Things I Liked About Brain Lord

- Being accompanied by party members in an action RPG, but not having them at my side was a neat twist. Instead they appeared throughout dungeons, kind of reminding me I wasn't alone even though I basically was exploring alone.

- I liked its sense of personality for otherwise being a pulpy action RPG - the item descriptions, various NPCs, or just the funny things like not getting any loot from the first dungeon because your friends broke into the treasure room from the back while you went through the boss in the front. Stuff like tables being smashable, or NPC personalities being told through the decorations in their house are nice.

- The hints in the dungeons' rooms felt like.. friendly in a 4th-wall breaking way. Something funny about all the random puzzles. Idk. It felt like someone just showing me some cool stuff. I guess this didn't always help the world's overall feel, but I appreciated it didn't feel too self-serious.

- The interconnected world. I liked how it never zoomed out to show a world map, instead it just feels like there's a little tale being told about the area around these two neighboring towns. Reminded me of Ys 5's world a bit.

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The level design style is worth noting - the game is literally two towns, a few small fields and then five 4-floor dungeons. It's funny how some of these are accessed - one through bug tunnels under the town, another through a hole someone was digging under their shop.

I think the levels' pacing felt a little long - of all things, reminding me of my game Even the Ocean (its platforming-hevay levels are usually split into 4 big chunks, played one after another). The problem with ETO was there wasn't much sense of drama going from chunk to chunk, so it could feel like 40 platforming ideas laid out end to end.

Likewise, in Brain Lord, the levels sometimes fail to feel like "climbing higher into a tower," etc. I really like the idea of these huge dungeons with warp points in between them, but there was something to be desired with actually conveying the feeling of "Tower of Light" or "Platinum Shrine" or "Ice Castle". That being said, each level DID have unique spatial qualities that made them feel like their names, it's just I think they overall start to get kind of long, with many staircases going between floors. The issue is that it starts to feel like a labyrinthine maze - fine if that's the narrative theme of the dungeon - but it's not, so there's a weirdness there.

I also have a number of complaints about combat or level design mechanics, but I'll leave those out, overall it was a charming game!

More often than not, the Shinobi series liked to jump around and try different things instead of finding its footing with truly iterative sequels (ever play The Cyber Shinobi or Shinobi Legions? The latter is better than it looks, promise!), so Shadow Dancer is all the more valuable for that reason. It was the one time they looked back at what they had accomplished and said, "how can we directly improve upon this?" Revenge of Shinobi to Shinobi III and the PS2 Shinobi to Nightshade could be argued to be iterative sequels, but in my mind, they make different enough choices that there's just enough riskiness in the design so that they're not totally iterative. If you like the original Shinobi, I'd be incredibly surprised if you didn't like Shadow Dancer, and if you ask me, it's a straight improvement upon the original arcade classic.

One thing worth noting is that the arcade version of Shadow Dancer is a different game from the Genesis version. The Genesis version is probably a bit superior overall, I'd say, but they're close enough in quality that playing both is my recommendation. There aren't all that many Shinobi-likes running around, so why not enjoy both?

Shadow Dancer really isn't much different from Shinobi, but the things it adds make a notable difference, the main one being the addition of a dog companion. Not only is that inherently cool because it's a dog, it adds a really nice layer of strategy that the game takes full advantage of. Your canine friend can be sicced on an enemy to stun them and leave them open to attack. This is great for reducing the amount of attacks coming your way if you need to handle a pincer situation or if you're not quite sure how to get past a trigger happy enemy. It's not a foolproof thing, though, because the dog can be hit by enemies and rendered unusable for just long enough that his absence will get you killed. Thus, you need to know what enemies to sicc him on and when to keep him at your side for something that might come up later. Enemies that use guns are a prime target if they're not crouching, whereas enemies with shields will usually knock him away before he can do anything. He's an unlimited resource, but not one that's without flaws, lending Shadow Dancer an interesting ebb and flow that gives it an identity when compared to the original game.

