Dragon Warrior III - Nintendo NES - 1992

Dragon Warrior is a long running series of RPGs dating back to the mid-eighties and still going strong today.  The first game in the series, Dragon Quest, was released in Japan in May 1986. It predated both Final Fantasy and Phantasy Star making it one of the first (and arguably one of the most influential) Japanese console RPGs.  Dragon Quest was translated and released in North America in August 1989.  Outside Japan the series was renamed as Dragon Warrior to avoid copyright issues with the DragonQuest tabletop RPG.  I was turned off of the original Dragon Warrior game due to the amount of grinding required and the second in the series was arguably worse.  Number three came out in March 1992*, over three years after the Japanese release of Dragon Quest III. We shall see if it is any better than it's predecessors.

After loading the game an intro shows a fight between a warrior and a dragon on the rim of a volcano.  The warrior manages to sever one of the dragon's wings.  The dragon then grabs hold of the warrior and they both fall into the crater....

You start by choosing your name and sex; your character class is 'Hero'.  The game begins on the morning of your sixteenth birthday in the town of Aliahan.  Your mother turfs you out of bed and takes you to see the King.  He says you are the son of the mighty warrior Ortega (the dude in the intro) and, now he is dead, you must take on his mantle.  You are to defeat the Archfiend Baramon who is threatening the world.  Nice birthday present.

Your first task is to gather a party to aid you on your quest.  There is an eatery where the adventurers hang out and you can choose three companions or create your own.  An NPC said the best companions are a Soldier, Pilgrim and Wizard.  As I've never played this game before, and as these characters were already created, who am I to argue?  So we have Ragnar the Soldier who can be equipped with most weapons and armour.  Petrus the Pilgrim can cast mainly healing and status effect spells (such as sleep).  Petrus is also quite handy in combat.  Harley the Wizard is adept at offensive spells, but is weak in combat and cannot equip strong weapons or armour.  I also chose to create a Merchant who the manual says is good at finding extra gold and has the ability to appraise items.  Other available classes are Fighter (good at martial arts), Sage (can cast both Pilgrim and Wizard spells), and Goof-Off which the manual describes as "without exaggeration, a useless living being to take along on your quest".

I first decided to explore the town and talk to the inhabitants.  As usual the populace give stock answers with a few telling you explicitly where to go on your quest - there is no chance not knowing what to do next in Dragon Warrior III.  There is a day and night cycle and some inhabitants change their responses depending on the time of day.  Most towns include the usual inn (recharges HP and MP), a tool shop (sells cures for status effects and other sundries), a weapon shop and a healer.

After leaving town it is not long before coming across your first random encounter.  Combat is almost identical to the other early RPGs on the NES.  The combat is turn-based with each character being given a command which is then played out.  Enemies are usually made up of different types of creatures.  You can only select one type of enemy to attack - for example if you face two slimes and two caterpillars you can attack either one group or the other but not individuals.  This even applies to area effect spells such as fireball - you can only target the caterpillars or the slimes, not both.  If a character targets an opponent that has already been killed then the attack is wasted.  The only real tactic is deciding which type of enemy to target first.

A selection of the weird and wonderful monsters found in Dragon Quest III.
 One wonders how  this motley crew got together.

Once combat is over each character receives a number of experience points and some gold coins.  Levelling up takes place at different rates for the various members of the party with Ragnar the Soldier gaining levels the fastest and Wingnut the Hero lagging behind.  When levelling, all base stats increase by one or more points and spellcasters may gain extra spells.  The Hero can cast both Pilgrim and Wizard spells.

As Ragnar was levelling faster then everyone else, I retired him to test out the Merchant for a while.  The Merchant was reasonable at melee combat and occasionally picked up extra gold after combat.  However, I was unimpressed by his appraising ability and swapped Ragnar back after a few levels.

After I was satisfied with my grinding I returned to Aliahan to pick up my first quest.  There were a few locked doors in the town and my first task was to retrieve a key that was ironically stolen from a thief.  The key was taken to a tower on island that could that could be reached through a cave.  Instead of the boss fight I was expecting, the old man in the tower said he had a vision of giving me the key so simply handed it over. 

The key allowed me to open some locked doors so I could talk to people I wasn't able to before.  I was told of a travel door leading from the land of Aliahan that had been sealed off in a time of war and a magic ball was required to open it.  Again, the magic ball was just handed over.  Breaking the seal on the travel door transported me to a new continent, just south of the city of Romaly, and to my quest proper.  As usual I will note my thoughts below...

