If you enjoy this blog and would like to read my other adventure game retrospectives, here's a list of my previous episodes of this series:

• Episode 1: The Dig
• Episode 2: Atlantis: The Lost Tales
• Episode 3: Loom
• Episode 4: Drowned God
• Episode 5a: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis Part 1 & Episode 5b: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis - Part 2
• Episode 6: The Journeyman Project: Pegasus Prime
• Episode 7a: The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time (Part 1) & Episode 7b: The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time (Part 2)
• Episode 8a: The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time (Part 1) & Episode 8B: The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time (Part 2)
• Episode 9a: The Legend of Kyrandia: Book One [Part 1] & Episode 9b: The Legend of Kyrandia: Book One [Part 2]

Preamble (i.e., Let's Talk About Kenji Eno)

I'm a bit late to do a "spooky" themed edition of my adventure game series, but who's judging? With this retrospective, I'm looking at something outside my "normal" wheelhouse: D or sometimes titled for SEO "D: The Game." Wikipedia, the arbiter of all video game knowledge, calls D a "horror-themed interactive movie and adventure game," and that's mostly on the money. Its byline, however, leaves out how it's less of a game and more of a multimedia slideshow that banks HEAVILY on its psychedelic and downright bizarre visuals and cinematics. Think of it as a cross between Myst and The 7th Guest, directed by Salvador Dali. The game is the passion project of an obscure auteur named Kenji Eno. Eno curiously started in the video game industry by making soundtracks for console ports of arcade games. One of his earliest credits was the soundtrack for the Famicom version of Altered Beast. I note this because his background was never in programming or design, and most of his works reflect that.

D was meant to be his big break as a video game director. There's a funny backstory on how he billed the game as a psychological but tame horror game. However, he changed the masters at the last minute without telling his publisher so he could avoid their censors from blocking him from including vampires, murder, gun use, and cannibalism in the final cut. The game was a financial success, but that would not be echoed in future projects helmed by Eno and D's sequels. That's partly due to Eno holding a grudge against Sony due to a miscommunication about preorders. For almost all of his life, Eno refused to publish his titles on PlayStation consoles, even when that came at a massive financial cost. You likely have never heard of the man because of that and his leaving the industry after D2 completely tanked. He also tragically passed away at 42 due to heart failure, just as he was in the middle of a slight career revival.

In a nutshell, the best way to describe Eno is he's a cross between Hideo Kojima and Swery. However, he avoids Kojima's neurotic and excessive exorbitance and never sits on the laurels of his "indie cred" like Swery. His background not being in programming or design also means he often takes a much more unorthodox approach to directing and producing. In the case of D, the game is primarily an FMV movie with a handful of puzzles strewn in-between cinematics. Eno also enjoys experimenting with his stories. In this case, the protagonist in D is named "Laura" and is billed as a "recurring digital actress," meaning whenever she exists in a video game, you're essentially playing a person inside a fake movie. Also, the way the game conveys its story is worth remarking upon before I review its puzzle-based challenges. The game starts with a five-minute introductory cinematic about Laura needing to stop her father while he is on a murder spree. When you start the game, you'll find Laura in a mansion, and if you explore different parts of the building, you can watch additional cutscenes which look and feel like LSD-induced dream sequences.

Next, we need to discuss the game's design because it's fucking BONKERS! Because Eno envisioned D as a "digital movie," he put a two-hour timer on the game. You get a bad ending if you fail to complete the final puzzle or sequence before you run out of time. On top of that, you cannot save. You have to finish the game in a single sitting, and if you exit it at any time, you'll lose all of your progress. This game also controls as expected in an FMV game made in the late 90s. Because it uses FMV to deliver most of its visuals and cutscenes, it plays similarly to Myst. Except in the case of D, you control the game using the arrow keys, and your sense of direction is terrible. In one case, there's a desk you need to investigate, but there's only one critical path to that desk, and it started two to three screens ago. Also, there's a snappiness to the movement and transitions in Myst, which some consider jarring. However, D is too far on the other side of that pendulum, with its sense of realistic movement feeling sluggish. In fact, that "realistic" movement is incredibly annoying when the entire game pits the player against a time limit.

Oh, and one last thing before we continue. There's simply NO WAY for me to systematically review the puzzles in D without also SPOILING the game. Each puzzle is deeply tied to the overall experience. If you want an objective and non-spoiler review of the game, skip to my final recommendation at the end. Even then, if you have had an inkling to play the game, try it and then come back to this blog after you have finished it. The game clocks in under two hours and is consistently on sale on GOG and Steam.

Disc 1

Getting The Barrel Opener - [Rating: 7/10] - After watching the game's opening cinematic, the game's protagonist, Laura, finds herself in an ancient castle dining room. While in the dining room, she can explore different objects to experience different visions or cinematics. For example, if you turn around instead of moving forward on the first screen, you'll unlock a special introductory cutscene that looks like something made by a person on angel dust. However, if you want to complete the game, move to the left of the dining room table and ascend a set of stairs to the second floor. Move forward when you find the door leading to the second floor's main room and locate a drawer with numbers on it. Open the drawer with the Roman Numeral "I" to get a piece of paper and then apply the document to a bowl sitting on top of the drawer. The Roman Numerals IV and II appear. If you pull the drawers in that order, then upon opening drawer II, a barrel opener will materialize. Nothing will ever appear if you yank the drawers in any other order.

