Super Mario Odyssey Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 1/25/2024) 

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Super Mario Odyssey

Developer: Nintendo

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre(s): 3D Platformer

Platforms: Switch

Release Date: October 27, 2017

Ever since the release of Super Mario Galaxy, I had always wondered how all of the successive 3D Mario titles would meet it at eye level. After all, what could possibly match the grandiose scope of freely flying throughout the infinite reaches of the universe? Logically speaking, absolutely nothing expands beyond it. While I tout Super Mario Galaxy as Mario’s finest outing across all of his mainline games, putting the plumber in a setting with an indescribably vast breadth where no one can possibly fathom its parameters peaks the franchise conceptually. My worry was that Nintendo had inadvertently squeezed the potential out of their most valuable asset, splurging all the remaining possibilities of a 3D Mario adventure into one intergalactic romp. I’m not considering the sequel to Super Mario Galaxy as proof that Mario hadn’t stagnated because Yoshi is not substantial enough of an addition. Actually, the fact that the green dinosaur was the only crumb of innovation they could implement to Galaxy’s formula is empirical evidence to my claim that it couldn’t be surpassed. The array of Mario games that followed Galaxy decided not to succeed it, but instead to ape the pre-3D classics with a polygonal coat of paint almost as a creatively bankrupt safety net. Super Mario 3D World for the Wii U, on the other hand, is technically not another 2D Mario game rendered with polygons instead of pixels. Still, considering the game features a grid-based world map and narrowly linear levels that all end by climbing a fucking flagpole, it’s a wonder how they could convince anyone that it wasn’t of the same ilk. When Super Mario Odyssey was released as the Mario representative to showcase the new Nintendo Switch console in 2017, I still remained skeptical despite hearing that it reverted back to the collectathon format and that it was receiving the same widespread acclaim not seen since Galaxy 2. It turns out that Super Mario Odyssey still doesn’t attempt to triumph over Galaxy’s magnificence, but that is actually what makes it all the more substantial.

Of course, Odyssey begins with the same general conflict premise as Galaxy. Then again, it just wouldn’t be Mario anymore if Bowser wasn’t swiping up the princess like clockwork, which means my Stockholm syndrome for Mario’s severely overused plot device is finally settling in. The unique context behind Odyssey’s princess-napping is that Bowser realizes like Beyonce that if he likes Peach, he should put a ring on her as a binding, inescapable bond of holy matrimony seen as a steadfast contractual obligation by the law. When Mario confronts Bowser on his decorated ship flying over Peach’s castle in what is the most abrupt introduction to any Mario game thus far, the boomerang swing of Bowser’s white, snappy wedding hat knocks the wind out of Mario and sends him zooming across the skies. He leaves his trusty red cap in the wake of his humbling defeat, which Bowser crushes with the force of his hefty reptilian foot as a finishing blow to Mario’s ego. However, losing one of Mario’s most personal items is more fortuitous than one would think. Mario manages to crashland on “Bonnetown” in the Cap Kingdom, a peculiar place so expressionistic with a whimsically eerie atmosphere that it’s a wonder that Tim Burton’s name didn’t appear in the opening credits. Cap Kingdom is also populated by a society of wispy, ghoulish caps that possibly could serve as substitutes for Mario’s misplaced clothing item. Cappy, the floating pale creature who has somehow retrieved the torn remnants of Mario’s old hat from Bowser’s ship, volunteers to be the new blocker of the sun’s rays to Mario’s dome because his younger sister, Tiara, has also been forcibly taken by Bowser to serve as Peach’s crown during their eventual wedding ceremony. By fusing his ethereal body with Mario’s old cap, Cappy and Mario are now a dynamic duo on a mission to save Peach and his sister from glorified legal enslavement. I suppose the call to adventure is glorious for Cappy but for Mario, it’s just another Tuesday.

While Mario isn’t roaming the cosmos once again, the “odyssey” portion of the title still alludes to a glorious journey nonetheless. Mario is limited to the land this time around and all of its oxygenated, gravitational barriers, but this does not mean that Super Mario Odyssey is a conceptual compromise. The key element from Galaxy retained here is that heightened sense of romanticism that comes with Mario setting off on an adventure. Somehow, for a franchise whose protagonist has soared through the infinite reaches of space twice over, Odyssey’s scale still seems wondrous while sticking to an earthly environment. There is something bourgeois about sailing the skies in a steam-powered vessel in the shape of a red top hat that is granted to you on a convenient whim, a fanciful privilege only rewarded to the king of video games. Mario is a modern-day Philleas Fogg, and the premise of flying around the circumference of the entire world that was once far-fetched when Around the World in Eighty Days was written still retains that sense of spectacle and majesty despite the technological advancements we’ve contributed to air travel. The same could be said for Mario’s personal experiences, finding exhilaration in this venture even after exploring the final frontier. Somehow, for a franchise where one title was vacation-themed, Odyssey exudes a greater atmosphere of laidback breeziness than when he set foot on Isle Delfino. 3D Mario still sustains the elation of traveling abroad, which means Mario is still shirking whatever responsibility he left in the Mushroom Kingdom two decades prior. Is Peach his mistress, or did living with Luigi become intolerable?

The world that Mario is circling via a mechanical, quasi-steampunk piece of formal wear on his quest to rescue Peach is actually the one where the Mushroom Kingdom resides. Unless someone has mapped out the location of Sarasaland or Isle Delfino and determined their geographical placements in relation to the Mushroom Kingdom, Odyssey marks the first time where the player can discern the distance between Peach’s fungal domain and the areas outside of its jurisdiction. Instead of shelling out gobs of money for their wedding like your average poor sap, Bowser uses his kingly persuasion and or strongarm tactics to steal the precious artifacts from the various kingdoms to use as trinkets during the ceremony (wedding cake, soiree bouquet, etc). In the interest of sticking it to Bowser and restoring balance to the upset kingdoms he’s impolitely pillaging, Mario acts as the NATO-esque ambassador from the Mushroom Kingdom and retrieves all of the stolen items rightfully belonging to their defenseless neighbors.

Since Odyssey’s progression involves skimming across the longitudinal plane of an entire planet, one can assume that the seventeen different areas of the game showcase an eclectic range of level themes and topographies. Before you also assume that this premise allows the developers to delve back into the typical fire, ice, desert, etc. world roulette that the Super Mario series created and every conceivable platformer followed, Odyssey seems slightly more clever than to pass by with the bare minimum. Sure, the kingdoms arguably resemble the base elemental motifs that ran the genre into the ground with exhausting overuse. However, a pinch of personality will perk up any and all overused tropes. For instance, the explorable district of the Sand Kingdom, “Tostarena,” borrows inspiration from Latin American culture instead of the ancient Egyptian standstill. A plaza of vibrant, colorful buildings resembling modern Mexican architecture is contrasted with an array of mythically ancient Aztec pyramids and pillars in a dry wasteland of baked red sand. “Shiveria” in the Snow Kingdom looks like a hostile bank of frigid tundra on the surface, but underneath the raging frost is a civilization of rotund, white furballs whose habitable society exudes warmth and comfort. I suppose the closest Odyssey comes to rendering a fire-themed level is the Luncheon Kingdom, with its boiling lake of Pepto Bismol serving as the scorching hazard that surrounds the area. Anyone who would find this gaudy, splotchy kingdom appetizing is either a cartoon alien or they're on some seriously potent dope. I don’t trust that this kingdom has a pleasant aroma of food from Cappy because he doesn’t even have a fucking nose! The highlight kingdom in my personal opinion is the swinging urban “New Donk City,” meant to resemble America’s city that never sleeps. Among the goofy and brainless Sims refugees that populate this city, its less disturbingly realistic mayor should tickle anyone who is knowledgeable about Mario’s history. Mario’s old squeeze Pauline all the way back from when he was coined as Jumpman has moved on from being snatched up by Donkey Kong to a position of prestigious political power. Seeing her after a quarter of a century is like bumping into an old girlfriend from high school, and whether or not her success is life-affirming or a source of envy is a matter of individual perspective, I guess. Overall, Odyssey’s crop of kingdoms is beaming with life and energy, but there are a few duds in the mix. Some are relegated to bounded boss arenas, and the aquatic theming of both the Lake Kingdom and the Seaside Kingdom is redundant. They could’ve been integrated with the elegant mermaid society of Lake Lamode hidden underneath the surface of the carbonated beachfront of Bubblaine like how the “Steam Gardens” of the forested Wooden Kingdom juxtaposed the shadowed core below the mechanized hiking trails above.

Mario’s recurring objective, whenever he docks his aircraft on the ground of any of these levels, is to gather an increasing abundance of fuel to further power his ship. Fuel for the aircraft is harnessed via obtaining power moons that are in the shape of multicolored crescents, a Mario celestial collectible that has also been split in half. A certain milestone of power moons collected also forms another fold of the sail that hoists the ton of top hat machinery up in the sky, suggesting that it can travel to greater lengths with every new addition. That quantity of power moons needed to expand Mario’s trajectory is the primary goal of each level, as the player will be locked onto the current level until the quotient is met. Another collectible also found scattered around the field beside the standard coins is a subsidiary purple currency that tends to be aligned in packs of three and is specifically shaped for each kingdom. Mario cannot convert the darkened currency into gasoline to feed his ship’s engine; rather, they are exchanged to purchase items at a gift shop featured in every kingdom. Mario can change his attire with a hat and torso clothing combo, plant a sticker with an artistic postcard design to decorate the exterior of his aircraft like the back of a laptop screen and spruce up the interior of it with assorted knickknacks. Filling the space of the inner chamber with each level’s memorabilia is a neat way of signaling progress in the game, and mixing and matching Mario’s outfits is just darling. For those few who campaigned against Mario’s sombrero and poncho combo calling it “cultural appropriation,” get a life.

