My immediate answer was the game I’ve considered the best for years: EarthBound. But I’ve played some mighty fine RPGs since EarthBound cemented itself in my mind, Suikoden II, Mother 3, Final Fantasy V… Did EarthBound still hold up as the number one Animal King Takeover? I looked long at my affection and re-evaluated EarthBound’s place in the pantheon of video games and decided that hell yes EarthBound is the best damn RPG. Forget RPGs, it’s the best damn game ever, damn it! I pulled up all my passion and admiration and love for this old game and poured it into a gushy response.

I know the trend for the past few years when analyzing EarthBound has been to eschew anecdotal response and focus on a more academic approach. And that’s an important, if difficult task. So much of what makes EarthBound special is anecdotal in nature. The fan translation of Mother 1 + 2 is going to drop any day now and I figure that’d be a good time to play the game again and attempt a critical analysis of my own. So consider this an introduction, a purging of all the doe-eyed affection, before we move onto a more rational reading.

Warning: the following post was written out of passion and more concerned with conveying a personal experience than sparing the sentimentalities of the reader. It’s overwrought and sugary and should be taken with a whole shaker of salt.

A lemon wedge wouldn’t hurt either.

What is y our favorite RPG ever, and why?

EarthBound.

And here’s why:

In Dr. Mae-Wan Ho’s essay In Search of the Sublime she describes the first time she saw a performance of The Magic Flute.

The electrifying moment came when the Queen of the Night launched into her aria. I sat bolt-upright on the edge of the seat, and must have held my breath for the entire duration. My heart ached and tears welled up in my eyes. Her voice rang through me everywhere as though I had dematerialized into an exquisitely sensitive ethereal being that filled the auditorium. There was intense excitement, but also something supremely joyful and serene. No words can capture that charged moment but that I was in the presence of the sublime.

Sublime moments, she argues, are points where significant forms, in active engagement, create something akin to love.

“Love” is an overused and abused word, and hence thoroughly inadequate to describe the rich panoply of feelings that make up the aesthetic experience. Nevertheless, for those who have been fortunate enough to have experienced love in the sublime, it is indeed not dissimilar. It too, is a feeling of heightened awareness of being connected, not only to the loved one, but to everything else by sympathetic transference (of both sameness and contrast). The lover is indeed in love with the whole world. The loved one becomes a sign through which everything else, even the most ordinary and mundane, is known and loved afresh: the whole world takes on a new significance.”

The last time I played through EarthBound a line early in the game jumped out at me. Before Ness starts out on his big adventure his mother gives him some words of encouragement, including the advice: “Remember to ‘Go for it!’” I was stuck by the profound absurdity of this statement. Those quotation marks add so much. By including them Ness’s mother acknowledges the emptiness of her platitude and further cheapens the advice by not simply telling Ness to “go for it” (whatever “it” is) but not to forget to follow the hollow cliché. In five words we have a critique on the worthlessness of generic sanguine encouragement far more scathing than any photoshop of a “teamwork” encouragement poster ever was. But at the same time she is so sincere, so genuine with her support, that the sentence twists back on itself into an ouroboros of quiet, deep hilarity. Finally getting the joke, and the realization of what masterful writing this was, was a moment of sublimity.

Despite playing the game consistently since its 1995 debut it still took more than a dozen playthroughs before the “Go for It!” line distinguished itself for me. EarthBound is the only game where each repetition brings new revelation. It is a mine which never depletes, and with each unearthing produces a new and precious gem. There is so much than endears me to this game that goes beyond the usually ascribed appeal of wh-whackyness! and “It’s an RPG set in modern times with like baseball bats instead of swords and stuff!” Director Shigesato Itoi’s direct but rich and subtle script is only the beginning.

I marvel at how the graphics which seemed so primitive in ’95 have only become more timeless and iconic as the game ages; at how the music is affecting with both melodic and ambient tracks, both layered with a seemingly endless amount of samples and references; at the sound that a bicycle makes riding through a swamp.

While all these are well documented details adored by many players, EarthBound offers personal revelations as well. I was 14 when I first played the game, and though I first dismissed it as childish and simple, it lodged itself into my brain. One day I surprised myself by unconsciously humming the theme to Onett. I was impressed that this game I had found so distasteful had managed to imprint on me so strongly. One moment in particular captivated my memory: the trumpet player who stands on the cliff overlooking the sea playing Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9, Movement 2. Something about that haunting melody overlaid with the Onett theme sparked a powerful sense of nostalgia, despite having only played the game a few weeks earlier. This was the first sublime moment and because of it I returned to EarthBound with an open mind and an eager heart.

EarthBound has the unique and special property to engender nostalgia. Both for itself and within itself. To a large degree the plot is about recovering sweet memories, and there’s nostalgic quality in nearly every location. A sense of both goodwill and impending loss. The allure of EarthBound’s nostalgia is so strong that not even the game’s primary antagonist isn’t immune to its allure.

For several years after when I encountered a particularly beautiful or seductive place in nature I would call the spot one of “My Sanctuaries” after the gentle places of power in the game. Such was the strength of association between EarthBound’s special sense of nostalgia and real life discovery, beauty, and fleeting tranquility.

Since then I’ve made other happy discoveries within EarthBound’s mise en scene (for lack of a better term). These include the recognition that as you move through Onett to Fourside you also travel through a year from late summer to the hight of spring. Or that the noise in the background during Poo’s trail is the sound of Om. Unverifiable interpretations these may be, but for me they enrich and personalize the experience.

EarthBound is a game constructed out of small sublime moments. Or as the game itself says over a warming cup of tea, “like a great tapestry, vertical and horizontal threads have met and become intertwined, creating a huge, beautiful image.”

Devine as these moments are, none come close to the definition of sublimity as love. No, that moment comes, as it should, at the end. The main through-line of the game is that Ness is visiting his Your Sanctuary locations to gain enough strength to defeat an evil alien who has enslaved the earth in the future. At each location Ness receives part of a song know as “Eight Melodies.” It’s a beautiful song, though until it’s completed is filled with a considerable amount of discord. During the final credits a expanded version called “Smiles and Tears” plays while images from throughout the game pass in the background (there’s that nostalgic element popping up again). “Smiles and Tears” is a moving and profound end to the game. The perfect cap to an amazing ending. However, very very faintly, just as the music swells to a climax, a voice whispers “I miss you.” It’s so faint that many people miss it entirely. I completed the game at least ten times without hearing it myself. After learning about the line on the Starmen.net, and that it was Shigesato Itoi’s voice no less, I made sure to listen carefully the next time.

One of the main questions in the ‘Are Games Art?’ debate is if a video game can make a player cry. Most often this is couched in terms of narrative, that a game could tell such a moving plot with such compelling characters that the player would be moved to tears. While I’ve been moved by games narratives before (Mother 3 and Shadow of the Colossus spring to mind) I’ve never been close to crying.

“I miss you.”