• I found I did have to grind in Dragon Warrior III, but not a much as the first two games and mainly for gold.  This was not as bad as grinding for experience as you set yourself a goal of, say 1500gp for a broadsword, and you can see yourself getting nearer your target after every combat.

• Most towns you visit have an Inn where you can stay for the night to recover HP and MP.  In Aliahan you can sleep in the comfort of your own bed for free.

"Mother, I am a level 35 hero, you know!"

• Combat early on can provide an interesting combination of enemies.  In the example below, Infernus Crabs tend to cast the Increase spell.  This increases their defence value making them harder to hit with normal weapons which means resorting to spells.  The Vampire Cats (yes, really) tend to cast StopSpell which causes said spells to fail.

• Even early dungeons in Dragon Warrior III are non-linear and can be quite complicated to map.  A typical level can contain several sets of stairs requiring all routes to be mapped out.  This makes a change from the typical Final Fantasy linear dungeon.  Annoyingly, the designers decided to 'black out' sections of a dungeon until you walk into them.  This turned from a minor irritation to a major frustration when I had to infiltrate a thieves hideout.   I mapped out the whole floor but could not progress.  I had to relent and consult the walkthrough in the back of the manual which said that some of the blacked out areas need to be 'unlocked' with a key.

I can go North, East and West with no problems but need to unlock the black area to go South.
How is anyone supposed to guess that?

• The game contains an interesting day/night cycle.  NPCs appear in different places and some only come out at night and vice versa.  The random encounter rate in the wilderness also increases at night.  The town of Tendanki, for example, is deserted in the day having been destroyed by the Archfiend Baramon.  The inhabitants only appear at night, oblivious to the fact they are dead.  Little additions like this add nothing to the plot, but I like them.

• A fair bit into the game there is the Shrine of Dhama where your party can change character classes, starting the new profession at level 1.  I discovered this can be a double edged sword.  I settled on changing Ragnar from a Soldier to a Wizard and Harley from a Wizard to a Soldier.  Harley can now wear armour and wield better weapons, and also has the ability to cast the same spells he had learned as a level 21 Wizard.  Ragnar, on the other hand, can no longer wear armour or use the best weapons and also had a reduction in hit points; he is now just a regular level 1 Wizard.  His lack of combat abilities started to annoy me so I changed him to a Sage as soon he reached level 20 again.  Only the Hero could not change class.

"But I wanted to become a Goof-Off!"

• While mapping I began to notice the overworld area of Dragon Warrior III began to resemble a  map of Earth.  Some of the place names were similar too; Romaly is the equivalent of Rome, Portogo is where Portugal would be.  That said, it is massively deformed. Australia, for instance, has moved several thousand miles west to be directly south of India and has shrunk so much it would fit in the Mediterranean Sea.

My map when I zoomed out and realised it looked familiar.  I hadn't started on the Americas yet.

• Inventory space is limited to just eight slots.  Giving a character a weapon, a shield, a helmet and some armour halves that.  Essential quest items reduce this even further.  Items can be stored, for a price, at a vault in Aliahan.  Gold pieces can also be stored in the vault, but as they do not take inventory space and encumbrance is not an issue, I was a happy to lug these around.

• Apart from the usual fetch quests the game provides some simple puzzles to break things up a little....

Ooh, a game of Sokoban.

• A few games ago* in Ultima VI I started the game with the Orb of the Moons which allowed you visit any town from the off.  Dragon Warrior III does this better with the Return spell.  This only allows you to teleport to towns you have previously visited on foot.  This is essential as you can only save in towns where an NPC (usually a king) can scribe your progress in the Imperial Scolls of Honour.  He also informs you how many XP each party member requires to progress to the next level.

• I was annoyed by some of the non-choices in the game.  Twice I defeated an NPC called Kandar.  Both times the game gave me the choice of whether to let him go or not.  Select the NO option and he asks you to reconsider.  The game won't continue until you say YES.  What's the point of that?  Another time I was crowned King of Romaly.  I couldn't leave town, buy or sell items or otherwise continue upon the quest until I gave up the crown.  Another pointless exercise.

You are given a choice of YES or NO, but Kandar repeats himself until you let him go.
Who thought this would be good game design? Especially in an RPG.

• Once Archfiend Baramos has been defeated, it comes as no surprise to discover he was not the main antagonist after all.  On returning to Aliahan, a voice rings out saying Master Archfiend Zoma will now cover the world in darkness.  You have to travel to a whole new continent called Alefgard, World of Darkness which is based on the map from the original Dragon Warrior game.