Shinobi, like Rolling Thunder before it, is all about approaching an engagement from the right angle or with the right timing. Combat itself is little more than just pressing the button because you and everyone else are taken out in a single hit, but how you choose to start the battle is the difference between cleanly surviving or ending up in an unavoidable deathtrap. Shadow Dancer uses the addition of the dog to provide new kinds of situations that strongly encourage a calculated approach. A lot of the level design is even more vertically oriented than in the original, which leads to plenty of situations where the enemy has the high ground or you're "forced" to step down into an obvious trap. Normally, these situations could be cheap, but having your dog friend lets you get the jump on them in ways not possible. That risk is ever present, though - what if you use the dog to get past the next segment only for the next one to throw a jumpscare at you that would be way easier if he wasn't on cooldown? Well, that's where the game's place as an arcade title comes into play; you're gonna die, you're gonna have to learn where enemy placements are, but once you do, you really can take out every single foe with surgical precision and the exact right allocation of resources just like a ninja should.

Beyond that, Shadow Dancer plays it faithful. You've got four areas, including caves, an airport, a bridge, and sewers, boss fights, and a between level minigame that feels like it's impossible even though it surely isn't. The aesthetics are totally on point, as you'd expect from a Sega game, so much so that there's graffiti on one of the walls that literally says "Sega Aesthetics"! There's a dark, grungy vibe to Shadow Dancer that's far removed from Sega's blue skies reputation, but it really works for creating an atmosphere of tension, one where you never quite know what's going to jump out at you. The bosses are an interesting batch, too, the most notable of which being a robot train thing and the final boss, who summons these weird, tiny floating ninjas at you? It's very strange and actually made me laugh out loud the first time I saw it, I'll admit, but when she drops the act and comes at you herself, it goes from funny to nightmarishly difficult!

Shadow Dancer is everything good about the original Shinobi and more. The dog adds a lot, the level design is even more thoughtful, the visuals are improved, the new power-ups instill even more variety, and the difficulty is more reasonable. They even cut out the "preventing continues during the last boss without warning" thing that nobody likes! Though Shadow Dancer ultimately wasn't the future of the series and isn't on the level of Revenge or Shinobi III, it's still a quality game worth running through at least once. There are different schools of design one can apply to Shinobi, all of which proved to be successful in their own ways, so having a "definitive" version of the original style in the form of both Shadow Dancer games is a very nice thing to have. Even if you prefer the later Shinobi games, heck, especially if you do, you should really give this one a try to get a better idea of how the series became successful in the first place. Sometimes, it takes thoughtful iteration on something to understand what choices are timeless and which ones need to evolve with the times before you can really go wild with future ideas. You gotta practice your dancing before you can become a master, after all!

Soundbox Companion

Ok you can so what you want about this being another dumb Nintendo game or just a shitty outdated platformer or a childrens game or whatever but let me speak my truth here.

Teaching somebody the 16 star speedrun at my dingy home would unironically be more intimate than the most depraved sexual fantasies I could think of. Teaching somebody how to BLJ would be so hot, I would kiss their feet after they succeeded at it.

This is not a joke, if you haven't tasted the speedrunning world of this game you're missing out on a huge part of its appeal. If you're a really close lady friend of mine I would show you how to do it no questions asked. I been thinking this in the back of my head for over a month now. It will probably be a genuine part of my dating life going forward and I'm not sorry for that in fact the reason I'm even saying this is to make room for the fact other people might also feel like that. It also has the best sound design I've ever heard in my entire life. They gave the pirahna plant a lullaby theme song that you activate by stepping into its aura. This is an incredibly experimental sound design decision that you dont see in contemporary gaming. They would try to imitate this lullaby effect 10 years later with Galaxy via a cutscene transition into Rosalina reading a book for to the lunas but because of the diversion in interactivity, it left Rosalina feeling like a maternalistic overlord. In this way I would argue a lot of contemporary game design is extremely parental, its having an event happen towards you that you have to accept. The pirahna plant lullaby is spontaneous and you only have to accept it as long as you are within the boundaries of that space, you can leave it whenever you're tired of it. I think there's a genuine romance in the design of SM64 that's worth exploring, but it cant be done by me alone.