When I heard those words for the first time I felt such a powerful upsweeping of emotion that I had to blink and wipe the back of my hand across my eyes. It may not have helped. People have speculated what this whispered message means. Is it Ness professing is desire for Paula? Is it a reference to Mother 3? To me it couldn’t be more clear. Here, this game which I have spent so much time with, have discovered so much about, which has influenced who I am and how I see the world, and which knows me by name, was telling me personally and singularly that it regretted that our time together was over. It was confirmation of a profound connection between me: player, audience, person and a immaterial collection of data and ideas put together by a man half the world away who I had never met. It’s hard to express the depth of my feelings. I can only echo the sentiment of Dr. Ho: no words can capture the moment I was in the presence of the sublime.

“The creation of significant form is an act of communion, of love between artist and nature, between artist and amateur, between amateur and nature. It is nature presenting nature to herself through us who are all of the same cloth, to reaffirm and celebrate that universal wholeness that is both the source and repository of all creation.”  -Dr. Mae-Wan Ho

“The importance of EarthBound isn’t found in its contributions to the development of the medium, but to the development of actual human beings who played it during their formative years.” -Michel McBride-Charpentier

I was bemoaning this change the yesterday during one of my many hour long commutes, regretting that while I love my son it would still be nice to have time to create. Even better would be creating and getting paid for it, rather than these night shifts at a job I tolerate just to make ends meet. After I was done with my little pity party I crawled out from underneath the porch, tossed away the empty bottles, and set out determined to make time gosh darn it!

I’m happy to say that work as resumed on Tales of the Supper Squid, Vol 1: The Case of the Missing Mario (tentative title). I’m not going to even guess when it will be finished. I still think if I could dive in it would be done in a month or two. But let’s be realistic. I don’t even know if it’ll be done before 2012. I’d like to think so. It’s nice to have goals.

I was a little afraid today when I cracked open the ol’ Super Squad file. I was worried the pages I finished last year would be terrible and I’d have to re-do them. Fresh perspective always brings the potential for cringes. Luckily, they were a delight! Each page made me laugh out-loud, which is my own barometer for if something of my own is actually worth showing to other people (not that it’s ever stopped me from throwing crap up on the Internet for everyone to see).  Re-reading the start of the book was great way to get excited about the project again and I jumped it with gusto.

I thought I would post a little bit of the process and hopefully get people interested. I would like to make some money on this project after all. Even if it’s just enough for a personal pan pizza.

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These days I do all my comickering in Manga Studio, a totally boss program that’s far better than its name suggests. Protip: You don’t have to use it for manga at all! Sometimes I’ll sketch out thumbnails on paper first (especially if inspiration hits at work, though this is rare) but I find it’s easier to work directly in the program. This way I know exactly what dimensions and space I’m working with. I’ll do most of my “writing” in the car or while walking the dog or waiting for baby to fall asleep. Basically anywhere except in front of a keyboard. Scripting out the action is too rigged for my tastes. It’s too hard to visualize changes. I prefer to get a strong idea of what direction the page is going to take, and then work out the details as they come up.

For example, I knew this page was going to set the scene for the bar and that Hammer brothers, and I knew that Mario was going to bust in all imposing like. But that the bar is a giant barrel with Diddy Kong as a waiter didn’t come until the last possible moment. Up to this point in the outline the bar has always been just a generic mushroom building. But breaking out the panels I knew I wanted an outside establishing shot, and something for the Hammer Brothers to do before Mario busted in. I wanted Mario’s entrance to be dramatic and so I couldn’t follow him entering from his point of view. Inspiration struck when I decided the second panel should have a Hammer Bro hitting on a girl, who quickly became Pauline from Donkey Kong, which informed the theme of the bar, and in turn generated the dialog that the Bro would say. It all came after I started laying down panels. This kind of writing I couldn’t accomplish if I was lay it out in a word processor.

Anyways, Manga Stupid automatically creates a sketching layer which is perfect for all this. Manga Studio automatically does a lot of great stuff that takes the tedium out of computer comics.

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Once I’m happy with the sketch it’s on to tracing. Remember kids, comics is 90% tracing. Chasing Amy lied to you. All you need to comic is trace.

I’ve got a couple of pen settings I stick to in Manga Studio. This is because I’m dumb and don’t know better.

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And lastly, dialog. I.E. the point where I misspell something and don’t catch it until it goes to print. Big thanks to Shawn and Adam of #talkingtime who helped come up with the pick-up line. I knew I wanted the Bro to make a bad pun about hammering, but per the course I only had half a joke. I took my normal tactic of getting someone funnier to write the rest for me. I’m not sure if this will be exactly how it reads in the final book. I’m still deciding if “’cause it’s going to get hammered” reads better. If 90% of comicking is tracing, than 90% of writing is going back and forth between minute differences that no-one but you will ever notice.

Well, I don’t know if this has been interesting. If not, thanks for indulging me. And look forward to Tales of the Supper Squid, Vol 1: The Case of the Missing Mario (tentative title) coming… sometime! It’s sure to be a barrel (get it?! olololol) of laughs. If nothing else you’ll get to see Mario naked. And that’s something!

That’s the Temple of the Young Raigan there. I’m not even sure how to describe it. It has more in common with a piece of modern art than it does a building. It’s like a landing platform, on stilts… with a head on top. That the architecture here is more to the service of design than function highlights the alienness of the Underworld (not that the giant polyps and speargrass nearby don’t). That the hero is known as the “Young Raigan” is-so far-the only story tie to Paladin’s Quest. In that game, the Raigans were a set of powerful figures from the distant land/planet/other dimension (the translation doesn’t make it clear) of Raiga. These (presumably old) Raigans are implied to have genetically engineered the various races to better survive on Lennus, to have brought magic to the common folk, and build the doomsday device that drives the action. Busy guys. If nothing else Lennus II promises to shed some light on just what Raiga is, and exactly what role the Old Raigans had in shaping the history of Lennus.

That’s all a ways in the future. In the beginning there’s no clear understanding of what the Underworld is and how it relates to Lennus at large. Nothing like a mystery to drive a fetch quest.

Lennus II is a beautiful game, and like Paladin’s Quest, rich in detail. For example, the rocky outcroppings on the Underworld’s cliffs are, on closer observation, revealed to be composed of repeating geometric shapes. Unlike Paladin’s Quest’s mountain ranges, these feel manufactured. There’s a technological aspect to them that contrasts with their function as landscape. Sharp angled zig-zaggy design was a motif in Paladin’s Quest that was associated with technology. Look at the wires and piping on the weird walky-talky object again.

These sharp right angles show up all over the place, but never in natural formations.

That the Underworld breaks this rule makes it unique even in the context of larger Lennus weirdness, and perhaps provides a clue to its origin. I’m still poking around in the Underworld, so we’ll see if my theory holds any water once the four deal-o’s are united.

Here in the obligatory fire dungeon is another little detail that impressed me. These wormy things (I forget what they’re called… Flat Worms, Fire Worms, Flat Fires… something) will try to inhale your party members. If they succeed the party member gains a status of “eaten” and you can see their legs sticking out the Flat Flat’s mouth. A totally unnecessary little thing, but I find it endearing.