At the beginning of the game you set out to follow in your father's footsteps.  I thought this meant figuratively but along the way you get clues that he may not have died in the volcano after all.  I finally caught up with him in Zoma's castle.  He perished fighting a King Hydra and did not recognise me as his son.

He died before I could ask him how in hell he got this far without any of the quest items I had been collecting.

Before facing Zoma we had to fight the King Hydra that defeated Ortega, followed by Baramos Bomus and Baramos Gonus.  The fights were a lot easier than expected.  Earlier in the castle I found the Sage's Stone.  This item can be used in combat to cast a HealUs spell.  I got Petrus to use this every round apart from one where I had to cast a HealAll on Harley who was getting low on hit points.

On defeating Zoma the castle collapses and the party fall down a pit to the bottom of a cave.

The Return spell only gives us the option to travel to towns in Alefgard.  Returning to see the King in Tantagel triggers the end sequence.....

It could never be said Dragon Warrior III is an attractive game.  The graphics haven't really moved on from the 1986 original. Although the rival Final Fantasy series had migrated to the SNES in 1991,  Dragon Warriors III and IV remained on the aging NES hardware.  The sprites are small and ugly and lack the personality of other NES JRPGs such as Earthbound Zero and the aforementioned Final Fantasy games. The sprites also flicker when there are a few on screen at once.  The music on the other hand is varied and of good quality.  Even after such a long game it didn't get annoying and my wife was even whistling along to some of the the tunes.  The plot is also typical JRPG - a party of four are kept on a linear path (by impossible encounters) to defeat the big bad only to find out there is a bigger bad behind him.  I mention above that you can't really go wrong in Dragon Warrior III, but later in the game I did lose the plot thread on a couple of occasions and had to consult the walkthrough.  This is contained in the back of the manual along with maps (that I didn't use) so I didn't feel too bad about it. Even with this help Dragon Warrior III must be the longest game I have played so far.  On the whole I enjoyed the experience and look forward to future instalments in the series.  I just hope they are a bit shorter than this epic quest.



* I originally played this game with the 1991 games.  The main Dragon Quest III article in Wikipedia gives the US release date as 12th June 1991.  I subsequently found the Wikipedia article on the Dragon Quest Series gives the year as 1992, as does Mobygames and Gamefaqs.  I went with the majority.

Super Mario Bros. 3 - NES - 1990

After going off at a bit of a tangent in Super Mario Bros. 2, the portly plumber is back in his old stomping ground of Mushroom World.  Bowser has also made a return, this time with his seven children in tow.  These siblings have stolen the royal magic wands from each kingdom in the Mushroom World and have used them to turn the kings into animals.  Lord knows what Mrs Bowser makes of this.  You take control of Mario (or Luigi in two player mode) and must retrieve the wands from Bowser's offspring in order to return the kings to their human forms.

The gameplay in Super Mario Bros. 3 has been changed from a standard linear platforming game to something a little bit different. Each kingdom is displayed from above and Mario can only travel on the roads.  On this map there are several standard platform levels to play through and mini games to participate in.  Depending on the road layout most of the levels are compulsory but some are optional and can be skipped altogether.  The mini games can also be skipped, but can give up rewards with little or no risk.

Desert Land.  I have only skipped platform level 5.

Examples of mini games include a reaction test to line up a picture, matching pairs of cards, or defeating the wandering 'Hammer Brothers' for a treasure chest.  A treasure chest can also be opened in Toad's house.  Items from the chests can be used at the beginning of a platform level to make things a little easier or, in the case of Jugem's Cloud, complete it without playing it.

The non-platform levels can give up extra lives and useful items

The meat of the game is the platforming levels.  These are more or less the same as the original game but Mario has been given more power ups.  The Super Mushroom (changes Mario into the larger Super Mario), Starman (bestows invincibility for a short while) and Fire Flower (allows Mario to throw fireballs) all return from Super Mario Bros.  New to this game are the Frog Suit, Racoon Suit and Tanooki Suit (a tanuki is a japanese racoon).  Frog Mario can jump further on land and swim better making the underwater sections much easier.  Racoon Mario and Tanooki Mario can fly for a limited time and can use a tail attack to dispatch enemies.  Additionally Tanooki Mario can turn into a statue for a short while and cannot be harmed.  As per Super Mario Bros., enemies can be killed by jumping on them or hitting them from below if they are on a platform.  At the end of each platform level Mario picks up a card.  Collect two or more the same and you are rewarded with extra lives.  An extra life is also awarded for every 100 coins collected.

