Super FamiComplete #50: Lagoon (Redux)

 

Title: Lagoon

Release Date: 12/13/91

Developer: Zoom Inc. 

Publisher: Kemco/Seika

NOTE: Taking a (genera;) break until the end of May. Will be back in June to finish up these "redux." I may add one or two, but for now I need a break to focus on some personal stuff. 

So this game is another one where I have some personal history. This used to be one of the "Headliner" games at my local video store, the now defunct "Video Tonight." It was placed on the shelf right next to Super Mario World and Link to the Past. I rented this game several times, and to call this game a headliner would probably be the most generous praise it has ever received. I found the game frustrating, needlessly difficult, and slow paced. Let's see if the stigma I remember holds up to today. 

Background

Lagoon is a fantasy action-RPG that plays in a very similar way to the Ys series. The story of the game is relatively simple; in fact some people might think that it is rather mundane. The game takes place in the realm of Lakeland, and the local lake around Lakeland has become...muddy! Yes muddy and dirty water is starting to plague the poor people, causing them to become sick when they drink it. It turns out to be the work of an evil sorcerer named Zerah, who wishes to use this as a way to revive an evil spirit named...Evil Spirit (yeup). With all this craziness afoot, the land's chosen one, Nassir, decides to embark on a quest to defeat Zerah before he can unleash Evil Spirit from underneath Lagoon Castle (hey that's the name of the game!).

The game itself was developed by Zoom Inc, a company that mainly developed for the Japanese computer system the Sharp X68000. Now this company didn't make too many well known games, but it did one day become the company that would make the insanely quirky and fun cult classic for the PS2, Mr. Mosquito. On the publishing front, Kemco is the publisher on record; Kemco has already popped up once before with another fantasy game, Drakkhen. I am sensing a theme. 

Gameplay

Now the game plays in a very similar way to the Ys series in that you will start each section of the game in the town hub. You will have to run around talking to townspeople until you trigger the right combination of events in order to move onto the dungeon crawling portion of the game. Now this can be simple, but in some cases this is convoluted. For example, in the beginning of the game you are talking with your mentor, then you must go find the Mayor of Lakeland; you talk to his wife, who tells you to check the church. In the church, you find the mayor, who then gets called away to an emergency. You go to the emergency, and are notified to go talk to the priest, who tells you to go back to the mayors house, who tells you to go to the stores, and then you are allowed to talk to the guards on the outskirts of town to enter the mines, which are the first real dungeon. Overall this isn't too bad, as I do enjoy a game that takes time to set up the stakes, build up the setting, and give you a chance to explore your surroundings, but if you are looking to "book it" you might be a little frustrated.

Now the dungeon of the game is where this gets a little more egregious in its sins. It is played in a top down fashion, similar to Link to the Past, and it lifts the life and magic meters straight out of Ys. Original, this game is not. The goal of each dungeon is to explore, grind through some monsters to raise your level (the leveling system is very grindy but moves fairly quickly), and then complete an ancillary objective so that you can then challenge the boss. For example, in the first dungeon you have to escort a trapped villager back to safety before the boss door will present itself. Grinding is a necessary part of this game, not just for the life boosts that leveling up brings you, but also for money to buy armor and weapon upgrades. Usually you will have to make several trips in and out of a dungeon for every level, which can be very frustrating. The dungeons are usually mazes, and will take a fair bit of time, and or pencil and paper, to map so that you can navigate them quickly. 

What sucks, though, is this means you have to use the terrible combat to get stronger, and therefore will most likely die a bunch. This game is the Dragon Quest style of saves, which means you have to stop by the church in town, so if you die in a dungeon then you are warped back to town and must start the maze over from the beginning. Granted, it doesn't erase your progress completely, which is a blessing. 