Klonoa had a nice resurgence in appreciation last year with remasters of his most beloved Playstation adventures, but his other journeys remain in the past and are more likely to be forgotten. Some might not be familiar with them, but there were three GBA games, a volleyball game(!), and Moonlight Museum. The "2" might make this a bit surprising, but not only was Moonlight Museum developed alongside Klonoa 2, it actually came out before it, making it the actual second Klonoa game! The lack of a 2 in its title is justified, though, because Moonlight Museum tells a smaller scale and lighter story while also being a shift in overall design philosophy compared to its predecessor and where 2 would end up going with its increased focus on "action" and setpiece-esque levels.

Klonoa has always had navigation-focused puzzles and a lean towards thoughtful and "slower" gameplay compared to something like a Mario, but Moonlight Museum really takes it to the next level. Gone are the boss fights and 3D visuals. The music is significantly more limited and the Wahoos are crispier and crunchier than any piece of fried chicken you can find. The story is still there, but it's more abstract and philosophical, focusing on the relationship between dreams and art instead of a more straightforward "save the day" narrative. Ultimately, it's all about the puzzles pretty much all the time and the lack of audiovisual splendor might disappoint people coming off of the beautiful console games, but if you take this game as it is and let it do its own thing, you'll be rewarded with a very well designed and complete experience.

Every level tasks you with collecting three star pieces, which are scattered about the level and hidden behind puzzles to solve. Many of these puzzles, especially early on, can just be a matter of finding a way to jump high enough like how you would in the original game, whether it be with enemies or blocks, but if there's one thing this game excels at, it's making use of every little thing it has hidden up its sleeve to concoct expansive puzzles. Every world introduces some kind of new gimmick to make things trickier, such as wind currents that always blow you upward unless they're blocked, blocks that can be pushed but not picked up, and explosive enemies that blow up on a timer once picked up. The game also makes use of the Wonderswan's form factor to make some stages horizontally or vertically oriented. This doesn't significantly change the gameplay, but the choice is utilized to gently accentuate the level design in effective ways. If a level has a lot of vertical movement, it'll probably make you hold the Wonderswan vertically, which lends itself to a more comfortable perspective for what's on offer. Each world builds up the complexity surrounding each of these mechanics I mentioned in a natural way so that the early levels are easy, but the later ones require a full understanding of all your options.

For example, throwing an explosive guy and letting the timer tick down is easy, but what if you have two with different timers? Can you juggle those timers with having to move them across the room and into specific locations that may require navigating past wind currents or lining up blocks? What about having to do that while spiked enemies try to get in your way? If the explosion doesn't reach your target, can you set up arrow blocks to redirect the explosion while also making sure to do it in time? I probably don't need to belabor the point any further, it should be obvious by now that these puzzles can get devious! Don't let that scare you too much, though, because the nastiest tricks are reserved for the EX stages, which are unlocked after finishing the game.

The EX stages really expect you to think outside the box when they're not introducing challenging platforming sequences with high stakes; one particular moment requires you to take advantage of a specific (physics, I guess?) interaction that's never necessary to acknowledge beyond an exclamation of "oh, neat" otherwise! Normally, Klonoa can't grab things if he's in a narrow corridor because of how he holds things above his head, but if you grab an enemy and then quickly move into the corridor before the animation completes and moves the enemy above Klonoa, the enemy will be squished down and allow you to carry it in the narrow corridor. When the game asked me to do this to get a bomb through a corridor with spikes preventing me from just throwing it through, you can probably imagine that this took me a while to figure out!

Even when Moonlight Museum is at its most challenging and mentally taxing, it never gets frustrating because of how concisely and smoothly designed it is. Levels are never too big and Klonoa's immediately available verbs are limited enough that the range of actions you can take never feels too overwhelming. Levels have a linear, guided flow to them that allow the player to easily tell if they missed something. If they get to the exit without having all three stars, they know exactly what they missed, and the 30 crystals per stage that can be used to unlock gallery images are often used in ways that guide the player to points of interest or extra areas that offer more challenging optional puzzles. Lives and health are generously placed and there aren't any time limits given to clear stages, so you can take as long as you need to pick up what the developers were putting down. Like I said, this game is all about the puzzles, and every single choice made ensures that those puzzles are engaging without being intimidating.