Picking up three identical cards provides some handy extra lives.

Lives are lost if you fall down a hole or into fire, or if you run out of time.  If you come into contact with an enemy when wearing a suit, you revert to Super Mario.  If you're Super Mario and you are touched you turn into ordinary Mario.  You lose a life if you touch an opponent when you are ordinary Mario.

The aim in each kingdom it to reach the fortress.  In the fortress you will need to retrieve the magic wand from one of Bowser's kids by jumping on his head three times.  The wand can be used to return the King to human form.  

You will then get a letter and gift from Princess Peach and then it's off to the next kingdom.

Super Mario Bros. 3 has often been cited as being the best game on the NES and one of the best games of all time.  Although it adds a lot of new elements to the Super Mario Bros. formula, the platforming gameplay and graphics remain pretty much the same as the 1985 release.  I also prefer the flatter learning curve of the original title.  Although it hands out a lot of extra lives, Super Mario Bros. 3 gets very difficult during the third world and it would take a lot of time to learn all the levels.  Another problem for me is that I imagine the game would take at least a couple of hours to complete and, with no save option, would have to be done in one sitting.  Is it the best game on the NES?  Well, in my opinion that would be Earthbound Zero and I don't think this title is as impressive in 1990 as Super Mario Bros. was half a decade earlier.  It's a cracking game though not quite as good as I was expecting.

The frog suit makes traversing the water levels a lot easier.

Example gameplay...

Final Fantasy III - NES - 1990

Final Fantasy III came out in Japan in April 1990 for the Nintendo Famicom – just over two months before the original Final Fantasy was released in North America.  It was the third and final instalment to be published on the 8-bit console before the franchise moved over to the 16-bit Super Famicom/SNES.  Like Final Fantasy II the game wasn’t released in the West so I will be using a fan translation.  The only English version was a 3D remake for the Nintendo DS from 2006.  There were quite a few differences but I will use those instructions as the basis for my playthrough.  The rest I will have to work out as I go along.

I was hoping this instalment was going to be a little more original.  The plot says that your party of four orphans have been tasked with 'sweeping away the Darkness' that is threatening the world.  So far, so very Final Fantasy.  The graphics are also pretty much the same…

Hopefully the story and the ‘job system’ will make things more interesting.

The first thing to do is to name the four protagonists.  Lacking any imagination, I took the names straight from the DS manual.  You are then plopped in the bottom of a dungeon which had been created after an earthquake.  The only graphical difference between the characters is their colour.  Their default job is listed in the game as ‘onion kid’.  I can’t begin to guess why the starting class is named after a pungent vegetable.  In the dungeon there were a few simple combats followed by a boss.  Combat uses the same system as the previous two Final Fantasy games.  As well as gaining Exp and Gil (currency) after combat, you also accumulate Capacity Points.

Capacity Points form the basis of the ‘job system’ as they are needed to change your ‘job’ or character class.  The longer a character remains in the same class the more proficient they become.  This is something I will need to experiment with as I go.  I can already foresee plenty of grinding.

After defeating the dungeon boss you come across the Wind Crystal who says the balance of everything is crumbling and the characters have been chosen to restore it.  The Crystal also gives you some of its power which allows access to the initial selection of jobs.

South of the dungeon is their home town of Ur.  As before, speaking to the citizens results in a stock response.  This normally changes once a related quest has been completed.  It looks like the option to memorise key words that was introduced in Final Fantasy II has been removed.

So far I have upgraded my party to three Fighters and a Monk.  My plan is for two of the Fighters to become a White Mage and Black Mage after a little grinding.  I have covered the first overworld area (there is boulder preventing any further progress) and have discovered a second town, a castle and the entrance to another dungeon which is blocked by a lake.

As is my wont with JRPGs, I began with some pre-emptive grinding.  One improvement over the earlier games is that if a character targets an enemy that is subsequently killed he automatically targets another - the attack is no longer wasted.  I also took this opportunity to experiment with the job system.  The initial choices are Onion Kid (the default class), Fighter, Monk, White Mage, Black Mage and Red Mage.  I retained Luneth as a Fighter and Arc as a Monk. I made Refia a White Mage and Ingus a Black Mage.  Although the whole party were gaining levels, only Luneth and Arc were gaining job skills from the combat.  It was the same when I tried a Red Mage even though they are able to use most weapons.  I therefore reverted the Mages to Fighters.  After finding a SLEEP spell in the Altar Dungeon I changed Ingus back to a Black Mage.  Ingus tends to go last in combat so is still not gaining skills as fast as the melee characters.