Super Mario Odyssey cuts the approximate number of total levels featured in either of the two Super Mario Galaxy games in half. Despite how this seems on the surface, Odyssey is not a skeletal 3D Mario game compared to its predecessors because of its direction. The growing linearity that both Galaxy titles sought to pursue for 3D Mario’s evolution has been scrapped entirely for Odyssey. Instead, Odyssey adopts a free-flowing open design across all seventeen levels. It’s a fortunate circumstance for Mario that his eccentric vehicle’s fuel source is plentiful and commonplace across all of the kingdoms, so the lengths he must undergo to sustain geographical movability are not arduous in the slightest. In fact, Mario can simply walk a few meters from where he parks his aircraft and find at least a couple of power moons. Odyssey provides a myriad of assorted ways to obtain its main collectible, so many that I have to limit the examples for the sake of brevity. Red doors marked with a dapper, golden top hat symbol are entrances to enclosed, traditional platforming sections where a power moon will be rewarded to Mario at the end, with another often obscured to the side rewarded for diligent searching. Some of these doors are locked behind bouncers who won’t let Mario in until he’s wearing the appropriate outfit, so the clothes are also functional as well as fashionable. Sending Mario down the iconic green pipes will transport him to a section that restricts him to the 2D axis, resembling his spritely self during his early pixelated days. I particularly enjoy these brief swathes of 2D platforming as the pixel art rendered here is so crisp and clean. Mario ascends up the New Donk City equivalent to the Empire State Building entirely in his 8-bit form in a sparkling, 25-year tribute to the classic Donkey Kong game, and the game arguably peaks in quality with this section alone. Minigames, or at least sections that I would consider to be minigames, involve matching the paces of a circle and placing the correct pieces of anatomy on a drawing of an enemy or ally. While these feel like glorified sobriety tests, the fact that they are featured shows the extent of how the game diversifies the objective of finding the power moons, ensuring that it never risks getting stale. Do you want to know what the best part of the collection process is? The pesky boot-out system that plagued the non-linear playgrounds of Super Mario 64 has been omitted entirely, so Mario can collect past the required amount of power moons to his heart’s content. The main quest that each level presents involving the retrieval of stolen goods is merely a suggestion that can be glossed over in favor of other objectives. Finally, Odyssey realizes the potential of 64’s level design after all of its immediate successors practically abandoned it.

Odyssey’s main gimmick is also greatly utilized while Mario explores each level for power moons. Cappy isn’t merely a talking hat to help Mario navigate through uncharted territory with the occasional factoid and quip: he’s as integral to Odyssey’s gameplay as F.L.U.D.D. was in Sunshine. If there is one extraordinary aspect that the already splendorous Galaxy was lacking, it’s giving Mario the ability to possess all sentient beings that surround him. Odyssey gives credence to all the conspiratorial whack jobs wearing tinfoil hats because, without their odd, makeshift headwear, their autonomy is fully squelched by Mario after he flings his hat off of his head onto theirs, with an additional mustache to signify Mario’s presence in their minds. This marvelous addition to Mario’s gameplay isn’t only used a handful of times for a small selection of NPCs: it's necessary to gather the majority of power moons per level. Ever wondered what it would be like to control a number of Bowser’s henchmen? Well, Odyssey unveils that hypothetical possibility, by letting Mario fling frying pans furiously as a hammer bro, break open cages with the charged force of a Bullet Bill, and stack Goombas to attract a female one situated on a perch. Friendlier NPCs can also be controlled, such as a clueless dad in New Donk City who can’t drive an RC car to save his life and a winged lizard who can glide to the ledges of pillars in Tostarena and the isolated islands of the remote Lost Kingdom. Mario can man mobile weaponry such as tanks and slingshots, and force inanimate objects that are obscuring power moons out of his way. For a brief period, Mario can even take control of the enormous T. Rex sleeping in Cascade Kingdom and rampage through its prehistoric waterfalls destroying all of the rock formations that surround it. Must I list more examples after this one? The ability to do so was practically a selling point for the entire game, and I was completely sold on this unique piece of gameplay innovation.

While the massive range of individual objectives per level preserves the player’s intrigue in Odyssey’s gameplay, it ultimately trivializes the game’s difficulty. Thinking of ways to scatter the power moons and implement quirky methods of earning them was probably too ambitious for the developers, so their creative juices evidently ran dry as they started to half-ass the process. Mario can earn a power moon by sitting on a bench with some lonely SOB in New Donk City, twirling his hat on several glowing spikes, and one power moon is purchasable in the section of each kingdom’s gift shop that accepts regular coins. When earning the main collectible boils down to simply purchasing it for a paltry 100 coins, does it really feel like an achievement? Is this the best the developers could come up with to meet some kind of power moon quota? Only a handful of power moons are legitimate challenges that require a reasonable level of platforming skill to obtain. To compound on Odyssey’s ease, all Mario loses when he dies is a measly ten coins. I understand that perhaps a numbered life system wouldn’t work in this open environment, for there isn’t even a hub to eject Mario to upon exhausting all of them. Still, maybe I’d be more incentivized to act cautiously if the penalty of death was a bit steeper. The areas of each kingdom tend to be fairly spacious, so perhaps Mario should be teleported back to the ship as a reasonable punishment and wipe away the whole checkpoint system. I understand that Odyssey places a heavy emphasis on liberal exploration rather than narrow platforming tasks, but lifting the weight of challenges across the board to foster this direction made me disillusioned with the gameplay at times.

I can’t say the game’s various bosses provide too much of a challenge either, but at least they share the admirable levels of diversity and creativity that the high points of Odyssey bestow. Initiating a boss encounter is usually not done by stumbling upon them like a regular power moon. They tend to be integrated with the primary objective looming overhead, and the incentive for defeating is earning a three-piece power moon pack instead of a single one. A recurring encounter found floating menacingly over many kingdoms with their miniature, flying boat are the Broodals: a quartet of anthropomorphic rabbits hired by Bowser to coordinate a slew of things for his wedding. While all the thuggish bunnies exude a rough and tough, low-brow urbanity like they’re an unused gang from The Warriors, each individual Broodal fight couldn’t be any more different from the next. Mario even fights their equally trashy mother a couple of times, who walks around carrying a chain chomp on a leash as the Mario universe equivalent of a middle-aged housewife pampering a pit bull terrier. Other bosses are endemic to the particular world they reside in, such as the stone face of Knucklotec in the catacombs of Tostarena, Mechawiggler scaling the sides of the tall buildings of New Donk City, and Cookatiel flapping its wings over the Luncheon Kingdom’s Mount Volbono volcano. The Ruined Dragon of the forsaken Ruined Kingdom is so photorealistic and darkly intimidating that it’s as if Mario crossed the metaphysical video game boundaries into Dark Souls. While none of the bosses were perilous duels that tested Mario’s might, integrating the possession mechanic into most of these boss battles is an appreciated factor of their high engagement. I especially enjoy using Knucklotec’s own fists to sucker punch him, and shooting the balls off of Mechawiggler’s body with tank shells.

Lest we forget Bowser’s role as the primary Mario antagonist among the crowd of secondary bosses in Odyssey. Similarly to the Galaxy games, Bowser is fought a handful of times before the climactic moment that results in returning Peach to safety. Also like Galaxy, Bowser’s fights are basically the same as the first with additional variations to his attacks to throw Mario off the sense of familiarity. The first fight that Bowser engages with Mario is a detour into the small, secluded Cloud Kingdom, and we’re meant to believe that his final fight will take place at his feudal Japan-themed castle, which is the most inspired depiction of Bowser’s fiery fortress we’ve seen in ages. The true climax where Mario finally conquers Bowser is set in a cathedral erected on the edge of the moon. Talk about a destination wedding! After barging through the towering ivory doors to yell “I object!” like any maverick wedding crasher would, Mario kicks Bowser’s white tuxedo-wearing, neatly combed hair ass so hard for his latest attempt to secure Peach as his property that the cathedral starts to crumble around them. In order to survive the wreckage, Mario does the unthinkable and passes his cap onto Bowser. Yes, for the last segment of Odyssey’s story, the player controls King Koopa himself as the only reliable physical force available to break through the falling debris, and he’s as fun to play as one would expect. Odyssey’s ending may not form an emotional lump in my throat as Galaxy’s did, but the epic closure of racing to the other side as Bowser is satisfyingly epic. Plus, the “bro moment” between Mario and Bowser when Peach rejects both of them as potential lovers at the end is hilariously tender and unexpected.

Flying to the moon to halt Peach’s horrible fate as Bowser’s lawfully wedded wife wrapped up the story of Odyssey nicely, but the game itself is far from over. The first step of Mario’s epilogue is finally returning home to the Mushroom Kingdom after an extensive period away. However, Mario will be working overtime here as the modern rendering of Peach’s castle and the yard surrounding it serve as an entirely new area with power moons aplenty. In addition to the power moons earned through exploration, portals strewn throughout the castle grounds transport Mario to fight the game’s bosses again with a dash of extra challenge seasoned in. Green series staples such as Yoshi and Luigi can also be found roaming the area, and their brief inclusions are enough of a presence so Nintendo doesn’t think to legitimize Odyssey with a whole new sequel where they hog more of the spotlight. What really extends the length of Odyssey to overflowing proportions are the space cubes littered across every single kingdom in the game. Now, when Mario bats these mysterious multidimensional shapes with Cappy, they ignite into the sky and create new power moons that are integrated with those left over from the base game. Engaging with the cubes doubles the amount of power moons per level, meaning that Odyssey’s epilogue is extended to the length of the entire game that the player just finished. One may dismiss Odyssey’s post-game as a case of ludicrous padding. Yet, I genuinely still yearned to collect more power moons after I defeated Bowser, and the flood of supplementary power moons quenched my thirst for more content. Besides, I can choose to collect as many additional power moons as I please at my own pace, and I’m not a strict completionist. For those who are, Odyssey certainly has their work cut out for them.