It's so remarkable how consistent this game is that it bears repeating; the difficulty moves at the exact perfect pace so that every mechanic is given enough time to breathe, levels are always around the same length and never overstay their welcome, and just the right number of elements exist to make puzzles varied and interesting without being too overwhelming or tedious. There's even a convenient retry option that'll reset any room! Two of the GBA games, Empire of Dreams and Dream Champ Tournament, build upon this game's formula and add back things like boss fights and those hoverboarding sections, but I still think there's something to be said about this one's admirable level of focus. Like the many great puzzlers on the Game Boy, this game has very specific ideas that it wants to express to the player, and everything in the game is focused on doing just that. There aren't any wild swings here, nothing to distract from the gameplay loop, and those who love spectacle might find it to be a bit "bland", but if you're feeling what Namco was feeling and want to see the brain-teasing fundamentals of Klonoa pushed further than they've been, you'll love getting absorbed into Moonlight Museum and will appreciate the artistry on offer.

this came out in late 2019 and it really feels like a summation of an entire decade of gimmicky indie “one clever mechanic” (which i also call "1cm") puzzle design of the 2010’s to me. i almost imagine this game as being a statement about that type of game in general, in some form. but perhaps that’s me imposing my own reading onto it. more recently in this genre we got Viewfinder. Superliminal is snappier and more innovative than Viewfinder. it’s more The Stanley Parable/30 Flights of Loving than a game with discrete puzzles like Viewfinder - there are bunch of different simple scenario designs that are run through at a rapid pace, and the boundaries between them are basically nonexistent. the puzzle design gimmicks go further than something like Stanley Parable also - there’s a real focus on constant mind bending moments. and that’s legitimately cool! …at least for awhile.

because it’s a constantly shifting reality, there is seemingly never any interest in making the place you’re in feel real and tangible. once you’re used to these kinds of design tropes being used over and over, they fail to really move you anymore. and the writing never really approaches being coherent or contextualizing anything you’re doing in an interesting way - because the game seemingly has no interest in that. it’s a tech demo designed to be “mind bending” and push buttons, and it does succeed at that - but it’s underwhelming if you were expecting any more from that. even like Portal or The Stanley Parable, which are pretty one-note in many ways, at least have concepts in the fiction that are more immediately graspable and relatable. a lot more tools in the toolbox were used to make Superliminal than those games - and they’re cool tools! it’s the kind of stuff the Doom wad “ALT” or some other weirder Doom levels (like “Myhouse” for that matter) do that i like, but in a hyper-concentrated form. there’s a lot to be gained from that. but it’s not really clear for what purpose they’re being used. it feels directionless. at the end of the day you're wandering a bunch of nondescript rooms and hallways that are kind of hard to pretend are anything but something there to set up the puzzles.

here’s something about this particular approach to game design - like you’re Jules Verne unraveling the mysteries of the deep, or Werner Herzog filming in the jungle. approaching game design like it’s a kind of science, something inherent to the nature of being that you’re unraveling through your curiosity. it’s something that i find both admirable and completely delusional and un-self-aware. it’s a kind of macho attitude, but for a certain type of insulated programmer nerd. games like this offered a promise of a glimpse into something deeper, but rarely surpassed going beyond “huh, that was cool i suppose” because it was coming from people who worship the idea of technological exceptionalism and were thus uninterested in contextualizing it in larger art history. the insights to be gleaned were all very polished gimmicks rubbing up against each other in a consumer-friendly package intent on planting the seed of Deep Game Design in the minds of players - because that, in itself, was somehow powerful. Videogames Matter, folks. Videogames Can Do Things! videogames are technology, and all problems with technology can be eventually brained to death.

perhaps this approach works in some ways - Braid got me back into following games, after all. but if it does it’s less so because of the end result, but merely because they’re at least attempting to be something different than a majority of games… and that at least makes them stand out from other things.

but yeah - in that way i think Superliminal really embodies a lot of design trends of that era, many of which were on their way out by the time it came out. like i said it’s more expressive and innovative than Viewfinder - but i’ll also give that game credit, i feel like that one least it was trying to say something larger with the story that this doesn’t. even if it was clumsy. i’m not sure what Superliminal has to say about anything beyond “look at what we can do”. and that’s a real bummer, because in isolation - completely removed from the context (or lack thereof) of the game, i liked a lot of things about Superliminal.

but speaking of “My House” - i feel like that takes very similar ideas and actually does the whole thing much better, because there’s a really strong sense of angst and pathos there that never is remotely in this game. that’s perhaps the direction i can imagine more of these games taking in the future - the sort of hauntology angle vs. the “i’m a great scientist unraveling the secrets of the universe” one.