I’m glad that Lennus II continues the tradition of ambiguity. Some houses have these things in them. Are they decorations? Stoves? Something of which the function can’t even be guessed? Lennus II never tells. This is an effective way of expanding the boundaries of the world. In Brickroad’s new Final Fantasy II LP people liked on how the background in the Watery Passage with the distant rivers and waterfalls created the illusion that the world was bigger than it was.

It’s very effective. There are places we can see, but can’t get to. So the world must be larger than it is. The artifacts in the houses in Lennus II do the same thing. They suggest lives beyond our comprehension, a world where people make and uses these things that we don’t-and won’t ever-understand.

Lennus II gives us a fascinating world to explore, one filled with wonderful details that imply all sorts of crazy possibilities. Let’s just hope that unlike Paladin’s Quest it gives us something interesting to do in it.

At first glance things seem to be right on course: flat-graphics, lousy translation, clichéd scenario. But then the hero steps outside and…

Oh.

Oh wow.

I can’t even describe what a shock that screenshot was the first time I saw it. It’s such a blow to expectations: the detailed, bizarre buildings that use flatness of the graphical style to their advantage (kinda like Earthbound), the weird-o bubble trees, and oh man those colors. Those colors! It’s like the Easter Bunny exploded. The moment I saw this screen I knew this conventional RPG would be anything but conventional.

And conventional it is! Hero accidentally releases an ancient world-destroying evil and has to wonder the land to defeat it. Along the way he learns that he’s the chosen one and the value of friendship and blah blah blah. Luckily, the setting goes a long way to redeem the game. Here’s why the original title of Lennus is the key to understanding. See, Lennus is the name of the planet where the action is set, and more than the by-the-number plot,or samey battle system, Paladin’s Quest is about the setting. It goes to great lengths (lots of unique sprites, crazy color pallet) to create a completely alien world. Sure, there’s… things… that could be seen as trees and mountains. But don’t have to be. They’re their own thing, as inscrutable as the giant walky-talky like structures in some towns. There is no reason or explanation for their presence. They just are.

Those big purple geometric shapes? Mountains, I guess.

What is that crazy thing?

My favorite otherworldly detail is the towns on the southern continent. Each one is composed of houses made of eggs, but no two town’s eggs are alike. There’s a throw-away line near the beginning of the game about how the different tribes of the south have been united. Do the different eggs have something to do with the different tribes? Is there a cultural significance to how the eggs are decorated? And why eggs? Where did they come from? They have no bearing on the game or the story. It’s completely ambiguous.

Strange, unexplained details like these imply a depth that isn’t there; that Lennus has a history beyond what’s in the game. There’s some implication that the various races–none of them human–share a common ancestor (this would explain shared traits like long ears and wacko facial hair). But then there are things that seem significant but are never commented on. Like how the two continents almost mirror each other, and how the “trees” on the northern one are full spheres but only half-deals on the south.

None of this has any bearing on anything besides aesthetics and feel. That’s why I think the title “Lennus” is so important. The game is about the world, the strangeness of it all, and the experience of something so unfamiliar. I find that I refer to the game as “Lennus” in my head and not the generic “Paladin’s Quest” title it got stuck with. By changing the title the translators changed the focus from an alien world to explore into a generic quest to endure. Or to put it more simply: Paladin’s Quest works better as a travel log than a fairy tale.

There was a Japanese only sequel appropriately titled Lennus 2. It promises to answer some of the questions raised in the first game, but as far as the plot goes, Pakadin’s Quest has things fairly well covered. It’d be a shame if Lennus 2 went out of its way to explain away the weirdness that is so appealing. But if the first hours are any indication, that’s not going to be a problem. Already the game is better looking and even more strange than the original.

Look at those things. Are they plants? Statues? Something else entirely? So far the only answers are the ones you imagine for yourself. I like games like this: ones that invite you to participate rather than just lay it all out for you. I’m looking forward to Lennus II and what is sure to be a literally undefinable experience.

You know it!

BEST THINGS OF

TWO-THOUSAND THING!

The thing about things in a thing that is a year is that there is too many to play all of them. I didn’t get to many of the triple-A, high-profile titles this year, and I’ve never even heard of the PS3 (whatever that is), so this list is biased towards the things I actually did play. This should be obvious but I feel like it still needs to be said, if only to preempt potential “no stupid Metroid Other-M has the best waggle you stupid!” comments. I wouldn’t know a thing about Other M and waggle, buddy, because there’s no way I’d be caught playing that piece of shit. That said:

Best Waggle

Winner: Super Mario Galaxy 2 – 2010 saw Microsoft and Sony desperately grabbing for some of Nintendo’s sweet sweet casual riches (for the second time in Sony’s case; how soon we forget the Sixaxis). But this is a case of the controller wagging the dog. Nintendo’s rivals don’t seem to realize that the prospect of flailing their arms around like morons isn’t what drew the masses to the Wii. Well… not entirely. Yes, Super Mario Galaxy 2 plays identical to its predecessor, but it showcases Nintendo’s motion-revolution at it’s best. Namely, the Wiimote as a virtual cursor. When the ‘mote is used to point and click it’s all blue skies and smooth sailing. Things start to get dicey once flail and gesture are involved. Mario Galaxy pulls it off with as much aplomb as possible. A quick flick of the wrist causes Mario to perform a spin move that can be used to attack enemies or slightly extend the distance and hight of a jump. It’s so smoothly ingrained that flicking the ‘mote is so section nature as to be just another button press. Any more waggle than this and I start to get weary. Remember how hard it was to pull of the shield bash in Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess? I fear that Skyward Sword is going be forty hours of frustration. Galaxy 2 earns props for being just about the perfect implementation of wacko controls on a weird old system.

Worst Place: Epic Mickey – Epic Mickey apes a lot from Galaxy’s control scheme. Same point & click interface for shooting (star bits in Galaxy, paint and thinner in Mickey) and same waggle to spin. However, something’s wrong with the recognition of the spin move. Where in Galaxy a slight flick of the wrist was enough to send Mario twirling Epic Mickey requires a much more hearty jostle. You practically have to pause and pump the Wiimote back and forth to get Mickey to spin around. Unfortunately, there are tons of destrucables in Mickey’s environments and the only way to break open the crates and barrels is to spin into them. Worse, there’s a delay between shaking the ‘mote and when Mickey starts his spin. So the intent of action doesn’t translate smoothly to the screen. This makes breaking barrels annoying and attacking enemies or getting that little boost to clear a jump frustrating. I know you’re trying to be edgy and dark, Epic Mickey, but I shouldn’t have to slap you around just to pull off basic platforming moves.