So, I don't even know where to begin with this one. It's a bit of a needle in a haystack puzzle with you needing to navigate what is ostensibly an open-ended mansion with no clear indication of what to do. I understand that this was by design to force the player to replay the game multiple times. However, with the average user needing to search every nook and cranny for clues, it's a shitty user experience. Also, we can all agree that the logic for this puzzle is non-existent. How the game justifies materializing a giant metal crank after you pull two drawers in a specific order is beyond me. The only thing preventing me from giving this puzzle a higher grade is that it does not require the player's quick reflexes or calculation prowess.

Unlocking The Slot Machine Chest - [Rating: 9/10] - Before you continue further, locate a fireplace near the drawer and move into it to pick up a key and watch a cutscene revealing Laura's father as the antagonist. With this key, it is time to find the barrel room. Exit the room with the drawers and before entering the dining room, notice a large barrel in a side room next to the stairs. Using the barrel opener on the barrel will disable a spike trap in a different room. Next, it is time to use the key from the fireplace to open a locked door across from the one that leads to the second floor. You'll find a locked box with two slots displaying numbers as you progress further in the room. You have to operate a crank, observe the numbers rotating and time your use of the crank to make the correct numbers show in the two slots. It's essentially a slot machine but with player agency. The issue is that the timing for this puzzle is awful, and while the slot for the tens digit works as intended, the one for the single digit number has an unexpected added "bonus" to make the puzzle harder. The machine will move backward eight units upon initially stopping for this slot. The correct combination, by the way, is "78," and the only way for you to know that is if you noticed those numbers above the door leading to this slot machine. Finally, when you open the box, Laura grabs a ring from a zombified hand.

Do you remember the slot machine minigame in Super Mario Bros. 3? Imagine that minigame, but on fire and with a timer looming over you like a Sword of Damocles. There's a delay between when you click to operate the crank and when the game stops the numbers. That hiccup is so considerable that it took me seven to ten minutes to nail the first number. The second number moving backward is so unconscionably a terrible idea I genuinely got angry at the game and considered stopping. Also, the numbers on the door with the solution are so obscure that you could consider giving this puzzle a ten. In this particular case, I was so confident I was missing something I ended up consulting a 2008 forum thread only to discover for this puzzle, the GameFAQs guide said, "persevere." Thanks for the bill of confidence!

Using The Weird Porcelain Animal Thing In The Bedroom - [Rating: 5/10] - With the ring, Laura can now open the final door in the dining room. When she does, she descends a set of stairs and runs away from a falling boulder like a low-rent Indiana Jones. When Laura finds herself in the second part of the castle, she must locate a picture of a young girl and then watch another hallucination. While this hallucination plays, you need to take note of animals that materialize on the screen, and in which order. For example, the game expects you to notice that a deer is the first animal that appears. This point is important because next to the bed is a turnable set of china with symbols depicting those same animals. To unlock the door to the next room, you'll need to rotate the teacups until you find the one showing a deer and stop on it. This sequence is the least problematic of the puzzles in the second part of the mansion. It's a bit of a leap to connect the animals from the dream sequence with the set of rotating china, but it's one of the more clever escape room moments in the game. If you have any hope of finishing this game, you need to treat everything you see and experience in D as a tell to a puzzle, and at least, in this case, six to seven steps do not separate the connective tissue between two parts.

The Bookshelf Puzzle - [Rating: 3/10] - When you unlock the door in the bedroom, continue moving Laura forward until she finds herself in a room filled with skeletons. Eventually, she'll see a skeletal hand holding a key she can add to her inventory. Return to the bedroom and find the critical path to a nearby desk. When you approach the desk, you'll notice it has a dozen locked drawers, and the key from the skeleton closet can open one of them. When you find the correct drawer, unlocking it will reveal a book. Leave the bedroom and continue into a large room with a set of busts next to a bookshelf. Move towards the shelf and use the book to fill a missing spot that unlocks a hidden door. Much like the previous puzzle, this one feels like something you would experience in a real-world escape room. The steps involved are not so far removed from each other that it feels impossible. Likewise, this sequence is one of the few that feels like it is still operating in some realm of human logic.

Disc 2

Using The Circular Elevator Room To Find The Knight And Defeating Said Knight [Rating: 6/10] - While the first disc of D certainly has its fair share of bumps and bruises, it wasn't so wild and wacky you never feel like you can't figure out what the fuck it wants. Also, at least every room and environment has a ton of hidden visual cinematics and cutscenes to keep you interested. All of that goes out the window during the game's second disc, where I have a sneaking suspicion Kenji Eno ran out of money. I say that because the start of the second disc primarily takes place in a stone and chain elevator with almost no visual stimuli to keep you on your toes. Worse, most rooms you can visit using the medieval elevator are empty or dead-ends. The first room you'll want to see is the "Knights Room," which will require you to operate a crank three screens removed from the elevator. Worse, the animation when you use the crank is slow, and with the knight's room ten clicks away, I felt like I could feel grey hairs growing on my head when I finally moved the elevator to the correct position. When you enter the room, Laura must defeat a knight. When Laura vanquishes the knight, she ends up with its sword.

When you enter the room with the knight, you will be treated to one of the few "action sequences" in the game. If you were wondering how this plays, it is a quick time event where Laura can end up dead after a single wrong move. Luckily, the game is a bit forgiving with how fast you need to be on the draw, but the element of instant death is still something to be mindful of when you get to this point. I ultimately fall back to that last point when ranking this puzzle. Because the game actively prevents you from saving, ANYTHING that can result in an unanticipated "Game Over" is all the more anxiety-inducing. Likewise, using the elevator fucking sucks. As hinted, it is slow, and if you are not careful, it can eat away at your timer and force you into a failed run to complete the game. More flawed is how the game is structured during this part. There's a "correct" order when using the elevator. Still, you don't know that, and the presence of dead ends makes this sequence one of the least visually exciting and most punishing if you attempt to explore it without a guide.

