Supertember: Week 2

Welcome to the second week of Supertember, the September where I play Super Nintendo Entertainment System games. Here's the first week for some context. Back in the '90s that was almost every September but, hey, we don't need to get into how we're all beholden to the linear progression of time again; I already did that whole spiel a week from now. Since I was a little disappointed by how I began this series with a paltry two games, as I'm sure were all three of my readers, this week I gave it both barrels and managed to play... two more SNES games.

OK, look. I had this great idea that in order to add more games to this whole presently theoretical "Top 100 SNES Games (Scientific)" list I'd play two RPGs this week and, well, turns out RPGs can be kinda long sometimes. However! I had previously decided that I'd only play action-RPGs, given they're typically shorter and breezier, so managing two in a week (with full RA masteries, because that's going to be a thing for a while yet) isn't too shabby.

Ys IV: Mask of the Sun (Tonkin House, 1993)

Well, obviously I was going to fit in a Ys playthrough at some point, so I might as well get it out the way with early. There were a total of three Ys games released for the SNES: a side-scrolling adaptation of Ys III: Wanderers of Ys, this top-down version of Ys IV that hearkens back to the original two games, and the divisive Ys V: Kefin, Lost Kingdom of Sand which remains the only Ys to not see a modern remaster or an official translation (it did see a JP-only improved PS2 remake though)—if you tried to run the series today, you could buy every Ys game besides V from the Steam store alone. The fourth Ys is an odd aberration in the series due to the unusual way Falcom approached its development: it decided to make it a console-only venture but, due to lacking expertise in making games for consoles (or maybe they were busy), they outsourced the game to two different contractors—Tonkin House and Hudson Soft—to independently make an Ys IV for Super Famicom and the PC Engine CD-ROM, respectively. The SFC Ys IV became "Mask of the Sun", this game, while the PCECD Ys IV became "The Dawn of Ys". The two games have numerous differences, connected only by the design doc Falcom provided that had a rough outline of the story, setting, and characters. These days, anyone looking to play Ys IV would be better served with its Falcom-developed modern remake, Ys: Memories of Celceta, available on PC, PS Vita, and PS4, with a remaster coming to Switch soon (as of writing).

Mask of the Sun is typically perceived as the worst of the Ys IV variants. Part of this is the lack of CD audio, of course, since musically the Ys RPGs stand above all others and Falcom Sound Team JDK (their bank of in-house composers) really found their groove, as it were, when the series debuted on CD-based platforms. It's also obscenely hard, owing to Tonkin's strange decision to return to Ys I & II's notorious "bump system" of combat. The way the bump system works is that your position relative to the enemy when you walk into them determines whether they or you take damage: if you approach them at a slight angle, they'll get harmed, while Adol takes the blow if he walks into them head on or is standing still. For further clarity, I've prepared a video link of a bump system expert in action. The game's speed is also pretty high so you're constantly having to adjust your position in these little games of chicken where you and your opponent run right into each other before you swerve a tiny amount. The game does offer one boon to counteract this: in external areas your health will quickly regenerate whenever you stand still for more than a few seconds, though this puts you at risk if there are still enemies milling around on-screen. Sadly, you do not receive this benefit in any of the game's dungeons, though some will have "safe zones" that you can make your way towards for a reprieve. To survive, your best bet is to grind in new areas while staying close to one of these safe zones that you can quickly retreat into, whether it's some mid-dungeon sanctuary or a town, and then raise your levels and cash (for better equipment) until you're able to move on without the risk of immediate death by collision. There's healing items too, but since you can only carry one of each they're best kept for emergencies (or, more generally, boss fights).