 Okay we are going to handle the most notorious and egregious sin first: the toothpick sword. This game is famous for the god-awful main weapon that your character uses. While it is supposed to be a sword, it has the range of a toothpick. As well, when your character swings his sword, one-handed, it makes a chopping motion. What this means is that your character has to get super close to enemies, and has to have his right side lined up with them in order to hit them. Mostly, this results in your character taking damage more often than not. It sometimes feels completely random if you will damage the enemy or, instead, damage yourself. This can sometimes make the game unplayable, especially with bosses and enemies who move around quickly. A lot of boss fights, in fact, devolve into trading hits and trying to burn off their health pools quicker than they can burn down yours through contact damage. Ranged magics and weapons, as well, don't appear until much later in the game, which makes the early hours very painful. OH and for some reason, magic doesn't work in boss fights, so you have to always rely on your toothpick sword. What a weird and awful design decision for a game. 

The presentation of the game is pretty okay! The cutscenes at the beginning are decent animation for such early games. The spritework isn't the prettiest in the world, but some of the bosses are really impressive to look at and are quite imaginative. There are some villains that follow the traditional fantasy tropes, but other ones are really quite unique, like a strange rock monster/insect, and a Chimera but with multiple lion heads. The first boss, in particular, has a look that is very striking; almost like a punk rock knight with a hook for a weapon. The story, while simple, is actually pretty enjoyable. It definitely takes the forefront and is easy to follow and is well translated for an old game. It is no where close to Final Fantasy VI or Chrono Trigger, but it certainly is not bad (certainly better than Arcana).

Any time you have to escort someone in this game, it is an absolute nightmare. One of the first examples of this is in the first dungeon: you find a boy or man who was trapped in the mine, and must escort him to the entrance in order to unlock the boss fight. First, it is a long dungeon over several floors. Second, the boy/man moves ridiculously slow. It took me about 30 minutes, on my third try, to get the little bastard out of the mines. These parts make the game grueling in its pacing. 

Music

The music is decent more than truly good. 

Ads, Art, Commercials

Final Verdict

So much promise. The game obviously was trying to satisfy a much loved niche, but it does it in an incredibly ungraceful manner. Boo. I'm sure there are some gamers who would be happy to slog through this, but the poor design decisions make it almost unplayable for me personally. For collectors, the game is relatively cheap; only about $15-20 used. 

Super FamiComplete #49: Chibi Maruko-Chan: Harikiri 365-Nichi no Maki (Redux)

Title: Chibi Maruko-Chan: Harikiri 365-Nichi no Maki (Chibi Maruko's Volume of 365 Days)

Release: 12/13/91 (JP only)

Developer: SAS Sakata

Publisher: Epoch

Okay so we have another Japanese only title, but this one seems to have utterly stumped me as to what it can be about. It looks like a children's game, and  the box-art is positively charming. I love the child's artwork aesthetic. I am curious as to how well I can dig into this game, but to be honest...I probably won't make it too far due to the language gap.

Background

Chibi Maruko started as a manga from the mid-80's by Momoko Sakura. This was a pretty standard "slice of life" manga. Interestingly enough it seems to be semi-autobiographical, as the main character is a little girl named Momoko Sakura, and is about Momoko growing up in the suburbs of Shimizu during the 1970s. The story follows Momoko, her friends, and her family, which includes her parents, grandparents, and older sister. This series, in general, was a wildly popular manga due to its unique aesthetic (apparently drawn in the style that 3rd grade Momoko would draw in) and its sublime innocence. Of course, from here, there was an anime, OVAs, and  video game adaptations.

Now this game was developed by SAS Sakata, which seemed to be a very small and local developer to Japan, as not many of their games ever made it to the shores of North America. Epoch Co. as well, seemed to specialize in developing/publishing manga and anime based games, as they exclusively published the Doraemon video game series (another popular and pretty well known manga series). 

Overall, not too well known a developer or publisher.

Gameplay
Now the game itself is a boardgame style of video game in the vein of Monopoly. The goal is to collect the largest amount of money out of all the players over the course of a year. Players take turns rolling the dice, and each turn each player may find or lose yen depending on the space they land on. Each space, to correspond with the gain or loss in money, basically functions like a "chance"or "community chest" card in Monopoly by giving you a little synopsis of how you won/lost the money.  At certain intervals, as well, there are finish lines that grant players 100 yen bonuses for crossing them first.

The game does allow for a good bit of strategy, as you can either run and hit the checkpoints before the other players, which gives you yen bonuses, or you can take your time and hope the odds from the random gains/losses plays out in your favor. 