Best Platformer

Winner: VVVVVV – While Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Sonic Colors both impress and improve on previous series entries, no other game about jumping on things was more fun, had more nail-biting moments, and brought more satisfaction than VVVVVV. Hard as nails, but never punishing, VVVVVV takes a simple concept and explores it fully. Anyone who’s completed the “Doing It The Hard Way” gauntlet knows the pain and pleasure and obsessive focus VVVVVV engineers. If platformers are about moving through space no other game this year did it with more grace and invention. AAAAAA+

Biggest Disappointment: Mega Man 10 – Mega Man 9 took inspiration from Mega Man 2 and 3 and is arguably the best game in the series, for the follow-up Capcom turned to… Mega Man 4? 10 has some high points (Pump Man’s stage is one of the best in all the series’ long run) but coming off of 9 it couldn’t help but feel like a giant misstep. I’m glad it was made and I hope for more retro style Mega Mans in the future, but let’s not forget hard lessons learned so quickly, fellas.

Worst Place: Epic Mickey again – Between Epic Mickey’s wonky camera and sluggo controls the only bad thing about the game is actually playing it.

Best Final Fantasy

Runner Up: Final Fantasy XIII - I went into Final Fantasy XIII not wanting to like it, and walked away not really hating it. The setting’s interesting and the premise had potential. But blegh, the storytelling. When the chapter synopsis are required reading to know what’s going on there’s something majorly wrong. I’m all for dropping in the middle on the narrative and not over-explaining everything to the audience, but clarity should always be a goal of fiction*. A plot can twist as much as it likes, but the immediate action should be easy to follow. Look at The Book of the New Sun. It’s told in obscure language and so myriad in mysteries that multiple readings are needed to work everything out. But even if you don’t piece together who Dorcas is or what that castle in the sky was, the story of Severian’s accent to Autarch is always clear. But FFXIII’s so murky that have ground to stand on. Things make sense with the supplemental material, but it shouldn’t be needed. And the characters? I couldn’t stand a single one the stupid anime-heads animeing all over the place. Even cool-guy Sahz’s schtick got old fast.

I can’t comment on the battle-system or linearity as I didn’t get too far into it. I had fun with what I played but when I got to the white woods with Mopey and Angry and said “yeah that’s about enough of that” and powered-off forever. Like I said, I didn’t really hate it, but there wasn’t enough there to keep me engaged.

Pretty though! The best part was just standing around looking at things.

*Yes, yes, there are always exceptions. I’m looking at you, Finnegans Wake.

Winner: 4 Heroes of Light – A return to basics is just what this series needed. 4 Heroes dumps all the conventions from Final Fantasy VII on and provides one of the best Final Fantasies in years. It’s basically the anti-XIII: a breezy battle system that still has plenty of depth, a story that doesn’t trip all over itself  but succeeds because of charm, and characters I don’t want to slap every time they open their mouths. It’s also the most gorgeous game on the DS, a pop-up fairytale world composed of dollops of paint and just enough pixel crunch to give it that retro flavor. I’m a big advocate for long system life-cycles because usually by this time the pure graphical wow has become commonplace and so developers have to turn to style and design to wow. 4 Heroes has both in spades (see also: Final Fantasy XII, Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath, Shadow of the Colossus). Being a side-game, 4 Heroes can also get away with messing with tradition. What other Final Fantasy would have the balls to put a black mage in a top hat or an Orc in a frilly ascot? The only place the game stumbles is in the boring “hallways-and-right-turns” dungeon design. Otherwise, 4 Heroes is a gem from every angle, and developer Matrix Software’s best work. I can’t wait to see where they go from here.

Worst Place: Final Fantasy I and II iOS- Lazy ports of the PSP versions with bad controls and fucked up text. Think Square would release a patch to fix these issues? Of course not. Cash grabs of the worst sort.

Best Adventure

Runner Up: Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks – Nintendo hasn’t made a great Zelda in ages. Spirit Tracks doesn’t do anything to buck that trend. I admit it, it’s got problems. The training around, it get’s tedious, and fast; and the music repetition segments are game-stoppers of the worst. sort. But there’s some great dungeons (unlike that lousy Phantom Hourglass) and some real high points (the tracks leading to the water temple, dolphins walking on their tails, the pure joy of blowing that whistle). The majority of the time I spent with Spirit Tracks was with a smile from ear to ear.

Winner: NieR – Who would have though Cavia would make a great game? And sadly, it will be their last. Considering the improvement between NieR and Drakengard I can’t help but wondering how good their next game would have been. If Deadly Premonition is 2010′s sleeper hit, NieR is its cult classic. It’s a very strange, very sad game. Intelligent and daring, and with actual interesting characters who you both like and care about. NieR isn’t afraid to cut out the graphics and just be text for a while or turn a dungeon into a bullet-hell shooter. It let’s you drift around on the back of a giant boar for the hell of it. Striking design and haunting music. Seals on the fucking beach! Also: copious amounts of bullshit fetch-quests.

Best RPG

Runner Up: Just about all of them. 2010 was just stupid with great RPGs, especially on handhelds. This year brought us Alpha Protocol, Fallout: New Vegas, 4 Heroes of Light, Bowser’s Inside Story, Infinite Space, Mass Effect 2, Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, Y’s VII, Y’s Oath in Felghana, and Etrian Odyssey 3, among a slew of others. I can’t pick just one runner up out of a year this good.

Winner: Persona 3 Portable – A handheld, streamlined, improved version of an already mind-bendingly good game. In a year already saturated amazing titles P3P stood heads above the rest. Now Atlus, P4P pleeeeeeeeeeease?

Biggest Disappointment: Dragon Quest IX – A lot of people have been naming DQIX their game of the year. Hundreds of hours of enjoyment certainly seems worthy of the title. But I couldn’t get into it. At all. I toughed it out for 20 hours but eventually had to be honest with myself, I wasn’t having fun. In fact, I was board. Aggressively and profoundly board. I’m a big Dragon Quest fan and VII, generally agreed to be the most tedious game in the series, is my favorite. So why didn’t IX hit that pleasure center? Part of it was the aesthetics were so grating. The clunky 3D models did no favors to Toriyama’s designs. The charm was completely destroyed. I am grateful that the DS remakes of IV, V, and VI keep the clean 2D. The music annoyed, I was surprised I had to turn down the volume in a Dragon Quest. Often cited as the best song, The Observatory, get’s old fast, and everything else is worse. The town theme has to be worst in the series, and thanks to the slow pace of the game, you’ll be hearing it a lot. I could go on to complain about the boring battles and inane quests but I think I’ll end here and save face.

Worst Place: Deathspank – I’m sorry Ron Gilbert, your game isn’t fun or funny. Things like demon chickens and bacon aren’t inherently hilarious. Deathspank is the tired “lol pirate ninjas” joke of RPGs.

Most Interesting

Runner Up: These games aren’t necessarily the best, or even “good,” but they’re the one’s I though the most about, and ones that had something to say worth listening to.

NieR: Meta-crazy genre smash-up with a generally good story and characters miles beyond what we’re used to in games? I tried NieR on a whim and was slapped-silly with what I found. A game that comments on games without being all stupid and obvious with it? That alone makes NieR an anomaly. But then you put seals on the beach and the game just sky-rockets.

Mystic Ark: Yeah, yeah. The game’s from 1996 and the translations were released in 2009. I don’t care. I found out about it this year, so it count’s. Mystic Ark doesn’t so much push against the boundaries of JRPG design so much as lazy lean against them. Looking at it today it’s not that special, but as an artifact of 1996 Mystic Ark it’s crazy innovative. A stunning departure from the genre standard.

