To some, Hydlide's redemption. To me, a reminder of what already worked. Revived-lyde, if you will. /dadjoke
Nostalgia is a fickle thing to design around. Lean too hard on it and your game's core will collapse under the pressure of memories. Promise but under-deliver and you'll turn players off in due time. Fairune isn't a lot more than polished pastiche-cum-homage, but I believe it takes the premise of 1984's Hydlide & adjacent games to near its limits. All the old elements are here, just refined for a newer, more critical audience.
Yes, once upon a time in a land not so far away, game fans got a lot of enjoyment from the most basic of adventures with stat progression. Hydlide took its essentials from Tower of Druaga, placing that game's schoolyard secrets manifesto into a home play venue. This makes it difficult, if not frustrating to play today for anyone expecting what most consider intuitive design. That said, I think too many dismiss not just what Hydlide accomplished in its time, but how elegant it was & still is. Sure, you're bumbling around an overworld & dungeons looking for any possible hint towards progress. But in this way, it succeeds in mixing the classic adventure, puzzle, & dungeon crawling genres, creating a journey both timely yet archetypal.
If Hydlide's the role-playing adventure that canon forgot (or too quickly disqualified), then Fairune's the rejuvenation of all T&E Soft's game represented. I had so much fun traversing this small but detailed land, uncovering its oddities and flowing from one power tier to the next. Here, the nostalgia comes less from simply aping its predecessors, hoping for an easy connection to players. Rather, the excellently presented fantasy world & tropes convey a kind of pre-Tolkein fiction, both celebrated & demystified. Out with the enigmatic solutions, in with the peeling skin of what Hydlide sought to achieve.
The final boss becoming a classic arcade shooter is a bit too cute, though. (Even considering Hydlide creator Tokihiro Naito's own penchant for STGs, this was too on-the-nose.) And the game can only immerse you so much into this primordial high fantasy structure without iterating on its mechanics the way Fairune 2 does. But I think Skipmore's original throwback ARPG is a panacea for any discussions revolving around Hydlide & its place in game design history. The original J-PC game made a critical leap from Druaga's coin-feeding gatekeeping to a more palatable, individualized experience you could still share with friends & other gamers. Fairune recaptures the novelty, strangeness, and sekaikan that Hydlide's fans felt in the mid-'80s, just for today's players.
Even if I much prefer the sequel for how it posits a world where Hydlide's sequels didn't overcomplicate themselves to ill end, there's every reason to replay the prequel. Do yourself a favor and try this out for size. It might have you thinking twice about laughing off proto-Zelda examples of the genre.
Nostalgia is a fickle thing to design around. Lean too hard on it and your game's core will collapse under the pressure of memories. Promise but under-deliver and you'll turn players off in due time. Fairune isn't a lot more than polished pastiche-cum-homage, but I believe it takes the premise of 1984's Hydlide & adjacent games to near its limits. All the old elements are here, just refined for a newer, more critical audience.
Yes, once upon a time in a land not so far away, game fans got a lot of enjoyment from the most basic of adventures with stat progression. Hydlide took its essentials from Tower of Druaga, placing that game's schoolyard secrets manifesto into a home play venue. This makes it difficult, if not frustrating to play today for anyone expecting what most consider intuitive design. That said, I think too many dismiss not just what Hydlide accomplished in its time, but how elegant it was & still is. Sure, you're bumbling around an overworld & dungeons looking for any possible hint towards progress. But in this way, it succeeds in mixing the classic adventure, puzzle, & dungeon crawling genres, creating a journey both timely yet archetypal.
If Hydlide's the role-playing adventure that canon forgot (or too quickly disqualified), then Fairune's the rejuvenation of all T&E Soft's game represented. I had so much fun traversing this small but detailed land, uncovering its oddities and flowing from one power tier to the next. Here, the nostalgia comes less from simply aping its predecessors, hoping for an easy connection to players. Rather, the excellently presented fantasy world & tropes convey a kind of pre-Tolkein fiction, both celebrated & demystified. Out with the enigmatic solutions, in with the peeling skin of what Hydlide sought to achieve.
The final boss becoming a classic arcade shooter is a bit too cute, though. (Even considering Hydlide creator Tokihiro Naito's own penchant for STGs, this was too on-the-nose.) And the game can only immerse you so much into this primordial high fantasy structure without iterating on its mechanics the way Fairune 2 does. But I think Skipmore's original throwback ARPG is a panacea for any discussions revolving around Hydlide & its place in game design history. The original J-PC game made a critical leap from Druaga's coin-feeding gatekeeping to a more palatable, individualized experience you could still share with friends & other gamers. Fairune recaptures the novelty, strangeness, and sekaikan that Hydlide's fans felt in the mid-'80s, just for today's players.
Even if I much prefer the sequel for how it posits a world where Hydlide's sequels didn't overcomplicate themselves to ill end, there's every reason to replay the prequel. Do yourself a favor and try this out for size. It might have you thinking twice about laughing off proto-Zelda examples of the genre.