After a lengthy period of lackluster releases unfitting for Mario’s golden reputation, the Italian pride of Nintendo finally fired on all cylinders with Super Mario Odyssey. By returning to form via the 3D platformer format that used to mark a gigantic release for the plumber, Mario reworks what was perceived as insurmountable by Galaxy’s high standard by tweaking the knobs of collectathon gameplay to something completely untested in the franchise. I’m almost ashamed to admit my short-sightedness in assessing how doomed the attempt of any subsequent 3D Mario game matching Galaxy would be, for basing the core design in a strictly non-linear playground where the player has the freedom to explore without any constraints seems like such an obvious solution. “The possession mechanic” that drives Odyssey’s appeal is so unconventional that no one could’ve anticipated its incorporation into the gameplay, but we’re all delighted by its inclusion. Odyssey is a tad too facile for my liking, even for a series as accessible as Mario. Because of this, I can clearly state that I prefer the format of the previous 3D Mario platformers where earning a main collectible felt more gratifying. Still, Odyssey is more than worthy enough of being uttered in the same respects as its predecessors, something that couldn’t be said about the immediate Mario titles before it.

Batman: The Video Game Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 1/21/2024)

[Image from igdb.com]

Batman: The Video Game

Developer: Sunsoft

Publisher: Sunsoft

Genre(s): 2D Platformer

Platforms: NES

Release Date: December 22, 1989

If the long-running tenure of James Rolfe’s AVGN internet series is any indication, the NES era was rank with movie tie-in pollution. For some odd reason, video game tie-ins coinciding with the release of a blockbuster Hollywood movie were always utter disasters. Actually, the reason is fairly clear-cut: the developers knew that their games would still sell regardless of their quality, so they barely attempted to grasp the source material or render interesting or engaging gameplay elements to justify the movie’s transition to the medium of video games. The primary culprit to the scourge of cheap cash grabs is LJN, a company that spat out shoddy film adaptations onto the NES console as frequently as a female rabbit gives birth to a litter. The nerd character vindictively referred to the developer’s full name as “laughin’ jokin’ numbnuts,” but the representative L in the acronym should stand for lazy. But as I’ve stated before countless times, licensed video games do not inherently have a crippling handicap that dooms them to disgracing the video game medium or their source material. Perhaps the industry could produce a licensed tie-in game of higher quality under a competent developer, say, Sunsoft? The creators of the acclaimed 2D tank shooter Blaster Master were tasked with adapting Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman smash hit film. Because the gothic and moody Jack Nicholson Joker vehicle was the starting point of taking the caped crusader seriously once again, we couldn't let LJN fuck this up. The reputable Sunsoft was more likely to guarantee that the video game tie-in for Batman’s cinematic comeback wouldn’t impress poorly on it by association, and their choice of developer resulted in something relatively more substantial.

Primitive pixelation prevents the Batman video game from capturing the full cinematic splendor of the movie, so I’d hesitate to call it a loyal adaptation by the fault of the NES’s inhibitions. Still, the game does its damnedest to render the properties of the film with 8-bit graphics, and the still cutscenes of Jack in Joker makeup and the revving Batmobile are actually quite impressive all things considered. When the player is launched into the action of controlling Batman, the graphics are far less refined than that of the rolling clips. Still, Sunsoft understood the crippling limitations that came with 8-bit hardware and wisely chose a direction of effective artistic minimalism. The darkened hues present throughout the levels dim the pixels enough to convey the intended atmosphere without obscuring all of the necessary foreground visuals. Gotham City is still ominous, and the city's various machinations such as the Axis Chemical Factory and Underground Conduit exude enough dangerous industrial sterility. Some may wonder why Batman’s body is entirely blue, considering that brooding Batman is shrouded in black and this is the lighter shade that signifies the campy TV Adam West Batman from the 1960s. If I had to guess, blue Batman better complemented the color scheme of the background as Belmont's tangerine glow did for Castlevania. The NES obviously couldn’t have recreated the film it's adapting, but the few feasible technical elements like lighting and color come pretty damn close to matching its aura.

But we all know the grand appeal of a licensed Batman game is controlling the bat via the potential of the gaming medium, one vicarious leap of immersion beyond putting on his Batsuit and playing pretend out in the yard like the poor saps from generations prior. As it is, Batman already lends himself as an exemplary superhero to be rendered into a 2D platformer game. His spry acrobatics essentially define his superhero aptness in lieu of not possessing any supernatural powers like the rest of his Justice League comrades. They translate fairly well here, especially regarding the wall jump maneuver where Batman’s adhesiveness to parallel surfaces feels less gluey than that of Ryu from Ninja Gaiden. What particularly injects me into the caped crusader’s shoes even more than his innate physical dexterity is the ability to use his array of bat gadgets. The game provides three of Batman’s trusty tools activated by pressing the pause button: the iconic Batarang, the triple-disked dirk, and his spear gun modeled as a blunt rocket launcher instead of an apparatus to aid in scaling tall buildings. Using any of these gadgets will cost the player an arbitrary amount of weapon points, so it’s still wise to keep conservation in mind even though they can be easily replenished on the field. I recommended the Batarang because it allows doubling the damage on reentry for a measly single-number cost. Still, having four different attack options on hand at all times allows the player to diversify Batman’s combative efforts to a great extent.

The player must become well acquainted with Batman’s stacked arsenal to survive the onslaught of Gotham City crooks and diabolical criminals. As par for the course, Batman manages to uphold that blistering NES difficulty we tend to associate with this gaming era. The game is composed of only five levels, so being forced to approach each moment with caution and plan accordingly is the developer’s tactic to ensure that the player gets their money’s worth. Gotham’s collective underbelly has evidently been eating their Wheaties, as Batman struggles to apprehend these seedy bastards more than ever before. Mutant thugs the size of gorillas roaming the watery sewage system pounce on the Bat with animalistic aggression, and the higher ground achieved by the Joker’s soldiers with jetpacks naturally gives them an irritating advantage. Machines are especially ferocious here, with sensory landmines crawling up towards Batman sometimes unknowingly and bulky tanks that I swear have dead-on accurate aiming. Ammunition for the gadgets is precious, so there will be tight moments of melee combat that will more often than not damage the Bat unless the player is as swift as a ninja. Instances of painstaking precision also seep into the platforming, with perilous pits directly below the trajectory and wall jumping sections with hazards on the sides that punish the player severely for simply grazing them with the pointy ears of the Batsuit. I’m thoroughly convinced that the player cannot avoid taking damage while trying to ascend up the cathedral, with its rotating gears crunching Batman’s life bar away at the slightest impact.

Trial and error is the ethos behind Batman’s design philosophy as it is for several other NES games. Fortunately, the game grants the player plenty of opportunity to learn the layout of each level. Batman is given three lives per continue but once he exhausts all of them, which is very likely, the game does not hastily rewind the player all the way back to the beginning. Batman’s levels are spliced into chapters like fellow tough-as-nails 2D platformer Ninja Gaiden. On top of treating these small milestones of progression as checkpoints, Batman adds another layer of accessibility by sending the player back to one of these mile markers upon continuing. I truly haven’t seen an NES game act so accommodating towards the player. It’s practically uncharacteristic of the era. Then again, we’re reminded why the developers were so charitable whenever we play any of the levels and suddenly, Batman doesn’t seem so breezy.

However, upon depleting all of Batman’s lives after facing a boss, the game decides to warp the player back to the level that precedes it. Batman’s bosses are the apex challenge that caps off a level, so the developers figured that their merciful methods would compromise the impact of their encounters. I’d argue what lessens the scope of fighting these bosses is how unremarkable a good number of them are. Batman has been around since the tail end of the Great Depression, so the DC IP has accumulated a smattering of Batman baddies in the half of a century before this game was released. We’re guaranteed that his iconic arch-nemesis The Joker will be featured because he’s the primary antagonist of the 1989 Batman film, but his appearance is obviously going to be reserved as the final boss. What about the supplementary foes on the climb up to The Joker? Naturally, no one will top the mad clown, but the other bosses in Batman hardly even make the C-list of Batman villains. Out of the legitimate villains exhibited here, Killer Moth is the only one of note, and he’s not exactly a VIP contender in the Batman universe. I’m sure some uber-nerd is going to chastise me for not recognizing The Electrocutioner or Firebug, but it’s not as if they’ve ever headlined any Batman media I’ve seen beforehand. Two other bosses involve the dismantling of the Joker’s armed security systems, a robotic series of machines with no personality whatsoever. How exciting for every Batman fan, indeed. I’m not even sure if including The Joker at the end is really a reward because quite a few players won’t reach the game’s climactic peak due to its difficulty. Considering the movie source material is as loose as pocket change, the developers definitely could’ve thrown every Batman fan a bone and included The Penguin, Poison Ivy, Two-Face, etc. just to satisfy the wish of seeing the notable Batman villains rendered in a video game.

Batman on the NES is further proof that LJN simply never bothered to care. With Sunsoft’s superior developing efforts, they crafted a licensed game that came as close to the quality of the film it was using as inspiration. The fidelity to the source material could’ve only stacked up so far considering the primitive gaming hardware they were working with, but captured both the moody atmosphere and basic story premise using the pixels nonetheless. The game is certainly a challenge, but the game is aware of its steep learning curve and shows more mercy than any other NES game would allow. The objective of the film was to make Batman cool again, and the game accomplishes the same mission. It supports more reasons to hang up a Batman poster in your college dorm room rather than one of those neon beer signs or that photo of John Belushi from Animal House.