The aesthetic of the game is really whimsical and sweet. It is very child-like and cute! The music, as well, fits this aesthetic and complements it very well.

Sadly, though, the enjoyment of a board game simulation is lost on me with the obvious language barrier. None of the jokes or cute anecdotes land, which makes this game pretty boring and seemingly just an RNG simulator. I did manage to win a game, somehow though, so it can't be too hard. The game doesn't really have anything to break up the action either, like mini-games or "events" either. Overall, it is a really cute and charming game, just not one that is really accessible without an English language patch, which is currently not available. 

Music

The music really digs into the whimsy. It is very cute. 

Final Verdict

Watch the anime instead! It is really cute. 

Super FamiComplete #48: Joe & Mac (Redux)

 

Title: Joe & Mac (NA), Joe & Mac: Tatakae Genshijin  (trans. Caveman Fight) (JP)

Release Date: 12/06/91 (JP)

Developer/Publisher: Data East

Yay, another halcyon classic of my childhood. This game was another game that was gifted to me back when I was a wee babe. My Mom bought this after reading a review in a Shoppers Digest (how all responsible parents shopped for video games before the internet) and because she knew my brother and I enjoyed dinosaurs as a kid, this game was a natural fit. So, without much further ado, let's revisit this blast from the past.

Background

This game comes from one of the development companies that only seemed to exist through the 80's and 90's: Data East. Now Data East is probably most well known for the funny little recorded voice that reads the company name each time one of their games boots up, a voice so distorted by the sound chip on the SNES that it comes out all tinny. Plus you have that nice desert chrome logo. What fun!

Now Data East itself was a bread and butter video game company that I would argue is a relic of this time period. They were definitely a hard-working jack of all trades: they made arcade machines, pin ball machines, console games for most every handheld and console system, and both original and licensed titles. I would consider them a halfway decent version of the company iRem. Sadly Data East tanked as a company in the late 90s and early 2000s, filing for bankruptcy and selling off their library of games.

Now Joe & Mac is one of their original IP's, and would go on to spawn two more sequels (both are pretty good and will be covered soon). This game started as a arcade title, and the arcade title is a bit different from the SNES port (I actually played through the arcade game as a kid at a school dance). The arcade port is pretty fun, with a more linear design and a different final boss (some crazy caveman lizard-demon). The SNES port, though, boasts a few key differences that we will discuss below, and I think make for some good improvements.

Story

The story of Joe & Mac is rather short but sweet. Joe and Mac are two cavemen friends who also happen to be ninjas. Now they are friends with a local tribe, and this local tribe had all its beautiful young cave-women stolen by a rival tribe of bearded, more bestial cavemen. It is now up to the two cave-ninjas to pursue to rival tribe to their home-base in the dinosaur graveyard, and rescue the beautiful young women from the rival tribe's dinosaur minions. 

Gameplay

Joe & Mac is an action platformer. Joe and Mac must make it from the beginning of each level to the end while combating enemies and obstacles along the way. Their base attack is a club, which has no range whatsoever. To counter this, though, there are a variety of upgradable weapons that will help them by adding range to their attacks. You have boomerangs, bone clubs, torches, and wheels, all of which are much more effective than your base weapon, and pretty much all you will use. As well, each level ends with some large-scale boss battles against dinosaurs, mammoths, or other mega-fauna/flora from prehistoric times. Accurate to history? No. Charming and colorful? Yes.

 The sprite work and art direction is really top-notch. Every boss is quite visually striking, and every character has a really nice cartoonish charm. The game mirrors its arcade counterpart's style really quite well. Most of the bosses are quite unique except for two repeat fights, and even then they make the patterns different enough that they really are different encounters overall. Some standout bosses include the Woolly Mammoth...

The dinosaur skeleton...

The plant monster...

And the devil!?!

The game is challenging, but not overly so where it is frustrating and makes you want to put down the controller for good. The levels are quick and aren't overly long, so it encourages quick replays as you get used to the way the game is played. 

The game is a good 2-player experience! It is a really nice action platformer, and even more fun when you can experience it with a friend. The game drives a slight competition too, as the player who lands the killing blow on the boss gets to have a smooch from the captured young lady. 

