Futilely trying to find information of some sort online, I had a brief moment of hope. Someone had a map...
This is at least helpful that somewhere along the line, someone won this game.
...and I don't understand it at all. I guess 1 is the place with the dark robed men, but that's where my understanding ends. It's a very bad map. Because if that is the place with the dark robed men, it only vaguely shows how it's designed. It's useless for navigation. If it isn't the place with the dark robed men...then it's 3? But that doesn't make any sense either...oh, things are worse than they were before!
Doing this isn't a case of screwing up, it's the game instakilling you.
My easiest idea to test out is to simply see if I can attack the blue one guarding the passage. That's not happening, he's invulernable. Let's try the next option, making a map. This is kind of tricky because I can't see the grid here. So I have to guess. Yippee. Reminder, this is the most action-packed game I've ever had to map out. Either the game was slow enough that I didn't need to worry about it or the game had an in-game pause or out of game pause I could use while the action was on-going to map. This has a pause, but it stops the game dead. I wonder if I should try taking videos for these in the future.
Remember, there's no in-game grid, so I have to guess the length of corridors, it's a bit longer on the left.
Eventually, I make most of the map, but the important is that yes, the area with the starfish is where I need to go. That's the only way in. I didn't fill in the path right then down and up, but that's not important. I don't need to go there. So, I need to figure out how to get past the starfish. Galactic Empire taught me that I need to get enemies to deal with the problem for me...except that there's not a way to get enemies past this because they follow me.
Maybe it has something to do with energy. I know what I would do if I had a four energies and a null energy mode, use the null energy mode. That doesn't work, nor does using up most of my energy either. I double check that it isn't a specific kind of energy I need to shoot, then go back to the floor with the roaming dark figures.
Last time I ignored these orbs because I assumed they were used to distract the robed figures. That may still be true. I don't know what it is I'm supposed to be doing here. Shooting the orb doesn't work, but there are a ton of lava lamps I'm shoot until something good happens. I do this for a moment until...
...I find another way out. Aha! I need to find a distraction or a way to eliminate these guys. The level itself is quite simple, I think there's only one guy roaming around, or the area is large enough that only one is ever a threat at one point in time. So long as I keep my distance from him, I can slowly but surely light up the lava lamps. I do a good job...until two things happen. First, because one of the robed ones is constantly wandering around, I can't stop him from unlighting the ones I light up. Second, one is camping out near one set of lights. There's not much point in getting him away, alas.
By pure accident, I find out that you can move around the glowing balls. You just have to move without touching the walls. I discover this just outside the Oracle that didn't seem very helpful earlier. With the ball near, it shoots at a robed one stuck on a nearby set of lava lamps that actually stopped it. Probably because there's something important there. Okay...what if this is what I have to do, but without the robed one there? I can in fact, guide the bolt. I just need to get the robed ones away from the front side. Which I don't even need all the balls for, I just need enough to get the bolt near the ones guarding the second portal, which causes them to leave and allows me to go around them and in.
This must be the Dark Realm. Now I'm alone...in the dark. I just need to shoot these lights, and then walk out. I tread very cautiously and...
It's a square with a crossroad in the middle, and robed ones are blocking the portal now. At first I think I've screwed myself until I spot a hole in the wall. Aha, this must be the Dark Realm, I'm in the place the crack was made.
It's a long tunnel with green mist in it. I am genuinely worried at this. What is this game doing and where is it going? There are paths without the green mist, but the first led nowhere, so I gambled that I had to stay on the path. I ended up at a red door, meeting the Dark King, accidentally walked out, returned and he said I returned. So I reloaded, found a light hole and found myself next to two robed figures. Ah, where I came from. I know exactly what kind of trickery is going on here, but it's very effective.
He's so tough that if you shoot him, he doesn't even try to shoot back.
The Dark King. Nope, he's supposed to ask why I returned to his domain...only when he realizes who I am, he isn't afraid. I'm guessing I'm going to find out that either Mordaine or the Adversary met with this guy, and I need to get him to take this guy out. Because I can't do it, in fact, he doesn't even care, he allows me to leave, but his minion, the Eashire Cat, is going to take me out in ten seconds. Was Cheshire Cat taken? Blah. Now I have to find my way back in the darkness. This is easier than I think, but it turns out that because I activated the lights, I have put myself in an unwinnable situation. Even partially activating the lights puts me there, and my save before this is quite a ways back.
And...it happens again, but slightly differently. It gives me a little hope...but nothing else happens. I can't get by, and I can't wait. It looks like this might just be the end. I go back to that map I got at the start, since I have nothing else to go on. One of the areas I've been to has to have another exit, because that's what the map says. While the map may be too crude to use as a real one, it does tell me how many exits there are. None of them are the same as any map I've been though. Outside of 1 being like the area I enter the Dark World from...hang on. It might not be totally accurate, but 2 could be the maze I go through. I haven't tried to explore the Dark King's domain yet. It's total darkness!
What I think I might have to do is set up the lava lamps around the orb so that they aren't surrounded by the Dark Ones, because I'm guessing when all three are under attack, they enter and deactivate it, then go back to the portal and block me in. I also know that I can partially seal off the hole to the Dark World by using negative energy. None of these things actually help me right now, I need to do something else first.
2 and 5 could be the level I start on, therefore let's assume it's 2 to start with. It seems like a safe bet. That means that 3 is the level I'm stuck on. There are four other exits that aren't in the middle section, but that doesn't mean the middle section isn't useful. Hang on, I'm trying to destroy a control sphere, which is behind Midnight Blue/The Blue One and in front of the starfish on the ground. What if I try to shoot past them? Nothing happens and getting back feels more dangerous than coming here to begin with.
And then I try in vain to get past the Starfish again. At first I think they chase after affirmative energy, but it's just a trick of its behaviors. It just tended to move when I shot, and I perhaps hallucinated some kind of bending going on. I triple check that it isn't just my mind and with every kind of energy. So...to recap, I've tried every single option I can short of cheating and I still can't get anywhere, as this area has nothing beyond this small area I need to enter right now and a maze I'm 99% sure doesn't have anything else I can do in it. That leaves me one option, what if I'm wrong and I need to get an enemy behind the bars?
