I find it kinda odd that I somehow managed to play this game... on it's 11th birthday. That was not something I planned LOL.

And now it's time to talk at length about a game that absolutely doesn't need to be microanalyzed.

Space Funeral is one of my favorite games of all time. It's got such an interesting mix of humor, wackiness, and this pane of deep sadness that it doesn't really hide. In a weird way, it's something that I think Space Funeral 2 actually captures really well, at least with how it ends. However, I think that the sadness being absent here really does more to hurt it for me than I think a lot of people would've realized. Something about the music starting when you first enter the Lion Forest, and that whole scene with the 20th Century Boy... and not even to mention the desperation of the starting town, that drab and dead feeling of nothingness, of pointlessness. Those kinds of emotions aren't present here. I feel, in my heart of hearts, that the developer must see the original as a wacky, goofy, energetic romp, because that's what this game is like. This just sits in such tall opposition to the original games' pain and sadness that gave the original its impact.

Now, that's not to say this game has no effort put into it. Quite the contrary, as the developer put work into making the battle and combat system actually present. In the original, battles were basically plot points, and there was really nothing stopping you from just spamming enter, which, in any other game would be obnoxious, but because the battles were so short and few, didn't really bug me that much. The lack of animations for moves also helped to speed things along. However, for every good thing this game does to the battle system, there's something else left in to hold it back. Battles are made to be longer, both by the fact that the character's speed stat is absolutely decimated, causing you to wait incredibly long between turns due to the active battle system, but also by the enemies being tankier and having them hit harder, putting more emphasis on healing in battle. However, the turns themselves go by incredibly quickly, lightning fast, because there's no animations for moves or skills. In the original, the lack of animations helped speed battles along, which already weren't super complicated to begin with. However, because the battles are longer here, the lack of animations makes battles really hard to comprehend since the text for moves stays on screen so short. And not to mention, enemies are much more plentiful on the screen and levels are much tighter and harder to maneuver, causing more battles to happen.

Relatedly, shops are placed in odd locations, with the mall in Murder 8 being full of items you can't get anywhere else, yet existing in an area with no enemies to get money from. So if you don't arrive with money in hand, you'd have to leave and go all the way back to it. Luckily, nothing is so dire that you need it for future battles. And on a similar note, there's coffin healing locations littered throughout different towns and levels, yet there's very little to indicate when one is coming or how long until the next one. I often found myself healing up after a battle, using all my items, just to find a healing den one room over. Again, more frustrating than anything else, but still annoying.

I also feel that the pace is incredibly odd. You absolutely fly through the first few areas, some only a few rooms/maps long. Which is sad, because some of the areas, like the sewer city, would've been really cool to see more of. Instead, you spend almost the entire second half of the game in this meat area. In the first game, there were certainly areas that felt like they were a bit longer than others, you spend a lot of time in Malice and the surrounding desert, but between the desert itself and the pyramids/castles, it feels more balanced.

And I feel like, ultimately, the biggest reason this game didn't hit for me was because it was just too long. Now, it only took me about two-three hours to complete. However, the original game is able to beaten in less than an hour. And the sloppy, messy, intense presentation as well as the floaty, unbalanced combat really lended well to that short timespan. You spend just enough time in each of the locations to really feel them, you get a feel of the NPCs and explore the tight locations and areas, and then you move on. You don't spend much time lingering, yet it still feels like you know these locations. The draw of the game comes from the writing and, honest to god, the stillness of it all. Riding the raft with Leg Horse comes to mind. But in Earth Birth, the maps are huge, towns are full of characters and wild levels are like mazes full of fast enemies. There's so much going on, and it draws attention away from the characters in your party. And on the topic of the writing, character-heavy conversations don't make use of face portraits OR nametags, making dialogue very hard to follow at times. At a certain point, as much as I hate to say it, I was no longer playing to see what happens, but to say that I beat the game. And that's never a good sign.

I also won't lie, going into the game, hearing about there being wild Libertarians, about science being evil, about herd mentality, and liver failure, and seeing those little fetus things in the sewer, I started creating all these expectations. Maybe, since we were just in an eyeball area, and the game is called 'birth', we'll explore weird takes on different parts of the body until we reach the womb (or rectum who knows). Maybe the game would have a dialogue about the failures of conservatism and how traditional values are inherently incompatible with the ever changing and progressing world of science. I mean, I know 'Earth Birth' is just a reversal of 'Space Funeral', but are there going to be any mentions of birth? Not even in a political sense, but in a 'rebirth' sense, about what it means to realize who you are and feel really born again. And ultimately... No, it didn't have anything interesting to say. At least not that I could parse.

So, TLDR...
The original SF doesn't overstay its welcome. It's short and sweet, and much more contemplative and quiet than I feel like people give it credit for. Between the bomb dogs and weed smoking draculas, there's a stillness that hangs in the air. It's very underdeveloped, but that's okay, because it carries in other aspects, and due to its brevity, nothing ever lasts long enough to bother you.

Earth Birth, however, does begin to overstay its welcome after a while. It doesn't quite understand the different levels of emotions portrayed in the writing, and attempts to make a Space Funeral that is much more of a 'game' than it needed to be. At the same time, it sets up a lot that it doesn't follow through on. The final boss can only be damaged by a single move, so the entire battle is just spamming that one move. It sets up ideas and concepts and then just seems to forget about them. The only through line I really saw be finished was The 256. And after you defeat the final boss, the screen cuts back to the characters, the screen flashes, and that's it.

This game isn't bad, it has enough of its own ideas and concepts, but it's just... not nearly as good as the first one. But the creator of the original, thecatamites, liked this one so much that they made it canon to the lore. So what do I know, clearly I'm missing something. ...Right?