The Fountain Puzzle - [Rating: 6/10 For "Normal People"; Impossible/10 If You Are Color Blind] - With the knight dead and the sword in hand, it's time to move Laura back to the elevator. This time, turn the lever seven times to transport Laura to the castle's garden. While there, you'll notice a locked door to an observatory and two statues standing in the middle of fountains. When you examine the fountains, you discover one depicts the horoscope Aquarius and the other Sagittarius. With the sword, Laura will need to use it to stab the door through a keyhole to open it. When Laura ascends the stairs to the observatory, she can use a telescope to observe the astrological signs of the western zodiac system. However, you'll need to set the telescope using the standard symbols for Aquarius and Sagittarius and then watch the colored light that flickers when you look into its lens. The game requires you to notice green flashes when you examine Sagittarius and light blue when you look at Aquarius. Next, you need to backtrack to the statues and operate a console with buttons on each and click the correct colors. When you do, the water from the fountains will flood a spike pit in a different room and allow you to pick up a dueling pistol from the 1800s.

Let's deal with the most significant problem with this puzzle right off the bat. If you have color blindness, this part of the game is virtually impossible to complete unless you consult a guide. The difference between light blue and regular blue, as well as dark green and regular green, without any accompanying symbols or shapes, can be challenging to parse out for those with vision issues. As such, this puzzle has noteworthy accessibility issues. However, this sequence is still a bit of a pain in the ass outside of those issues. For reference, I am not color blind. However, it still took me a while to remember the symbols for the western zodiac system and realize you need to use the sword, and not ANY of the many keys in Laura's possession, to open the door to the observatory. Finally, using the console on the fountains does not feel good, and going back and forth between the telescope and the outside garden takes fucking forever to do.

Using The Gun To Escape The Second Stage Of The Castle - [Rating: 4/10] - As I said, the water from the fountains allows Laura to pick up a gun in a chest that previously existed in a spike pit. The game even plays a cinematic showing the chest rising to the top of the water in a different room to direct the player on their next steps. Unfortunately, you must turn the lever for the elevator ten times to get to this chest. Next, you need to return to the elevator with the gun, pull the lever three times, and navigate Laura to a stained glass mural. What was once a dead-end can now be destroyed if you use the gun on the stained glass. The only part of this puzzle I actively dislike is using the crank to move the elevator. Otherwise, this is, again, a fun little escape room puzzle. When I first butted up against the room with the window, I was able to predict I would need to use an item on it acquired elsewhere to continue the game. The minute I picked up the antique handgun, I immediately thought of the room with the window. Even if you skip the window room before you start the puzzle with the observatory, you can safely assume the gun is the key to unlocking the next part of the mansion.

Finding The False Wall - [Rating: 8/10] - After blowing up the window and watching Laura climb a ladder, you'll find her in a dark corridor. If you walk to the end of this corridor, she will see a hallucination that depicts a stone wall breaking apart. That is your LONE HINT to find a secret door to a concealed passageway. The corridor has two sides, and you must check both for the hidden passage. Also, it is a narrow linear walkway with the same repeating stone texture. The good news is that the corridor is short, but it is long enough that you might be sweating bullets if you only have a little time left. It's not an impossible ask of the player IF the hint the game provided was explicit enough for them to know what they need to do. That's not the case with the hallucination because the wall breaking apart is only a tiny jittery section of the dream. Nonetheless, you can brute force your way to the secret passage, which is why I can't give it my highest mark.

Operating The Machine Behind False Wall - [Rating: 8/10] - When or if you manage to find the false wall, Laura will immediately encounter a weird machine with gears and buttons. If you look closely, you can notice a red ball on one of the gears to the left. The goal is to move the ball to the center of the right gear. On a console that shifts the ball and wheels, there is a lever on the left, a button in the middle, and another lever on the right. The levers can be set to a top, middle, or down setting, and the left handle shifts the left gear while the right one shifts the rightmost gear. There is more than one way to solve this puzzle, and while I appreciate that, there is no way to reset the ball and gears should you royally fuck up the contraption. That last point is an absolute pain in the ass because even with optimal play, getting everything where it needs to be is relatively involved. The quickest solution, with the first position being for the left lever and the second position for the right one, is Middle-Middle-Button, Down-Middle-Button, Middle-Middle-Button, Top-Middle-Button, Top-Down-Button, and Middle-Middle-Button. Once you move the red ball to the correct place, another wall gives way, and Laura confronts her father attempting to become the next Dracula. Yeah, the story in this game GOES PLACES!

However, let's talk about why this machine puzzle sucks ass. If you mess up even once, how you undo your mistake is a complete and total mystery. Sometimes, your best bet is to spin the ball in a full circle until it returns to its original starting position. Moreover, the machine is laborious and slow, much like the elevator. For reference, I was only three to five steps removed from the optimal way to use the device, and it took me a solid nine to ten minutes. All the while, the few mistakes I made were a complete revelation to me. I feel like the levers' inputs, and the ball's position can lead to unexpected results, but that might be me going crazy. Nonetheless, there's no doubt this is an incredibly poorly signposted puzzle that comes out of nowhere and is a terrible immersion breaker. It's a lousy penultimate capstone to what is a bizarre but at least visually provocative art house project.