No. They stop a distance away from it, and obviously nothing's following me in. Going slowly does nothing, and that's all I got. I prepare myself for one final futile attempt at the Dark World before giving up. As I reload my save once again, just before the Dark Lord, I notice that the energy stream is green. Green, like affirmative energy. Yet there's none whenever I have to flee. So I try sealing the hole after walking into the Dark Lord? Well, I'm sure I'll have to figure out a way to get rid of his servants later, but we'll try that first.
It works, better than I expected. They just disappear. I can return to the Oracle, who just tells me to find the ghost of Mordaine, my first indication that there's any difference between Mordaine and the Adversary. I'm sure I would have found that out anyway, but it is helpful to have some idea of what I'm about to do. Speaking of things I don't know how to do, can you figure out that this has helped me zero with the starfish? I did cheat myself inifnite health in Game Conqueror, but that didn't help with getting past anything, instakills work past health.
So now I'm basically in a position where there is nothing else I can do but continue to try here. The maze here seems to have nothing, but I haven't been closely examining it, because there's been no reason to. Basically, play around with energy shooting at things that aren't shooting at me hoping that something happens. If somebody knows something about this game or can uncover something about it. That would be nice, but I suspect this one is going to go on the backburner for a few months, then unceremoniously get an entry bemoaning the difficulty of the game. I'm really not sure how to solve this one at this point, and I don't think I will be able to. I genuinely can't think of anything I haven't tried on level 3, and the Dark World is as solved as it can be.
Side note, I'm now on Bluesky, which will be more or less exactly what you expect from me, plus occasional musings on games that I'm not covering here or on TAG.
Mazer II is a weird game. I don't remember where I saw it, but the unplayed Mazer one is probably an actual maze game to my knowledge, something that's not within my concerns at the very least. It's very hard to find, bordering on impossible. The publisher, Big Red Computer Club didn't publish much, but it also put out a very neat looking Hercules beat 'em up I may or may not look at some day. I don't think the developer, Farfetch Software did much of note either, befitting this being an obscure game on an obscure platform.
But beyond those things, this is just really weird. It's a FPS on the Apple IIGS, released the same year as Wolfenstein 3D. All the boys at ID had Apple IIs. Just think, in another world Wolfenstein 3D could be the weird Apple IIGS game we talk about before going on about how cool Mike Howard is for inventing FPS games. Heck, it's halfway there, it's on IMDB for some reason. Which pops up next to the stuff I looked up for Rejection last time, which is one heck of a weird list.
Before I enter, I want to mention the computer briefly. I had no idea what to expect from the IIGS environment, I was expecting something like an Apple II, no, it's a color Macintosh before color Macintoshes. It's a Macintosh but it isn't one. I'm sure there's some technical stuff that makes it different, but I fail to understand why this wasn't just a color Macintosh. It's just a strange decision.
My first times playing and reading about the game are...weird. This is not exactly advertised as a FPS, more as a virtual world adventure game. One of the figures between Space Station Oblivion and Wolfenstein 3D. To start with, the game makes you, the player, the protagonist. No virtual avatar here. There are no real objectives, this is a lie, and the way the game controls is very dependent on the mouse.
You turn and move like your usual Wolf-clone, only exclusively on the mouse. Because we don't need keyboards...except to open the menu to save. Because this is an Apple computer, there's only one mouse button, and boy howdy, do I wish they used the keyboard. Because I'm on a regular computer using an emulator, right click screws around with the emulation processor speed, which the game needs at a specific speed or it'll go crazy. Left click does everything else.
You get four weapons, represented by different balls of light. Creative, destructive, affirmative and negative energy. Only destructive is an actual attack, the others are for conversation. Creative is also for conversation, but it has other purposes. You activate your "weapon" by just clicking, changing, you hold the mouse button down and move it around, with a blank option for dialog.
You're kind of in danger here, but amusingly, George and the Cat will just run around endlessly if you do nothing.
The game starts with the Cheshire Cat chasing around an invisible man, George, who asks for your help. Let me tell you, this is not an easy game to aim a weapon in. The Cat is a hard target to hit anyway, because he's invisible from behind...and you're really supposed to just walk up to him. Do this, he disappears and the invisible man offers to be your translator with the creatures of the world. Looking around, I gradually figure out how to not be in frustrating pain while moving and aiming, but only just.
You can, of course shoot them, but this results in you screwing yourself over. Also, there's no reason to shoot them.
Nearby are some colorful snails. It's tricky to talk to them, because it's not entirely clear how you open up a conversation. I think creative might be the key. The most colorful snail is the one to talk, explaining the backstory and my objective...
"Our troubles began with the arrival of the being we name the Adversary - a humanoid form. From whence it came we do not know, but we gave it welcome, for it greeted us with the old words of friendship, and appeared to seek only knowledge... Yet even the living substance may be twisted to evil, though the source remain pure; for we discovered that our visitor was none other than Mordaine, a name of evil rumour out of distant past... (George explains that this is a concise translation, the snails are into epic poetry) Long ago, one Mordaine was the dread general of the Mazewar, rallying great forces to the call of darkness... But before Mordaine could extend control over the Mazeworld, the Dark King appeared, draining the very energy of the living world... Then all were afraid, for the Dark King could not be overcome, and he grew stronger as the Mazeworld plunged into darkness... Indeed, none know the ending of the Mazewar, or how the Dark King was finally overcome, save that those cataclysmic days ended in the Sundering of the Ways, which divides the Mazeworld still. Since then, the world has been empty, devoid of both the old darkness and the old light; which so many had thought they could not see... But now, Mordaine had returned, and demanded we reveal the way to the Dark Realm, which was supposedly was in our domain... But even had we possessed the information Mordaine sought, that way may not be revealed. The Adversary became angered... The Adversary threatened to bring a new enslaved army from the Outside, to destroy us if we did not reveal the way. We replied that our defenses were strong, and in any event we would die to the last before returning to the chaos of the Last Days... Enraged, the Adversary promised to bend the very Maze itself, forging a path to bring the evil minions upon us. When we still did not yield, Mordaine began a terrifying work of magic... But the living substance of the Mazeworld itself proved beyond Mordaine's art. Finally, frustrated beyond restraint and reason, Mordaine smote the very Maze wall with devastating force... The Darkness flooded in, and with it unknown terrors of living shadow. But we stood transfixed, for Mordaine had become a figure of blinding light, shining into the darkness... Then we were swept away by the assault of the creatures still cloaked in shadow. Only a handful escaped to the upper galleries. Some went to employ our final gambit of defense, but must have been lost. Only we three escaped to this forest... Yet when we arrived, the four beacons were lit - someone must have departed to the outside levels. Perhaps Mordaine yet lives, and may yet bring about the final Conquest of the Mazeworld... Could it be that you are sent to help us in this, our hour of need? The amoeboids now patrol the upper level, and we fear even worse things lurk below. We are helpless to combat them..."
