Super FamiComplete #19: GD Leen (Redux)

 

Title: GDleen

Release Date: 5/28/91

Developer: Jorudan

Publisher: Seta

This was the first game on this blog where the language barrier made this game rather inaccessible. Even after several years, this game is not on any translators'/ROM hackers' chopping block. The most functional ROM hack is only 5% complete, so it is not in any functional shape. This means that the game has to be suffered through in its native written language, even still.

Before we continue...that box art though? Love it.

Background
So here we pick up with our look at GDleen, the first official turn based RPG for the Super Famicom. To give some background on this title, it was developed by a little known development house known as Jorudan, a company based in the Tokyo area. This was actually only the company's second game, the first being an action-puzzler for the Gameboy known as Battle Bull, where the player traverses Bomberman style arenas and tries to crush other cars by pushing boulders onto them. Needless to say, coming out the following year with an epic RPG is a huge shift in genre for a company to make. Jorudan will actually pop up a couple more times in the Super Famicom's catalogue of games, with a few other "hidden gems," some of which would actually make it to North America, such as Musya: The Japanese Tale of Horror, and the SNES port of Capcom's Alien vs. Predator.

GDleen was then published by SETA, a company who remained active up until the last generation of consoles, but generally was known for Japanese only titles. Only a few of their games made it to North America, but I would be surprised if you, dear readers, had ever heard of them. One is known is 8 Eyes, which I had heard about through my fellow Chronogamer in arms, Dr. Sparkle (on his excellent program, Chrontendo), and the other Castle of Dragon, a game thoroughly roasted by the comedic "Let's Players" the Game Grumps. Both were rather awful Castlevania clones for the NES, a rather strange coincidence.

The game itself is based off of a light novel/manga known as  Jikō Wakusei Gadyurin (or Gdleen). This light novel spawned an anime OVA, but one that seems to be an adaptation that has little to do with this game (it has this more "normal earth man" reaches "fantasy sci-fi world" bent to it). So we have a little heard of game from an obscure source material, developed by a little known developer, and published by a small-time publisher. Great. 

 

Gameplay
The game itself is a rather standard JRPG from this era, with rather obvious nods to Final Fantasy, yet with a space opera twist (so maybe this was the Super Famicom's answer to Phantasy Star). The story, which I have learned is the same as the manga, revolves around a space pilot, named Ryun, who crash lands upon a strange planet. The opening cutscene of the game depicts this crash landing, and the action of the game begins with Ryun emerging from his ship into the forest of this planet.

From there, he meets a beautiful native girl named Fana (in a rather beautiful cutscene where he comes upon her bathing in a natural spring) and they become embroiled in a civil war between two warring tribes. Now I will admit, this is as much of the plot as I have gleaned from research on the internet, which is really very sparse. This is such a little-known about game, with there not even being more than a five minute gameplay clip on youtube. Basically, Ryun crashlands on the planet and immediately comes upon a town. Instead of being a happy town like in most RPGs, this one seems to serve as an aqueduct/base for monsters. Random battles are abound, and some of the townspeople will even attack you if talked to; the reason for this, I can not tell. Eventually, while moving through this dam/aqueduct/town, you come across the first boss, which is a giant spider.

Outside of battle, you can explore (at a very leisurely pace; no run button here), talk to townsfolk, and open chests. There are even some environmental puzzles that take a bit of thought. At one point in the game, for example, you are locked in a jail cell by a beast-man tribe. To escape, you have to break a leg off a table, and tear the sheets off your bed. Putting these together in your inventory will have you create a rope out of the sheets, and use the table leg to create an anchor so you can climb out the barred window.

The battles are straight forward as well. They remind me very much of Earthbound aesthetics to battles: the enemy sprite resides at the top of the screen, and your players are not visible at all, only represented by a status box which tells you your HP, MP, and Energy. Ryun attacks with a laser gun, which I find pretty interesting, as the rest of the planet does not seem to have that level of technology yet. The battles, as well, are turn based affairs. Some interesting things about the battles: characters can level up mid battle, so your character can get stronger/regain life for a second half of a battle. Rather useful! The other interesting tidbit is that this game has the similar "multiple hit" system as Final Fantasy II (the Japanese II not the North American II), where a character can score multiple hits for much more damage. Enemies, though, can score these too, as the first boss one shotted me from full health on his first turn. I thought the boss was going to be impossible, but no the second battle with the giant spider was laughably easy. Much of the battle system seems to be based upon luck? The second time we fought he missed most of his attacks and then I performed a crit to kill him. Apparently this is a weird issue with the game, where at any time your character can just crit an attack and one shot most bosses. That's a weird design choice.

Some other things about the game: the music is pretty good! I got the battle theme stuck in my head quite a bit. The graphics, as well, are nothing to sneer at; they are certainly better than the likes of Drakkhen and Ys III. I really like some of the sprite art (the first boss is quite intimidating). The game even has anime style cutscenes.

Well let's hear that funky music!

But...but...anime?

Well there is no commercial or ads for this game that I can find, but here is a link to the anime OVA. 

Final Verdict
As much as I want to keep playing this game, the language barrier is starting to make it very difficult. I can't navigate the menus to save my life, and puzzles which require these menus are taking forever. Playing in this way is not even fun, and there are other RPGs I know in the future that I will actually try to complete, but this one just isn't that interesting/special to warrant so much work. If they ever complete an english language patch, then I will give it a try (though I don't see that happening in the near future).

The story does sound promising, as civil war tales are always rather neat, and I do like the whole "stranger in a strange land" conceit.