Winner: Epic Mickey – When was the last time a game had something to say about something real? Not just “war is bad” or “sad things happen in stories,” but something tangible in the real world? I can’t think of any other time (though I’m sure I’m just not thinking hard enough). Epic Mickey is the most subversive game I’ve ever played. Disney is a presence in our every day lives and Epic Mickey is both a loving tribute to what it was and scathing critique of what it has become. What’s more, it’s a Disney product. Epic Mickey shouldn’t exist. I can’t even comprehend how it got made. Don’t believe me? The player can make Mickey do bad things: be a jerk just for the sake of it, erase characters from existence. Mickey. The face and mascot of one of the most powerful corporations in the world. And not only can the player mess with Mickey’s image, but he’s the reason for everything bad that happens in the game. It’s all his fault. Epic Mickey rescues him from corporate death and makes him a character again. It’s quite the trick.

Biggest disappointment: Super Scribblenauts – By all accounts Super Scribblenauts is a better game than its predecessor. Better controls, bigger vocabulary, less obscure puzzles. But the original tended to put you in a situation and then you had to use your ingenuity to get the Starite. If you found something that worked, it was all fair game. It was messy but I liked it. Super Scribblenauts is more of a simple word game. Puzzles ask you to give a hair stylus something they would use in their job or wear something a cowboy would. Gone are the crazy situations and emergent solutions. Instead, you’re just naming things. It can be fun, but it’s very route.

Best Game

Winner: Minecraft – Classic’s been kicking around since 2009, but this year saw the release of Alpha and Minecraft explode onto the scene. How could I not name one of the best games ever made Game of the Year? Intimate and expansive. Simple tools lead to unlimited possibilities. Straightforward design creates unending awe. Minecraft is the realization of the potential that all the sandbox games promised. And what could be more appropriate? I mean, what do you do with a real sandbox besides dig and build? That Minecraft is the work of a single vision is all the more amazing. Minecraft is one of the best and most important games of the decade. It’s place as GotY is only right.

The July/August 1990 issue of Nintendo Power was the first I ever owned. Sure, I knew about the magazine beforehand. Which kid hadn’t? But not being an NES owner I didn’t have much use for tips and tricks “straight from the pros.” I don’t who, but someone got me this issue. Probably my parents as Chip & Dale Rescue Rangers was one of the first games I did own. I don’t think I got the issue from a friend – Nintendo Power was just too valuable to give away. However I got it, Nintendo Power soon became a major part of my childhood. I begged my parents for a subscription and borrowed every copy I could until they relented. Nintendo Power was my entry into a world I only had little access. I would study each issue, learning the in’s and out’s of games I would never play. Like I pointed out last post, I often have a greater fondness for NP articles than the games they cover.

Eventually, my parents pressured me to throw out my magazine collection. Those issues had covers missing and pages ripped and generally would have made bad retrospective material. Such is the price for being loved. Then where did all these images come from? Why the good people at RetroMags of course! These guys are doing the saintly work of preserving the detritus of our misspent youth and this series couldn’t exist without them. Thanks, fellas.

So won’t you join me on a nostalgia trip through the wonders of early Nintendo Power: the worst/best magazine ever printed? I plan to start here with my first issue, about half-way through the NES life-cycle, and go through to when I stopped my subscription, a bit into the N64 days.

We start in the early 90′s: a time of neon highlights, denim jackets, and unrepressed extreme Raditude. Also: the Disney Afternoon.

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It’s not hard to see why Chip and Dale are on the cover. Marketability and all. I mean who would buy a magazine featuring a no-name LP’s like Golgo 13 or Final Fantasy? Got to go with the smart money. What is a mystery is why the chipmunks are hanging out on a lightbulb. It’s easy to seem the germ of the idea. Chip and Dale are small, they run all over giant things in the game, put them on a desk or something and there’s your cover. But something went horrible wrong. I can’t help but assume that this cover was ruined by committee and the poor graphic designer stuck with the project just cried as his bosses were like “what if they were on a lamp!”

It doesn’t even make sense visually, let alone logically (wouldn’t the exposed bulb burn their feet?). Chip’s sliding off as we’d expect, but Dale’s sticking to that bulb like he’s an un-related asset pasted on an inappropriate background. Oh wait. I do dig Fat Cat peering in the window like the Rangers locked him outside for the night. Guys, no! Fat Cat’s an indoor pet. He doesn’t know how to survive outdoors.

The Rescue Rangers article is kinda bland; more official art from the show and level maps. As much as I love old NP’s game-guide-map-things (tracing them with your eyes was like playing a game!), this one isn’t interesting. Let’s move to the star of this issue instead: Final Fucking Fantasy.

Nintendo Power really pushed Final Fantasy. Three issues covered the game and they mailed a strategy guide to all subscribers. This was more than a little overkill as the game came with an “Adventure’s Guide” which walked you through the whole game. In last issue was a “storyview” which explained the plot points in the first half of the game but didn’t have any gameplay coverage. Here they cover the same ground with a little more depth (emphasis on “little”). It’s not hard to guess why they pushed the game so hard, RPGs being a death knell in the West and all. But hey, it worked. A fair number of kids I knew had Final Fantasy. Then again, everyone had a copy of Dragon Warrior and we all know how that worked out.

Nintendo Power ran three trivia contests, the prizes of which ranged from controller stickers to real-life power staffs and crystal orbs. The grand prize was an adventure vacation where Nintendo Power would fly you and some friends to a tropical island, dress you up like Final Fantasy dudes, and film the whole thing.

For this issue the two grand prizes were a suit of armor. I wonder where these things ended up. It’s not like you can just pawn them once there’s no more room in the garage. Far better was the runner-up. 500 lucky kids walked away with a “Final Fantasy Adventure Pack,” which, if this image is to be trusted, were bright pink Final Fantasy fanny-packs. Was this for real? I’ve never heard of them since, but I refuse to believe we don’t live in a world where some ecstatic 5th grader wore his to school and was proclaimed King of the Playground. The article says these packs were stuffed full of treasure. The treasure in the fanny-pack of my youth was tubes of Chapstick and a dirty water bottle. I can only imagine what treasures was stuffed into these FF ones.

But enough of dubious prizes, let’s get to the meat of the article: bad advice and awesome art! Come now, Nintendo Power, grinding to level 3 before Garland? Madness. Who know’s how many kid’s experiences with Final Fantasy was less than it could have been thanks to Nintendo Power. At least it did give us this art. FUKT looks like he could take down CHAOS without even stubbing out his cigarette. IKA may be old and decrepit but that’s only due to the awesome power coursing through his veins. And man, if the Red Mage sported that mustache in-game every party would be composed of 4 of them.

I love this art so much. Like the Final Fantasy II article it defined the game for me more than anything in the game ever did. It’s not clear who drew this stuff. I’ve heard Katsuya Terada’s name thrown about, but this stuff doesn’t look like the Legend of Zelda art he did for Nintendo Power. Supposedly Terada worked on the Howard and Nester comics with Shuji Ima, and this stuff kinda resembles the Howard and Nester style, so Ima is my best guess. I could be way off though. The Internet, as always, is no help.