Then they ask me to clear out the way to an energy fountain for them. (well, the way to the upper levels, but the fountain is the objective) A short-term objective and a long-term objective. There's a story here, I don't know why the game implied there wasn't. Maybe it's very open-ended in how you can play it, but there's still a story. Feels to me like how one of those children's fantasy stories would go if the hero never showed up and the bad guy won. I like it.
The first of many lava lamps.
There's only one way out of this central forest, a pair of lava lamp-looking things. They're blocking my exit so I need to shoot them. I'm guessing these are some sort of fence. Use creative energy to open, then you can go through. This leads to, what else, but halls full of these amoebas. This is where the adventure part kicks in, you don't shoot them to kill them, you shoot them to get them away. You need to find out how they die and get rid of them. Especially since there's a big room full of them which don't move.
I guess it's hard to see these things in a screenshot compared to motion.
This, ironically enough, gives this section a survival horror-ish feel. There's no sound in this game, so if they sneak up on you, you're going to get a screen full of amoeba. The first clue that there's something else you can do are more lava lamps, which the amoebas often get stuck on, but just wailing on them while they're in there is no good.
Then there are red lava lamps, these are exploding barrels. These will take out the amoeba, but there are a few problems. One, your destructive attack does a zig-zag, which throws my aim off in a game where I already don't understand the hitbox. Two, this is leaning on the no mercy side of adventure games, there's no way to get more and it's a long way to drag the amoeba. And this is the hallway to the fountain, my objective, which has the bonus of healing and restoring my ammo.
So I sit around in wait for the amoebas, then blowing up the red lava lamps on them. And it turns out that it really isn't that hard to handle, or even wait for. It's deceptively easy. Even without the fountain healing you. You just need to activate the lava lamps with two more more amoebas behind them and then get lucky with the red ones.
This results in something more boring, a long march for the snails to the fountain and then to the big room of amoeba. Only this time, if they touch an amoeba, the amoeba dies. At first I thought I should be close to a snail, but instead I just need to let them clear out the room, they aren't respawning. I just wait, and then the snails want to talk to me again.
The leader of the snails informs me that this is where we part, but to watch out for evil from all sides and a confrontation from the past. (Probably Mordaine) He tells me to consult the Oracle, which awaits me below. The path to the portal is clear and off I go.
Underhyping a threat like this is probably the best way to go, because if it isn't scary, you've lost nothing, if it is, people won't expect it.
The second level is full of hooded figures who are hostile to you and are immune to destructive energy. That's...great. This is playing out less like an early FPS and more like an early survival horror game. This is annoying me a lot less than a more modern game like it would. You can't kill these things, but the game isn't playing them up as some unkillable threat, they just are, and there's no obvious safe spots. Because there are no safe spots, even the suspicious overhead balls, as I discovered before dying. There's no lighting up the lava lamps here, either, they drain them away.
I wonder if I missed something here and should have done something on this floor instead of just leaving.
What you actually do is stumble upon the Oracle in the darkness, activating the two lava lamps in front, then getting your next objective, find the portal out, then stop the hole from the Darkworld into Mazeworld. The balls lit up, which combined with the Oracle telling me to distract the creatures leads me to believe they do something, but I'm safe enough dodging the hooded figures.
Level three is suspiciously empty. Too suspicious. What's here? Nothing, it's level one again. I hope I didn't do something wrong, because I don't really have any guidance at this point. Taking a gamble, I return to the forest, while I was screwing around, affirmative energy turned the pyramids light blue, so I do that and another portal opens up. I feel like I'm sequence breaking. Oh, well.
This leads to a maze with enemies I can actually shoot for once. Huzzah! It's both annoying and not annoying. Enemies move in the center of a tile, they don't move along the edges like you, and with enemies like these, who are all ranged, this means you can run by them. Combat is fairly interesting, even considering the handicap of using awkward mouse controls. Dodging isn't actually that bad and I can pull it off fairly easily. The real problem is the hitbox, I think they're smaller than the enemy, but I'm not quite sure.
After dying once, I discover my objective here, disable the control sphere, by someone who seems to be working with the Adversary. I really should just take him out, but I'm going to play it what I think should be the proper way. I just need to find the back way. I'll do things slowly, shooting monsters as I come across them...only, they respawn. I can't rush the area, because they get real thick with monsters. This is not helped by the emulator not having a proper mouselock function.
What I end up doing is finding a safe dead end, then saving my game. Enemies have a habit of ganging up on you and because of the way shooting works, fighting in a panic does not work in your favor. Only...this doesn't work, and I end up pinned down trying to recover all my health. It's like nightmare mode in Doom, only you're using the mouse exclusively and there's no practicing.
Eventually I make it to an area behind some bars. Bars that I can enter...but hopefully not the enemies. This leads straight into another problem, there are starfish on the ground which instakill me as soon as I enter. I can't run past it, although since it basically rushes at me, that might be intentional. I can't shoot it with any kind of energy, which isn't surprising at this point. There's clearly some trick to getting past this that I can't do yet.
The entire maze on this floor is all about reaching a star crossroad area leading to that area with the bars. I know there's a left and a right path from the start which leads here, but that leaves a fourth area with something else inside...and the fourth is just another entrance from the left path. Two paths from that side are connected. This leaves me pretty well stuck without also making a map. Oh, joy, making a map in an action game that was already fraught with danger. I have a few other options, check the second floor for a breach, and try to kill the guy who may or may not betray the Adversary.