Shooting Your Father In The Heart Before He Becomes Dracula - [1/10] - Congratulations! You have reached the end of the game! Before you do anything too hasty, Laura's father gives her the rundown about how she and her family are distant relatives of Dracula. He also reveals that after her birth, Laura ate her mother to absorb her flesh and soul to become some ultimate being or demigod. After lecturing why he should be the one to become the next Dracula, he goads Laura to approach him so he can absorb her essence. However, if you take the time to pick up the antique pistol, using it results in Laura shooting her father in the heart and listening to his dying words before the game smash cuts to credits. It's a binary choice and a hilariously dumb way to end this game. However, it also feels wildly appropriate, given how the game only gives a shit about its story at the ass-end of its final hours. What a fucking video game!

Should You Play D? (Answer: Only If You Like Weird Art House Stuff So Much You Can Overlook A Lot Of Bunk Gameplay)

You have to have a deep appreciation and fascination for art house projects to appreciate the merits of D. It is a wildly ambitious title that goes places you'd never expect. Also, there's nothing in the industry that plays and feels like D, and while I would argue there's a good reason for that, that's worth commending on paper. Likewise, the game's unusual format results in average playtimes of around an hour and a half to two hours. With the game's moderate asking price, there's no denying it is an experiment with a low barrier to entry. In many ways, D is a prototype of what we often see on itch.io or most PC digital marketplaces. It takes crazy risks that don't always pan out, but it has hutzpah. Similarly, the game does not have a single malicious bone and broadly commits to Kenji Eno's design objectives of creating a "virtual movie."

Unfortunately, it's not a lot of fun to play. It is a game that is still operating under the shadow of Myst and 7th Guest, and as a result, its puzzles are often laborious tasks that will try the average person's patience if they are not consulting a guide. Worse, the game only partially delivers on its promise of providing an interactive world with hidden context clues on what's happening in the story. The minute you leave the starting environment and start dabbling with the castle elevator, the game is essentially done with its optional psychedelic cutscenes or rewarding the player for exploring its nooks and crannies. On top of that, the game only gives a shit about telling a story during its start and final scene. All of the stuff about Dracula and cannibalism come out of nowhere. It is also an odd and unwanted plot twist considering the beginning of the game puts some value on telling a realistic and atmospheric horror story.

I'm not going to sit here and say Kenji Eno didn't have an influence or legacy during his tragically short lifespan. I'm also not going to tell you that you need to go out of your way to play his games. The only sub-set of people I feel comfortable imploring to check out D are Deadly Premonition fans still toiling away on this site. The same logic Deadly Premonition fans use to excuse the actively unfun nature of that game by saying part of its appeal is its jank applies to D. However, I do need to issue one word of advice to those who might follow through and play this game. Avoid the sequels and pretend they do not exist.

Also, if you are interested to see what it was like for me playing the game blind, here's an archive of that happening:

Author's Note: The the second part of a multi-part retrospective on Final Fantasy VI, If you missed the first part here's the link:

• Finishing Final Fantasy VI - Episode 1: Is This The Greatest Video Game Introduction?
• Finishing Final Fantasy VI - Episode 2: Hot Take Time: The Opera House Scene Is Very Good (But Setzer Sucks)
• Finishing Final Fantasy VI - Episode 3: Dat Plot Twist, Huh? (Also, Only Monsters Don't Get The Party Back Together)

If you enjoyed this episode, here's a directory to the first episodes of every Final Fantasy game I have covered on this site thus far:

• Part 1 of Final Fantasy I series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy II series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy V series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy VII series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy VIII series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy IX series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy X series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy X-2 series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy XI series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy XII series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy XIII series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy XIII-2 series

Part 16: The Late-Game Sidequests Aren't That Good! (i.e., FUCK THE CULTISTS' TOWER!)

During my last write-up about Final Fantasy VI, I included a series of reviews for all of the character recruitment missions in Final Fantasy VI. With this post, I intend to review all the "other" sidequests that do not result in you adding a new member to your party. While some missions provide compelling stories or powerful loot, the majority are of questionable quality. If there is one black mark against Final Fantasy VI, other than the fiddly relic and Esper systems, it has to be its tough-as-nails end-game. The vast majority of its late-game optional quests reflect that shortcoming. However, I am getting ahead of myself.

Reminder about my review categories for sidequests in Final Fantasy VI:

1. Time, Physical, & Emotional Investment (1-10): How long does the side quest take to complete? A score of 1 suggests completion is almost instantaneous, whereas a score of 10 indicates the side quest is as exhaustive as finishing the entire game.
2. Gameplay/Loot Utility (1-10): Are the mechanical and gameplay rewards for this side quest worth it compared to the average time investment? A score of 1 or less suggests the rewards are trash, whereas a score of 10 indicates the item or items provided are overpowered or strongly recommended.
3. Storytelling & Worldbuilding Relevancy (1-10): Is this a pointless fetch quest for a random hat, or does it add something to the story? A score of 1 means there is little character or story relevance. In contrast, a score of 10 indicates the side quest is as or possibly more narratively essential than some or many mainline quest missions.
4. Difficulty (1-10): How hard is the mission to complete for the everyday person or someone playing this game for the first time? A score of 1 means no barriers to finishing the side quest exist. In contrast, a score of 10 means the side quest either has major dexterity-based accessibility issues OR conflicts, encounters, or boss battles associated with the side quest pose a significant hindrance that requires extensive planning or grinding on the part of the player.
5. Discoverability (1-10): How much of a pain is it to get to and start this quest? Likewise, what's it like traveling to all its associated locations and places? A score of 1 means the side quest is on a well-worn path or right in front of the player. A score of 10 means we have reached Knights of the Round levels of ridiculous backtracking and wandering around in circles.