I used Ur as my base for grinding as one of the buildings contained a couple of springs.  One spring restores all hit and magic points, and the other resurrects dead characters.

I didn't even know that was a word

After my initial bout of grinding it was only left to fully explore the first area.  I had previously visited the Altar Dungeon north of Ur which offered up some good items and the aforementioned SLEEP spell.  Kazus was literally a ghost town.  The earthquake had broken the seal that held a Jinn who in turn changed the inhabitants into ghosts.  It was mentioned the Jinn could be defeated using a Mithril ring that was made for Princess Sara of Sasoon Castle.  The ghost of Cid said he had hidden his airship in the nearby desert and I could use it to cross the lake to the Cave of the Seal where the Jinn was hanging out.

My next stop was Sasoon Castle but the Jinn had got there before me as everyone here had also been turned into ghosts.  Princess Sara, who was protected by the ring, had already made her way to Cave of the Seal.  I found a Wight Sword which a guard said would help against the undead in the cave, but only a Red Mage could wield it.  I changed Refia to the Red Mage and returned to Ur to stock up on potions and spells.

It took a couple of attempts to get to the Jinn but he wasn't too difficult to defeat due to my earlier grinding.  Princess Sara then warped us back to Sasoon Castle.  For saving his life and the lives of his daughter and his subjects, the King bestowed upon us…a…a canoe?!  A poxy canoe!  At least we can cross the lake to retrieve the airship.  A guard revealed there was a secret passage to the King’s treasury which I cleaned out before I left.  That’ll learn the tight-arsed git.

In Kazus they were more grateful.  A smith made a mithril bow for the airship with which to ram the boulder that was blocking our passage.  The collision between the rock and the hard place resulted in both the boulder and the airship being destroyed.

I am now back on foot, but with the first area open the world is now my oyster – at least until the next obstruction.  Before heading out I will grind some more against the undead in the Cave of the Seal; the CURE spell harms undead creatures (which kind of makes sense) so I can use that to improve Refia’s White Mage job skill.  I will note my thoughts below…

• While grinding it became apparent the enemy can now jump our party from behind and get a free attack in.  It confused the hell out of me at first.

• There are a lot of hidden items and secret passages to discover.  Some can be seen, some are revealed by NPCs and others can be found by accident. For example, Cid allowed us into his already secret storage room after we cured his ailing wife.  This contained another secret passage leading to yet more items.  Although they have nothing to do with the main quest these little extras make rewarding diversions and can offer up useful items.

I knew there was a reason why some steps when into the water.

• Job changes can be forced upon your characters.  I had to cast the MINI spell on my party to enter a couple of dungeons.  The small characters could only cause a maximum of 2HP damage with weapons so I had to make Luneth and Arc mages so they could cast offensive spells. 

• Locked areas in Final Fantasy III are a lot smaller than in the earlier titles and can be quickly cleared before moving on.  At least for now there doesn’t seem to be any way to return to previously visited locations so it’s hard to determine the overall size of the game world.  As yet there has been no need for mapping.

• Soon after writing the above I acquired a ship which opened up (almost) the rest of the ‘world’.  The ‘world’ turned out to be one of those floating continents that show up from time to time in fantasy games and novels.  This continent was quite small and could be circumnavigated in a matter of minutes on a chocobo (this was a side quest).

The edge of the floating continent.  Using chocobo avoids random encounters.

• While on the subject of chocobos – there is a fat one you can summon in certain places to store items and ease the burden on your inventory.

• A good feature I would have liked to have seen on some other RPGs is that equipping weapons and armour alters your Attack and Defence values, so you can easily compare items.  These values, and XP and HP, were the only stats I really needed.  For me, the main stats screen was mostly superfluous.

• On the floating continent we discovered another crystal that gave us more jobs to choose from.  I only elected to upgrade Luneth from Fighter to Knight.  After completing all the quests, Cid converted our sailing ship into an airship allowing us to reach the world below. 

• This world appeared to be mainly open ocean and the SIGHT spell proved invaluable in allowing us to locate the few pockets of dry land.  We came across a shipwreck and were told the populace had been turned to stone and the earthquake had caused the land to sink.  Reaching the Water Crystal caused the land to rise again and gave us more jobs.  I changed Arc from Monk to Karateka.

• I had to cheat a bit and use a map from the internet to spare me the pain of creating one myself.  Apart from the floating continent (which didn’t need mapping) there is another large overworld area and an equally large undersea area.  For the most part dungeons were pretty simple affairs that could be memorised (apart from the Cave of Darkness and later the Dark World which both contained numerous secret passages).

