Super FamiComplete #91: Othello World

 

Title: Othello World (JP)

Release Date: 04/05/1992

Developer: Dice

Publisher: Tsukada Original

Similar to our entry on the Shogi game, this is an episode dedicated to a video game version of a board game that is wildly popular in Japan, Othello. I have limited experience with this game, as well, but like Puyo Puyo, it is a game that is pretty easy to pick up. The catch is, also like Puyo Puyo, the skill ceiling in this game is pretty high. This is a game, similar to chess or Shogi, where there are grandmasters and world class competitions. 

It should also be noted that this is a Japanese only title.

Background

The game Othello is named after the Shakespeare play of the same name. The play focuses on the a general who protects the city of Venice, Othello, who is convinced by a subordinate, Iago, that his new wife, Desdemona, is cheating on him. The jealousy that festers in Othello ends up being his undoing, as he murders his wife. It turns out that Iago was jealous of Othello's advancement, and propagated this on purpose to ruin him, and poor Desdemona was innocent. Othello kills himself in his grief. Race is an important issue in the play, as Othello is a Moor (historically black), while Iago is white, and his prejudiced views against Othello hinge, in a large part, on race. This is a long winded way of saying that the game, which utilizes white and black pieces in a "war" against each other, has been made a little problematic by 2021 standards, so the name is now known by the much more innocuous name of Reversi. 

Othello is played on an 8X8 board, with 64 tiles available to capture. The two players start in the center of the board, one player using black tiles (who goes first), and the other using white tiles. The goal of the game is to "flip" the other player's tiles to your color by placing a tile of your color next to theirs. You can only place tiles in rows or columns that have another tile of your color in them AND would sandwich your opponents tiles between them. When playing this game with my students (as I host a board game club), they always call this the "Oreo" game, as they feel it is like trying to make the largest stuf' Oreo. The complexity comes in the sheer number of available moves, and how you react to your opponent's actions. A player wins a match when all spaces are filled and their number of pieces is counted against their opponent. 

This game itself was developed by DICE (which stands for Dream Image of Computer Entertainment), and this was their inaugural game. After this, they were primarily a low key casino/gambling game developer or handling ports of titles like Strider or Sega racing titles. 

The publisher, Tsukada Original, is much more interesting, as they were the true "creators" of Othello as we know it, giving it its patented black, white, and green color scheme. They were primarily responsible for making Othello video games a thing throughout the 80s and 90s. 

Presentation

When it comes to games like this, the quality of the gameplay is pretty much tied to the game itself, and falls down to how well the game is translated and presented in the medium of video games. I will say, much like the previous game, the presentation in this case is pretty good. It has an "Alice in Wonderland" and general Fairy Tale theming, and like Puyo Puyo games, you are playing against different characters in and around that world. 

The first match (and the one I couldn't beat) is against the White Rabbit, and later ones are against characters like a fairy or an intensely creepy Pinocchio, and eventually jolly ole' Bill Shakespeare himself. The sprite art is really detailed and portrait-esque, which is a rarity for this early in the SNES's lifetime and really quite novel. The music, as well, is a constant presence and quite enjoyable (much preferable than to the gameplay silence of Chessmaster or the Shogi game we played before). 

Some parts of this game, too, are relatively trippy. When you start a new game, you get this kaleidoscopic image of colors and patterns swirling out of a magician's hat and this atonal cacophony of noises is playing. I thought the game was glitching until the White Rabbit jumped out of the had and the colorful swirl turned into a verdant grotto (the setting for your first Othello match). 

The game does do, what I am assuming due to my inability to read Japanese script, is a good job of tutorializing the board game. Every so often the action would stop and the rabbit would detail some rules, then give me an option to verify that I understood what just happened in the game. 

Music

The music, as stated previously, is pretty darn good!

Final Verdict

Much like Aerobiz, this game was surprisingly fun! Maybe it is just because I like classic games or due to the fact that the presentation is pretty inviting and whimsical. Who wouldn't want to play against William Shakespeare?