Cyan's Dreams

Premise: I'm going to spoil things and say this is the best sidequest in Final Fantasy VI. It's a long one, but it is worth every minute. You first need to add Cyan to your party, which you can read more about in the previous episode. With Cyan in tow, a complex series of events will ensue if you decide to pay a visit to Doma Castle and rest there. When your characters awake, they will notice three monsters are feasting on Cyan's dreams, and when you attempt to stop them, they send you to a dream realm. While in this realm, you not only butt up against an assortment of new and old foes but also encounter the spirits of Cyan's dead son and wife. They relay how you need to help Cyan to move on with his life and how they want him to be happy and not stuck thinking about what he has lost. Yes, the entire level is a metaphor about needing to come to terms with loss and death rather than let it lord over you, but it works! It's a fantastic storytelling set piece, and the conclusion is stunning.

• Time, Physical, & Emotional Investment: 7/10 - I mentioned this was a "long one," right? There are three distinct "acts" to Cyan's dream sequence. The first involves entering the castle and triggering the cutscene. The second takes place in the psychedelic dream realm. The final act occurs in a vignetted version of the royal court and culminates with a boss battle against Wrexsoul. Of these movements, the first is the easiest, and the second is the most complex and involved. As I will review in the "Difficulty" section, you want to ensure you don't trigger this sequence with a less-than-optimal party composition, as you will be playing parts of it down to one to two characters at times. This design choice can be frustrating and hard to predict, but it also has the consequence of slowing every battle to a crawl, especially when you only have a single playable character. Likewise, the dream realm has a confusing layout with several dead ends, and the final level has a lot of optical illusion shit that makes it hard to process. Again, it's worth it, but it is not for the faint of heart.
• Gameplay/Loot Utility: 9/10 - The most significant reward for completing Doma Castle in the World of Ruin is gaining the Alexander Esper. Like previous versions, Final Fantasy VI's version of Alexander casts beams of Holy magic and sports a bevy of protection-based spells. When dealing with Kefka and many of the game's late-game bosses, which seek joy in afflicting you with every possible status effect, Alexander's Dispel, Esuna, Protect, and Shell abilities are great resources to have in your toolbox. There's also fantastic loot in the castle, including a Genji Glove, and Cyan gains his final Sword technique. I'm not giving this my top marks because the rewards here are excellent resources with practical utility rather than game-breaking utility.
• Storytelling & Worldbuilding Relevancy: 9/10 - Again, as involved and tiresome this quest might get, it is all worth it in the long run. When people ask me who I think is the "best" character in Final Fantasy VI and reply Cyan, this is what I point to when they give me a weird look. Cyan is the best-written character in the game, as there's a sense of wholeness and rawness to his character arc you don't see anywhere else besides Locke's backstory. It is powerful to see Cyan come to terms with the death of his family and get one last farewell before he never sees them again. It is a visual tour de force with you watching decades of Cyan's life flash before his eyes. The moment you magically find all of your characters re-enacting the game's opening scene with Magitek Armor is phenomenal. It is a "forever good" scene, and if you play Final Fantasy VI, you should do this mission.
• Difficulty: 6/10 to 8/10 - I'm going to fudge my rules about sticking with hard and fast numbers for this mission. This ranking depends more on your prep work than most quests in Final Fantasy VI. If you initiate it with a less-than-optimal party composition, as I did, you will have an unfun time. There's a moment when you must navigate the dream realm with only one character, and if you are not careful, that's a real bummer. I fucked up and needed to use Gogo for ten minutes, and it felt like an eternity. The obvious trick is to have Mog in a slot and hope he's your starting character so you can quickly disable random encounters. Those random encounters are not fun because this is the proverbial Final Fantasy "Status Effect Dungeon," where every enemy prefers to fuck with your character's statuses rather than deal direct damage. The two boss battles are tricky gimmicks more than anything else. The three dream eaters have the annoying mechanic where one is constantly healing the rest of them and needs to be dealt with first before the others. Wrexsoul is another tome in the "boss takes advantage of reflecting to fuck you over" series alongside Seymour Flux. You can negate his habit of possessing your party members by using the "Break" ability, but he's still annoying to deal with nonetheless.
• Discoverability: 5/10 - I had a tough time with this score. On the one hand, knowing to go to Doma Castle isn't immediately apparent to the player, and understanding to rest in a bed to trigger a multi-part quest isn't clear as well. Likewise, the two dream-based dungeons can be challenging to navigate. However, after everything the game has done with Cyan up to this point, I cannot imagine a world where anyone doesn't take him to Doma Castle in the World of Ruin.

Recommendation: Yes, you should 100% do this mission, but maybe wait until you are near the end of the game.

The Auction House

Premise: In the upper northern section of Jidoor is an auction house. During the latter portions of the World of Balance and all of the World of Ruin, you can purchase rare items and Espers from this location. The two most critical purchasable items are the Zona Seeker and Golem Espers. However, both of these pieces of Magicite only have a percentage chance of spawning, and you'll likely need to enter and exit the auction house several times before one will appear. Other valuable items include the Hero's Ring, which boosts all damage output on a character by 25%, and a Zephyr Cloak, which increases a character's magic evasion rate. It is worth noting that everything in the auction house is costly.