I just eat this stuff up. There’s just so much character in these pictures. Look at Matoya there. You best be bringing her crystal back, or else she’ll swallow your soul. I wish there was room for crazy interpretations like this now, but everything’s so polished and iconic. Designing a Black Mage as anything but Vivi-esq (or some sort of Nomera monstrosity) is blasphemy. But wouldn’t the world be a better place if a black mage could rock a tiger-fang necklace?

Nintendo Power: purveyors of terrible advice since 1990. I mean, sure, 99 potions is cool and all if you don’t mind wasting the gold and hours wasted buying them one at a time, but no amount of potions are going to save you if some undead decide today’s a good day for a stun-lock.

Fighter is holding the CROWN so gingerly. This picture really makes picking up the plot ticket epic. Much more epic than it is in the game where it’s just another deal in a chest. A chest guarded by motherfuckers sure, but still. This picture built up the event in my mind. I was so determined to get that CROWN and the KEY and all the wonderful treasure that was promised me. But I could never get past the ZOIDBERGS and my dreams were dashed to pieces. Thanks, Nintendo Power!

This picture has always stayed with me. Playing through the Final Fantasy remakes years later I’d still imagine the Titan, nose-ring glistening in the torch light, chowing down on the ruby like it was a delicious chocolate. Good art really makes you feel the moment, you know?

Damn that’s awesome. This art would make Van Gogh weep tears of impressionism if he  alive to see it.

The article goes up through the Sea Shrine with maps of it, the Volcano, and the Ice Cave for good measure. At least the maps will help you find your way through the dungeons. It then threatens more tips for the endgame next month. I can’t wait to see what kind of nonsense they’ve got baked up for the next issue.

Interestingly, the coverage never breaks down the different job classes or explains different party builds. I guess they were just trying to sell gamers on the expanse of the setting and story, never mind silly things like gameplay.

Speaking of Howard and Nester, this month they’re chillin with the big boys from Super C. Remember in the game when you shot that pod and got a blanket instead of the spread gun and you were all like WTF! but then it saved you when you fell off the cliff? Nintendo Power does.

This issue devotes a couple of pages to the Consumer Electronics Show. Coverage is spotty though. Most of the space is taken by announcements for Simpsons games on the NES and the home version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: the Arcade Game, but they still managed to find the space for some very important titles.

Power Mission would eventually become Power Blade. You can see a how blatantly the game aped from Mega Man originally. Natsume eventually hid their influences by changing the protagonist into a muscle-man 80′s guy, but the game is still considered an inferior Mega Man clone. I like their blurb for Deja Vu here. Neither is Deja Vu the sequel to Shadowgate (it was the original MacVenture game, Shadowgate just got ported to NES first) nor is it set in the modern day. That is, unless the early 90′s were more like 1940′s than I remember. Also, the Miracle Keyboard was never hot.

It may look like science fiction but this crazy thing actually existed. It worked with light-gun games and you would yell “fire” to shoot. I can just imagine some unlucky kid screaming at Duck Hunt and never getting past the first level.

These codes are the only reason I got through Astanax. Sure, it felt a little like cheating to play through invincible, but you could still die from pits so you had to be a bit careful. And it was worth it to see the gripping story of a modern boy thrust into a fantasy world he never made, and the fairy who loved him. Did anyone beat this legitimately? The controls were so stiff as to be unplayable. Great music though.

NP didn’t always get the art right. That’s not Solstice Man. Solstice Man is a bad-ass bearded dude with no shirt and lightning crashes around him constantly. I don’t know who this fruity guy in the robe is, but he better watch out for the green monster hand moving in for the reach-around.

It’s stuff like this that I remember most about classic Nintendo Power. This is from an article on Crystalis and whole pages are taken up by these items descriptions. Some guy was actually paid to draw every consumable, key item, weapon, and piece of armor in the game. It may seem pointless but this is the stuff that sticks in my mind, and that I find so endearing about the magazine. Got to fill space for the kiddies? Fill it up with item art and they will love it. And we did.

Who knows how you got a job as a Nintendo Power counselor but it looks like being creepy as hell is a pre-requsitic. Rich Richardson looks like the kind guy who has a windowless van full of boxes of apple juice that put you to sleep. I mean, that name sounds made up and everything. His high-score, and arguably the proof that he has the chops to be a NP game counselor, is that he finished Adventure Island before anyone else could be bothered. In fact, none of these high-scores are scores at all. The only one that’s half-way impressive is polishing off Bionic Commando in one life. I donno, Mike, I’m a little skeptical about that. Dane’s got the best one. Finishing two games in one day won’t win you the ladies, buddy.

More great original art. The theme for the letters section was “knights” but I guess it didn’t have legs because everything at the back is “underwater.” I want to know what shark game that fish is playing, the graphics look amazing. Between reading this stuff and Boy’s Life I think my fate as a cartoonist was sealed. That last one though? Whew! Something horrible happened to that octopus. Someone replaced all his tentacles with worms!

You would think that a behind the scenes look at Lucasfilm would be fascinating, but the article is slight and short on info. It touches a little bit on Skywalker Ranch and Maniac Mansion, saying “LucasArts is making funny games!” and then ends on pimping their new NES support. The game they choose to highlight?

Lastly, the issue reminds everyone to check out PowerFest 1990. This was a series of expositions NP had around the US. I was able to convince my dad to take me somehow. They had rows and rows of NESes and Game Boys set up and this stage in the middle with stuff on it that I don’t remember much because of the rows and rows of NESes and Game Boys. It was a wonderland, though the only things I remember playing were Mega Man 3 and Wizards and Warriors for Game Boy. The first was amazing, the second not so much. It felt like we were only there for minutes before my dad got bored. In reality, it was probably closer to two hours. He’s a stand-up guy for taking me, and I got a free Mario plush just for showing up.

Next time: Nintendo Power’s foray into Strategy Guides and more praise for mediocre art.

Again, all images were provided by RetroMags.com, your first provider for all things retro and mag.

Final Fantasy II (IV)

I didn’t play Final Fantasy II for years after its release. RPGs just weren’t my thing (heck, they weren’t hardly a thing at all until FFVII came along) back in 1994 when I got my SNES, and by then the game was two years old. I just couldn’t be bothered.  So I missed the nostalgia boat and these days regard the game with less than affection. I understand its importance in RPG history but it just doesn’t hold my interest like every other Final Fantasy. Anyway, I guess in some otherwise forgotten December I got my hands on Nintendo Power Volume 30 ’cause the coverage speaks more to me than the game ever did.

Man, look at that cover. Some hooded warrior on the back of a giant crow, saluting the moon as he passes over a misty dragon. I don’t know what game that is, but it’s not Final Fantasy II.  Sure, there are elements from the game all hodgepodged together, but the image in no way resembles the product it’s trying to describe. Objectively, this is a terrible cover. I can’t help but love it. There’s this feeling of loneliness and majesty that the game doesn’t share. I look at this magazine and see snow-covered forests and feel the cold snap of a winter morning on my face.