The Guardian Legend Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 1/20/2024)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

The Guardian Legend

Developer: Compile

Publisher: Irem

Genre(s): Action-Adventure, Multidirectional Shooter

Platforms: NES

Release Date: February 8, 1988

The Guardian Legend is allegedly an underrated entry in the vast NES library. I sure as hell had never heard of it before scrounging around the internet and uncovering it among the scrolls of games on Nintendo’s first home console. It’s also apparently the fourth and last entry in a series called Budruga released on the MSX, but this information is Greek to me. Still, its esotericism is what beckons me to play it. The internet promised me that if I burrowed under the surface and brushed past Mario, Mega Man, Castlevania, and all of the other medium molders on the NES everyone is familiar with, I’d be rewarded with an 8-bit title that only so few have had the pleasure of experiencing - a Hellraiser cubic puzzle box of sorts. The curious glow of The Guardian Legend’s reputation as a hidden gem is what allured me towards it, and caving into curiosity resulted in playing one hell of an NES title…for the most part.

The Guardian Legend’s plot is a tad more involved than the average princess-saving narrative fare seen from the utmost high-ranking titles on the NES. In fact, The Guardian Legend has ostensibly taken a progressive, feminist note from Metroid and placed a woman named Miria in the starring role of this galactic adventure. The damsel(s) in distress here is the collective populous of Earth, as they are unknowingly about to be invaded by a whole habitat of hostile aliens whose mothership is their entire planet of Naju. To prevent condemning all life on earth to a terrible fate of either enslavement or total obliteration, Miria must unlock Naju’s self-destruct sequence by rooting around the planet’s ten different corridors.

The game’s direction doesn’t treat this potentially harrowing prospect with gripping urgency, but it’s fitting for a game with constant adrenalized action such as The Guardian Legend. Immediately, the player is rocketed (literally) into the first half of The Guardian Legend’s gameplay: a scrolling multidirectional space shooter a la Gradius. Whenever she stumbles into one of these sections, Miria will launch herself into the dim, anti-gravitational pull of space and gracefully fold into a spaceship like a piece of paper into an origami swan. For approximately two to five minutes, she’ll blast through a smattering of Naju’s eclectic ecosystem surviving the onslaught of enemy fire until reaching the level’s boss. If you’ve played any games of this ilk before, The Guardian Legend doesn’t offer much that you wouldn’t already anticipate. Still, the effectiveness of this game’s particular usage of this commonly-used mechanic is in its pacing. I generally enjoy the zooming action found in games from this genre, but the repetitiveness that comes with the constant coaction of aiming and dodging tends to overstay its welcome. The short bursts of multidirectional shooting interspersed with other pronounced gameplay elements better ensure my attention is preserved. Plus, after the introduction, the space shooter sections are all allotted to vital points of progression, giving weight to what is usually too superficial with overuse across the genre.

The other half of the gameplay hybrid in The Guardian Legend sees Miria traversing through Naju’s grounds. Here, the multidirectional shooting shifts to a top-down perspective where Miria is on foot. Considering the contrast between the two directions, I initially thought that The Guardian Legend’s primary influence was Sunsoft’s NES magnum opus Blaster Master. However, The Guardian Legend is instead reminiscent of The Legend of Zelda, and not only due to the top-down view we see our protagonist from. Naju’s interior is designed as a labyrinth just as Hyrule was in the first entry of Nintendo’s high fantasy franchise, where its entirety can be mapped out on an X-Y grid (that the developers have fortunately plotted in the menu after Nintendo made the unperceptive choice to omit one). Every new screen that shifts broadly introduces a wave of enemies that are optional to engage with, which leaves goodies for the player if they oblige. The objective hidden across the intricately zigzagging pathways is finding the corridors, which is where Miria launches herself back as a space vessel to shut down its power. Some of these corridors are locked with typical cryptic rubbish common in this primitive era of gaming, so Miria will need some guidance in order to meet her goals. An omniscient guide will constantly be in Miria’s ear to aid her, and he looks like a blue jawbreaker with googly eyes glued onto it as opposed to the archetypal wizened sage that told Link it was too dangerous to prowl Hyrule without a sword in hand. The not inanimate inanimate object also provides wares to Miria in deep corners of the map like a certain old man. Call it derivative, but I fully declare that The Guardian Legend uses the hindsight of the first Zelda’s mistakes and improves upon it. Miria’s gun doesn’t jam after losing a smidge of health, and the improved visuals make the map easier to traverse. Still, finding one’s way back to the area with the green astroturf at the center can still be irritating after the blips of interest dissipate when Miria completes her objective. Above all else, setting the space shooter portions as this game's “dungeons” with the Zelda direction provides such a magnificent dynamic between both gameplay types.

Besides her standard blaster, Miria’s inventory of additional firepower is also as stacked as Nintendo’s boy in the green tunic. In the same menu as the map is an array of supplementary weapons that she scrounges up as the game progresses. When one of these weapons is selected in the menu, the player can activate their deadly potency with the opposite button on the controller. It’s recommended to mix the rapid fire of the standard blaster with these auxiliary tools for full effect, as it's liable to blow the enemies to bits much quicker. My weapon of choice was the double-sided lightsaber that stems from both of Miria’s hips as swinging it around in circles made numerous groups of enemies drop like flies. Other alternate weapons include a spinning circle of red death, a fiery laser beam the size of the one that blew up Alderaan, and a juggernaut one that just blows everything on screen to kingdom come. I presume that “EE” stands for “extreme explosion?” All of the alternate weapons translate perfectly to the space shooter sections, which is where the player will likely find them most effective. Offering a myriad of additions to Miria’s arsenal ups the ante of the gameplay variety wonderfully, especially at a time when games had so few actions altogether.

Alas, the glowing praise I’ve been slathering The Guardian Legend with stops here when I discuss the game’s approach to difficulty. Given that it’s an NES game, I never expected the game to give me the grapes of luxury. Still, it should shock and appall everyone when I inform you that if you die once in The Guardian Legend, it’s quite literally game over. No, not offering one continue. One. Fucking. Life. The penalty for dying once erases all progress, forcing the player to start from the very beginning. The Guardian Legend doesn’t borrow the limited continues from the arcades like all of its NES contemporaries that is already harsh as is: it spits the quarters back at the player with the force of a whizzing paintball and tells them to fuck right off. The game does provide the player with constant health items from enemy drops and stat boosts to stave off this untimely demise, but it only does so much to match the brute force of the Naju opposition. The later space shooter levels have a nauseating amount of things on screen that actually slows the frame rate considerably, and some of the bosses are no laughing matter. That red version of the big-mouthed boss with the multiple eyes is actually one of the hardest goddamn fights I’ve ever faced in my years as a gamer. However, not all hope is lost as this game features a password system to save an approximate amount of progress. Still, not only are the passwords overblown, but it seems the developers have attempted to integrate umlauts into the non-existent gibberish lexicon. It’s as frustrating as it sounds, and having to type in this rubbish over and over again diminished the game to practically performing paperwork.

I’d almost like to forget that The Guardian Legend exists. I feel as if I’ve unearthed the video game equivalent of the Arc of the Covenant: an indescribably beautiful presence that melted my face off as a consequence of engaging with it. It’s The Legend of Zelda in a science-fiction setting that manages to triumph over its fantasyland inspiration with some quality-of-life enhancements. The hybrid of multidirectional shooting and the way they are mixed across the game is as delectable a blend as chocolate and peanut butter. However, the bread melding this concoction together in a sandwich is made of glass, bloodying up my gums and causing me excruciating pain. The brazenly cruel difficulty stipulation in The Guardian Legend is a freshly laid turd in my finely shaken cocktail. Try not too hard to visualize that. Still, I have to remind myself that without the turd, The Guardian Legend would be one of the greatest games on the NES, and probably would’ve gone down as such in the history books. Who would do such a thing to ruin something so extraordinary? Why did the turd need to soil it so? Why indeed.

Chrono Trigger Review

(Originally published to Glitchwave on 1/14/2024)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Chrono Trigger

Developer: Square

Publisher: Square

Genre(s): JRPG

Platforms: SNES

Release Date: March 11, 2024

Don’t you hate those people who ask your opinion on a certain topic just to respond by telling you that you’re wrong? Take these awkward snobs with a grain of salt, for their patronizing way of conducting what is intended to be subjective discourse is ultimately another shot to their feet in their potential social circles. Still, where do they get the nerve? If one of these people asks me what the greatest JRPG of all time is (a rousing inquiry for sophisticated young adults, to be sure) and I answer with Paper Mario, Persona 5, or any of my other favorites that fit the genre description, I’d be sure to receive a look of smug derision and would be duly informed that the correct answer was Chrono Trigger. While I do not entertain endorsing the notion of an objective best across any form of media, the fact that tons of people have credited Chrono Trigger with this title-holder designation is certainly riveting. What is especially astounding is that even people who were born after Chrono Trigger was released are among the ones championing it as the pinnacle of the JRPG genre, and this is the same demographic of gamers that whinge incessantly when Zelda games don’t feature voice acting and when checkpoints aren’t as charitable as a soup kitchen. I don’t mean to generalize (especially upon realizing that I fit the demographic that I’m admonishing), but I never expected those who grew up with 3D graphics to laud a pixelated game on the SNES with such glowing praise in a million years. After finally playing Chrono Trigger when all of the veneration became too widespread to ignore, I think I’m now one of the annoying people who would bolster Chrono Trigger as the king of the JRPG genre to all of those even remotely interested in the gaming medium. Well, okay, I’m not entirely certain that Chrono Trigger has smitten me to that extent. Still, Chrono Trigger is an all-around impressive feat for the JRPG genre.

