buster cannon and flying swords; the forms are cool but not nearly as awesome as Kefka’s angel form or Sephiroth’s various otherworldly forms. And unfortunately, by the time you actually get to fight him, you’ll likely be overleveled and far too powerful to take him seriously, resulting in a boring snooze fest of a battle.

**Vayne in the middle; who’s cooler?

The second main antagonist is Vayne’s (seemingly) right-hand man, Doctor Cidolfus. It is an interesting choice to make the primary Cid in a Final Fantasy game a villain, but there you have it. Cidolfus is an average-looking middle-aged man of extreme intelligence, similar to previous Cids in the series. Pioneer of using ancient relics to create powerful airships and other advanced technology, responsible for much of the cool Star Wars stuff you see in Archades, as well as making horrifying death bombs out of magicite. Throughout the game, he is seen scheming with Vayne about how to essentially take over the world (or something), and he’s constantly muttering to himself under his breath in a way not dissimilar to that crazy family member you try to avoid. Cidolfus is the mad scientist archetype to a tee and doesn’t deviate much from that even later on when you find out his true motivations. Regardless, he’s well-done, and the penultimate fight with him feels like you’re fighting another player as he uses Espers and magic in the same way the player does, which is a neat touch.

*Ashe calls out Cidolfus for what he is; an insane person

There are several minor antagonists who are functionally under Vayne as they report up through him in the evil Empire hierarchy. Many of these minor villains are the Archadian Judges, the guardians of law and order in the Archadian Empire. Modeled loosely on Star Wars stormtroopers, their presence is felt often as you battle countless mook judges and several high-ranking magister judges throughout the whole game. High-ranking magister judges feel very similar to Sith Lords in the Star Wars series, each with a distinct weapon of choice and fighting style. Most importantly, they all scheme for power, which is a key trait of the Sith religion. All magister judges report up to Darth Sidious… I mean, Vayne Solidor, and all secretly hate him and want him dethroned. One of the best scenes in the game revolves around the drama behind this Sith-like dynamic. Out of all the magister judges, one in particular is more important than the rest: Gabranth. While being built up as a serious life-ending threat, Gabranth is so pathetically easy to defeat when you do face him that his coolness factor drops by ten orders of magnitude. Regardless, Gabranth is the only antagonist to have a redemption arc, making him one of the most compelling characters in the entire game.

*Concept art of a judge, as depicted in the game’s promotional material

Aesthetically, all the Magister Judges are strikingly cool in their own way, sporting beautifully intimidating armor equipped with unique helmets and flowing capes. There is a reason they were used in most of the promotional material for Final Fantasy XII. I remember when Final Fantasy XIV added the judge armor into the game; I grinded for hours just to get a glamor set that made me look like these hulking knights. Truly, some of the most iconic imagery in Final Fantasy history, up there with Magitech armor and the Mako Reactor.

THE GAMEPLAY, or the game that plays itself … and that’s a good thing!

Final Fantasy XII shares some similarities with previous games in the series, particularly in terms of its core progression criteria. In essence, players explore environments, converse with NPCs, and complete tasks for them, such as fetching items or defeating monsters. Interwoven within these tasks are cutscenes and other events that drive the plot forward. This is typical of both JRPGs and Final Fantasy games in general. Furthermore, like many RPGs that came before it, Final Fantasy XII includes swords, sorcery, summons, armor, special equipment, and items to aid players in their journey. And surprise surprise, it also contains experience points and a level up system, like all previous Final Fantasy titles.

However, Final Fantasy XII stands out in many ways. For one, the game encourages players to delve into long bouts of side-content that require exploration of a vast pseudo open-world. Additionally, the game features a wholly unique battle system based on building out your own party AI, allowing you to (in theory) put the controller down and have your characters battle for you. In these ways, Final Fantasy XII is a truly unique game compared to many that came before it. In this section, we will delve into the battle system, mechanics, and overall gameplay loop found within the game and what makes it so unique; I’ll also be ragging on it a bit as I tend to do.

Final Fantasy XII allows you to control multiple characters, but only one character is playable as a “driving” character at a time, the others are automated (which we’ll get into later); however, you can cycle between your party members easily with the press of a button. While there are six playable characters in total, parties can only have a maximum of three (four when there is a guest in the party); this means you need to either neglect three characters or level everyone equally so you can switch between party formations. I ended up having a “main party” of Ashe, Basch, and Balthier and a “sub party” of Penelo, Fran, and Vaan; all of which I would level equally throughout the game as there is no “shared” exp for those out of battle.