"Four games left, should be easy, outside of the Singleton one." Yeah, that was a smart thing to say, but in my defense, I thought this was going to be some small and cute game, not a fantasy epic unrivaled in the world of FPS at the time. I'm not even sure I found the game this was a sequel to anymore. Generally speaking, the more novel systems like this one just haven't had much effort put into their originals.
That said, while I am digging this game so far, it is coming with drawbacks. Up until now I've never really experienced floppy failure, yet I've had this game's floppy bricked multiple times. I'm making sure to keep copies, but I am counting this against the game. Park this one firmly in the good for whoever it appeals to, and everyone should stay away kind of game.
At the end of my first entry, I said this was going to be a big disappointment or the best FPS before Doom. And...neither of those are true because Pathways into Darkness was released before Doom. The best released about a year before Doom? Probably, because I think unlike my other top choices, I'd actually play this again. Willingly, all the way to the end. Legitimately, without cheating.
It is an oddity in all respects, starting from the name. If you didn't read my playthrough, you're wondering why I started a rejection of a game called Denno Senshi, when in fact, the name is Rejection. This is not just a terrible name for the obvious reason, judging by Japanese descriptions of the game, it should actually be called Denno Denshi: Rejection, or Cyberbrain/Computer Girl: Rejection. This is also terrible, because it's an adaptation of a movie called Battle Girl: Tokyo Crisis Wars AKA The Living Dead in Tokyo Bay. There's no connection in the game itself, so I'm possibly the first person in English to recognize this...even the one Japanese source I found talking about this had someone point it out in the comments.
Moments before a meteor hits.
This gives you a better idea of what's about to happen. A meteor hits Tokyo Bay, which releases a heavy metal which combines with nitrogen in the air to create a virus called Kosumoanfitamin or Cosmo Amphetamine. (Which I did not realize was the name until seeing the movie, shows what poor sound mixing and incorrect assumptions about how it was spelled can do) This virus turns people into zombies, and eventually monsters. The military seals off the infected areas and begins a blockade.
The player is K-Ko Kirihara, pronounced Keiko, but we're trying to be punk. Daughter of the commander of the Autonomous Security Unit, Colonel Kirihara. Her mission is to escort people in the various refugee camps to the ASU, in order to get the living out of the quarantine zone. Her secondary objective is to take out the Human Hunter Unit, a group of the military taking out both the living and the dead. To aid her, is a battle suit, a kind of powered armor.
Out heroine and the leader of this band of refugees.
There is nothing really new about the story, you can figure out most of how it goes from the above paragraph. You spend more time shooting rogue military than zombies. Although it does have special zombie types years before other games would turn that into a thing. The plot is done very well and each moment has a suitable impact. No atrocities are brought up and then casually forgotten. The game even introduces a little sister type for our heroine to protect that wasn't actually annoying...probably because she stayed at base camp.
Fighting a zombie using the one P.08 in Tokyo.
The game is open-ended, but guides you to the right choice either subtly or not so subtly. The first area is free of zombies, and the right area is light with easy zombies. The wrong area is full of zombies which are too tough for you. Not because you're too low level, but because you lack the combat skill you acquire by beating boss enemies. In theory, you could grind levels and then go through it...but in effect, it's one of those level gating systems. If you don't know, if you're level 1 and fight a level 3 enemy, you deal no damage, but if you're level 5 you kill them in one hit.
I guess in a pinch a combat knife can be used to gut fish...
Areas are mostly of unpleasant underground areas, resulting in unavoidable ugliness. There's between 3-5 tilesets, one of which is sewer and one is the one which you'll be seeing for most of the running time. Which is more variation than a lot of dungeon crawlers, and it is very nice-looking for what it is, but it's still these ugly walls with two different wallsprites per area. It's the one thing that drags down the genre, and this is no different.
The actual areas are closer to FPS than dungeon crawler. It's wise but not essential to map, and there are no dungeon crawler tricks in the game's arsenal. They start off complex, hitting its stride somewhere around the mid-game, before settling into a series of maps with clearly laid out rooms, which do not need to be mapped in the slightest. Basically hallways with rooms.
Even in-game, zombies are smart enough to use tools.
Now, on the surface, its fairly generic, but in practice, areas are built around enemy spawns. Which aren't fast enough to quickly grind, but are fast enough to cause concern when you're running around. The developers knew all the tricks you'd develop, so they built their encounters around making ideal tactics tedious at times. Forcing you to play aggressive. Enemies, be they ranged or melee, charge at you, but back away if they attack you or are attacked. Once they back up, they do a u-turn, which isn't a problem if there's just one, but if there are multiple, you will be flanked. It's cleverer than it seems at first glance, and also slightly annoying thanks to the controls.
Which are annoying in many ways. First, you kind of need a controller, you can tie them into keyboard controls, but I don't know if that screws with anything and I don't want to find out. Next, you aim and turn using the d-pad, but to move you press the B-button (I think, it was the right c-pad on my imitation N64 controller) and then a direction on the D-pad. Aiming has its own unique speed, which changes depending on your weapon. Moving is chunky. Tile-based movement, but enemies don't quite work that way moving on half-tiles. It also switches between sticking and not sticking. C-button opens the menu, selects your weapon, saves, and medical ampules.
A medical man.
Ammo and ampules are thus the two most important items you can find. At the start you can return to base camp to get healed, but after a while that doesn't happen anymore. (Or the camp doctor just doesn't heal you when you have too many) Ammo you can always get at base camp, or by various crates and ammo drops. Enemies drop ammo and ampules, the latter of which is your most reliable source of aquiring them. And believe me, you can't have enough of the later.
Shooting, shooting is very interesting for 1992. Guns work like guns, meaning they each work in their own unique way. While it's true the entire game, it's most obvious at the start, when you have a handgun, a shotgun and a magnum. (you also start with a knife and can pick up a fourth gun) Each gun has a different turn speed, damage, bullet drift from the crosshair, bullet size, armor penetration and recoil. That said, each gun broadly works in the same category, so there isn't too much change, just gradual improvement. Weapon progression is weird though, not at all how I would think a new gun would fit into the game.
Switching out weapons, this is just about the point where the game really shifts to rapid-fire weapons, as seen by three out of five guns being automatics.
