Emulator Hour: Final Fantasy Legend II

I'm on a real Game Boy kick lately, so I've been playing Final Fantasy Legend II.  I tried out a few different Game Boy games, including the Super Mario Land games and FF Legend I,  but they were all so bad they were almost unplayable.  Yes, I was surprised, too!  But FF Legend II was clearly different.  For starters, there is a story.  I wasn't just dropped into the world and passive/aggressively expected to fend for myself.  No, there was a bit of an intro, and even a teacher/character to hang out and protect me for the first fifteen minutes or so.  This is acceptable, I will continue.

I'm a couple hours into the game so far, and I'm enjoying it.  I chose this series because I didn't know much about it.  I have vague memories of playing one at G&G games in the Woodland Mall, maybe twenty years ago (dear god, I'm so old!)  And I've always been a fan of Final Fantasy games, so I wanted to see what Square had for the Game Boy crowd.

Well, first off, the game allows you to build a party of four, which is more of an old-school final fantasy method, and a mechanic I enjoy.  I built my party from a Mutant Female, Human Female, Robot and a Baby-Dragon.  The game only gives you four letters to name each character, but I was able to get creative, and I'm happy with my names: Djna, Fara, Bobt and Enki.

The basic structure of the game is nothing original.  Lead character leaves town to find her father who went out searching for Magi.  Magi are magical stones that grant power.  World is going to hell in a handbasket, Magi are probably related.  Ashura is bad organization trying to find Magi.  The first Magi you receive will tell you how many Magi are in a given area.  Hey, I recognize that mechanic.

The equipment and ability system in this game is interesting.  It appears that all of your weapons, items and magic are consumable.  So, when you go to the weapon store to buy a hammer, you actually buy fifty hammers, and burn through them.  There are some restrictions that I'm figuring out.  My Baby-D (who is now an octopus) can't carry any additional items except what he came equipped with.  The Robot can equip almost any weapon, but he can't use magic.  He's a tough mofo too.  Mutant F has a little higher Magic and Human F has a little higher strength.

Another interesting mechanic is related to my Baby-D.  It seems that choices 6,7 and 8 for character select are virtually the same.  I came to this conclusion when I got a bit of Spider's Meat and fed it to my baby dragon.  He changed into a slime!  By now I have changed him a bunch of times, and he's been a Slime, Zombie, Spider, Jaguar and an Octopus.  It seems that this is his mechanic.  He can't equip anything, ever, so he just burns out his 30 Fangs, Talons, Tenticles etc and then it becomes necessary to change him again.  I'm glad I didn't choose more than one animal pet, because he's not as useful as the others.

So far the game has been light.  There's not a whole lot more visible depth to any of my characters, and my ability to examine their stats is limited.  I'm guessing this game takes 5-10 hours, we'll see how far I get.  It's nice to have a role-playing game back into my life.

Emulator Hour: Metroid II: Return of Samus

Welcome to my new segment: Emulator Hour!  Where I review games from past systems that I always play on the original cartridge in the original system.  Today, We're going to talk about Metroid II: the Return of Samus, on Nintendo Gameboy.  

I first played Metroid II when I was in sixth grade.  I borrowed it from my friend Paul and I have fond memories of playing it, which led me to revisit the game now, many years later. I think that Metroid Two is a bit like unsung hero of the series.  (I should note that when I talk about the Metroid Series, I am referring only to the first three games).  Metroid 1 introduced all of us young, bright eyed, impressionable kids to the world of Metroid: Samus, Justin Bailey -----------, Kraid, Ridley, Mother Brain and all the rest.  That game was totally interesting and totally hard.  Metroid two tones down the difficulty a bit, dials up the graphics (yes, the game boy version looked better).  It also progresses the storyline.  

Metroid II: introduces us to a more detailed Samus.  Her armor takes on a lot more definition than the first game showed.  She's much more the big shouldered, cyber-suit wearing heroine we've come to know and love.  As seen below, we also get a look at her spaceship. 

The basic gameplay of Metroid II is pretty straightforward.  You have a Metroid Count, which starts at 39, and you want to get down to 0.  So you look around for some Metroids to kill.  Different areas are sectioned off by liquid hot magma, and you can see how many metroid remain in a given area by pressing the start button.  When you've destroyed all the Metroid in a given area, the magma will lower and reveal more room to explore.

Metroid II introduces a bunch of new gear.  The spring ball- allowing the ball form of Samus to jump.  My favorite is the Spider Ball, allowing the ball form to stick to walls-- this item is incredibly useful in Return of Samus, but did not make it into Metroid III. The Space Jump is another that didn't make it into Metroid III, but was fantastically useful.  

Space jump allows you to continually jump - in mid air-,and basically fly through a level.  The timing is tricky, but when you get that down, Space Jump is an essential tool for progressing through the zones in Return of Samus.  But the best part is when you acquire the Screw Attack.  Combined with Space Jump, Samus becomes a floating vortex of death, bouncing through each screen, destroying everything in her path.  For Metroid fans, that should be reason enough to play through Return of Samus.  

The biggest pitfall of Metroid II is that it is very easy to get lost.  This can become maddening.  One innovation that had not yet been developed is the Metroidvania Map system.  Metroid II could really use it.  Because it was on game boy, there were only four shades of gray, not allowing the designers to make one section purple, one yellow, one red, like in the first Metroid. In addition to that, the designers didn't choose to create radically different textures to help distinguish one area from another.  Bubble design, of which, in the original Metroid, I was so fond, only makes it's appearance in the last 10% of the game.  

I also have to say that the music is kind of lame.  The main theme is okay, and the ambient tracks are so-so, but nothing half as cool as the haunting beeps found in Metroid I- you know the song, when you find your different power upgrades.  I had to revisit Metroid I after playing this game, and that song is still awesome.

After having played through it again, I may have to say that Return of Samus isn't as good as Metroid 1 or Super Metroid, but that's not saying a lot.  Super Metroid is, in my humble opinion, a top contender for the very best game on the Super Nintendo.  The execution of Super Metroid timely, and flawless.  Metroid 1 was so original that it's really hard to compare.  Return of Samus is caught in the middle, but I don't mind.  There were a bunch of new approaches from Return of Samus that made it into Super Metroid, so, really, I am thankful for Return of Samus because it laid further groundwork for one of my favorite games of all-time.