It’s even better inside.

Back then Nintendo Power had in-house artists provide art for their coverage. Why they didn’t use the official art is a mystery. Licensing problems probably. The art spanned the whole range from awesome to awful. Most people agree the new art for FFII falls squarely on the awful side, but it says “Final Fantasy II” to me more than the real stuff does.

These representations don’t look anything like their in-game counterparts, let alone the official art. They’re much more westernized and buffed-up. Yet they’re not standard Swords-and-Sorcery fantasy art. There’s something profoundly “off” about that makes them very attractive. Like Rosa’s mohawk there. They’re like Amano meets Moebius; refined in a way the official art isn’t. This is what I picture when I think of Final Fantasy II. Palom and Porom will always be pig faced chubins to me, not the spastic anime kidz Square insists they are.

Final Fantasy III (VI)

Likewise, my emotional attachment to Final Fantasy III is much more involved with Nintendo Power’s coverage than the game itself. On the run-up to its release NP had a massive three-part extravaganza that basically spoiled the entire game… and of which there are absolutely no scans on the internet. You’ll just have to be satisfied with the cover from one of the issues. And here it is.

It’s so weird that Illusion of Gaia got billing over Final Fantasy. In any case, the FFIII stuff was massive. Part 1 was extensive character profiles (with the official Amano art this time!) and Parts 2 and 3 walked through the worlds of Ballance and Ruin respectively. It’s crazy that they spoiled the entire game, but I guess they were really trying to sell it. Well it worked. Those articles hooked me like nothing else. I read them over and over. I obsessed over the game. The scope, the refinement, that it wasn’t FantasyLand™ but this crazy magic and technology and operas and octopuses and Moogles and flying casinos and desert castles and chainsaws captured my imagination like nothing before. And when the game was waiting beneath the tree it was the. Best. Christmas. EVER.

Then something happened. The game was great fun and all. It started a love for JRPGs that continues to this day. But… it was something of a disappointment. A big disappointment. See, I had read those articles all through the lead-up to Christmas, and I was just the right age to really be pulled into the magic of the season for the last time. Late in December I had to stay at my Aunt’s house for a few days and spent the time reading about Final Fantasy III and watching The Muppet Christmas Carol over and over (on TV with “The Love is Gone” restored and the full emotional impact intact the first time). So FFIII and muppets and cold winter nights and Christmas and the anticipation for Christmas got all tied up together into this specific time/place/feeling. I had profound dreams about my Final Fantasy III. The real game had no chance. These days a cold snowy night will still bring back this complex feeling of anticipation for my FFIII and not the one the world got.

The Zork Anthology

The same Christmas I got Final Fantasy III my parents also gave me Return to Zork. I had played my dad’s Apple IIe copy of Zork obsessively when I was younger but never had access to the rest of Infocom’s library. For the next few weeks I pretty much spent all my time bouncing from the SNES to the computer either putting in the hours with Final Fantasy or Zork. But as fun as Return’s comedy clubs and bra boxes were I found myself spending just as much time with The Zork Anthology, packed in with Return (I guess The Anthology was supposed to give context to new players. Which is dumb because Return has bumpkis to do with the classic games). I was trilled to finally play Zork II (that ending to Zork had teased me for so long), but I was putting in equal time with all six games (I, II, III, Beyond Zork, Zork Zero, and Planetfall). Especially Beyond Zork. That post-Christmas glow still means Giant Onions and Dust Bunnies to me. Even better, Return also came with the original Encyclopedia Frobozzica.

I spent hours studying the little details of Zork’s stupid world. It was all the more mysterious and compelling since I had no experience with the Enchanter Trilogy. Many of the entries were completely foreign and spoke of a history larger than it was. It’s thanks to both The Anthology and The Encyclopedia that I’m such a Zork Dork today. I lost my copy of The Encyclopedia long ago (so devastating at the time), but thankfully some kind people have archived it online. Return to Zork might have been a crap game, but it had amazing pack-ins.

Secret of Evermore

By the time the next Christmas rolled around I was firmly in Square’s pocket. Over the year I had gotten my hands on whatever RPG I could. Illusion of Gaia, Robotrek, Earthbound, etc. But Chrono Trigger was the real prize. There was no doubt in my mind that Square games were the pinnacle of the genre. So of course the number one item on my Christmas list was Secret of Evermore. I had spent some time with a rental of Secret of Mana when it first came out, but quickly got frustrated at the difficult bosses (I got to the Fire Gigas before I had to return it), and I never played with any friends so I didn’t have any multiplayer experiences creating preconceptions of what Evermore should be. I enjoyed Evermore at the time and my affection for it has only grown. I’ve gotten other games as Christmas gifts, and certainly played a lot of stuff in the winter, but they don’t hold my memory like Evermore does. I think the reason Evermore is so indicative of the season is that it’s such an empty game. Compared to something like Final Fantasy the plot is sparse as a children’s book is to War and Peace. Exploration is limited, NPCs number far less, and nothing as garish as the world is at stake. It’s a quiet, lonely game and this gave it the space to pour in all the feelings I associate with winter. In Evermore you don’t trudge over snowy drifts on a day captured in frozen sunlight but that’s what comes to mind when I think of it.

And that’s what it’s all about. Games are really such stupid things, you know? These four (nine?) games stand out so vividly in my memory because they aren’t just video games to me. They’re collections of  my memories and feelings, of specific times and places that don’t exist anymore, of a life if not well spent then at least reasonably so. These games are more to me because of the specific experiences I brought to them, and the complex distinct feelings of those times are preserved thanks to the game’s ability to recall them. I can’t simply say “Secret of Evermore was fun. I enjoyed playing it. I’ll probably play it again,” because, while yes those things are correct, it’s also true that Secret of Evermore is the crunch of snow underfoot… the wet cold on my palms… breath hanging in the air… the blue of the sky and the sun reflecting off the lake… the smell of geese… the possibilities of a fresh year… sounds of cars on the highway, driving to oblivion… strangers, walking… by trees… the snow… sky… sun… snow.

With Sonic Colors, the cycle is finally broken. Sure, we’ve had some ups – Sonic Advance and Sonic Rush – and though I haven’t played it, I’ve heard decent things about Sonic 4, but by and large all things Sonic have been grim since… oh let’s say 1998. But now we’ve got a real life Next-Gen Sonic game that doesn’t embarrass constantly and is actually fun to play. Want know how I knew everything was going to be alright? Upon hitting start instead of talky nonsense or a forced tutorial there was only pristine untouched road, just waiting for the spinning of hedgehog feet.