But some of this variety is kind of false. You get two shotguns and one magnum over the course of the game, and their use is kind of limited. Let me explain how weapons work, bullet size is the size your bullet takes on-screen. Sort of like how a light gun works, if you are in the target area, you hit the target. With rapid-fire and shotguns, you get multiple bullets. The shotguns, alas, have such massive drift that you can barely hit anything with them. This is before you take into account the recoil of the shotguns and the magnum, which render fighting very difficult when you have to bring your crosshair down from the ceiling.
You're gradually lead down a path of having more and more automatic weapons in your arsenal, because these are the only weapons that have the least recoil, do the most damage, and can penetrate the tougher armors. You can move easier with a pistol, but you can with a knife too and that doesn't prevent you from having a machine gun. Rocket launchers are useful against early bosses, but after a certain point bosses just ignore rocket attacks. Like a sleep attack in a JRPG, you can't use the oddities against the enemies that you most need to use them against.
But in the moment to moment action, this is balanced. You go from having a variety of weapons until you end up replacing them all with automatic rifles of some sort. I would have liked a shotgun that didn't aim like crap or a sniper rifle. There's no real single shot, high damage weapon outside of the magnum and the rocket launchers, which makes it feel like it should be expanded. It's a very basic thing I'm surprised the game doesn't have.
So, despite seeming very simple at first glance, the game does some clever stuff with it, it's especially shocking when enemies start shooting at you. If the game has one real flaw beyond the awkward moving/aiming, it'd be that some boss fights are lazily made. Here's a simple 4x4 room or whatever and here's the boss. Bosses have the same behavior as every other enemy, but often they make it tricky by doing things you don't expect with them or in an area where this movement works in a different way than your average enemy.
Yeah, a zombie elephant.
As I said, enemies have very consistent traits. It doesn't matter if they're zombies, mutants or soldiers. Go after the player when spotted, attack/get hit, retreat, run away in a counter-clockwise, then go after the player, hoping to flank them. The thing is, it's not a terrible design despite it's simplicity, if you aren't in a hallway and against multiple enemies, which is most of the time, the plan will work. You have the advantage in that you have superior melee range and could shoot if desired, but this is limiting, of course.
You can see through fog two tiles away, three if an enemy is on the third. Enemies become alert at about four tiles and don't stop until some distance away, I can't be sure because I wasn't counting tiles when I was running away. You can really only tell if you're safe if the music changes back to the regular music. Huh, I guess switching between combat music and exploration music qualifies as a dynamic music system? Even if it is, it isn't the first, but it should be registering to me as something special even if it doesn't.
On the RPG side of things, the game is very simple. You get four (or so) stats that are raised with every level up...except attack power isn't actually raised by levelling up, but by killing certain boss enemies or using some objects. I'm sure there was a defensive stat that was being raised, but its effect was subtle enough that I never noticed it. Thus, the usual FPS/RPG hybrid problems of one side feeling tacked on.
It's just a very fun gameplay loop, even if individual components seem like they can fail. It can be annoying to move, and sometimes it's risky to chase after an enemy, but you get a short time to kill if you do. You still get that feeling of deep diving into a dungeon here, it's just that the further you go from guaranteed ammo the riskier it gets, fighting some enemies with a knife is risky and grinding just as much. It's the most I think I've had to strategize in a FPS before 1993, at least in combat.
K-Ko's surrogate little sister, Mariko.
K-Ko is an oddity as a player character because you could argue that she's the first Build-style protagonist, though her in-fight speech is somewhat limited. I also can't really imagine Duke or Lo Wang saying something like "owie" (what I choose to interpret "itai" or literally "painful" as) or "attacking". ("atare" which is literally just that) But we are talking about the first video game character to actually talk in-game, sometimes even commenting on in-game situations. Even if that situation is, you're lost.
Every time I try to think of a counter argument, I sort of hit a brick wall. In theory there's nothing preventing you having your protagonist talk through text only, but the only games that would qualify as that don't actually have that. The closest someone else does is Elm Knight, but that's not while the game is going. They stop dead to talk, which isn't really the spirit of things.
But in contrast to the honor of truly being first, I think K-Ko does something I don't think any female FPS protagonist has done since, feel feminine. I say this with two caveats, I haven't played every FPS with a female protagonist, and I might be biased since Japanese has more distinct male/female speech patterns. But, I really struggle to think of a good counter example. If I could remember Joesphine: Portrait of an Assassin I might say that, but I don't. Ion Fury has Shelly Harrison, but very little she says would be any different coming out of a man's mouth. And I think that this is very indication of modern voiced protagonists I've seen, so concerned with being tough that they feel interchangeable with men. I suppose women like that exist, but I thought writers were attempting to get away from writing women characters by slapping boobs on them.
I know that these sorts of characters were written to strongly contrast prop characters or characters who were feminine by virtue of being aggressively sexual. I think if you're writing a character and you write a character who has less personality than one who was barely intended to have one it's worse than not bothering at all. A character who you see all the time who tends to lean exclusively on one character trait can annoy, even if it's a game in which you constantly shoot zombies in the face.
Let's get back to K-Ko. I'd say she's a well-rounded character even if she doesn't really have an arc. I praised her aggression against people doing crazy things, but it isn't like she's constantly saying she'll kill people, just people performing zombie virus experiments. When she isn't talking to bad guys, she has a wide variety of emotions and responses befitting a real person. Which when I get down to it, is high praise for any video game protagonist.
There's a general vibe to this game that it's semi-professional. Better than an amateur work, but worse than a professional work. Enemies have one walking sprite and two or so attacking sprites. There's an impressive number of backgrounds, even animation and voice acting. Yet often the music plays over the voice acting, and you can't turn it off in cutscenes. I was going to turn off the music when I recorded the ending so people could hear the voice acting. I like what I can hear of it.
On the other hand if there's one aspect I found annoying, it was the HUD. We have, left to right, top to bottom:
Ammo.
A bar showing vaguely where enemies are.
A compass.
Battle Suit OS version.
Location and results of attacking and defending.
A scanner which tells you if you're within an enemy's range.
Your life meter, which beeps constantly.
Your gun.