The world had to be explored from both above and below the water to avoid missing anything.

 

• There is a good selection of airships available during the game including the submersible Nautilus and Invincible that can be used to traverse mountains for a short distance.  Invincible also contains a bed, vending machines for (weapons, armour, spells and magic items) and a fat chocobo.

The Invincible contained everything you could need.

• The last section of the game took part in three interconnected dungeons - Forbidden Land Eureka, Sylx Tower and Dark World.  These are surrounded by yet another dungeon - The Ancient's Labyrinth.  I had heard this last section was very difficult as the game cannot be saved in a dungeon - only on the surface.

The final save point.

• Attempt one did not go very well.  I can't remember exactly how far I got, but Arc and Refia were turned into frogs rendering them harmless.  Lacking any Maid Kisses I had a trying time getting back to the airship to track some down.  While I was at it I picked up some extra items to counter-act other status effects.  The next time I was better prepared.

• On exploring Eureka I found it contained some healing springs and shops selling the most powerful spells, armour and weapons.  You could also gain the best jobs - Ninjas were able to use all weapons and armour, and Sages could cast any spell.

• At the end of the Sylx Tower is the Dark World.  From here there is no return to the surface to save.  Companion NPCs from earlier in the game helped gain entry…

• I discovered the final boss, Dark Cloud, very easily after moving north from the entrance.  My second attempt at this last section also went pear shaped as none of my spells or weapons had any effect on her/it.  I had to reload from outside the tower and make my way through Eureka and Sylx Tower again.

• For my last try I explored the rest of Dark World before heading north.  I found there were four dark crystals, each guarded by a tough boss.  I had a few deaths but the LIFE 2 spell bought characters back to life with full health.  If Refia was killed a Fenix Down followed by an Elixir did the same thing.  Many CURE spells and Potions were also consumed.  As each boss was defeated the crystal released a Warrior of Darkness. 

• My next crack at Dark Cloud went better as these Dark Warriors had weakened it.  It was a long battle including one death (followed by a LIFE 2) and a round when all the characters needed to drink an Elixir but I got there in the end.  Here is the 10 minute ending sequence.....

Since my last Final Fantasy game I have completed three Gold Box games so it was refreshing to get back to an RPG with an intuitive interface and decent sound and graphics.  I’m glad the developers did away with the flawed levelling mechanism of Final Fantasy II and went back to the more traditional system of the first game.  The job changing mechanic also adds an interesting twist to the proceedings.  Graphics and sound effects haven’t been updated much but they were good by NES standards anyway.  The music, however, seems much better and more varied.

Bad points?  As with the earlier games the random encounters started to become monotonous towards the end of the game.  I also preferred the plot, if not the execution, of the earlier titles - in your travels you had the feeling something evil was abound in the world – especially in Final Fantasy II.  In this game the populous seemed to be behaving as normal even after they had returned from being submerged under the sea.  The last criticism applies to any RPG I have played and that is the currency.  I have yet to find a balanced system and halfway through this game I was a millionaire, though to be fair I did spend it all on shurikens in Eureka.  It would have been better balanced had every single monster not dropped money.

Overall, Final Fantasy III has renewed my interest in a franchise that was beginning to wane after only two games.  I am now looking forward to see what Square can do on the SNES.

Earthbound Zero (aka Mother) - NES - 1989

Until I started compiling the shortlist for this blog I had never heard of the Mother/EarthBound series of RPGs.  The first Western release in the series was EarthBound (Mother 2 in Japan) on the SNES which, although not commercially successful, has become somewhat of a cult classic. 

The original game in the series was known as Mother.  It was released in Japan in 1989 for the Famicom console.  Unusually (perhaps uniquely?) for the time, this was an RPG set in a contemporary United States rather than in some fantasy world.  Psychic powers replaced magic and everyday items replaced weapons.  The game was officially translated into English as Earth Bound but for whatever reason was never released.  The translated code subsequently found its way onto the internet and this is the version I am playing.  To prevent confusion it was renamed EarthBound Zero.  

Before you start playing you have to name the four protagonists of the game and enter your favourite food!.  You are then presented with the introduction...

Due to the lack of a manual I am going to try and work out what’s going on as I play.  My first combat was with a table lamp so this may be more difficult than it seems.