• Time, Physical, & Emotional Investment: 3/10 - This depends on RNG. During my first playthrough, I could not get Zona Seeker to spawn in the World of Balance. During my second playthrough, the Espers and Hero Ring triggered one after another. It can be frustrating and emotionally draining to go into the auction knowing what you want to buy and for it to never show up after trying repeatedly. As a wise man once said, you live by the RNG goddess and die by the RNG goddess.
• Gameplay/Loot Utility: 6/10 - This score is up for debate. Zona Seeker teaches Rasp, Osmose, and Shell at rates only beaten by late-game Espers. However, many of these abilities are highly situational (i.e., Rasp), and you are better off sticking to other, more powerful options. Golem is one of the few Espers that is more useful as a summon than a piece of equipment. As with previous versions of the summon, casting applies a barrier that temporarily protects your party from blockable moves. For the bosses in the last level, Golem gives you a little breathing room to stick with damage output for a handful of turns which can make a big difference.
• Storytelling & Worldbuilding Relevancy: 0/10 - Getting any of the items at the auction adds nothing to the story. Even when you pick up the Espers, there's no quick monologue where they greet you or recognize your power.
• Difficulty: 2/10 - Again, this score comes down to RNG. Your ranking can increase depending on your personal experience and luck. There are a few ways to rig the RNG in your favor that I will not review here. However, I have a hard time ranking this too high, considering getting what you want boils down to how much you value your time.
• Discoverability: 1/10 - The auction house is a significant fixture of Jidoor and something NPCs will even direct you towards if you accidentally miss it. As such, it is impossible to miss in any playthrough.

Recommendation: You should try to get the Espers, but if things are not going your way, feel free to cut bait. Neither is necessary for completing the game.

The Dragon's Neck Coliseum

Premise: In the World of Balance, you can find a man attempting to build a massive monument north of Kohlingen. He mentions that his building will eventually attract the world's best warriors. When you enter the World of Ruin, you discover the old geezer has made the perennial RPG coliseum level. The trick here is that you must hand over an item in your inventory to Ultros, and whatever you relinquish determines your foe. However, the battles at the coliseum are one-on-one tussles and out of the player's control. The opponent and the player's character are controlled by a computer and will use any spell and ability they have in their repertoire. If you win, you lose your bet item and gain the opponent's item, which is always better. If you lose, you have jack shit to show for your engagement because the coliseum battles also do not provide EXP or AP.

• Time, Physical, & Emotional Investment: 5/10 - Some people swear by the coliseum, and others swear at it. I am somewhere in the middle. I look at Final Fantasy VI's arena the way I look at Triple Triad in Final Fantasy VIII. It's a non-combat-oriented way to prepare your party members for the end-game dungeon and has many valuable rewards if you choose to invest in it. However, you don't need to get too involved if you are already grinding away on top-tier moves the traditional route. Unfortunately, the RNG aspect of the coliseum makes it impossible for me to get fully invested in it, and it's fiddly. The best way to approach it is to use low-tier characters like Umaro, that can hit hard but don't have a diverse assortment of magic abilities. The issue with that strategy, for me at least, is that this conceit is antithetical to how the main game wants you to play it. Therefore, making a character best equipped for the coliseum has always seemed like a raw deal.
• Gameplay/Loot Utility: 7/10 - If you know what you are doing and what you need to give up to get the best items and weapons in the coliseum, you can break Final Fantasy VI sideways. However, it's still a time-consuming process, and there's always the chance things will not go your way. I honestly feel there are better ways to prepare your party for the final level than spending time at the coliseum, but it is nice that there's a non-grinding approach to making your party murder machines. If only it were more fun.
• Storytelling & Worldbuilding Relevancy: 4/10 - I will give this a few more points than most would because of the one-off interactions you can have with Ultros, Siegfried, and Typhon. It's not much, but seeing Ultros cuss you out when you give him random bullshit or loot trash is never not funny to me and one of the few highlights to the coliseum.
• Difficulty: 5/10 - My approach to the Dragon's Neck Coliseum has always been the same. Level up Umaro to level 25 and then look up the three to five items he can get with relative ease. Because Umaro has no magical abilities, he's one of the few characters, along with Gogo, that is set up to shine in the coliseum. However, plenty of more challenging encounters will require more complex strategies, but I cannot be fucked to give a shit. Whenever things get too hard, I up and move on to something different, and I advise you to do the same.
• Discoverability: 3/10 - It's a big stadium you cannot miss. Moreover, two to three people tell you how things work and what you must do when entering it. I'm bumping this score up a few points only because the way battles play out is weird and nothing like how the rest of the game plays. It is a definite shock if you are not familiar with it.

Recommendation: THIS IS A BIG "NOPE!" I think the average player should give it two or three goes and decide if they want to do more. If you choose to, I beg you not to play it blind and look up the best item trades on GameFAQs.

Carving The Tomb in Darril's Tomb

Premise: This is a quest I accidentally forgot to mention in the previous episode. You notice a series of blank tombstones when you follow Setzer to Darril's Tomb. When you approach these, the game prompts you to carve a sequence of glyphs into them. If you explore an optional room in the dungeon, you can find a different collection of tombstones with letters. You need to transcribe these letters to the first room and notice the letters spell "The World is Square" but backward. This message is your hint about a unique treasure in the dungeon. That treasure is a Growth Egg, but you don't need to mess around with the puzzle and can make a beeline to the chest containing it.

