Actraiser Renaissance (Switch)

 

And he has risen!

Got Actraiser Renaissance for the Switch. A remake from the original SNES which I got on the virtual console for Wii. I played it and got to the final boss, but couldn't defeat him, even though my character was maxed out. Funny enough also a Clan of the Grey Wolf-review. Always better to play a remake then.

Story is that you as the lord of light have awakened and must purge the lands from the darkness of Tanzra. You begin by being awakened in a forest in the land of Filmore where you have to defeat the Centaur and from there people begins gathering at your temple and you can begin terraform the earth in order to create a civilisation. Gameplay loop is rescue an area, create a civilisation, close all monster lairs and then fight off the big bad and then head to the next area.

Added additions for this game is monster sieges. Monsters will attack and by building forts and palisads you gotta use the angels powers and heroes to fight them off. To get more story they also introduced heroes from each area. Also some of the monsters got a bit more backstory like the Arctic Wyvern and the Werewolf. They also changed the level system. The old game you got health by how many believers existed so you wanted to max the number which was determined on your score on the monster stages that set how many residents you could have in the simulation levels. Magic was limited by scrolls that you had to find our get due to some quests. Now they added HP and MP and decides on level which you level up by finishing quests. MP can also be upgraded by finding scrolls in the levels that +10 MP for each which I guess is a reference to the original mana scrolls. Which make magic more usable and not as limited. The final boss rush was a lot easier. Overall the game was easier. They also added a new area beyond Deathheim with a new boss. A grand final where all 6 heroes joins you to protect the new area from monsters and its hinted at a former lord of light or something akin to that which killed all humans. 

Overall found it rather enjoying. The different gameplay styles is still fun and the added moments helps a lot to flesh out the games. The music is fantastically remastered with some new compositions as well. You can also chose to play the old versions of the songs (and the emulated sound for the new songs). Interestingly enough, Clan of the Grey Wolf spoke very highly of the music, but I can't help but hear that it at times sound like it's a bit inspired from Star Wars: A New Hope. Especially the world tree music sounds a bit like the run at the death star at the ending of the movie, or that might just be me.

Terranigma (SNES)

As a drifter I was born to walk alone!

An' I've Made Up My Mind, I Ain't Wasting No More Time!

Yet another of the 16-bit Gems games that I could get a hold off. This one I had to get from a german seller through Amazon and then use the emulation capabilities of the Retron 5 and get a german to english translation patch. And still it went for something like € 80, and it was just the cartridge. Wish I could go back in time and hit my stupid self in the head for choosing the Mega Drive (on the other hand, don't think I would have picked up this game anyway). So this is Terranigma, released at the final days of the SNES before the N64 and interesting enough wasn't released in the US. Which probably explains why there is only german versions to get since the english copies have been picked up by the Americans.

So it begins in the village of Crysta as Ark is awakened by Elle, his childhood friend. He walks around and opens the door the elder told the village to never open. Inside lies Pandora's Box containing... Yomi... a creature I guess? Then the whole village turns to crystal beside Ark and the elder. The elder tells him to climb the 5 towers around the village in order to awaken the world above since, shocker, we are in the underworld. Climb the towers, rescue the villagers and as you awakened the surface world the elder tasks you to resurrect all life. And the first thing I do is run over to Elle, who has locked her inside her workshop since she cries over the thought of Ark leaving... nice sending me away game. So you jump through a hole in the ground and ends up in the Amazon, on our earth. No plants so you enter the dead tree Ra to destroy the parasite within the tree so that the flowers can grow again. You also can speak to the plants and they guide you to Colorado North America where monster birds have taken over the skies. Fight them off and you released the birds from their captivity. And they in their turn fly you to the African Savannah where you gotta fight off a storm god, resurrect all living beast and then rescue a lion cub. The last task is climbing Himalaya and defeat some shapeshifter in order to awaken humanity from its slumber as the animals builds a bridge over the Indus river. 