To think that what is the supposed magnum opus of the JRPG genre was initially going to be another brick in the sky-scraping wall of Final Fantasy titles. Whether or not one actively plays JRPGs, any and all gamers are aware of Square’s series for its synonymity with the genre. Because Final Fantasy is one of the founding fathers of the JRPG genre, its idiosyncrasies molded the facets that everyone associates the genre with, and some gamers like myself tend to find Final Fantasy somewhat disagreeable. The acquired taste of the turn-based combat mechanic is not my core discrepancy: it’s the presentational aspects of Final Fantasy that resonate an uncomforting sickened feeling inside me. Final Fantasy tends to be overwrought with gooey proverbial cheese dripping all over the dialogue and narrative arcs, confounding saccharine melancholy with profundity. To throw off my appetite even further, all of the cornball narrative elements are supported by a presentational flair so bombastic that it’s libel to make me laugh instead of weep as intended. Final Fantasy is the equivalent of a video game soap opera and the fact that the series has run as long as the airtime tenure of any standard daytime television serial hilariously strengthens this comparison. For all following JRPGs rooted entirely in fantasy, the highfalutin balderdash of Final Fantasy has unfortunately seeped into their foundation. This is why I prefer “domestic JRPGs,” my own patented term to describe games in the genre that intermingle fantasy elements in a domestic setting to keep the tone level-headed. Because Chrono Trigger was developed by the same studio as Final Fantasy and bears all of the fantastical hallmarks of that series from a first impression, I readily assumed that I wouldn’t be singing the same high praises for Chrono Trigger upon playing it. Instead, I’d be rolling my eyes constantly as I would with any of the titles in Square’s trademark IP. However, while Chrono Trigger is thematically ensconced in the realm of pure fantasy, the game has a narrative ace up its sleeve that piques my interest: time travel. This tried and true science fiction trope always serves as an intriguing plot device, even though the logic behind it is completely fallacious. Still, centering the plot of Chrono Trigger around the concept of time travel is not what inherently makes the game so exceptional. Hell, Final Fantasy often uses time travel to invigorate its plots or premises. However, Final Fantasy tends to romanticize the idea of time travel and its otherworldly implications as a video game defined by extravagance naturally would. Chrono Trigger differs from its bigger brother at Square by tapping into the existential implications of time travel as its thematic ethos, which makes the premise all the more substantial.

Time is of the essence in Chrono Trigger, which is precisely why the game wastes very little of it in the expository introduction. Like all great adventures, they all begin with our hero waking up to a brand new day in the comfort of their own bed before venturing off to the uncharted beyond. Crono, the spiky-haired teenage hero in question, is suggested to spend his day at The Millennial Fair by his mom for a joyous time playing carnival games and engaging with the other lighthearted attractions on display. This event is held every millennium in the land of Guardia to both celebrate the kingdom’s inception and commemorate the victory of a war held here that took place four centuries ago against the monstrous mystics. Immediately as Crono enters the fair, his skull smacks right into that of a blonde girl named Marle, who insists on following Crono around the fair like a desperate date once he returns her pendant she spilled in the head-on collision. Once Crono and Marle humor the teleportation device built by Crono’s precocious tech-wiz friend Lucca, the process goes awry and sends Marle through a portal that materializes due to the converging power of her pendant and the energy of Lucca’s machine. Once Crono dives into the portal to follow Marle, he finds himself in a comparatively underdeveloped Guardia: 400 years in the past during the peak of the Mystic War that the humans in Crono’s time were speaking of in retrospect as a historical milestone. As an act of oppositional aggression, the mystics have abducted Guardia’s human queen Leene, and her regal cabinet has mistaken her for Marle because she’s a dead ringer descendent. To ensure the human’s triumph over the mystics hasn’t been warped by his sudden disturbance, Crono and Lucca must stay here in the past to proactively rescue the queen and preserve the state of the future. Despite how tempting the strongman game and soda chugging contest are, ignoring the distractions the fair provides and staying on the linear progression path will see Crono fighting imps in Truce Canyon in about five minutes tops. It’s refreshing to see a JRPG prioritize catapulting the player into the action as opposed to a hefty majority of them that take a millennium to get going.

Chrono Trigger is also breathtakingly gorgeous. I realize it’s a surface-level commendation for a game that I’m touting as the cerebral savior of the traditional JRPG game, but I’d be absolutely remiss if I omitted this aspect from my review. I’m a staunch defender of pixelated graphics and their aesthetic legitimacy, but even I had no idea how heavenly they could look until I played Chrono Trigger. Pixel art’s strength is in its endearing quality, but that sense of endearment does admittedly stem from a rough-hewn jaggedness that still persisted with 16-bit graphics. Somehow for a game on a pixel-based console, Chrono Trigger’s visuals are practically free of blemishes. It’s a lucky teenager with silky, clear skin surrounded by a school of peers whose faces are still riddled with acne. The expressive humanity that is often diminished with such a rudimentary rendering of gaming visuals is not compromised, showcased as early as the fun house attraction in a Millennial Fair tent when Crono plays Simon Says with a clone of himself. Lucca’s Gato robot with his own attraction at the fair isn’t displayed here to showcase the combat before Crono is forced to fend for himself as intended: his early encounter is really to show off the gleaming sheen of his red armor that is so crystal clear that Chrono can practically see his reflection as he’s fighting it. The Guardia Forest situated between the royal estate and the mainland guarding the castle like a grassy moat is serenity incarnate, and I’d meditate in its natural glory for the whole game if I reasonably could. A scene as insignificant as the construction site of the Zenan Bridge in the Middle Ages still presents a marvelous backdrop of a shining horizon contrasting with the dark clouds engulfing it, beaming over the still river water. The sublime scenery presented here is a single tear-inducing sight. I’d send it as a postcard to all of my close friends and relatives, rejecting further engagements with them if they couldn’t appreciate the beauty that I’ve generously shared. The overworld map is rendered more one-dimensionally because it serves as a spatial middle ground that connects all of the intricately detailed places of interest. Still, even with the chibi-sized characters moving around the map with the same directional rigidness of a checkerboard piece, the backdrop of the map is still a divine depiction of the enchanted land of Guardia that sends the same awe-stricken tingles throughout my entire body. I always stated that it was a dumb decision to abandon sprite animation almost entirely in favor of stampeding toward the arguably more obtuse-looking early 3D graphics in the next generation. However, I now consider that the industry might have collectively peeked at Chrono Trigger and unanimously decided that no other game could best its pixelated beauty.

Regarding Chrono Trigger’s key gameplay attributes that the astounding presentation supports, the game is a tad less orthodox than the average JRPG churned out from Square. If you’re one of the fussy few who is turned off by the inorganic flow of turn-based combat found across most if not all JRPGs, Chrono Trigger’s approach to the genre’s distinguishing mechanic should quell the complaints from the dissenters. To accent Chrono Trigger’s combat system, I have to bury my sense of shame and inform you all that I was forced to redo the entire introduction at the fair. An imp at Truce Canyon kicked me in the back of the head unexpectedly as I was scrolling through the battle menu and the blunt impact killed Crono on sight (my health was already low because I fought Lucca’s robot for some silver points). I accidentally gave the green, chrome-domed twerp his golden opportunity to smite me because it hadn’t occurred to me that Chrono Trigger’s combat was running in real-time for all combatants. Chrono Trigger’s unique approach to turn-based combat involves slackening the polite parameters that all parties must abide by amid battle, instead opting to have a free-form fling with limited barriers. The player’s handicap that complies with the game’s lenient rules is a white bar that fully depletes after choosing an option from the menu. Once the action has been executed, the selected character will be completely inactive until it regenerates, which can either be an instant charge or a lethargic build-up depending on the character. This cool-down period, of course, leaves them vulnerable to enemy fire, commencing the opposition’s “turn” during battle. I’d debate the issue of whether or not Chrono Trigger’s combat is entirely fair, considering the enemies tend to assault Crono and friends with a barrage of pain and status afflictions seemingly without being tethered by the same regulations. Spamming disastrous spells every two seconds will become a harrowing reality to endure with the bosses in the later period of the game. Still, every enemy’s superior stamina is just another engaging facet of Chrono Trigger’s combat to put into consideration when facing them. Chrono Trigger adds an appreciated frenetic spark to the dry and tired turn-based system with minute adjustments, and the higher energy emulates something more akin to realistic combat without fracturing the JRPG base.

The way in which Chrono Trigger conducts the leveling-up mechanic also splices up the JRPG tradition. While the character’s physical attributes grow stronger in small increments with every level as usual, the game also tracks the accumulation of “tech points,” a separate system that increases in tandem with the standard leveling. After battles are won, the tech points will go towards learning special abilities for Crono and his presently chosen array of pals. For instance, the first ability that Crono can unlock with tech points involves a “cyclone” move that involves using his sword as a makeshift helicopter propeller, and the “slash” move swipes Crono’s sword on the ground as he flings the friction it creates towards enemies as a projectile. These special moves are an asset to targeting multiple enemies, preventing swathes of vulnerability with more enemies on the field. Crono can really expand the blast radius of his offense with his magic maneuvers that also coincide with tech points. Once Chrono and the majority of his partners are trained in the art of witchcraft by the furry mage Spekkio at the edge of time, the player will practically never revert back to regular attacks with these characters. The magic powers between Crono, Marle, Lucca, and Frog run the gamut of electricity, ice, fire, and water respectively, so it's an eclectic range of elemental forces. Chrono Trigger’s true innovation involving the tech points is unlocking “dual techs' which allows Crono to combine his special maneuvers with that of one of his partners, provided both of their bars are simultaneously full. To no one’s surprise, the elemental flair added to Crono’s cyclone and deadly single spincut move proves far deadlier than when executed plainly. But the dual techs don’t only serve to enhance Crono: any two of Crono’s partners can also converge their special abilities to great effect, even Robo and Ayla who are respectively both too primitive and too technological to execute any feats of magic. Any magic user can still slather them in elemental energy for a lethal combination of power. Depending on the roulette of characters in battle and, of course, if their bars are fully prepared, executing a “tri-attack” combines the special offensive properties of three characters to create total devastation. The partner characters can only earn tech points if they are often following alongside Crono for an extended period on the field, so the player is encouraged to change up their party roster frequently. The synergy between Crono and his friends is mechanically deeper than the cast of playable characters in any JRPG beforehand, and mixing up the roster to see the varied extent of the dual techs never ceases to be interesting.