*The party menu, showing the three active characters and party leader indicated by a flag

The core battle system in Final Fantasy XII borrows heavily from the MMORPG Final Fantasy XI, not only in how combat is initiated but also in the underlying framework of how encounters play out. Firstly, there are no random battles; instead, everything is visible in the open world, touching a monster does not initiate a battle like in Chrono Trigger; instead, all monsters are in a constant ready-state to dunk on you with no screen transition needed. Like previous games in the series, Final Fantasy XII uses an Active Time Battle system with several tweaks. This means that time passes as you make battle decisions; however, if you want time to think, there is an option to freeze time when you pull up the battle menu, which I would recommend, as there is just too much going on to actively manage things in real-time (or maybe I’m just stupid).

While you can select character actions from a classic blue menu, once you select “attack,” your character will auto-attack until the monster is dead. Much like in Final Fantasy XI, selecting items or magic from the menu causes your character to stop auto-attacking, perform the action, and then resume auto-attacking. However, this is where comparisons to Final Fantasy XI end. The resulting gameplay is not dissimilar to that of an action game. These changes help make the battling experience smoother compared to previous entries in the series and represent a progressive step forward in many ways, evidenced by the sheer number of JRPGs that copied the formula later on and the fact terms like “random battles” or “turn-based” are virtually unseen in the “Triple A” RPG gaming space today.

*A typical battle sequence, showcasing roaming monsters on the overworld

Final Fantasy is renowned for its impressive limit breaks and summons that have amazed countless players over the years. As a kid, I remember inviting my friend over to witness the effortlessly cool Knights of the Round or Omnislash animations play out on my Grandma’s living room CRT. However, Final Fantasy XII falls short in both departments, particularly when it comes to the rule of cool factor.

Similar to its predecessors, Final Fantasy XII includes summons called “Espers” and super moves referred to as “Quickenings”. These mechanics are powered by a gauge known as the “Mist Gauge”, which fills up over time based on obscure conditions that I was unable to discern. Unlike the classic summons like Ifrit, Shiva, or even Ramuh, Espers in Final Fantasy XII are a new set of beings with unique names and appearances, some of which are based on boss demons from Final Fantasy Tactics. Although this trivia is neat, the lack of familiarity may be somewhat off-putting, especially for a kid who just wants to see Odin cut stuff in half.

Mechanically, summoning an Esper consumes a mist charge and removes everyone except the caster and the Esper from the battlefield, allowing you to control the Esper directly. While this feature is reminiscent of Final Fantasy X, this direct control becomes a mere formality as you typically end up summoning your Esper and immediately using their super move to prevent being zerged by the opponent. Nonetheless, the super move animation of each Esper passes the “rule of cool” test, making it worth watching each one at least once. Additionally, there are certain fights in the game that can be cheesed with Espers (look it up if you’re curious), but that is not so much a feature as an oversight.

*Esper Belias doing his super move

The new “Quickening” system, which replaces “Limit Breaks” of past games, also utilizes the Mist Gauge and is a significant downgrade from Limit Breaks in every way. Quickening are essentially quick-time events that can be chained together with other characters’ Quickening attacks to perform combo finishers for massive damage. The problem with Quickenings is that they are simply not cool to look at and they take too long to chain. Remember when Squall lifted his blade to the heavens, summoning a massive beam that dropped down on his foes, zooming out to show the beam landing on the planet? Or when Zell ran around the world a few times before punching his opponent? Now Vaan just throws a tornado at the monster. Overall, Final Fantasy XII’s Quickenings fail to match the sheer brutality, coolness, and spectacle of the series’ previous entries. Moreover, they take too long to chain together, particularly in the late game, where completing a full chain can take three minutes or more. This makes the process tiresome and repetitive, and you ultimately end up skipping it altogether to save time in battles.

*Vaan throws a tornado at the monster; also showcasing the quick-time-event chaining aspects in the bottom right

A key mechanic of Final Fantasy XII is the Gambit System. Essentially allowing you to program your character to battle automatically as if you had full access to their AI. You can input commands using simplified IF-THEN statements such as “Do (blank) under (blank) condition”. For instance, you can program Vaan to attack when he encounters a monster or to use a potion when his HP drops below 50%. Each character can equip up to 12 gambits at any given time, and there are 3 sets of gambits that can be cycled through for each character. The gambit list itself resembles an Excel sheet and functions from top to bottom, with the topmost gambit taking priority over those beneath it. Consider the following scenario, two gambits: gambit 1, which is “Cast cure when HP is below 50%,” and gambit 2, which is “Cast poisona when poisoned.” If both gambits are active and I am both below 50% HP and poisoned, my character will first cast cure, and then poisona. The brilliance of this system is that, if executed correctly, most fights can be entirely automated. At first, this might seem boring or counter-intuitive, after all … why would someone want to automate the game? However, the fun lies in figuring out the right gambits that enable proper automation, which in essence is all part of playing the game.