The battle leaves you sleeping for three years (no worry, the animal bridge still stands) in Lhasa where the Dalia Lama watches over you. So you set out making sure that towns and villages expand and progress as within the span of the game they go from medieval technology to 20th century. Most important is probably Loire, a french town where the princess looks like Elle and is named that as well. The king of Loire is looking for a fiancé for the princess and if one can make her speak again one can marry her. Turns out that the king actually stole Elle from the Scandinavian town of Stockton (a play on Stockholm I assume) after slaughtering the other villagers. As Ark helps the princess regain her ability to speak, and the memories of the destruction of Stocktorn, the princess in the night kills the king and escapes with her loyal knight to the Americas. Now, the thing with Stockton is that it's also a replica of Crysta, the village Ark grew up in. How can that be?

In the Americas you rescue an airplane inventor so that you can travel to Moscow where an evil cult worshipping the mad scientist Berluga lives. Apparently a Nobel Peace Price winner for his work in immortality....??? Why didn't he get the Nobel Price in medicine or chemistry? Why Peace? Still, turns out that he created a virus called Asmodeus that works more like a chemical weapon... I assume. He put himself in cryo and Ark awakens him, which causes city of Neotokio to be attacked by Berluga, killing all living humans there. Once again Ark is saved by the Dalai Lama and sets you on course of finding five starstones and take them to the end of the world which is Antarctica. The ritual forces Ark to be reborn (?) and taken care of by Elle who have returned to Stockton (time is really lenient here), but he is kidnapped by the underwolrd Elle together with Yomi who was sent by the elder to kill Ark, but Elle can't do it since she loves Ark and sacrifices herself. Returning to the world Ark joins with the friends he made during the adventure on an attack on Berlugas tower in Siberia where they assault his flying ship and crashes it, after Berluga ends skewered by a propeller. And so Ark descends back into the underworld to fight against the elder who is none other than Dark Gaia, satan himself. Defeating the big crystal butterfly allows Ark to see his village one last time, before going to sleep and the whole underworld disappearing. 

I was amazed by this game, describing the story doesn't make it justice. Playing it I felt spiritual. The music and the graphics are fantastic. The resurrection scenes works of art and the philosophical themes behind them moved me. Best parts are the two first chapters, after resurrecting humanity it got a bit boring as the game slowed down with the progression of the towns. Could also be due to right before the humans are awakened the game hits you with an avalanche and you gotta spend the night talking to a mountain goat that just lost her husband and tells you to eat him to survive and then when she is able to break through a wall it just allows you to escape and the goat has to stay behind, slowly dying at her husbands side. Oh way game do you make me feel for a goat I just met? What it misses a bit is the expectation that progress is beyond everything when it comes to civilisation as it's measured by this german economist in every town. Now, it could be argued that since we are sent out by satan that it might be the reason. People expand businesses and all, but some seems to detest the prosperity since they have to fulfil demands beyond their control and just work. Kinda sad life. Then again, as Chicago burns down and you travel the world with letters for funds, who do you go to? All the people you helped, giving me at least the impression that progress allows charity, which I can agree on. If you don't have anything to share, how else would it work?

It took me 20 hours to beat this game, but I used the save state function to test out certain aspects as to avoid getting damaged or as with the end boss, see what works. One aspect I wasn't keen on was the magic system. You craft rings with magical stones you find. Now, I thought that if you used it you lost it, but as to a comment I read you actually got the stones back and can use them for more magical rings. Now the problem with the magic system is that I need to stand in the right place for certain rings and use the ring within the ring box in the inventory, not allowing me to see use it as a quick command (I think, hard to know without a manual). Also, I used rings only for the Bloody Mary boss and thought that since the final fight got nearer I just get as many rings as possible. Guess what? Can't use magic against the final boss... then what's the point of magic? Still, amazing game. The experience itself is worth it. The last thing I want to add, since I just thought of it, was an idea around the name. Since Terranigma seems to be a portmanteau of terra and enigma, meaning the puzzle of the earth, meaning the world pretty much. I can't help but like it, must be the snobbery of the liberal elite I resonate with.

Illusion of Time (SNES)

Finally, a PAL-version!