Loved this to bits -- it's solid and excellent, in a subtle way. A few notes:

- This isn't Final Fantasy VII -- dungeons are numerous, mazey, long, and chock-full of random encounters. Multiple times the main story pauses until you go to two or three dungeons (in any order) to get the required plot tokens. This is bad if you see rpg dungeons as an unpleasant obstacle in the way of progressing the rpg story. But I loved the combat system, and I was in the mood for a classic, dungeon-y, meat-and-potatoes jrpg, so I had a really fun time.

- Small cast sizes are good! There are only six playable characters, and they all get plenty of time to shine throughout the story. I semi-recently played FF9 and Xenogears for the first time; both those games have much bigger casts, and both drop the ball with many of their characters. There are no Ricos or Freyas here, characters with a couple good scenes early on that have nothing to do otherwise. The skits, added in the PSX remake, obviously go a long way in helping me further connect with the characters. Their ending resolutions, and the extended pre-final dungeon scene in Early, cemented them in my heart as an all-time favorite rpg cast. (The excellent, playful writing in the Phantasian Productions patch also definitely helped.)

- The main villain is introduced in the first seconds of the game, and he stays the main villain for the entire story. There's no bait-and-switch, no big twist. There are two main act break setpieces, one about three hours in and one about twenty hours in, that each further establish the villain and develop your relationship with him. When I got to the finale and the full arc of his story was revealed to me, I was really moved. A big part of that is that they didn't pull a new villain out of their ass for the final boss -- this is Dhaos's story from start to finish as much as it is Cress and co.'s, and that's a rare feat for an RPG story.

The only other Tales game I've played is Vesperia, and it frustrated me because of its extremely long, sloppy story full of dropped threads and its very easy fighting. Phantasia was the perfect antidote -- it's more tightly focused, and the dramatic fights kicked my ass. I have a lot of friends that adore Tales; I'm really happy I found the right game to invite me into the series.

CN: Shower Thought

Bookshelf Companion

"As all partings foreshadow the great final one, so, empty rooms, bereft of a familiar presence, mournfully whisper what your room and what mine must one day be. " - Charles Dickens, Bleak House

About a month ago I moved out of my parents house for the first time, and I just want to say I'm very glad I played this first before I moved out because I absolutely would have done what the text here depicts. In Minimalist (2017) you pick everything up to get rid of it, and then you are left with an empty space afterwards.

For a very short time period in 2018 I fell into a few different rabbit holes. I was out as a girl to most of my online friends but still struggling to convince the rest of the irl population I was (depressingly, I still deal with this). Most of those rabbit holes are rather dark, Otakudom, Scientism, interest in reactionary arguments (ie the peterson religiousity trap, skepticism of NB people, etc.). These are all terrible, there was a lot to like about me in this time and I wasn't some horrific bigot but I was a dumb suburban white girl with no political compass. A seemingly more benign interest was in the Minimalist movement, as a lifestyle and aesthetic. A mixture of literal CEO mindset shit like wearing only 1 shirt, and living space decisions like abandoning as much furniture and extraneous shit in your life as you can. I watched stupid ass movies like Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things (2016) on netflix. Consume a bunch of youtube videos which were an aggregate of Tiny House glorification, lifestyle aesthetic videos that showed bedrooms as if they were hospital chambers, and a touch of 'minimalist philosophy' like thinking Diogenes of Sinope was the only good philosopher because of his dedication to 'minimalism'. To illustrate here's a genuine excerpt of what I said from around the time to my girlfriend in support of how I have a smaller rating scale:

"Like in my opinion I've started realizing that minimalism is more or less how I already operate

I'm all about trying to focus on 'good' art, 'good' people (though that can be a tad more complex), etc.