Consider the following example: I had one gambit set for Ashe that prioritized casting decoy on Vaan to make him the bosses’ primary target. Then, I prioritized Ashe’s healing gambits over attacking gambits to keep Vaan’s HP topped off. In theory, this keeps the boss on Vaan and keeps Vaan alive. However, the boss would occasionally cast silence on Ashe, preventing her from casting cure on Vaan, resulting in Vaan’s death. To get around this obstacle, I had to add a new gambit to Ashe of “Use echo herb when silenced” so that Ashe would cure herself of silence, enabling her to continue healing Vaan and ensuring his survival thereby allowing the fight to be entirely automated. Since every fight has unique quirks, you constantly need to tweak your gambit sets to fit each situation. Overall, this system is incredibly unique for its time and allows for countless tricks and gimmicks that would be impossible in a normal turn-based battle system.

*Gambit system in action, outlining the classic decoy > cure > attack gambit setup

The Gambit System does have its flaws. For example, some spells cannot be automated at all because the game only allows for one condition per gambit. Take the spell “Dispel” which removes any buff or debuff on the monster when assigned to a gambit; ideally, you would only want to automate dispel if it removed effects that buffed the monster (such as haste or protect). However, since you cannot specify two conditions, such as “use dispel 1) on monster 2) under the effect of haste,” it is impossible to automate dispel without sometimes dispelling harmful effects on the monster as well. This could be easily solved if you could add an extra condition to gambits. Perhaps adding two conditions would be too complicated for the game’s code or maybe it was to prevent full automation of the game entirely. Either way, this addition would have been welcome.

Another point of contention is that while there are three gambit sets for each character, you cannot cycle through them without pausing the game and going through a few menus, making it a pain to switch Penelo from her attacking gambit set to her healing gambit set. Because of this, I focused on making one generalized set that covered every basic situation and used the other two pages for buffs and specific fights.

Although the Gambit System is a stroke of genius, it is underutilized in many ways due to a lack of creativity around many of the boss battles. For such a complex system, it was odd how many boss battles could be easily defeated with a simple gambit set, such as the Ashe-Vaan example I provided earlier. I suspect the developers were aware of this simplicity as well, as they would often try to throw a curveball to specifically counter gambit sets like mine. For instance, battles that couldn’t be won using the typical “decoy > cure > attack” gambits were usually because the monster was immune or absorbed physical damage, in which case I only needed to switch my physical attack gambits to magic attack gambits. This was particularly frustrating in some fights where the monster’s immunities changed mid-battle, requiring me to pause the game, go into the menus, adjust my gambits, and then resume the battle. This resulted in fights designed around going into full-screen system menus to change your gambits entirely, which I would argue is terrible game design as it takes you out of the action entirely. This could be forgiven if it happened only once or twice, but this happens far too often, especially in late game. To be clear, the criticism is not “I should be able to power through the game with one specific strategy,” but rather “there shouldn’t be only two or three specific strategies to beat everything,” which is what ends up happening in Final Fantasy XII. It could be argued that the developers pulled these tricks so often to encourage manual play instead of full-automation. However, my counter argument would be: why? The brilliance of Final Fantasy XII is figuring out how to automate every battle, like a JRPG version of Factorio. Why not embrace it?

*Battle showing a situation in which physical attacking is disabled forcing the player to swap in magic gambits

Character progression in Final Fantasy XII is governed by a system known as the “License System.” This system is essentially a board with various unlockable nodes that govern which weapons, magics, equipment, skills, and other features you can use. Licenses even provide stat boosts like attack and HP bonuses. You gain LP from defeating enemies, which you then use to unlock nodes on the board. Each node costs a certain amount of LP, and the better the license, the more LP it costs. Additionally, licenses are locked behind other licenses, so you have to unlock them in a certain order to build your character in the way you want. Therefore, you cannot immediately unlock the best spells for Vaan by grinding LP early in the game. You have to unlock all the prerequisite licenses first before you can unlock the high-tier stuff. In this way, the system is similar to the Sphere Grid in Final Fantasy X, which suffered from the same problem of all characters eventually becoming the same unless you made a conscious effort to differentiate them. After all, why wouldn’t you want all your characters to have the highest-tier black magic or use the best equipment and weapons? Thankfully, this problem only exists in the original release of Final Fantasy XII as they made major revisions to the License System in the Zodiac Edition.

Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Edition utilizes the License System similarly to the original game, but with a twist. Instead of granting unrestricted access to the entire license board for every character, you must now choose a “job” for each character, which unlocks a specialized board for that job. From there, the license system operates essentially the same way as in the original game. At first, this may seem unfortunate since it limits the choices for your characters, but ultimately, it prevents them from being carbon copies, and forces you to decide on specific roles for each character. After all, what is Final Fantasy without a job system? And this is precisely what it is, albeit somewhat tacked on and afterthought-ish. To illustrate this mechanic, in my last playthrough, I assigned Ashe as a Red Mage, Basch as a Foebreaker, and Balthier as a Machinist; Penelo, Vaan, and Fran were assigned as a Red Mage, Shikari, and Time Mage, respectively. Eventually, you can select an additional job board to assign to each character, which can be compared to dual-classing in Dungeons & Dragons or sub-jobbing in Final Fantasy XI. Overall, I appreciate this change since it allows for more guided character role-playing and progression. For instance, I loved the concept of Ashe being a mixed magic/physical attacker with a large greatsword, so I dual-classed her as a Red Mage / Knight to achieve that; in the original release, it would require a lot of planning to figure out the proper path to achieve this specific build, and I would probably end up making her smash stuff with a hammer like everyone else to min-max instead. These license board changes also promote using all six characters more often, since one character cannot do everything as was the case in the original release.

*The License Board, as seen in The Zodiac Age Edition

Now that we understand the overall battle and gameplay mechanics, when do we actually put our mettle to the test and start hitting stuff? This is where we delve into the core gameplay loop of Final Fantasy XII. In many ways, story progression is similar to other Final Fantasy games, where you interact with certain characters, complete specific tasks, defeat enemies, with cutscenes interspersed between these events, all in an effort to advance the plot. However, as mentioned earlier in this review, Final Fantasy XII stands out in a significant way by encouraging you to engage in massive amounts of side content through the game’s “hunt” system. Final Fantasy XII is well aware that it contains a massive world and wants you to explore it — “hunts” are its way of pushing that on the player.

Hunts in Final Fantasy XII are similar to a bounty system where someone posts a bounty on a board, and after reading the bounty, you talk to the petitioner, find the monster, kill it, and bring back proof of your deed to the petitioner for a reward. Typically, hunts are unlocked in a linear fashion after exploring new zones. For instance, after exploring the Giza Plains for the first time, you’ll find the Hunt Board in Rabanastre updated with new hunts for new marks in Giza Plains. In this way, the game encourages you to return to the Giza Plains to complete the new hunts.

*Defeating a hunt mark

All hunts are broken up into “marks” and “elite marks”, which kind of translate to “boss” and “super boss” respectively. Some of the more visually impressive monsters are encountered only by taking up hunts, and some of the best items in the game are obtained from these hunts as well. Therefore, unless you are only rushing through to complete the story, you will want to complete most of the hunts. The typical gameplay loop is as follows: complete story missions involving new zones, return to Rabanastre and check the hunt board, take all new hunts, talk to petitioner for each hunt, then re-explore zones to find and defeat the marks to complete the hunts, then return back to story content, repeat. However, as outlined earlier in this review regarding traveling, this gameplay loop becomes tedious, especially since traveling takes a while back and forth. Additionally, since you must talk to the hunt petitioner after accepting a hunt but BEFORE actually fighting the mark, this adds additional travel time as the petitioner is often located in a different zone.

Take the following example, I would often accept a hunt board request in Rabanastre’s pub, but the petitioner was actually deep in the Estersand. So, I would have to travel through the Estersand, talk to the petitioner, who then tells me the hunt target is in the Sandsea, so I now have to travel through the Sandsea to find the hunt target. After defeating the hunt target, I have to backtrack through the Sandsea to the petitioner to collect my reward. Early on, these trips are fun and welcomed because you’re in the honeymoon phase, but after 60+ hours of playtime, it starts to feel like another job, especially when many of the hunts need to be completed to tackle the actual good hunts that provide endgame rewards. In many ways, this gameplay loop resembles that of an MMORPG, but at least World of Warcraft keeps quest objectives relatively close together.