Released as Illusion of Gaia in the US I first heard of it by watching the Clan of the Gray Wolf as it was the first game in the 16-bit Gems-series. So watching that back in 2009 one would hope it would be released on the Virtual Console or something, but that never happened so I had to buy it for the original console now when I can play it. Got box and manual, but decided to not get the version with the map in it, saved me over 400 SEK (something like 40 € or $). 

So you play as Will, a boy that one year earlier travelled with his father to the tower of Babel, but the expedition disappeared but Will made it back somehow. Now he has some psychic powers that allow him to move things and I gather giving him some second sight. One day he finds a door to inter-dimensional pocket where Gaia exist, a spirit that warns Will that a comet is approaching earth and it will cause immense destruction as it does every 800 years. It has caused several civilisations through earths history being destroyed and in the beginning it was created by humans, but backfired on its creator. So now Will is a descendent of the knights of Darkness and with his power of Darkness have to travel the earth and search the ruins for the mystic statues.

Now the fun thing is that the ruins and world is based on real locations, like the Incan empire, Nazca, Angkor Wat, the Pyramids and so on. Something bothered me though, the world map doesn't correspond with our map so somehow Nazca and the Inca are two different continents, you walk from the great wall of China to the city of Euro (with the company Roleks, which I gather is a rewrite of Rolex) and from there you get to Angkor Wat and then you get to the pyramids. But the story actually explain it. The end shows how the world forms the continents we know of. Apparently the light of the comet caused the world to change away from what it was supposed to evolve into so that is part of why Will have to clear this mess.

On this journey Will will travel with Kara, the princess of the kingdom where Will lived, Lance, Erik and Seth, childhood friends of Will, Lilly, a new friend that can turn into a dandelion and hails from a hidden village near the lost Incan Empire. Also Will's cousin Neil that are an inventor and the son of the President of the Roleks company. They travel the world for the ruins and sees how the comet's light have destroyed the past and is doing the same now. The people around Angkor Wat is starving as the food have disappeared and some even turns to demons (I wonder if the food is referencing some kind of real world food shortages in South East Asia, like Cambodia?), the ancient Mu palace was overtaken by vampires, the Roleks company is partaking in a world spanning slave trade originating from the desert town of Dao and Kara's father sends the hunter Jackal after them in order to obtain the powers Will possess for himself. In the floating city we see people partaking in a Russian Roulette game of poisoned drinks where the loser even though he has a child on the way still drinks the poisoned glass and everyone around begs him to stop. Will himself isn't always that good either since a side-quest that span the whole game is finding these 50 red jewels and give them to the jeweller for power ups and a secret area and boss. One of the gems is snitching on an escaped slave to the slavers, and the slave and the ones hiding him disappears. And the Jackal? You burn him to death by activating a trap in the pyramids. The scene is rather gruesome!

FIRE! I take you to burn!

Gameplay wise, you go around towns until you get to go to a ruin where you traverse it solving puzzles and fighting monsters. Clearing all monsters in a room gives you a stat boost in either life, strength or defence. Will fights with a flute and can play musical melodies as well as being more acrobatic with slides and spinning jumps. Will can also change into two different forms helping him. First is the dark knight Freedan that is stronger and can reach switches further away and then Shadow, the one destined to fight the comet in the end and can go through floors. Used in only one dungeon and for the boss rush at the end, making it feel like the game was rushed a bit. They also just gives you the final mystic statue so you can reach the comet, but I wonder if they where supposed to put in Stonehenge as well as a final stage since they show it in the intro.

Overall, it was a fun game. Graphics are nice, music is good, and the gameplay is rather good. It wasn't that hard, but that could be due to having a guide at the end of the manual showing you every red jewel and some strategies for defeating the early bosses. So I wasn't cheating since the game came with it... maybe the save states actually count towards it, but mostly it saves me maybe one day of play. Would I 100 % it again? Maybe not, getting the red jewels only serve to connect the game with its spiritual predecessor Soul Blazer... which I probably wont get since it goes for over 1 000 SEK (ca € 100). It also is very linear so no instant re-playability I would say. Also, I question if it's actually an RPG, yes you have stat increases, but they are predetermined by killing all monsters in every room, so I would define it more as an action adventure.