• Time, Physical, & Emotional Investment: 3/10 - This is such a short mission that I forgot it existed until I conferred with my notes. The random encounters in the tomb can slow you down, and knowing which rooms to explore when you get to the part involving draining rooms of water can be a bit obtuse. However, considering how small the dungeon is compared to the rest of the World of Ruin, it's relatively easy.
• Gameplay/Loot Utility: 3/10 - The Growth Egg allows whoever is wearing it to double their EXP after battles. That's nothing to scoff at, but it isn't an earth-shattering reward. The game's scale regarding EXP drops near the end is hilariously busted. As such, it's an excellent tool for those that might have characters that are seriously behind their A-Team, but nothing more.
• Storytelling & Worldbuilding Relevancy: 1/10 - This quest adds almost nothing to the story. The characters make a few remarks about the tombstones, but nothing in-depth worth repeating. It's a shame when you consider what the game could have done here to fill in the gaps about Darril or Setzer's backstory, but that's neither here nor there.
• Difficulty: 3/10 - The only tricky part about this side quest is the random encounters. Because this is during the bit where you only have Sabin, Celes, and Setzer, most are likely to attempt this when you don't have Mog. However, because this is during the earlier portion of the World of Ruin, there's nothing here besides the possible Malboro encounter that can entirely wipe your party.
• Discoverability: 4/10 - Exploring the tomb can be rough your first time, but when you realize it is a linear horseshoe, you can process it more easily. The only part that got me was the sequence involving the water-filled rooms you need to drain. Besides that, the only other annoyance is needing to go back and forth between the two tombstones, but that's not a massive challenge.

Recommendation: This falls into the "do it, but only because it is incredibly low stakes" category. The Growth Egg is worth it for anyone with party members who are significantly behind the rest of your characters. That said, it's nothing you should sweat if you miss it.

The Cursed Shield

Premise: This mission will be another quickie. Once you get Locke, you can return to Narshe, break into some houses, and steal some goodies. While doing this, you will eventually pick up a "Cursed Shield." When you equip this shield, it bestows whoever holds it a bunch of debuffs. However, if a character has it equipped for 256 victorious battles, it will become the "Paladin Shield," the best piece of equipment in the game.

• Time, Physical, & Emotional Investment: 10/10 - 256 battles? All the while, at least one of my characters is essentially useless? Yeah, fuck that! If it were 100 battles, that would be one thing, but 256 is something else.
• Gameplay/Loot Utility: 8/10 - Yes, it's the best shield in the game, but it's not as if the other late-game shields are dogshit. Also, teaching Ultima is nice, but you could elect to transform Ragnarok into an Esper and get that same utility.
• Storytelling & Worldbuilding Relevancy: 0/10 - It adds nothing to the story other than a special note congratulating you for your hard work.
• Difficulty: 10/10 - I have never fully completed this quest and do not intend to because I value my time and have a stack of games I want to play before I turn to dust.
• Discoverability: 8/10 - Knowing to use Locke to rob the locked houses at Narshe for their goods is tricky to remember. When I first played the game, I did not even think to use Locke and assumed the city was abandoned. Knowing what to do with the Cursed Shield in-game is also a mystery if and when you get it. The game does not outright tell you how to lift the curse, and there's no one in the World of Ruin that talks about its history.

Recommendation: Hard Pass. The only people who go out of their way to complete this quest are completionists who elected to convert Ragnarock into sword form rather than Esper form. However, you don't necessarily need Ultima if you have a strong enough slate of high-tier magical abilities from the mid to late-game Espers.

Returning to Figaro's Castle And Exploring The Ancient Castle

Premise: This mission is a fun one many people forget to do. Once you gain access to the Falcon, you can return to Figaro's Castle. While you do not need Edgar for this mission, I consider it attached to him because he has a few extra lines of dialogue if you include him in your party. When you enter the boiler room of Figaro's Castle, you can have the engineer there swap the castle's locations. However, during the journey, the engineer will detect something suspicious and asks if you would like to investigate. If you agree, you will find a mysterious castle that appears abandoned. As you explore the acropolis, you learn it is a relic from the War of the Magi over 1,000 years ago. Inside are petrified statues of Odin and a queen. You can acquire Odin's Magicite by talking to his sculpture, but if you imbue them with the queen's tears, he will transform into Raiden.