It's not like a meme about modern HUD design, but it's close. I guess in that sense, it's pretty good for some people. But it is extremely busy in the moment to moment. You can hit enemies behind the text, of course, but it is annoying. Not as annoying as hearing a beep constantly in the background. I got used to it, but let's just say that I've spent enough time around heartrate monitors that it might just be me.
With that, to the rating.
Weapons: A very nice selection of varied weapons, but lacks a few key components that would make it truly shine. 8/10
Enemies: While behavior was set in stone, a lot of enemies had something about them that required an individual strategy...and a lot didn't. 5/10
Non-Enemies: None.
Levels: Doesn't take much advantage of the dungeon crawler design, but has it's moments of cleverness in-between simple corridors and tedious sewers. 5/10
Player Agency: A very unique way of controlling things, which doesn't always work. I felt more frustrated by movement than by turning. Overshooting a turn was usually my fault. Overshooting walking never made much sense to me. 4/10
Interactivity: Not much, really, you walk into things. I think pressing the walk button and not doing something technically activates it, but what's the difference? It's all part of the plot. 1/10
Atmosphere: The game really made me buy into its vision of post-apocalyptic Tokyo...even if it really shouldn't be square like this. 8/10
Graphics: Well-made, but not enough variety. I think I would have been okay without animated cutscenes if instead there were more sprites for the enemies. 5/10 Story: Not really original, but well-done. 7/10
Sound/Music: Poor sound mixing, with music being above everything else, sometimes slightly, sometimes to the point that you can't hear the sound. It's okay music, but this makes it slightly annoying. 4/10
That's 47, pretty high for this blog.
I recommend this game to the audience I expect there is for the game...which is a small amount. Memes about Japan being the country to truly continue Wizardry's legacy aside, most people learning the Japanese language are not interested in dungeon crawlers. Most people interested in weird old dungeon crawlers which could be said to also be FPS are not interested in learning Japanese. It would be an absolute miracle if this ever get translated, so I think this has appeal to about a hundred people maximum. It would also be ripe for a remake, really, all the game needs to do is improve the movement and aiming system.
As I mentioned last time, this was based on a movie, which I find utterly bizarre. Starring famed Japanese wrestler Cutie Suzuki (explaining the wrestling references) and directed by Kazuo Komizu, who is primarily known for trash. I found a VHS rip, imitating how someone would have watched this. What's even more bizarre are the trailers. Maybe I just skip over what little trailers I see these days too much, but a combination of Summertime Blues, No Retreat No Surrenderand Mr. Frost are not what I expect to see before a zombie film.
Before the film, there's a trailer for the game. It's clearly not yet finished, I see a bunch of situations that couldn't happen in the game and some monster sprites that weren't used. I get the feeling that the heartbeat thing was added somewhat last minute.
It's a very odd film. It's a low-budget zombie film, at least in theory, yet outside of a crappy shot of the meteor falling to Earth and 1992 3D graphics, it doesn't seem low budget. I've seen higher budget films with less production values to them, there's a lot of different locations, and a lot of people on-screen in decent costumes. It also plays more like a slightly more violent The Omega Man, the zombies are not entirely mindless. They use tools, like guns, and they don't always eat people where they grab them. You also don't see much of people getting eaten on-screen.
It also adds in some more context the game didn't get across. Everyone is infected with the zombie virus, get shot, get back up and eat people. The evil military, it seems, has zombie soldiers, not just the mutants. This explains the gun-wielding zombies, but should have been mentioned in-game, because none of the hostiles with guns look like zombies, really.
What is amusing, is that a lot of what the game has is something that happened in the movie. They might have made up most of the guns, but K-Ko really does pick up a ton of weapons in the movie. The fight against W? He's one of four mutants the evil military have. "Boss" zombies dodge rockets, of all the things to copy. Quite a few zombies are clearly based on ones seen in the movie. A lot doesn't, refugee camps don't really show up in the movie, outside of one getting slaughtered and most of the action is above-ground, with a group of punks who make deliveries throughout the quarantine zone. There's also no wrestling moves put in because the lead actress is a wrestler.
Oddly, the film seems to be setting up the plot of the game. I guess the game is then a sequel, but then we don't see K-Ko's friend from this film in the game. It also covers a lot of the same ground, and has Colonel Kirihara alive...unless he's alive in this game too and I just assumed he was dead. Probably alive then. Back to the game being a remake/sequel, well, that seems like a problem with more than a few games over the years.Next time, American FPS oddities.
Skipping over my previous choice of game, Lonesome Tank, which despite being competent was uninteresting to talk about, we have Quo Vadis. Almost every comment was complaining that the game was awful, and when I check a few other games that looked like they were of interest, the sentiment was the same. "The Edge is an awful publisher" is a direct quote. Let's see if it's any better than his musical efforts.
The story, told in slightly overwrought fashion, is that the Dark Lord has won over the forces of good, but he is not without mercy. Mankind is allowed one final hope, the player. There is an underground cave network containing the Sceptre of Hope, which you need to find, as well as the Words of Power. Then you can fight the Dark Lord. Or you could turn tail and run away.
The game controls oddly. To quote the manual, "You find yourself equipped with a glowing sword possessing such energy that it pulses in your grip. This sword, like no other you have ever seen, emits a continuous stream of pulses of pure white fire, destroying all evil in its path." AKA you fire in the same direction you move. Jump is done by moving the joystick up. Josytick down, outside of shooting, only goes down.
To start the game off, we get not one, but two ways to die before you've even done anything. Going up causes a game over, you coward. But if you fall off the rope, because your air control consists of nothing, you are going to die in the lava below. Your air movement is awful too. You go forward about three/four body lengths, then go straight down. This is actually oddly unmerciful of the game, once you get past it it takes a while for you to die. No lives.
As you explore, shooting in the direction you're going in, enemies spawn in. Four enemies spawn whenever you enter the room they're in. Each guarding passage or a treasure chest. Treasure chests restore health, so they aren't just points. As you kill them, they eventually drop down to one that seems to not stop spawning. Some shoot, some don't. They're this false variety you get in some games, many different graphics, but they seem to be all the same.