There are definitely some technical hiccups in this game. The game has really bad input lag, and Joe and Mac seem to jump and attack very sluggishly. This happens especially if you spam the attack button; if you do this the game even seems to drop some inputs completely. If you put out too many projectiles and there are too many enemies on the screen (or just has a boss monster present), the frame-rate of the game drops to a crawl. 

The jumping of Joe and Mac is really floaty. Joe and Mac tend to just float through the air really slowly, yet the game detects with pinpoint precision if you switch the direction of their jump mid-air, which can cause you to miss platforms. The platforming sections, especially in the later levels, demand a good bit of precision, which is really tough sometimes with these mechanics. 

One final nit-pick is when you die, your avatar becomes a ghost which floats back onto the stage and looks for purchase before rematerializing. The problem is if you mess up where you rematerialize, you just die again instantly. It can really quickly end a run if you get screwed over. 

Music

The music is pretty decent. It has a nice "chant" aspect to it every so often. The boss music is pretty great too. 

Ads, Art, Commercials

Final Verdict

 This game still holds up as an action platformer! It certainly has its frustrations, but it is really quite good. Perhaps it is my nostalgia goggles talking, but it is certainly better than some of the other platformers we have encountered so far (and certainly better than a few others we will encounter coming up). It is not too expensive online (about $15-20 on amazon) so definitely an easy grab for collectors. 

Super FamiComplete #47: Super Off-Road (Redux)

Title: Super Off Road

Release Date: December 1991 (NA)

Developer: Leland Corporation/Tradewest

Publisher: Virgin Games

Hmmm another racing game? This is one that I haven't heard of, so let's see how it is! This is one that, even revisiting this blog, I don't remember at all. 

Background

This game is a port of an arcade game from 1989 known as Ivan "Ironman" Stewart's Super Off Road. This game was ported to most everything under the sun at that time, from the ZX Spectrum to the Amiga to the NES and Genesis. Now the SNES game does not carry the endorsement from Ivan Stewart, a well known off-road racer from the time, or feature any of the other racers from that era who are featured in the arcade game, but it does feature a heavy brand deal from Toyota, even going so far to play the "I love what you do for me Toyota" jingle.

The game was developed by Leland Corporation, which was the arcade developer/predecessor to Midway games, who would eventually develop Mortal Kombat. I'm guessing that Leland developed the arcade game, and helped develop the console port with Tradewest, the company also responsible for producing Battletoads and Double Dragon for the American audiences. 

Gameplay

The game itself seems to be the set up similarly to the "pocket circuit" or "slot car" style racing. You have a track seen from a tilted birdseye view; the track has a bunch of moguls, trenches, holes and water traps throughout it. The control scheme, as well, is different than a traditional racing game, or at least feels different. You have no perspective as a driver, but instead have to act as if you are guiding your car through a maze. The best correlation I can make for a modern gamer are the RC Car races in Super Mario Odyssey or one of Retro Rex's games in Yooka-Laylee.

The game is a functional "slot car" style racer. There are 16 tracks available in the game, and over 64 races that scale in difficulty as you progress through them. It maintains the arcade style of the races, but that means that after you complete your racing circuit, the game's races just repeat over again. I will say the game uses sound and level design to great effect, though. The races have a very kinetic feel to them with the revving of your engines as you go over moguls, and the sound of your car hitting gullies throughout the race track. The courses, as repetitive as they can be, are very well designed and varied, making the action pretty fun.

Between races, you can use the money won to upgrade your car with new parts, such as tires and suspension, which does help in future races, especially as the game gets more challenging. Honestly, though...that is really it for this game. It is a quick pick up and play arcade title.

Music
The music is pretty darn phenomenal for a US produced/developed game.

Ads, Art, Commercials

Sadly only two print ads and a Dutch commercial for the original NES port. 

Final Verdict

 There are better racing games out there, BUT I will say that this is the most functional racing game, aside of F-Zero, thus far for the SNES. Jaleco 4X4 might be a close contender, but I think this one works as a more traditional and compact racing game. Honestly, though, this would probably serve better as a mini-game than a full fledged game. 



Super FamiComplete #46: Home Alone (Redux)

 

Title: Home Alone

Release Date: December 1991 (NA), January 12th, 1992 (JP)

Developer: Imagineering, Inc.