If you've played Memories of Celceta, and I'd strongly recommend you do, the story here should be familiar enough. The antagonistic expansionist Romun Empire has their sights set on the region of Celceta, analogous to the real-world Cerceda region of northwest Spain, and has been employing several shady mages to undermine the local defenses so they can eventually swoop in and take over. Said mages have their own designs on the place though, owing to the fact that within its dense forest depths there are traces of the advanced ancient civilization that factored into Ys I and II including a surviving member of the angel-winged race that used to watch over the world as benevolent guardians. Adol wanders into Celceta after finding a message in a bottle asking for help, though a certain amount of curiosity and the smell of adventure were factors also, leaving Ys I's Esteria alongside the Ys continent's Dr. Flair to investigate. Celceta is largely an immense forest hiding any number of secrets, including a treehouse village of tribal warriors the mages are keen to remove as obstacles to their schemes, and the player's task is to explore the place while foiling said evil machinations.

While the exploration of exterior locations is relatively painless owing to that fast regeneration system, the game is built with classic 1980s Ys difficulty in mind and so without the occasional intervals to grind and farm you'll quickly be overwhelmed come most of the dungeons. It uses a Suikoden style XP system—though I guess since this game preceded any game in Konami's series, I guess it's more accurate to say that Suikoden uses a Mask of the Sun XP system—in that the next level regularly needs the same amount of XP again but the amount you earn from all sources is depreciated. If you keep trying to glut on early enemies for an easier time later they'll soon stop providing anything more than a single XP point: the game's hint that you should probably move on instead of trying to fill up on small fry. One surprising and very welcome boon in this Ys game (it was also in the Master System Ys 1 port I played recently as well, if I recall) is the ability to save anywhere you want; you can screw yourself over if you're near death in the middle of a dungeon but it's otherwise a handy way to grind safely or give yourself a convenient resume point for an imminent boss fight—the game's also kind enough to put some flashing jewels on the entrances to boss arenas so you don't get ambushed by them.

Even so, playing Mask of the Sun is frequently a drag due to its high difficulty—running into a normal mob head-on can often do enough damage per frame to kill you within seconds—and the odd way it approaches boss fights with the bump system. For bosses, rather than trying to charge at them at an angle, there are specific moments of vulnerability either before, after, or during attacks where you'll do damage instead of take it, provided you avoid any projectiles that might be hurtling your way. The first boss, a minotaur, cycled between crabwalking left and right (vulnerable), standing still (invulnerable), charging down the screen (invulnerable), spitting fire (vulnerable, but the fire kills you in three hits at a moderate level so it's not worth the bravado), and tossing heat-seeking power crescents (vulnerable, but you ideally want to get past the crescents first so they don't stun-lock you directly into the toilet). The arena itself is constantly spitting lines of fire, mirroring a boss in Ys 1 where you had a similar stage hazard to avoid, and that stuff kills you instantly and doesn't telegraph its arrival at all, making that whole boss fight a complete crapshoot. And, to reiterate, it was only the first boss fight in the game: the tutorial, in a manner of speaking. Other bosses all have their own unique brands of bullshit and vulnerability periods to memorize since they don't always track logically, so being able to save just outside of the arenas is less a QoL courtesy and more a necessity if Tonkin House expected anyone to force their way through this mess. But hey, you can see the chaos for yourself with the following clip rather than take my oft-unreliable word for it:

It is scientifically impossible to hate an Ys game but, at the same time, the mistakes made here are legion (Adol actually talks! What?!) and only a few convenience value adds, the series's usual metal charm, and the no-nonsense action gameplay are its saving graces. Granted, I exacerbated things here by also aiming for its RA set, which demands strict level and item limits for boss fights (typically, you're underlevelled, underequipped, and can't use healing items). The music, though not CD level, isn't all that bad either; it might not make the list of great SNES soundtracks I've been compiling—you better believe I added Super Adventure Island and DKC3 from last week to that thing, though—but it doesn't let the Ys brand down either (I'm pretty sure Falcom still handled that aspect, to be fair). I'd argue that this is a little weaker overall than Ys V, which had its own issues but at least did away with the bump system and tried something fresh with its composite spellcasting feature, and definitely weaker than III. Even so, you can do a whole lot worse than even the most underwhelming Ys game, it turns out.