You are cast as a pre-teenage boy and the action starts in your bedroom where you are attacked by the afore mentioned lamp as you try to leave.  In one of your sister’s bedrooms you are accosted by another lamp followed by a doll in your second sister’s room.  When examined the doll plays a melody.  I guess one of the tasks is to collect these tunes as a musical note appears in your stats.  If you talk to your sisters they give you orange juice which replenishes your hit points.

Downstairs you find your mother.  Talk to her and she suggests calling your dad on the phone.  He said it sounds like the work of a poltergeist and that your great grandfather George's diary in the basement may tell your more.  The basement contains the diary, a plastic bat (your first weapon) and loaf of bread.

At the start I was using the house as a base and the designer implemented some great ideas here.  Speak to your mum and she gives you dinner and tells you to rest which fully replenishes your HP and PP (Psi Points).  You can leave items from your (rather limited) inventory with one of your sisters for safekeeping.  If you speak to your dad on the phone he deposits money into your bank account and tells you how many XP you require to level up.  He also gives you the opportunity to save the game.

Heading out of the house I could only go in one direction and was attacked by a hippie.  Combat is turn based and a simple process of mashing the Fight button or using magic psi-power when you gain some effects. Psi-powers seem to be gained through combat, not when levelling up.  I can’t mention the hippie fight without commenting on the combat music – it is fantastic and some of the best I have heard on the NES.  In fact music on the whole is great throughout the game.

Some opponents have special attacks that can render you helpless for a few rounds and not all of them fight on their respective turn…

If you are defeated in combat your character faints and can take no action until they are brought around.  If the whole party falls unconscious you are returned to the last location you saved with only your main character 'alive'.  Other party members need to be healed before they can be used again.  There are no deaths Earthbound Zero .

The first house I came across had a woman saying her daughter Pippi was missing and I should tell the mayor.  I eventually reached the town of Podunk.  Instead of having to enter towns, they are the same scale as the world map making it rather large.  The building interiors are, however, a different scale.  Buildings in Podunk include a burger joint, a hospital, the city hall, a hotel and a department store.  The department store has a cashpoint allowing access to your money and a payphone to call your dad.  It was in Podunk I got my first quest from the mayor.

The first quest involved rescuing Pippi from the zombie infested cemetery.  I found her in a coffin in the bottom of a crypt.  The mayor gave me a measly $100 reward and tasked me with investigating the zoo where the animals had gone mad.

The path through the zoo was pretty linear.  At the end there was a capsule containing Starman Jr.  He was a tough opponent and it took me two attempts to beat him.  Once he was defeated the animals calmed down.  That leads me to believe aliens are behind the goings on and  I’m not looking forward to facing Starman Sr.   I picked up my second melody from a singing monkey.

Back in town a couple of people mentioned a canary city to the northwest of Podunk.  I noticed earlier the pet section of the department store only had one animal left to sell – a canary.  I bought this and at canary city it was reunited with it's mother.  This gave me my third tune.

The only place to go next was Merrysville to the east.  The river bridge was blocked off by orders of the Mayor but the guards said I may be able to cross further north.  The guards there were more lax and let me through.  The path winded up at a cave which led me to Magicant.  Magicant is weird….

Magicant is an ideal place to grind at the beginning of the game.  Like your house, you can hand in items for safekeeping, save the game and get healed and resurrected for free.  For grinding you can recruit the Flying Men to help you out.  They can't be healed though, and when they die a grave stone appears next to their house.

*Sniff*

In Magicant Castle my quest becomes clear as Queen Mary reveals she is trying to remember an 8 part melody and begs me learn it.  On the way out of Magicant I found a sleeping dragon which I couldn't wake.  I also discovered the Onyx Hook which can be used to return to Magicant from wherever you are.  I used this a lot when a party member went down for the free resurrections.

The exit from Magicant led to Merrysville where I recruited my first party member - Darren the bullied geek.  He can be found on the roof of the school in a dustbin.  He takes you to Duncan's Factory where he launches a rocket to clear a rock slide that has been blocking the railway line.  This opens up a lot more of the map. 

The nearest town was called Reindeer where an old lady gave me hat to return to a girl in the town of Snowman.  The hat belonged to Annette who joined the party to seek her missing mother.  Like Wingnut, Annette has access to psi powers.  She gained the abilities faster and was the only character capable of using offensive psi skills.  Towards the end of the game she could cast PK Beam ƴ which instantly killed any target.  For opponents that were immune to the Beam spell, PK Freeze ƴ reduces their HP to critical levels where they could be killed with just one more hit.  Of course, some of the enemies have the same powers.

With a full party we continued on to Spookane.  A haunted house there contained a piano that gave us our fourth tune.