So, how do you win? You don't, at least not anymore, because this is a contest game. What you're supposed to do is find all the riddles and the location of the scepter, then write down those locations and mail them to the developer for the chance to win the scepter worth $10,000. Why USD and not pound? I don't know, but I suspect nobody actually won the prize. Because this game is way too merciful for the time in general, let alone for a prize.
From the topmost right entrance, is a big room with a passage down and a passage right. The passage right is very tricky, being a series of jumps over lava. Precise jumps. It's here I learn that you don't get any control over your jump, period. Not even shorter height depending on how quickly you let go of the jump. So you have to walk back slightly on each pillar, taking care not to walk off, then jump over.
I don't remember how I got here, just that it was past the aforementioned series of jumps. This place is confusingly laid out. My first riddle. Tour d'force using only a knife to eat an A1 solution. A1 is a type of sauce put on steaks by barbarians. At least that's what I think of. So the answer is "steak"? Probably not. There's something to be said about a game with overwrought intro text only to have a very modern riddle.
Starting over again because I was in too bad a shape to continue, I go one down from the start, this time to the left. I go through the area methodically, not finding much more than treasure in these rooms full of convoluted platforms. It's not even logical for me to be grabbing treasure, I'm fighting for humanity, not personal profit. But because it heals, I guess I have to.
It's over here, beginning a long and tedious descent down that I discover that maybe the game wasn't so generous with health after all. You really, really need to get those chests in order to have any chance of surviving down here, which, given that it's an endurance test, means you need them. Aiming your weapon is really difficult, especially if you don't want to die. One shot on-screen. I'm also pretty sure that the enemies have smaller hitboxes than their sprites, which really fits what the contest game vibe, because that usually only happens with player sprites, and even that's not a guarantee.
The enemies have some nice-looking sprites, about all that is nice-looking here. This game is really believable as the evil lord's underground cave network, because it is depressing, even outside the endlessly respawning hordes of enemies. The game plays some classical piece in the background because there is no other sound, which just constantly plays, it doesn't even stop when you die. Constantly looping. If it were sinister, it might work, but it just becomes meaningless background noise. So, working as an evil lair, but not in a fun way.
I figure out the trick to the game eventually. Never fight an enemy if you can help it, which means don't stop to fight. This goes further, don't stop to have to navigate. That means that those awkward platforms all around? They're preventing you from getting away from the hordes of enemies. Every time you jump is time you aren't running away. Every time you aren't running away is time you're losing health.
Even with this, I'm still dying in the same places, so I look up a map. I had heard the game was a thousand screens big, but I don't think I quite realized the scope of that until I took a look at a map. The good news and the bad news is that I am about halfway down...the bad news is that's about as far as I can go...this map didn't really help. If I did go all the way down, it really would have, because the scepter is at a corner piece, down-right, next to a riddle you can see if you zoom in.
Despite this, I find that this is where I'm ending it. This game is so unbelievably tedious and uninteresting. The size of the game might have been impressive, but it might as well have been something like Hall of the Things where everything is randomly generated, but interesting for a few gos. It's just big, and in an era where I can play something considerably larger, this doesn't really appeal. All I'm left with is something that just drains my energy playing it. Kind of fitting considering the subject.
Weapons: Simple projectile weapon. 1/10 Enemies: A neverending horde of various things which chase after you. 1/10
Non-Enemies: None.
Levels: It's big, but without much substance inside of it. 1/10
Player Agency: Awkward jumping, awkward aiming, but I guess movement is responsive. 2/10
Interactivity: None.
Atmosphere: So boring. 0/10
Graphics: I am so sick of staring at this ugly game. 1/10
Story: Awkward purple prose as a backstory, with nary an element of it to be seen inside the game. 0/10
Sound/Music: I don't know what classical piece they used, but the next time I hear it, I'll hate it. 0/10
That's 6, the lowest...since Arctic Adventure, not too long ago.
So, what about the challenge? Online we can find the rest of the messages:
Tour d'force using only a knife to eat an A1 solution.
A thousand added to everything loses fifty.
Losing the Dutch one, royalty appears before me.
Binary Indecisions between silent beginnings and quiet terminations.
Be sweet and be quick to go backward.
At last you think you are there.
The answers to these somehow spell out "Honi soit qui mal y pense", which is the motto of the Order of the Garter. In English, I see it translated as "shame on anyone who thinks anything evil of it". I have no idea how these are the actual answers or if they aren't. No one ever won it, at least, no one has ever claimed so publicly.
That said, I discovered an interesting aspect about the publisher I didn't notice until I searched for a map that publisher The Edge would become Edge Games, the infamous company known less for making any games and more for sitting on the trademark of Edge in video games. Knowing this, I start to suspect that there never was a sceptre. I'm not really shocked that there was a shady contest going on in the '80s, I'm more shocked that the company responsible is still going today.
Next up, I think I'm going to try to finish up the unplayed 1992 FPS I have left, so, look forward to a Apple IIGS game, an Acorn Archimedes game, an arcade FPS, and finally another Mike Singleton game.
Mariko doesn't really have anything new to say, so it's time to find out how to advance on my own. I travel to the Keep Off Area first, by virtue of it being where I headed to first. Rather embarassingly, I find out that the ammo box near the tank is in fact, unlimited. I wonder if this is true of all boxes? Alas, this journey proves to be fruitless, there's nothing new in this area. Next bet, the war college.
There's nothing new here. There's nothing new elsewhere. I'm basically just spinning my wheels hoping I get lucky right now. I'm getting experience, but I don't know if I really need it. Okay, before I go through the entire game again, I double check that there's no walkthrough, there isn't. But someone twelve years ago also blogged about this and made maps. There's a hidden door next to the computer I met the minister on.
Ah, damn it, how did I miss that? Well, this has to be it. What wonders lie inside?
Robots. They fall easily to the MG 34, which is surprising. I've come all this way to just slaughter the new enemies? Surely I can't be overleveled? No, they're just armored, the machine guns take care of them, the FAMAS and Minigun don't. The green guys do block my shots with their shield, but otherwise they die in one machine gun burst. They don't drop anything, at least at first, which is worrying.