AD&D: Eye of the Beholder (Westwood Studios, 1994)

In 1991, Westwood Studios—the eventual Command & Conquer guys, though back then they were mostly still into fantasy stuff like the Legend of Kyrandia and Lands of Lore—decided to try their hand at a first-person Advanced Dungeons & Dragons-licensed game, working with the official AD&D video game license holders Strategy Simulations, Inc. (who published the game). However, rather than a tactical RPG like the SSI's own Gold Box series Westwood was more into the real-time stuff: previously, they'd worked on Hillsfar and DragonStrike, two D&D games with more action-oriented gameplay models. Eye of the Beholder would prove to be no different, adopting the real-time dungeon-crawler format of FTL's Dungeon Master (a game I can't seem to stop bringing up lately) with an abbreviated version of AD&D's complex ruleset. The resulting product of this combination, which also benefited from Westwood's typically excellent visuals, would prove successful enough to see two more sequels: Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon and Eye of the Beholder III: Assault on Myth Drannor. All three games take place in the campaign setting of the Forgotten Realms: also the basis for the Baldur's Gate series, the Neverwinter Nights series, and others more numerous to count.

I've no real insight into why and how this SNES port exists. The SNES had the biggest audience share of any platform in early-1994 (after which it'd shift over to PlayStation) so I can certainly see the sense of putting on there for a Japanese/international audience, especially as Dungeon Master had previously made the jump without too many compromises, but it's still an odd sight to see. Stranger still was having the Capcom logo flash up at the start: they published the game and possibly had some hand in its development too. Then again, even stranger EoB ports exist: there's also one for the Atari Lynx somehow. I learned quick that if you choose to play the SNES version—not ideal in general, let's just say—it's a good idea to have the SNES Mouse peripheral (or an emulated proxy) since this game would be very awkward without it. That said, it does have a few conveniences for controller types and mouse types alike, such as auto-selecting the next active weapon slot when in combat so you can quickly fire off attacks as soon as they're available.

So the set-up here is that your party is tasked to journey beneath Waterdeep to the legendary morphing labyrinth that is the Undermountain (though I don't think EoB ever mentions the dungeon by name) to root out a rumored conspiracy involving a monster army bursting forth from Waterdeep's sewers to take over the city. Said conspiracy is being masterminded by Xanathar, a beholder: a powerful extradimensional monster of high intelligence and several devastating gaze attacks, found somewhere deep below the ground. However, this primary goal eludes you at first, as you uncover stages of this conspiracy while descending through the dungeon, moving from the gross sewers to a series of Dwarven tunnels to a purple-hued Drow stronghold until finally reaching the beholder's sanctum. The enemy placements get more intense as you go down, and the game uses an XP system that is generous alike for enemy encounters and puzzle-solving, the latter of which tends to be much more prevalent in these real-time dungeon crawlers. They're the type where you might be getting twisted around by spinner tiles, throwing items onto pressure plates to close pits blocking egress, or figuring out the right sequence of levers to activate. There's just as many traps to navigate past as well, including a few fun ones that steal your items or warp you right into a monster den. There's a fast travel system that the game takes a long time to tell you about as you'll have the occasional reason to backtrack for NPC sidequests or missing items and the like, but given how quickly you level up and find new gear it's usually the case that any floor you leave behind will have very little to offer on a return trip.