But how can one possibly juggle the collective experience of six different characters at once to maximize all of their individual proficiencies? Well, I did say that a specific character had to be present in the roster to earn tech points, but I didn’t state this was also necessary for overall experience points. Only three characters can teleport through the time rifts at once, an instance of time continuum bylaws fabricated by the developers as a convenient loophole to limit the party. When Crono collects a number of adventurers that exceed this limit, the extras are stored as benchwarmers in a mystical mezzanine ostensibly suspended above the infinite ether of time itself. While the holdovers are here suspended in tranquil nothingness playing cards, Pictionary, or whatever to alleviate their boredom, somehow their idleness will still translate to gaining experience. Sure, any partners fighting alongside Crono will gain as much experience as our protagonist, but all of the other partners sitting around twiddling their thumbs will amazingly be trailing behind in levels ever so slightly. When I realized that my absent party members were not deprived of experience points upon returning to them at the end of time, I was relieved beyond belief. A prevalent insecurity common among JRPGs is their pension for having the player undergo painstaking grinding sessions to artificially pad out the length of the game. For once, Chrono Trigger is a JRPG that is confident in its estimated runtime and does away with what I consider to be the most unappealing aspect of playing a JRPG. If only Chrono Trigger set an example for future JRPGs in this regard. On the whole, it’s yet another merit of Chrono Trigger’s general accessibility. Healing items for both health and magic are always in abundance whether or not the player is proactively opening every chest on the field or buying them in bulk at the shops across any period. The gold currency needed to purchase these helpful wares is rewarded in surprisingly hefty quantities after every battle, and the player can possibly heal themselves and their entire party at once with a “shelter” item whenever they spot themselves on one of the various save states that are generously placed around every enclosed area. The player will never become attached to one basic weapon or armor accessory because the game will consistently provide new and improved models and fashion for all characters. One might gather all of this information and make a deduction that Chrono Trigger is as revered as it is because it’s so accessible to the point of being effortless. However, Chrono Trigger staves off being baby’s first JRPG by inflicting dire punishment for mistakes during battle, with enemy damage totaling up to numbers in the hundreds if the player isn’t honing their battle strategy. The diverse defensive properties across all of the enemies also require risk-taking and observation to always keep the player on their toes.

With a game so manageable, why would Crono need a ragtag team of time travelers to provide an extra elemental kick to his sword swings? One of Chrono Trigger’s greatest strengths is the rich level of depth and personability found among all its characters, especially those with elongated exposure in Crono’s RPG party. If an RPG party is intended to be an eclectic Breakfast Club band, Chrono Trigger’s primary cast is as diversely colorful as a rainbow. Firstly, Marle is not the typical damsel in distress like the game establishes her in the beginning. Sure, her hyper-feminine demeanor fits the bubbly blonde female trope like an elegant opera glove on a starlet’s arm, and discovering she’s Guardia royalty doesn’t aid my point. However, Marle’s dissatisfaction with high society and reject her regal birthname of Nadia as she tells her kingly father to stick it where the sun doesn’t shine shows more autonomous spunk than her dainty upbringing would normally warrant. For context, Marle isn’t rebelling against her family because of teenage angst, for that wouldn’t be atypical for her gender or age. She’s infuriated that her family's cabinet sentenced Crono to be executed by the state for simply bringing her home from captivity and the trial beforehand where this sentence was decreed cherry-picked from the trivial actions Crono committed in his brief stint at the Millenial Fair in the introduction. Being judged for the most minor of misconduct during this sequence was genuinely appalling and hair-raising, and I’m glad Marle sided with justice rather than the comfort of her privileged status.

Existing in the same “modern” period of Guardia as Crono and Marle is Lucca, the only partner character that already has an established relationship with the protagonist prior to the events of the game. If you ask me, the brainy, asexual girl trope is as overused as that of the girly-girl, and placing Lucca alongside Marle practically exudes a stark Velma and Daphne dynamic far too commonly seen among groups of characters (that involve women in the first place). While Lucca’s backstory isn’t as involved as Marle’s, frequent visitations to her house and interactions with her dad for Lucca’s armor upgrades give Lucca a human warmness that the aloof, calculating character trope she falls under usually rejects. Witnessing how her mother lost her legs in an industrial accident and the palpable trauma from Lucca’s reaction is genuinely heartbreaking.

Reaching beyond the confines of modern times allows Crono to expand his party past two neighbor girls to seriously wild possibilities. The most paradoxical pairing in Crono’s party is Ayla and Robo, two characters whose interactions are so absurd that their close proximity that Crono has caused with his time philandering should fracture the space-time continuum into itty bitty pieces. Ayla is a cavewoman from the ripe dawn of human civilization, while Robo is a clanking bucket of bolts from humanity’s bitter epilogue. Ayla is aggressive and blunt, solving her problems by hitting them like an ankylosaurus while Robo is neutral and impersonal as one would expect from someone programmed with artificial intelligence. The commonality these characters share is they are both fishes out of the water from the absolute parallel of ponds, and their exposure to modernity fosters domestic growth for both of them. Lucca’s character arc intertwines with that of Robo in that their mutual mechanical aptitude evolves into pure, platonic affection, a result unexpected with these two particular characters.

By far, the most complex and tragic of Crono’s posse is Frog, an anthropomorphic amphibian who daylights as a knight in the queen’s service during the Middle Ages. Like someone who carries the honor of this noble duty, Frog is loyal to a T and will happily die to protect the monarchy that governs his land with unbridled enthusiasm while speaking the king’s English with full affectation. If he does, it wouldn’t be as tragic as what actually happened to him. Until the game’s halfway point, the player will probably wonder if seeing a talking frog means that hopping from period to period has had a dizzying mental effect on Crono and his friends. We discover that Frog was once a human named Glenn who initially joined the queen’s service in the fight against the mystics to toughen up his overly sensitive interior alongside his best friend Cyrus. Once Cyrus is fatally stricken by the Mystic leader Magus, the dark fiend transforms Glenn into a frog as an adjunct act of cruelty. Once we’re privy to Frog’s backstory, we come to understand his tentative quirks and empathize with his willingness to destroy Magus.

From a certain perspective, one could argue that the setting of Guardia is the unspoken champion of complexity across all of Chrono Trigger’s characters. As the game progresses, every bandage that obscures the fascinating history of the fantasy land is unraveled, peeling back the mystique by visiting the six notable periods. How Chrono Trigger’s story progresses is the accumulative gathering of more context on Guardia’s past, present, and future, and is brilliantly constructed in a non-linear fashion where each period has a primary arc that is completed incrementally in conjunction with all of the others. Because Chrono Trigger’s plot hops around like a cocaine-addled rabbit, it’s imperative to discuss each period individually from the least amount of insight to the most.

1000 AD is the year of Guardia’s present day, and all seems a little too well. For those pedantic types, yes, 1000 AD in reality’s timeline is still smack dab in the Middle Ages. In Chrono Trigger’s timeline, their victory over the mystics in 600 AD allowed their Renaissance period to ignite much sooner. Because Guardia got a head start, their period of humanistic prosperity is far more advanced if Lucca’s robot and the steamboats floating in their harbor are any indication. Some might point out anachronistic errors, but Guardia is ultimately still a fantasy world not confined by historical accuracy. Besides, the wooden, old-world aesthetic of 1000 AD with the prevalent technological advancements here strikes a wondrous, timeless ambiguity that somehow fits, emulating that brand of Hayao Miyazaki magic found in the worlds he creates for his films. The aura here is elated like a Miyazaki world because everyone has let their guard down for 400 years. Celebrating the milestone of winning the war seems redundant because every day here seems like a celebration of the peace and prosperity they’ve earned. That is, the cheerful and nonchalant attitude is only felt in Leene Square where Crono, Lucca, and Marle reside along with their fellow humankind. One boat ride from Leene away on the island of Medina is the district of the mystics, who are still simmering over their defeat four centuries ago and are waiting for their day of retribution. The atmosphere here is one of disquieting tension, establishing that the conflict between the humans and the mystics is far from over and will be a recurring conflict throughout the game.

Reverting back to the climactic peak of the Mystics War back in 600 AD gives Crono and pals more insight into what actually occurred that allowed them to live in peace, especially since the onus to facilitate that outcome is now on them because of time adulteration. The one distinctive signifier that separates Guardia in the Middle Ages from the present is a hazy mist engulfing the land, and the wooden architecture across all civilizations is also less refined. The prevalent fogginess probably represents that unrest is ubiquitous during war times, which is then expounded on with every scene in this time period aiding the war effort with intense bouts of combat. Here, we meet the Mystic generals that the modern-day mystics practically lionize: Ozzie the portly, green tactician, the purple, sword-wielding Slash, and the non-binary Flea. With the ominous Magus as their commander, taking down these four major figures of the Mystic War is paramount to bringing about a better tomorrow for mankind. Upon restoring the mythical Masamune sword that Cyrus once owned, the climatic segment of the war where Crono and pals infiltrate Magus’s intimidatingly spooky castle to defeat him and his cronies is a harrowing highlight.

Restoring balance to the timeline in the Middle Ages is not where Chrono Trigger ends as some probably expected from the beginning. The valuable information we learn from visiting prehistoric Guardia before it was named as such is that primordial versions of both the humans and mystics have been waging war with one another since unicellular organisms emerged. Between the untamed Pangea jungles and sites of active volcanoes lies the conflict between Ayla’s tribe of unadorned Neanderthals and mystics with dinosaur phenotypes called the Reptites. The Reptites antagonize the primitive humans to secure their place at the top of the proverbial food chain, for their leader Azala is aware that the cataclysmic comet that wiped out the dinosaurs is approaching and wishes that her non-human ilk reign supreme in the future centuries. Of course, Crono assures the opposite when his party defeats Azala, setting the human-dominating precedent that will persist for millions of years into the future.