For years we’ve slapped our foreheads in frustration. It seems like everyone but Sonic Team knew how to fix Sonic: speed and nothing but. No exploration stages, no fishing for frogs, no searching for crystals buried in cliffsides, and absolutely no the-universe-hangs-in-the-ballence-epic-blah-blah-blah plot. At last Sonic Team have waken up. Colors skillfully combines 3D and 2D play, introduces fun power-ups, and never forgets that Sonic is at his best when he’s moving forward. (The largest criticism of the game I’ve seen is that there are some cheap deaths. Yeah, sure. Dashing into spikes or right into a pit has been a series staple from the very beginning. Might as well complain that Sonic is blue. I much prefer that a Sonic game struggle against its primary flaw, rather than the copious amounts of bullshit we’ve put up with for the past decade.) The game does start talking eventually, but the plot to play ratio is low and the story never takes itself seriously. More akin to a Saturday morning cartoon than the princess-kissing pretension the series has so loved.

What’s more to say? The game’s a delight to play, beautiful to look at, and won’t embarrass you should your mom/significant other/dog walk into the room. It’s not deep, but it’s not supposed to be. It’s Sonic. Finally, it’s Sonic.

I’m not talking about Demon’s Souls notorious “soul-crushing difficulty”. I’m talking about world-building.

The premise is pretty much identical. You’re trapped in the Nexus. Worlds are fucked up and it’s your job to go in and fix things. Each world tells a story through it’s interesting locales and their inhabitants. There isn’t so much of an overarching plot as there is an emphasis on scenario, setting, and tone. You are but a guest in these worlds, and the game doesn’t bother to concern itself with a standardized storytelling when it gets the job done through other less conventional means.

Which is true! I haven’t played Demon’s Souls myself, but for what I’ve read it also shares a tone of isolation. However, Demon’s Souls is more about stranding you alone in an extremely hostile environment. Isolation is used to create horror. In Mystic Ark the isolation is used more to create a feeling of loneliness or melancholy. Also, it is very much buried in the background, while Demon’s Souls is all about being trapped, alone (or so I hear). In the last post I threw 1400 words at the screen trying to define this aspect of the game that is very intangible.

So if everything I wrote about last time is subtext, what is Mystic Ark like on the surface? I think what best summarises Mystic Ark is a little something called the Happy Book.

In the land with only children and no adults (most guides name it “Children’s World” but that sounds dumb and I’m not going to play along) there’s a library filled with all sorts of interesting books. Some offer strategies for local baddies, others act as shops, and a couple save and heal (“Oh wow!! Oh wow!!”). One calls itself “The Happy Book” and provides a selection of specialized services.

90 gp – negotiate damage floors

400 gp – Increase magical power

1000 gp – Level up

4000 gp – Prevent Poison

Pretty sweet deal! 90 gold for stopping all damage floors along is a heck of a bargain, and when you select the option the book gives you a pair of boots that do just what was promised. But then the book informs you that there are no damage floors in the game. It’s a dick move but it only cost a penance and was good for a laugh. If you’re smart you’ll move on… but, those other options sure are tempting. Choosing “Increase magical power” gives you a Intelligence Seed, a one-use boost of a few points to your magic stat. Not bad, but not really worth the price tag. A grand for a level, however, does seem like a fair deal, and maybe it will net you more than one! Hope spring eternal and it’s hard to pass the option up. Paying nets you something like 867,239 experience points (I love how it’s a completely arbitrary, yet oddly specific number), only for the book to chide “Ha, ha! Just kidding.” By now the lesson is well and truly learned.

And yet…

4000 gold isn’t that much. Sure, it’s a chunk of change, but nothing that couldn’t be one back in a handful of battles. About the cost of a new, high-end weapon. And to prevent all poison for the rest of the game. That’s not something to be dismissed lightly. Sure, the book hasn’t been particularly kind so far, but maybe it’s all to discourage you from this particular choice. Honestly, it’s a hard temptation to resist. And the book offers just punishment for not wising up and walking away. It doesn’t quite keep it’s promise of preventing poison, but it does the next best thing and gives you enough antidotes that you’ll never have to worry about poison again. In fact, it fills every space in your limited inventory with antidotes. Now, up to this point I had maybe been poisoned twice in the entire game. Poison hardly presented a danger than needed to be nullified. There was no need to carry more than one antidote, let alone the odd fifty the book gave me. And with each one selling for 5 gold, it wouldn’t even come close to recuperating the 4000 gp investment. What’s more, you can’t pick up any new items until you make some space, which means either selling off antidotes or dropping them. And since you can’t select multiple items in your inventory at once, getting rid of the antidotes means addressing them one by one. It’s a dick move, completely awful, and entirely your own fault. It’s not like you can’t say you didn’t see it coming. But at the same time it’s fun and memorable. A neat, little, out-of-the-way twist on RPG conventions, and the perfect example for Mystic Ark at large.

Mystic Ark falls squarely within the foundations of the traditional RPG, but you can feel it pushing at the boundaries constantly. Wheather in the unconventional scenario structure I talked about yesterday to the sprinkling of little puzzles just about everywhere you go. Sometimes a NPC will ask you if you’d like to try and solve a brain teaser like a sliding puzzle or moving a knight to capture all the pawns. The rewards for these are often negligible or non-existent. They’re just for fun; a break from all the dungeoning and monster-slaying. Elsewhere you come across a room in a dungeon with three chests and are told you can have the contents of one. If you decide to open a second chest the game drops your HP to 1 and removes all your magic. Have fun with the monsters!

Not satisfied with monster slaying and dungeon diving, Mystic Ark introduces some light adventure elements. Often examining objects will provide you with a detailed view and several options for interaction. These elements are never anything too deep or complex but they add a robustness to the experience. I like that the game is trying to add something to the normal RPG grind but sometimes it falls into the adventure game trap of having you do inexplicable things for no reason. One puzzle that was especially bad had you “follow proper manners” by dropping knives and forks into bottomless jars.

Another way that Mystic Ark tries to change up the formula is the progression through the scenarios. The game wants you to have more to do than just travel from dungeon to town to dungeon to town. So instead, NPCs will assign you tasks, or ask you to meet them somewhere else, or having you run back to the nexus to rescue a person trapped as a figurine. All this running around the map and revisiting old areas doesn’t bother me much. I like playing the scenarios out and the game thoughtfully gives you a crystal that makes backtracking easy, but players more sensitive to arbitrary goals won’t like that the game is basically a series of fetch-quests. As long as the quest had some justification I was fine with it, attributing it as part of the “story,” but one in particular had me shaking my head. A dungeon is blocked off by some guards, in a nearby town a scientist is missing. You rescue the scientist from the nexus where he’s transformed into a figurine. He doesn’t reward you with a way past the guards. Instead, now they’re just arbitrarily gone. I’ll fetch your stuff for you, game, but you’ve got to give me a reason to do so. It doesn’t have to be much. Any simple justification will do, but when you fail to provide even that you’re both destroying the charm that’s so endearing and revealing the simplicity of the underlying structure.

The Happy Book represents what Mystic Ark does best: irreverence, charm, and subversion of RPG tropes. The scientist quest is what is does worst: arbitrary event flags and fetch quests that waste the player’s time in the name of “gameplay.” Thankfully, there’s a lot more of the former.

Next time I’ll talk about, you know, the actual gameplay. The heart and soul of the RPG, that is to say: battles!