Since this is AD&D we're dealing with (I believe this is 2nd Edition, which debuted in 1989) there's Vancian magic and archaic stat systems to keep in mind. No visible THAC0 to worry about, at least, but AC is still absolutely a factor: the smaller the better (and minus numbers better still). For whatever reason, when rolling a character your class-related stats (like intelligence for mages) are capped at 15 and you can't increase them, even after reaching the levels where you'd normally be able (4 and 8, I believe), so either this was a means of limiting players from stomping the game with godlike party members or some odd quirk of the game engine. I should be at least thankful that this game even lets you create your own characters, complete with portraits: often these console ports save on memory by giving you a default group of goobers to work with. You can also find NPCs willing to join your party while exploring: you can at max create four members to take with you at the start, but there's extra slots for a fifth and sixth if you find two someones to recruit. Of course, since only the first two members can attack enemies in melee range it might not necessarily be a good idea to take two extra fighters (though having meatshields at the back with bows could be useful for protecting your magic-users from rear ambushes). Also, most of these NPCs are dead when you find them: you have to carry their bones (and their gear) back to a certain NPC around the mid-point of the dungeon to bring them back, and there's no guarantees that they'll be at a level where they can keep up with you. I mean, they managed to get their asses handed to them at least once before so how useful could they really be?

Being that this is a Dungeon Master homage, you also have to concern yourself with food and hunger. Rather than a dozen different types of food—Dungeon Master had you carting around a whole greengrocer's worth of produce sometimes—it's mostly just rations and iron rations, the latter doing a much better job satiating you. These food gauges decrease so slowly that it's rarely an issue, unless you're spending a lot of time running around or resting the party because an enemy group just devastated you. I read before playing that it was ideal to have at least two healers in the group just so you don't rest for entire weeks to recover all your lost health (it's an automatic setting in most D&D games to have your clerics and paladins healing the party every time they get their spells back while resting) but it can still take a few days depending on how severely you got roughed up. Hunger never really became a factor for me, and at a certain point your clerics can learn the "create food" spell to mitigate it entirely, but it's a stress source early on. The worst monsters are those capable of special status conditions: the drow warriors and, much later, the mindflayers are capable of paralyzing party members which at least will sort itself out after a few real-time minutes; worse are the spiders that can poison you (hard to remove, and you obviously can't rest) and the rust monsters that can destroy equipment if you're not careful. It's because of foes like this that I regularly ensured my back four characters had something to throw at any monster that might poke its ugly head around the corridor and into dagger/rock/dart/arrow range. The downside is that I spent probably around three whole hours of this 15 hour playthrough just picking up all my spent ammunition and putting it back in each characters' ammo satchels after each major encounter.

Eye of the Beholder is the type of game where you want to take things slowly while saving frequently—no restrictions for doing so either, like Ys IV, though unlike Ys IV you're only allowed the one save slot so you'd better be sure you haven't messed up anywhere—as the enemies can put up a fight (sometimes), the traps can be deadly, and its environmental puzzles can really give you a headache. There's no in-game map either, so you can either chart your own with some handy graph paper or find a set off the internet and try not to cheat by looking up what enemies, items, and secrets can be found where. Old blobber tactics like the combat waltz still work too, where you keep moving around encounters to hit their flank while their programming slowly orients them into melee range again, and since none of the enemies in the game have figured out how to open doors (there are no velociraptors in Faerûn, or at least none near Waterdeep) you can situate yourself behind one and close it if you need respite. This real-time first-person dungeon-crawler genre, though increasingly fading into the mists of time barring the occasional triumphant reboot like Legend of Grimrock, has its tricks to exploit that make them far less intimidating than they first appear, but even if you can literally dance circles around its monsters there's a certain amount of respect that needs to be observed if you intend to reach the end with your party mostly intact. I've always loved games like this so it was a fond reminiscence to revisit this series in particular to see how often I'd remember to have my clerics petition for spells like "Empower" (actually Bless, but you can't have any of that religious shit in a Nintendo game). That said, the SNES isn't really the place to enjoy Eye of the Beholder with the many limitations compared to the original Amiga and DOS versions. Plus, you can import a winning party into the sequels on the PC platforms, whereas the SNES never saw adaptations of them and I doubt the tech exists to let you export data in the first place (though if the EoB2 cart came with some weird connector a la Sonic & Knuckles I'd be down with having something that weird in my collection). All the same, I think this blobber classic is going to find a spot on my Top 100 somewhere regardless even when it's this compromised.

Current List Status: 85 Entries (+10 Emergency Reserves)