The fifth melody was to be found in a desert.  I totally missed this one and had to consult a walkthrough when I noticed a gap in my stats.  In the desert I came across an oasis where a man offers to give you flights in his plane.  Being unobservant I failed to notice we flew over a cactus with a face which is where the fifth tune came from.  After a few flights you can take a ride in the man's tank.  You can't leave the desert and can only exit the tank at the oasis so it is not very useful.

South of the desert was a railway track that led to Youngtown.  Near Merrysville the bridge had been destroyed preventing the train from running so we had to follow it on foot.  Youngtown was full of kids who said their parents had been abducted.  A baby with psi powers gave Wingnut and Annette the ability to Teleport to any town they had previously visited.  This came in very useful when having to go back to Magicant for resurrections.

At Ellay we were joined by the Colin, leader of the notorious Bla Bla Gang.  He replaced Darren which is no bad thing.  Like Darren he has no Psi skills but is a stronger fighter.  Our final destination is Mount Itoi (named after the game's designer) which has much tougher opponents and required lots of teleporting between Magicant and Ellay.  At least our our party was now powerful enough to take on the sleeping dragon on the way out of Magicant.  He gave us our sixth melody.

As I said Mount Itoi was very tough going with frequent deaths.  We did gain a lot of levels but eventually met an unbeatable giant robot which easily kicked our collective arse.  The gallant  Darren came to our rescue with the tank from the desert.

This battle put Colin out of action so Darren rejoined the party.  Further up the mountain there was a lake where a broken down speedboat was moored.  Once Darren had repaired the boat we sailed into a whirlpool which seemed like the obvious thing to do.

We were sucked into a secret underwater base where we discovered a giant robot.  It introduced itself as EVE and said it was built by my great grandfather George. It says George was taken to the ends of the universe and then brought back and that it's purpose was to protect me.  With EVE disposing of most enemies with a single hit our continued ascent of Mount Itoi went swimmingly until we encountered another giant robot which was a match for EVE.  Both robots were destroyed in the ensuing battle.  In the wreckage of EVE we found our penultimate melody.

Our party eventually reached the summit and came across what looked like a grave stone.  Checking it revealed our eighth and final part of the tune.  I used the onyx hook to return to Magicant and to Queen Mary.  When we sang the tune, Queen Mary said she loved Giegue (whoever that may be) as if he were her own child.  And that it would happily wag it's tail until she tried singing lullabies.  She also revealed she is Maria, my great grandmother, and that Magicant is an illusion created by her consciousness.  As she fades to join George, so does Magicant and our party is returned to the summit of Mount Itoi.  
 

There is now a cave we can enter were we find the adults from Youngtown.

We also come across Giegue who turns out to be an alien.  Giegue explains that he was raised by George and Maria, but George stole information from his planet that could have been used to betray his people.  He goes on to say that I am obstructing his plans and I should perish with the rest of 'the ugly Earth people' (he doesn't explain what his plans are).  After our final visit to Magicant we now have SING among our commands.  This is used to harm Giegue who escapes in a spaceship vowing to return. Wingnut heads off to bed for a well-earned kip and everyone lives happily ever after.  The ending video….

Until….

I really enjoyed Earthbound Zero.  Although the game is fairly linear it doesn’t really feel like it.  You have a clear path to follow from town to town, but do not know what to expect or what you have to do until you get there.  There are also quite a few optional side quests to take on – some I did, some I didn’t.  The game is not tile based so your party can easily move in eight directions – something you can’t do in Final Fantasy or Phantasy Star.  I think the graphics are well drawn and animated for the NES.  The sound is very good, especially the music (even my wife was humming along to some of it).  The game world is vast - one of the largest games I have played so far (with the possible exception of Ultima V).  I have to confess I used a map from the internet which saved me weeks, if not months, of tedious mapping.  There is an in-game map which shows the relative location of the towns but no detaiI. 

This is no criticism of the game but a lack of manual hindered me slightly as I couldn't work out what some objects did or were supposed to do.  I picked up a ‘Flea Bag’ early on but it didn’t have any effect when I tried to use it on an enemy so gave up.  I still have no idea what a PSI Stone or a Noble Seed does. Psi powers were easy to work out by watching what effect enemy attacks had on my party.

I'm in disbelief as to why this wasn't released after the translation had already been done.  It is an excellent, if quirky, game and I'm sure it would have been a success.  Towards the end of Phantasy Star and the Final Fantasy games I was willing for them to finish.  That did not happen with Earthbound Zero.