Minimalism is all about trying to focus on what you like, what's helping you in life

Trying to enjoy that, and then discarding the clutter"

In retrospect this plays right into the insecurity about having 'good mental hygeine'. You see it all the time in reflexive anti consumerist sentiments. Later that same year I would buy a bunch of 'girly clothes' and throw a good 3/4ths of my boy wardrobe in the trash. 'Thats it, I dont need anymore things'. This seemed like a logical step of maturity from understanding how my family threw away all the gamecube game boxes and put it in a giant CD case. They even threw away the gamecube itself because logically, the Wii can run all that stuff now anyway. While I heavily disagree with doing that now, at the time I thought well thats minimalism isnt it, no need to keep plastic trash around the house. The problem is that logical next step would be to throw away every game disc for the playstation or xbox since the computer can technically run it. Why not take this 'digital nomadism' to its logical extreme? Why have any objects at all?

...

Well, it's not like I had some profound realization from playing Minimalist, by this point a half decade later I already recognized how silly and empty it is to have no furniture. Hell, if anything woke me up to it its probably the opening of Cruelty Squad (2021) which depicts just how pathetic and depressed doing that actually is. However, Minimalist did make me recognize that I probably shouldn't just abandon everything. I brought some books I loved from before I left, I haven't touched them at all because I read most of my books online but its nice to know that they are there just in case. More importantly, I had panicked about how many loads of laundry I have to do and that I should trash 3/4ths of it again, but this jolted me from following up on that.

More broadly, Minimalist is short and small, to the point its almost unsatisfying. These 'one room' bitsy games are, by accident or intentionally in direct commentary with the first ever bitsy game released Where did I put it? (2016) by Patrick Hale. In which you explore your small space to find something abstract you lost in messy home. Here, its inverted to be an attempt to lose everything. To lose the ego attached to 'objects' rather than trying to find it. Here's what I think is clever though, there's an emptiness in BOTH texts due to a lack of an ending. In one you find out what you're missing but never find it properly, theres no end credit loop like in other bitsy games. Here, you lose that, but you also lose the ability to prompt any more dialogue boxes since you just got rid of all the objects by interacting with them. In Where did I put it? you can technically loop the dialogue thoughts forever in an infernal mindtrap, here you have the opposite, the infernal mindtrap in not having mental prompts.

Every time you choose to own or release an object from your home, you're making an implicit decision of 'memory' just as much as of identity. Having an object anchored lets you remember what you had, so the allure of digitizing all of these memories into the computer makes sense in theory but the problem is the complexity of it never quite goes away. In 2020 or so I lost every single piece of memory stored on my computer. The reaction images, pictures of discussions I had with my ex, etc. It was devastating. Made worse by the fact I just broke up at the time with her and found out that my old discussions with her in Skype are lost to time. At least my version of skype, I lost everything. In a way this is privileged, because most people have more serious versions of this that are marginalized. Being kicked out suddenly from their home, having an abuser destroy their objects, having to flee in a war. By that reasoning, I've come into this realization of memory in its relationship to objects a little late.

On the literary level, I always knew it was there. Yet never really wanted to accept it personally, because I'm a 'digital girl'. However as both these texts accurately represent there is no real distinction between physical hoarding and digital hoarding in both how objects can arrest you and in how 'freeing' from them is just as solemn. I could just as easy consider these databases a form of memory hoarding. At any moment I could panic about how I 'dont remember anything' and try to frantically categorize what I played, listened to, and watched. I've experienced so much art at 25 that its running that panic of incoherent clutter, and odds are if you're reading this the same is likely true for you to. I'm failing in for instance movie trivia and constantly feeling I need to play catch up and create flash cards, only to then simplify it. One day I'll spend trying to categorize every 3D platformer I've played and want to play, the next I'll say to myself 'ok fuck it, only 3D mario matters now or whatever'. Do you remember everything? Or do you like me often find yourself checking quietly in a tab to make sure you're getting the information right? How good is your recall? What is really forgettable to you and how do you organize the stuff you want to remember?