For those whose history knowledge needs to be dusted off from their high school years, the colossal impact of the meteor slowly but surely led to the blisteringly brutal and fallow ice age that rendered the earth in a seemingly perennial blizzard. From each time period so far, we’ve only seen a skewed perspective that the humans are the moral heroes and the mystics are just incorrigible scoundrels. During the coldest era of the earth’s history when the mystics evidently scurried elsewhere, we get a taste of the humans acting maliciously towards each other. When Guardia is frozen over, human society is split in two. The impoverished half of the human race are referred to as “earthbound ones,” staving off the harsh effects of their permanent winter underground wearing nothing but rags caked with dirt as a defense. Meanwhile, on the total opposite spectrum, the Kingdom of Zeal shadows the frostbitten earth in a chain of islands suspended in the sky. Not only is the weather outside not a concern here, but the scientific and or technological accomplishments of this erudite society dwarf anything found in present-day Guardia. Besides the obvious class imbalance, an unattractive, elitist attitude against the downtrodden earthbounders persists among the Zealites. Despite their illustrious image and scholarly repute, the people of Zeal are downright rotten. The Queen of Zeal’s power trip is so potent it verges on psychosis, and her assistant Dalton is a strong contender for the most unlikable douchebag in gaming. Revealing a malevolence among the people of Zeal provides a nuanced perspective that aids how the player perceives the age-old conflict between humans and mystics.

Alas, all of the fighting amounts to nothing as eventual ruin takes over in the only future period of Guardia the player can explore in the far-off time of 2300 AD. To escape the corrupt law of the present day after Crono’s trial, Crono and pals jump into a time warp portal to a strange land that barely resembles the once glorious kingdom of Guardia. Somehow, even with the frigid dark ages as an available window of time to peer through, Guardia in the 24th century surpasses it in squalid depression. Guardia is depicted in a state of total apocalyptic stillness, with a current of dust eroding away from what was once the prosperous foundation of futuristic Guardia blustering all over the land as violently as the gusts of dark age snow. All of the color is muted in a muddy brown, and all erected modern structures have completely collapsed into the streets below. The civilization remaining in this vacant hellscape resides in a series of domes, a marvel of architectural innovation before the apocalyptic event occurred. All they do to pass the time is lie around in the musty smog of each dome’s interior waiting for a fatal hunger pang brought upon by the everlasting famine to put them out of their misery. In addition, the robots they’ve built, Robo’s models, are planning a robot uprising against the poor humans in the assorted factories located in between the domes. Stating that Guardia’s future is bleak is the understatement of the century. However, I suppose it’s not all bad considering this is where Crono and the gang uncover the Epoch, a flying time-traveling aircraft built by the time guru Belthasar that renders the drag of warping through each time portal obsolete. The Epoch is so cool and convenient that it should be uttered in the same respected breath as the Starship Enterprise and Millenium Falcon for iconic science-fiction vessels. Then again, that street race mini-game against the rogue robot Johnny here is the most objectively flawed aspect of the entire game, so the future all around still sucks out loud.

However, the various feuds between the varying two factions across Guardia’s history are not what eventually doomed it. All of the conflict was merely a distraction masking the true culprit of Guardia’s demise: an eldritch monster named Lavos who exists to parasitically absorb its chosen planet’s life force and render it desolate and barren. Apparently, Lavos’ plans to suck the earth dry is a longcon scheme, for its arrival is actually the asteroid whose impact ushered in the dark ages. In what is the earliest instance of Y2K hysteria across all media, Lavos awakens from its slumber beneath the planet’s crust in 1999 AD, flooding the world in inescapable destruction and leaving it forevermore in the state we see in 2300 AD. Knowing its devastating potential, the governing officials of Zeal attempt to abruptly summon Lavos to harness its power. Naturally, this attempt to flirt with incomprehensible energy goes horribly awry and blows the Kingdom of Zeal to smithereens. Crono ends up saving his friends from the almighty force of Lavos by sacrificing himself, causing the origin point of the time portals from the immensity. Lavos is a truly, terrifyingly intimidating cosmic force in the size and in the scope that the narrative establishes for him, making the player wonder if stopping him to save the future is a futile task.

“Did the developers just pull an Alfred Hitchcock and kill off the main character far before the falling action of the story?” I asked myself in complete shock after what had just occurred. Once the player picks themselves off their feet and control Marle as the primary party member, the dire implications of this change start to sink in. The final portion of Chrono Trigger is what I like to refer to as the “sidequest extravaganza” because the game can either end with finally tackling Lavos for real by either traveling to 1999 AD directly or finishing off the remnants of Zeal by dredging through the Black Omen dungeon which eventually leads to a more manageable Lavos encounter. Or, the player can engage with seven separate sidequests to prolong the game to a fifth of its initial length. I highly suggest humoring these sidequests not only because they reward the player handsomely with the best weapons and gear, but also because they provide essential closure to the arcs of each partner character. Glenn lays his buddy Cyrus to rest, Robo halts the computer menace, and the chancellor that sentenced Crono to the guillotine is revealed to be the direct descendant of the game’s first boss on a secret revenge mission during Marle’s sidequest. After all, the player should ideally be incentivized to prepare thoroughly to fight Lavos, and his four-stage fight will wear on the player even with the most efficient gear. How much the player is willing to do during the final stretch will also coincide with the ending they receive, and there are an impressive number of outcomes. It’s outstanding how much the player’s decisions here will affect the game’s resolution.

What resonates with me upon finishing the final section of Chrono Trigger is that our protagonist, Crono, doesn’t matter. Crono is intended to be the heroic avatar that is destined for glory, giving the player that sense of gratification. However, he disintegrated before our very eyes and the game still continues without him as par for the course. Hell, Magus, who turns out to have always been campaigning against Lavos and not for supporting his return because of what happened in Zeal on that fateful day, makes for a fine Crono surrogate if the player doesn’t allow Glenn to decapitate him to avenge Cyrus. Simply incorporating Magus as an ally is an insult to Crono’s memory, but only if you stubbornly persist with the idea that Crono is the focal point of the story. One of the endgame sidequests is a roundabout excursion to resurrect Crono, putting the clone from the fair in place at the pinpoint moment of Lavos’ attack on Zeal. Even though he returns, he no longer has a solid spot as the unchangeable leader and can be swapped out for anyone. We start to wonder what the ancillary mute is doing here among a group of characters who are vastly more interesting than he is. The inconsequential impact of Crono’s death on the plot conjures up the idea that perhaps nothing matters. The endless power struggle between those who reside on this planet will ultimately prove a stalemate because time is a cruel mistress that will end everything eventually. Time is a relative constant that waits for no one, not even those who are deemed important. It is the grand extinguisher across the cosmos. Chrono Trigger doesn’t romanticize the premise of time travel like other JRPGs: it treats the concept with honesty, causing uncomforting thoughts and feelings of one’s own mortality to creep in. It’s a scary byproduct of really effective art.

Chrono Trigger was a labor of love between three Japanese industry giants, and the goal of their painstaking efforts was to create something extraordinary that would blow the balls off of every gamer who purchased it or they would get a money-back guarantee. Well, call me a eunuch because this customer, along with several hundreds of thousands of people, is satisfied completely. By all means, Chrono Trigger should’ve alienated myself and other JRPG sticklers because of its inherent Square makeup and the fantasy premise and setting still scream that it's a Square game. However, beneath the surface, Square takes all that I find fault with Final Fantasy and commits an act of defenestration with it, starting anew from the ground up. Chrono Trigger takes turn-based combat to an unparalleled heights of involvement that is as smooth as a Guinness stout, all while trimming the fat of grinding found in most JRPGs to a sleek and slender accessibility that will still not deter the genre’s biggest enthusiasts. In an era where gaming narrative was still elementary at best, Chrono Trigger provides a story with charismatic characters handling an intelligent story involving the convoluted premise of time travel with no plot holes to be found. Goddammit, no wonder why Chrono Trigger is lauded so innumerably: the game is void of any flaws. Given that it’s a product of an era where we were still tolerating the primitiveness of a relatively new medium, the fact that Chrono Trigger supersedes all of its contemporaries to this degree is astonishing beyond words. In the almost three decades it's been since Chrono Trigger was released, the cruel mistress of time still hasn't depreciated its masterpiece status.

Castlevania: Circle of the Moon Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 1/8/2024)

[Image from igdb.com]

Castlevania: Circle of the Moon

Developer: Konami

Publisher: Konami

Genre(s): Metroidvania

Platforms: GBA

Release Date: March 21, 2001

My mission regarding my playthrough of Castlevania: Circle of the Moon was to ascertain why this game garners a considerable amount of ire from fans of the franchise. The initial impression I had was that classic Castlevania fans were dogpiling on the game because it solidified the Metroidvania direction that Symphony of the Night established to colossal critical acclaim, leaving the foundation of the traditional 2D platformer that made the series a contender for pixelated greatness condemned indefinitely. Then I had to remind myself that this dissension between the two Castlevania eras is a feud I fabricated in my head, as all fans of the series love Symphony of the Night. My next consideration was that while Circle of the Moon is a successor to Symphony of the Night, it disappointingly did not surpass its Metroidvania mold. However, this was not due to everyone’s high expectations. Circle of the Moon was developed for the Game Boy Advance as a launch title for the last handheld system that branded the Game Boy name. If the Castlevania games on the original Game Boy are any indication, the gothic games sacrificed a heaping load of quality for the sake of mobility, seemingly more so than any NES series that offered a few games on the go. I wondered if a mobile version of Metroidvania Castlevania would suffer due to the downgraded system capabilities and upon playing it, I hit a bullseye as to where the scorn for this game stems from. However, because of my discovery, I do not support the contempt for this game wholeheartedly.