There's a third guy, he does more damage, but despite looking impressive he's the same as the others. Its the green guys that are the most trouble, since they don't die in one burst. While at first the level here is a literal hallway, it eventually turns into a level. Which turns into worrying about ammo and health supplies. The former is quickly remedied, I find out that one green guy drops both the M60 and the MG 34. He's not even the only one that does it. That's ammo, but now I need to worry about health. Well, eventually. I got 57 ampules, but you never know. It takes one stroke of bad luck to wipe that out.
After a long, long hallway, I find my way to here. The Secretary of Defense. I'm getting the distinct feeling that this is the endgame. It's built like the war college or the submarine, long hallways with various rooms.
We've got a new group of soldiers. They're tough and I hope that some of them drop ampules. Some definitely drop ammo, at least. Ampules are somewhat rare, but unfortunately it's a long trip to grind them out against regular soldiers again. The really annoying enemies are the red robots, they never drop anything. The other soldier guys, they do drop something.
After a levelup to 21, I decide to advance further. The room going further in is not that far from the entrance. Same principle as before, except the room to advance is just before the edge of the hallway. I think I changed my mind, the red robots don't drop anything, but they also usually die easily. The other blue guys are hard to hit and don't drop anything. The worst possible combination.
There's a marked door in the aforementioned room, leading to the guy in charge, Colonel Osaki. He's very happy to meet K-Ko. K-Ko refers to him as the one who replaced her father. Oh, I get it now, he probably killed Colonel Kirihara. Now she's going to kill him in revenge. This guy is really trying to be sinister, not even acknowleding that and instead apologizing for not introducing himself. (This is where he mentions his name) He's the planner of the Tokyo Resurrection Project. Which surprises K-Ko. She goes after him for all the murder and medical experimentation he's been conducting on the survivors.
Osaki goes on about how the meteor has given them the opportunity to change the world. Japan has been a symbol of corruption. The masses pretending to flourish even though they're sick. Government, corporations, government officals, mass media, all relying on each other, like Babylon. Then, one night in Tokyo, demolished. This is the will of heaven! This time, with the meteor, it does not begin again. Kusomoanfitamin will bring the meteor to the world. When it comes to the Earth, everything else will be in the past.
K-Ko interjects about how insane he is again, before he continues. Kusoanfitamin increases the strength of living things, but outside genes are taken and give power of their own. The development in mammals causes unexpected side effects. All become a new, stronger lifeform. This fate cannot be avoided. This causes K-Ko to say he's lying, that she doesn't believe him. He merely states that since the meteor, the early form of these changes have been happening, and soon these will spread to the world. They'll be able to control these new lifeforms. He will become the supreme ruler of the world.
He then asks K-Ko to join him. They can rule together. K-Ko refuses, considering it a joke, as she expected from someone with a face like that. She tells him he's gone mad, lists all of his crimes, and then talks about how much she's going to enjoy his pain as she sends him to hell. He merely finds that regrettable, .then goes into how she can't stop him. And then they basically start screaming that they'll kill each other
That's the end of the dialog. It's a lot, but I had 22 screenshots of it! Time to fight. He's easier than the guys it took to get here by virtue of not having armor. He's fast, but the weird design of this place prevents that from being an advantage. So I can mostly just blast away at him, while taking a few hits. This is too easy, I think as I shoot him. Way too easy. But before long he dies...and then he starts talking. He's basically just talking about how he's going to going to change and become more powerful.
Surprise, surprise, he's turned into a demon.
And now we fight again. In space, somehow. He moves around, you can just turn. You'd think that would be a problem, but it's actually nice. The game won't make me chase after him too much. This means he's always on-screen, meaning I can always shoot him. He's also nicer than other enemies, in that he isn't attacking me except when he gets up close. That doesn't mean this is easy, because he either requires you to hit limbs, or he has so much health that it doesn't register on my targeting crosshair.
I lose the first time around, well, quit actually. I could have knifed him to death, but that would have taken too long and I needed to start dinner. And I should be taking a video of the end of this, since there isn't one online. I also need more ammo, even if I get that by just rushing to the end. I need to figure out my exact plan of attack. Finally, there's still a little space, which I'm mostly just hoping contains ammo and not another locked door.
It has another Minigun, in 7.62mm. Which at first I assumed was just some variant the game made up to give me before the final boss, but checking, it's the actual Minigun, the 5.56mm one is a variant the game technically made up, because very few actually exist. Huh. It has better armor penetration than the weaker Minigun, but doesn't do as well as the LMGs. I just need to get full ammo and then I can fight Osaki again.
The first time I take a video of the boss, I run out of ammo and ampules. I probably burned through too much ammo and didn't try to hit as precisely as I should have. That said, I check the other guy again. Just knife him to death, nothing special. Considering this guy's regenerating, better advice would be appreciated. Guess I'll just switch between shooting at him when he's far away then knifing him up close. My third attempt finally worked. I think that by using the Minigun against Osaki's first form, I lost a bit of ammo, when I should have used the LMGs. I kept getting tricked by his attack where he goes over you, and I don't think that you can avoid the massive damage he deals there. I also figured out here, which probably saved me from having a fourth attempt, that you get more out of ampules using them individually.
With Osaki dead, we get a shot of the ruins of where we presumably were, then back to camp talking to Mariko. K-Ko informs her that everything is going to be all right now, she can walk around now. They can explore together.
Then there's a black screen text crawl. "In the two years since the meteor fell, further people have safely returned alive. After this, the fear of Kusomoanifitamin is in the past, many moves to the Kansai region, and the government measures this movement. Now the blockade is lifted and nobody goes in."
And that's Rejection. Or possibly Denno Senshi: Rejection, in-game it favors one side, but the cover art I caught a glimpse of and the title favor the other. It was fun and definitely a worthwhile experience. One final thing I learned from that blog is that this is based off a movie and maybe a manga. Maybe, there's a name mentioned as being original work on one site, but I can't find anything connected to the name. I couldn't find anything on a manga just yet, I'll see the movie before the summary. The game is very clearly based off the movie, since both characters are named Keiko Kirihara, there are zombies and a power suit. Mobygames doesn't mention this, probably because game doesn't mention anyone who worked on the movie and the movie is called Battle Girl: Tokyo Crisis Wars, which is such a better name I wonder why they chose what we got. (Even discounting that there's a Macintosh game of the same name which I *might* be able to play one day) It's so bizarre.