Anyway, I could waffle about this all day to no fruition, but instead I want to just point out something. In Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy (2001) you have long voice acted cinematic conversations with the NPCs to move the story along, they are entertaining and endearing. However when you try to speak to them after they tell you what to do, they simply will not talk to you or repeat themselves. They'll tell you basically to leave them alone and go do this. The first time this happens its surprising, because the norm is that you should be able to talk to the dialogue givers for repeat information whenever you want. Similarly to expectations, a person who has played a lot of early JRPGs and point and click games, are going to find the lack of objects you can look at and get dialogue from in Chrono Trigger equally suprising. Yet in both these games it makes sense to do without even though it leaves behind an 'eeriness' for the player. The player being forced to either remember or recognize that they are bothering is more immersive. These 2 games, Minimalist and Where did I put it are not immersive by comparison, they comment on videogame form itself. It's limitations and how those limitations can reflect onto the player. See, this comment response the author left on the page is in my view the real ending.

"Thanks! I wanted the 'end' of the game to be a time to reflect, since there's literally nothing left to do since you've willingly got rid of everything you own. I felt like explicitly stating the character's reasoning to the player would detract from the player coming to their own conclusion. Yours is totally valid, but others might have thought of something else- maybe the character is going off to become a monk? :)"

The real end game is being so distressed that you try to interact with the creator to find a catharsis for the fiction to make sense. Because the 'ending' of the game in the text is so unreal that you cant ever feel certain its really there. After playing enough bitsy games now I've realized not having an ending is just a running bit between these people, probably a satirical response to the 'looping' thats built into the engine when it does end. You'll have to find closure somewhere else. Yet outside of this we should be comfortable with the prospect that we might just be missing the conclusion, or that there never was one in the first place. Not every memory exists to be recalled evenly, and not every game exists to be concluded upon. It's both the great curse and the benefit of gaming as an art form that it brings with it an ambiguity of intentions and expected results. Sometimes its better to just be at peace with it, for instance there was never any 'conclusive' aspect of Gasters in Undertale, yet its there and in many ways that unknown quality makes the game better. At the same time if it doesn't make sense I feel strongly that its fair to think it may be a sly commentary within genre conventions.

In closing, both these games are 'forgettable' except in rare shower excursions, but to lament or feel shame for the mental clutter they bring is silly. It was an experience that happened so theres no use in drowning it just to try and find the top ten list of all games of all time. One should not be so quick to expunge themselves of all consumption or desperately organize it for ego alone. I think its better to just let it all float out there like the junk it is. I'll keep my wardrobe intact, and my word of advice is that you probably should to.

"Actually you can not forget what has happened to you. So, don't trust your memory" - Negativland, This is Not Normal


* I never finished it. I took a 400 course I failed because I was supposed to read through this and couldn't stand it. However, it sounds appropriate enough and that's what matters. Originally I was gonna quote Trainwrecks being mad at somebody in his chat for calling his house empty but I couldn't find the clip. The only reason I mention this is because it reinforces my point about 'mental clutter'. I watched that clip at some point and now I cant fucking find it, I spent 20 minutes trying to do so before giving up. I don't even like the guy I just thought it was funny but whatever, thats life. "So it goes" - Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse 'Wrong about the events of Dresden ' Five

Well, I finished it... this feels even more ridiculous than Hydlide 1 did to me. Thanks to the GameFAQs guide!

First off, it's much much longer - maybe 3-4x as long as Hydlide 1? The game achieves this by dividing the game roughly into 3 acts - training in the overworld, exploring the dungeons, then diving into the final dungeon. It's an interesting structure - you basically will die in even the easiest dungeons without some MP and a few levels and equipment, which feels different than the usual RPG flow today, weaving between dungeon and overworld.

Enemies barely drop money at first, so the most feasible way to get this game to a playable state without hours of time grinding is to just use an infinite sell glitch. (Get a black crystal, then sell your whole inventory - you'll be able to sell the last item you sold over and over). Although, on reflection, it is possible to grind 'legit', but it will just take a while and it's easy to do it in a lot of wrong ways that will add hours of time.

The dungeon solutions were a lot more obscure than Hydlide 2. All switches and staircases are hidden, as well as various traps. You do get a heal spell, though, which makes going a bit easier, but you'll still be saving every screen because a bad enemy spawn could mean your death as most of the dungeons are narrow and twisty.