Castlevania’s timeline is as scatterbrained as some of the series over at Nintendo, but I’m at least granting it a smidge of credibility due to Castlevania planting new characters across the century-spanning lore as opposed to the same character in Metroid and a reincarnated form in Zelda. As far as Castlevania is concerned, Circle of the Moon takes place in modern times during the industrial era, almost as close as when Bloodlines set itself in the same century as when it was released (misleading, but technically true). Circle of the Moon’s dashing Van Helsing protagonist is neither a Belmont nor Alucard waking up from yet another one-hundred-year dirt slumber to take down his dear old dad once again. The silver-haired Nathan Graves and his chum Hugh Baldwin are trekking through the cobweb-covered corridors of Dracula’s estate, for Nathan’s guru in the profession of vampire slaying, and Hugh’s father, Morris Baldwin, is about to be sacrificed to the vampiric lord to reinvigorate his foreboding power to its full extent. The duo also have to contend with Dracula zealot Camilla who resurrected the count and is working the operations of his grand return. Unfortunately, after falling for what feels like fathoms below the estate’s entrance, Hugh diverges from Nathan and leaves Mr. Graves on his lonesome to search for their seasoned sensei. Did the previous Castlevania titles introduce the premise with this much character exposition, or is this a new development to signify how the series has progressed? The player gets a better understanding of what is occurring better than scrolling text, that’s for sure. I’d also like to add that there is no cheesy voice acting thanks to the GBA’s relatively primitive nature as a handheld, so everyone can at least approach the text dialogue with a hint of sincerity.

Once Nathan finds himself under the floorboards of Dracula’s foyer, he never really hoists himself back up to the surface to correct his error. Naturally, Circle of the Moon is still a Metroidvania that administers the procedural design philosophy we expect of it. However, the grand breadth of Dracula’s castle that the genre fostered in Symphony of the Night isn’t exuded here. Sure, pressing the designated map button to look at Circle of the Moon’s layout will conjure up comparisons to Symphony, but actually excavating through the interior will convey that our prince of darkness is in another castle. Circle of the Moon’s castle is a dingy depiction of Dracula’s manor, and this isn’t only due to the fact that the GBA couldn’t compete with the pixelated graphical fidelity of the original PlayStation. Every corner of Circle of the Moon’s estate is comparatively minimal to what Symphony offered in terms of its visuals. Backgrounds are no longer detailed with lavish, ornate decorations that exude an aura of opulence. The color gradience of the foregrounds also tends to blend in with that of its immediate surroundings, an aesthetic choice that deviates from what made even the earliest Castlevania games on the NES striking. Circle of the Moon’s presentation is very matter-of-fact, which shrinks the scope of the overall objective. Take a drink every time you come across a new section of the castle that begins with an “underground” descriptor, which should imply that the areas are relatively restrained by their geographical submersion. Even the outdoor sections on the other vertical end of the spectrum are compact as courtyards instead of rooftop attics that span the perimeter of the castle. All in all, the Metroidvania map and the askew linearity that comes with it are not tainted by Circle of the Moon’s direction. Still, it obviously lacks the panache that gave Symphony its allure.

One could argue that a claustrophobic Castlevania map is an attempt to complement the Metroid half of the genre’s portmanteau, emulating the choking tension exuding from Nintendo’s sci-fi series. While this theory is entirely up to speculation, an overt attempt Circle of the Moon takes to recall another game is reverting to its own roots. While Nathan Graves shares no lineage to the iconic Belmont clan, you’d sure as hell be fooled by his moveset. Circle of the Moon reverts to the vampire-slaying weapons found in the classic, traditional 2D platformer Castlevania titles. Nathan cracks his whip with the same pent-up hesitation as Simon and Richter once did, and all of the subweapons such as the holy water, daggers, and axes are accounted for as well. Perhaps Nathan read up on the historical achievements of the Belmont clan and deduced that their arsenal was the most effective roulette of tools to use against the throngs of the uncleansed. His assumptions proved correct, as the sub-weapons tend to dish out a heaping load of damage to the enemies, especially the boomerang crosses. Good thing the hearts have also been reverted to ammunition because the subweapons are lifesavers. Still, I wish Circle of the Moon hadn’t digressed to the stiff controls of the classic Castlevania titles. This isn’t an issue on a fundamental level, but complications arise when Nathan executes any of the special moves that unlock obscured areas of the castle. Trying to run by pressing either directional button twice was especially finicky. Hopping from a wall to a platform above or to the other adjacent surface was always a rigid stunt, and catapulting Nathan about a hectometer straight in the air always had the potential for disaster. When the Metroidvania features complicate the 2D platformer base, the Castlevania stiffness is less forgivable on any console that succeeds the NES.

Of course, the items of old are organized like Symphony’s RPG menu, complimenting the methodical gameplay of the Metroidvania game. Hearts of varying amounts can be replenished from the pickups, and the roasts that heal Nathan have to be selected from this menu whenever Nathan is in a pinch. One new feature that is arguably Circle of the Moon’s main point of innovation that is also organized in this menu is the card system. On rare occurrences when defeating an enemy, they will leave behind a card whose description will be detailed in a subsection of the menu. One row of these cards features Roman Gods/planets of the solar system while the bottom row all have serpents and chimera creatures from ancient mythology. Selecting a combination of one card from both rows will ignite a fusion of special properties that are triggered by the left bumper on the GBA. The combination can either accentuate the whip’s offense or boost Nathan’s defense, which can be applied for seemingly an inexhaustible period. However, the real coup de grace involving the cards is the spells they can create. Similarly to Rondo of Blood, executing the spells with a button combination will unleash a fury of vengeance that eclipses the entire screen and decimates in the vicinity, provided the player has enough magic to execute the maneuver. While the prospect of such devastation is enchanting, only a few of the card combinations will allow the ability to cast a spell, and the button combinations needed to pull them off are just as finicky as the basic controls. Still, it’s a pleasant sight seeing a feature return that has surprisingly only been implemented once across the series thus far, and having it coincide with a whole new system gives the player more incentive to seek out more than the game offers outside of standard progression.

I recommended abusing the power of the cards because if there is one thing that Circle of the Moon borrows from the classic Castlevania games, it's the difficulty. Holy jumping Jesus, is Circle of the Moon a bitch on the ol’ patience threshold. Nathan isn’t epically restrained by his mortal status as a human being instead of an androgynous, quasi-immortal creature from gothic folklore. All the same, I wish that Alucard could intervene and maybe transfer his undead abilities to Nathan via a toothy neck peck so he could evade all of the obstacles surrounding him. It’s not as if the enemies in Circle of the Moon are any less deadly than those in Symphony. The problem stems from the spacious placings of the save rooms, which are few and far between in this castle. Uncovering an uncharted area does not mean that the player will soon mark their discovery with the save function like it did with the abundance of these rooms found in Symphony. The save rooms also tend not to be in a close shot of any of the boss arenas, which are the crux of crushing the player. Cerberus, the very first boss, is erratic and unpredictable, and any contact with the three-headed wolf is imminent considering his gigantic size and ferociousness. Biblical goat demon Adramelech overwhelms the player with poison bubbles that litter the field, and the GBA screen can barely fit both the heads of the colossal Twin Dragons. Both Death and the encounter with narrative-centered Camilla tease the player’s supposed victory with a second phase. It’s so disheartening defeating these monsters with a microscopic sliver of health left only to perish by the slight rubbing of a projectile skeleton bone and reverting back to before the bosses were conquered, something that happened one too many times for comfort. Nathan also isn’t inherently impeded by the whip, but another reason why Symphony was a comparative walk in the park is that Alucard could always swap his blade for a stronger one if the player kept up with finding loot. Because Nathan is restricted to one weapon, his ease with these bosses is contingent on his level, which, of course, unfortunately, involves a grinding session or two to survive.

Because all of the bosses before him made me pant and wheeze like an elderly dog, I was absolutely dreading Dracula’s encounter that I knew would wrap up Circle of the Moon. After literally knocking some sense into Hugh, the key behind him unlocks the sealed door where Nathan falls, in the beginning, to finally face Dracula. What I didn’t expect was that his first phase would be a breeze, almost a complete joke. However, considering this is the first Castlevania game that allows the player to prepare even further, I knew the others would wipe the smug grin off of my face immediately, In a haze of dark surrealism, Dracula sheds his cape and reveals his final form: a bulky purple beast with what resembles the Xenomorphs from Alien as his intimidating flair. His first phase here features flame spread that can be dodged easily, but I’m pretty certain the meteors that rain down from the heavens are totally unavoidable. His second phase pushed my patience to its absolute limit because I could only hit the traveling eyeball core at scant opportunities because of his fucking bat entourage that is always guarding him. Drain that magic meter with spells like with the urgency of someone having a gun pointed at your head. After this grueling fight that took me over ten minutes on my one successful attempt, I’ll be seeing bats attacking me like an alcoholic experiencing symptoms of withdrawal.

I think Circle of the Moon was designed for the classic Castlevania fan who felt forsaken by Symphony of the Night and its radical deviation from the early format in favor of a Metroidvania experience. Konami wasn’t apologizing for launching the series in a new direction, and Circle of the Moon is their attempt to compromise. In execution, however, the reason why Circle of the Moon isn’t a lauded title in the series is that it isn’t all that exceptional on either front. It’s too difficult and less RPG-based for fans of Symphony, and the GBA hardware dilutes the Metroidvania elements that classic Castlevania fans already didn’t care for. However, despite times when I wanted to thrust a cross through my console out of pure frustration, I thoroughly enjoyed my Circle of the Moon experience. My one gripe with Symphony despite it being my favorite game in the franchise is that it was missing some of the attributes that I liked from the typical 2D platformers, and this game translated the weapons from those games fluidly. Hell, maybe I experienced a nostalgic sensation from being constricted to the crooked controls and bludgeoned by the bosses as the classic series once did to me. Mark Circle of the Moon down as an example of an acquired taste in the Castlevania series.