Moving on from hunts, the Final Fantasy series is known for its robust use of side-quests and mini-games to break up the tedium of normal play. Unfortunately, Final Fantasy XII drops the ball in this respect entirely. Almost all the side-quests are just hunts, which in retrospect, seems like a lazy way to facilitate side-content. Outside of a handful of esoteric side-quests that require a guide to fully complete, there is not much else in terms of side-content going on in the world of Ivalice. This is a shame, as Ivalice is a huge world ripe for deep, engaging stories.

Furthermore, Final Fantasy XII lacks any real mini-games, which is surprising considering the precedent and high bar set by previous games in the series. All despite the presence of airships and chocobos that are ripe for gamification. Often, I found myself growing bored of the repetitive nature of mark hunting and longing for a way to break up the monotony, but there was no way to do this outside of turning the game off. In previous installments, players enjoyed chocobo breeding, chocobo racing, card games, and more, yet in Ivalice we are limited to tedious trivialities such as “match people with similar stories in Archades” or “press A and B to win a potion one time.” It’s truly a travesty — you’ll be doing hunts indefinitely and you’ll like it.

*The dreaded “potion race”; pretty much the extent of the mini-games.

CONCLUSION, or just skip here if you want the quick summary

Final Fantasy XII stands out as a unique addition to the Final Fantasy franchise, but it is not without flaws, much like any other game. Unfortunately, some of these flaws are glaringly obvious, but there are also plenty of enjoyable elements to be found, like diamonds in the rough.

When one thinks of Final Fantasy, the mind usually conjures up images of their favorite beloved characters. Unfortunately, Final Fantasy XII does not feature the most captivating cast in the series’ history. Even the presence of Fran and Balthier cannot compensate for the lackluster cast, which falls seriously short of the standard set by previous entries, particularly when compared to Final Fantasy VII and X. Furthermore, the game lacks a compelling villain to fawn over. The characters fail to captivate on both aesthetic and literary levels, with any semblance of depth only a surface level illusion.

As with the issue of the characters, the overall plot of Final Fantasy XII fails to really hook the player or provoke much thought. Although a few cutscenes, like the final airship scene, are goose-bump inducing cool, there is little else of interest here. The story in general is generic, and the explored themes, such as togetherness, revenge, overcoming adversity, and being part of a whole, are basic and unremarkable. Additionally, there is no room for the sort of wild fan theories found in other Final Fantasy fan communities, such as the ridiculous “Squall is dead” theory or the “Zack is actually Cloud” theory (ok, I made that one up). The point being, Final Fantasy XII’s plot is straightforward and dull, with no mysteries left to engage the player. So, if you’re in it for the story, you might as well back out now.

Setting aside the plot and characters (and the pun), the world-building and overall ambiance of Final Fantasy XII’s setting is outstanding and well worth experiencing at least once. The development team’s dedication to creating a captivating world is evident from the moment the player sets foot in Rabanastre. Hitoshi Sakimoto’s music, while not as instantly catchy as that of Nobuo Uematsu’s, is excellent and complements each area very well. Final Fantasy XII earns top marks for its world design and art direction, even if some in-game cities could have benefited from more development.

A huge plus and another highly recommended aspect of Final Fantasy XII is the battle system. The brilliance of the gambit system is figuring out how to automate every encounter; it’s like Factorio but for weebs. Very much a “love it or hate it” system among the fans; however, this is only because the system is easily misunderstood. Setting up a gambit list that allows you to put the controller down and watch your party defeat a tough opponent is, without question, the coolest aspect of the game — the closest you will ever come to playing God in a JRPG.

Sadly, the overall gameplay loop in Final Fantasy XII isn’t as enjoyable as the battle system. Most of the game entails running back and forth between different locations, often revisiting the same areas multiple times. While there are some fast travel options, it’s just not enough, and ultimately, traveling becomes a dreaded time-sink that gives the player too much time to think about real life (which is a video game NO NO). The Zodiac Edition helps alleviate this issue by introducing a speed-up feature, but no game should have to rely on such a feature to prevent becoming tedious.

In conclusion, Final Fantasy XII should be experienced by all JRPG fans at least once. It contains one of the genre’s most unique battle systems and a beautifully crafted open-world, even if that world is a chore to traverse at times. The plot and characters leave much to be desired, but the overall gameplay is enjoyable for the first 40 hours. If you do play the game, I recommend the Zodiac Age Edition as it ups the resolution, improves the license board system, adds the evil speed up function, and includes a number of other improvements.

Lastly, as a final word of advice that applies not only to Final Fantasy XII but also every computer game ever made: if you start to get bored … turn the game off and do something else.

If you’re not having fun, it’s not worth it.

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(originally published on 4/17/2023)

#ComputerGames #FinalFantasyXII #Review