Publisher: Toy Headquarters

This is the start of the December 1991 block of US games. These blocks get more prevalent as time goes on, and they are usually sports titles, shoddy fighting games or beat-em-ups, or, worst of all, licensed games. Here we have a licensed game based off of a popular movie at the time. 

Background

Home Alone, for the uninitiated, is the story of Kevin McAllister, a bratty, but precocious pre-adolescent boy who is accidentally left home alone (Oh! I get it now) while his family is on vacation in Florida. Little does Kevin know that his house and neighborhood is being targeted by the career criminals, the Wet Bandits (named Harry and Marv). The movie, which was written and produced by the great John Hughes, was a huge hit for 1990, and launched the careers of MaCauley Culkin, and proved that Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern had some real comedic chops. It was natural that if a movie was halfway decent in the 1990s, then some video game company was going to try to make a tie-in game, and that is the case here. The game was actually ported to many different systems: the Genesis/Master System, the Game Boy, the NES, and the AMIGA.

The developer for this game is good old Imagineering, who is most well known for the Boy and his Blob  series, but more well known for many, many different movie tie in games and licensed titles. The publisher is actually the precursor for THQ (Toy HeadQuarters= THQ).

Gameplay

The game itself fits into the "Trap-Em Up" genre, a very under utilized (and probably for good reason) genre, with the only well-known/cherished title from this genre, around this era, being Lode Runner. This genre has made a resurgence, somewhat, in recent years with the Spelunky, 1001 Spikes, La Mulana, and the Deception series.

The goal of this genre, and subsequently this game, is to usually puzzle, platform, and navigate your way through a map while trying to avoid enemies and solve certain tasks. Kevin's house is somehow bigger than the movie, and is under siege by not only Harry and Marv, but a group of Prohibition-era gangsters as well. Random household objects, as well, seem to be possessed and attack you. Weird. Kevin must navigate his way through the house while snatching up valuables before the bandits/gangsters can claim them for themselves.  . The player then has to put the valuables into the laundry chutes so that they land in the "safe room." If Kevin loses all his life, it is an immediate GAME OVER, and you are greeted with one of two equally traumatizing game over screens.

The game is very short, being only four levels. In the first and third level, you are hiding valuables, and in the second and fourth level, you are hiding toys. The game balances this shortness out, though, by being pretty bullshit in its difficulty, and sadly this difficulty comes from shoddy design.The game is really hard to control. Kevin's jump is really imbalanced, and sometimes it feels like he slides a bit on the ground. As well his hit-box is rather large, meaning that it is very easy to take damage quickly in this game.

The game is just unpolished. It is sometimes hard to tell what is the background and what is the foreground, meaning that you will try jumping on random objects that you really can't jump on. It feels like the staff just had a hard time deciding how to translate this film into a game. The goals and such feel really half-baked, such as "hiding all the valuables," which was never really a goal in the movie. In the movie, Kevin just wants to distract the bandits as much as possible so that the cops can catch them in the act. It is clear that they really didn't know how to turn this premise into a game.

Then there are other small things that just bother me; when Kevin drops an object down the laundry chute into the "safe room" (another thing not in the movie), it always turns into a candelabra. It is just weird.

The game also doesn't really convey things well either. Enemies seem impervious to damage, and even when you catch them in a classic Home Alone trap, they just get right back up again and continue their pursuit. Also, the goal of protecting your valuables isn't well stated.

Possibly weirdest of all are the boss fights at the end of each stage. Each stage will end with Kevin going to his basement to hide in the safe room, but before he can he fights a critter of some kind. In the first level it is his brother's tarantula, the second it is a g-g-g-ghost, and in the third stage it is a rat. For each of these fights, you dodge the creature as it moves back and forth, and headbutt loose stones so that they fall on the creature's noggin. Just...such weird choices. Why not fight the Wet Bandits? Why...any of this?

Music?

The music, of course, is bad...really bad. 

Final Verdict
Skip this game! Even fans of the movie will be greatly disappointed. It is so poorly thought out, designed, and amateurish on every level. Sadly, there is a game for the movie sequel as well, so we aren't quite free of this game series.