The overworld 'solutions' are just as bizarre: break a tombstone to allow a village to spawn, break a random rock to open a dungeon, attack a tree to find a key.

However, by the time the final dungeon rolled around it felt a bit like Hydlide 1 in the sense that I was able to actually grind in a reasonable manner, albeit slowly. Still, certain enemy behaviors and patterns (final dungeon enemies might shoot you through walls, track you very fast, block your way, put you to sleep, etc) actually felt like they were evolving with each level. I was pretty impressed in this respect. If this wasn't purely a tile-based game and had better motion actually it could be fun, maybe.

As for the dungeons.. well, most of them have the same blue brick tileset and music. The puzzles are almost all impossible to figure out without a guide, but following a guide was strangely satisfying. The movement is just unreliable enough that even following a walkthrough wasn't totally easy. Sometimes you're too low level and have to carefully maneuver around the enemies. There's all sorts of strange D&D traps that JRPGs would continue to use - poison trap rooms, trap doors, trap warps, trapped chests, hidden walls... Weird, unexpected design to the dungeons - such as one where a random spawning enemy drops the key - while impossible to clear on one's own, are memorable. Or, the mirrored dungeon where two devil twins spawn fast-moving fire elementals. Having an "action rpg" in this simple 2D perspective means that setpieces get expressed in this remarkably minimal but evocative way. (Even if it's hard to control...)

Lastly I did love (the idea) of the final dungeon. After speaking a password to a tree (lol) you can step into a puddle to be swept to a massive, underground ocean of sorts, with Kraken and Harpy-like monsters flying around. From there you dive into a massive labyrinth, its shape kind of reminiscent of a ruined castle or ruined town. There seem to be "alternate universe" versions of each floor, and you need to navigate through these to find crystals that will summon the help of a fairy, who can open a staircase to the deepest layer. It's a bit of an eerie feel, as monsters get stronger on each layer, and the rooms can feel weirdly sparse. The second-deepest layer has dragons arranged weirdly, like a triptych drawing of 'action rpg tropes'. A river of lava, some sandy ritual site, next to twisty mazes.

You progress through the game so slowly (and with such tedium) that it becomes memorable.

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There's more of a texture to Hydlide 2's world in terms of characters. You can talk to some 'enemies' - the humanoid ones - although they'll just say some stock phrase, and you'll probably accidentally attack them while trying to get close. There's a mostly pointless morality meter, which stops you from talking to shopkeepers if it's below 30%. Nothing much is done with this, but it is funny as some nonintuitive enemies lower it (Sand Worms, Thieves). It lowers a lot faster than it goes up, and it was a real pain point for me in my first hours of the game where I thought I had to grind on zombies in the overworld until I could raise my strength and buy armor. (And I did do this, sadly...)

All over the overworld, humanoid characters run around randomly. You can kill all of them, but you shouldn't, because of the morality system... It's strange how lively and chaotic Hydlide 2's world feels compared to the first. Sure, there's no story within the game, but the game is so short that I'm happy to just imagine one and it honestly doesn't need one, too.

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Lastly, equipment and magic. I didn't really use the spells, mostly because my emulator made it hard to press the function keys. And spells usually did like zero damage or it was hard to safely cast or aim them given how fast enemies move.

Equipment is bizarre - maxing your attack doesn't let you one-shot enemies. They'll still take a few hits at 0 HP before dying. Although you can get max gear by level 6-8 with the money glitch. Your inventory has a max capacity of 10 items, too, which is strange.. this game is strange..

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I was kind of stuck between rating a 3 or 4. But I'm going to say 4 just because I found the game inspiring even if it's sort of bad (worse than the first, too). This game has just as much absurd stuff as Hydlide 1, but maybe its length and tedium and grinding make it more memorable? Hard to say. I guess it's got me interested in Hydlide 3, and Rune Worth (the unofficial continuation), so we'll see. The way the Hydlide series embodies so much of the 'spirit' of D&D Fantasy Action RPGs is really interesting to me, even if they're unplayable without guides and kind of awful to control lol...

For me the game froze right before I triggered the final cutscene (lol). Which feels fitting to end this game.