• Time, Physical, & Emotional Investment: 4/10 - This level is another one I strongly recommend you blow through with Mog and random encounters turned off. The castle has a winding and overlapping floor plan that is confusing and a pain in the ass to navigate, and I found the random encounters pop off with a higher frequency than in the overworld. Likewise, the game isn't all that clear on what it wants you to do in the castle in the first place. Luckily, it is not that big of a location, and the areas of your concern to progress the quest are in the single digits. There are two boss battles, but they are avoidable monster-in-a-box encounters, and you can skip them if you want to cut down your overall playtime.
• Gameplay/Loot Utility: 9/10 - The situation with Odin and Raiden is a bit weird. You can't have both; once you transform Odin into Raiden, you cannot reverse that choice. The point of order that draws battle lines between fans of Final Fantasy VI is whether or not you should delay converting Odin into Raiden. At the center of the debate is that Odin buffs a character's base speed, whereas Raiden does not. Odin also teaches Meteor, but other Espers can do that, and Raiden is the only source of the Quick spell, which allows the caster two uninterrupted turns. I always immediately swap Odin for Raiden. The Agility stat feels like a trap, and if you are that concerned about your characters always going first, you can always use a relic to give them auto haste. Also, with many late-game Espers providing Hastega, your character's agility score increasingly feels less important. Quick is far more valuable as it stacks alongside your relics. For example, when I had Terra with Quick AND the Soul of Thamasa, she was able to cast Ultima five times before it was a boss's turn. Raiden is BUSTED, and if it were not for the fact he teaches Quick at a slow rate, I would have given this top marks.
• Storytelling & Worldbuilding Relevancy: 6/10 - The story they end up telling at the ancient castle is sentimental and does a decent enough job of providing lore to a historical event the characters have talked about only in passing. It's pleasant and well-told but entirely ancillary for the most part. It's one of the more sentimental stories in the game, but the game's metaphor about Odin and the queen being star-crossed lovers works for the most part. I am less enthused about the short lines of dialogue Edgar, Locke, and Terra add if they enter the area. They are easy to miss, but they continue a handful of plot threads introduced earlier. Edgar has an endless stream of quips about the functions of Figaro's Castle and has additional knowledge about the ancient castle no one in the party knows. Terra has an entire flashback and internal monologue when we learn of Odin and the queen's love needing to be kept low because Espers and humans are discouraged from having a relationship. She recalls her parentage, and the characters comfort her that the world they are attempting to save will allow her to love however she sees fit. It's a great scene, and it is a goddamn shame it is entirely optional.
• Difficulty: 5/10 - Again, because of the Byzantine floorplan, I strongly advise you have Mog with random encounters disabled. The main gimmick of the ancient castle is that the random enemies often have auto-reflect and high magic resistances and require you to use more physically minded characters. They are not that hard, but the level's gimmick can sometimes be annoying. The two OPTIONAL bosses are the only part of the level that causes me to question this rating. I mentioned earlier they are monster-in-a-box bosses you can accidentally walk into, and they are NO JOKE! The first is a Master Tonberry (i.e., Master Pug), who has the typical habit of stabbing the shit out of your characters as any good Tonberry will do. The second is a far more problematic battle against the Samurai Soul (i.e., KatanaSoul). This boss has 32,000 HP and reflects any magic that touches it. It's a slog of a battle, but, I must emphasize, it is optional. That said, beating the Samurai Soul rewards you with the Master's Scroll (i.e., the Offering), which grants four additional attacks per turn on whoever wears it.
• Discoverability: 8/10 - Figuring out how to get to the ancient castle throws most players for a loop. First, you need to remember to go to Figaro's Castle. When you talk to the engineer, you need to pass on moving away from the anomaly and agree to investigate it. It also doesn't help that the path to the castle is through a random prison cell rather than the ordinary entryways and exits at Figaro's Castle. I keep harping on how hard it is to know where you need to go in the castle, and for a good reason, it is one of the worst-designed levels in the game! It features a crisscrossing lattice-like design that sometimes drove me up the wall. Worse, the final sequence on reaching the queen is a bunch of inane adventure game logic chicanery, and I say that as someone who enjoys classic adventure games. To find the secret room with the queen, you need to read a random book in a library that says, "the queen stands and takes five steps." Then, you need to find the throne and then take precisely five steps away from it downward and press the action/interact button to unlock a hidden staircase. Finally, the stairs are the spawn point for the Blue Dragon, and it has the habit of attacking you even when you actively try to avoid it.

Recommendation: You should seek this mission out, but only if you don't mind adding another half-hour to your playtime to know how the world of Final Fantasy VI works. There are some annoying parts to it, but the rewards for checking every nook and cranny are pretty impressive, and the story that ensues is compelling in its own right. I like to think the core story behind Odin went on to inform the main plot thread of Tidus in Final Fantasy X, but that could be me.

The Eight Dragons

Premise: When you first transition to the World of Ruin, several NPCs speak of dragons roaming the world. These NPCs even lecture on how the dragons have murdered many a hapless adventurer. These dragons have fixed locations in the World of Ruin, and the good news is that if you complete the most necessary sidequests, you'll find them naturally during your journey.

• Time, Physical, & Emotional Investment: 9/10 - Finding all of the dragons is a pain in the ass, and the side quests they are often attached to are among the hardest in the game. However, your efforts are not in vain, and I must emphasize that point. Upon defeat, each dragon rewards the player with handy loot. This includes a Force Shield after defeating the Ice Dragon, a Magus Rod for defeating the Earth Dragon, a Murakumo for defeating the Red Dragon, the Zantetsuken for the Blue Dragon, a Holy Lance for the Holy Dragon, a Crystal Orb for beating the Gold Dragon, Force Armor for defeating the Storm Dragon, and a Muscle Belt for destroying the Skull Dragon. Depending on your playstyle, some of these items are more useful than others. I enjoy using the Holy Lance and pairing it with the Dragoon Boots, and there are fun hybrid classes you can unlock if you kill the dragons. The reward for offing all of the Eight Dragons is the Crusader Esper. Meteor and Meltdown are overrated abilities, but the MP +50% boost upon level-ups is worth it.
• Gameplay/Loot Utility: 9/10 - All the items and rewards you get for beating the dragons are good. However, some are better than others, and the Crusader Esper, while good, is one you'll likely use more for its level-up stat boost than its abilities. Also, the ratio could be more positive when you compare the time commitment required to beat the dragons with your material rewards. However, I'm not going to lie and deny that beating the dragons can be worth it in the long run.
• Storytelling & Worldbuilding Relevancy: 7/10 for the GBA and iOS/Android port; 4/10 for the Pixel Remaster - This one is difficult to assess because your version determines how much you get out of beating the eight legendary dragons. The Dragons' Den optional dungeon is exclusive to the GBA and 2014 mobile and Steam port of Final Fantasy VI. After defeating the eight dragons in these versions, you can access a new dungeon that contains the game's most challenging encounters and bosses. Additionally, there's some brief worldbuilding about an ultimate evil looming that predates the Warring Triads, and this being a Final Fantasy game, you fight and defeat that evil. I recommend you look up the boss models for the Kaiser Dragon and Omega Weapon because I think they are pretty cool. The SNES, PS1 Classic, and Pixel Remaster versions do NOT have this optional dungeon. The lack of a culminating level means the last dragon's rousing speech feels like a bit of an anti-climax.
• Difficulty: 7/10 - First, if the only way you have beaten the eight dragons is through the Vanish-Doom glitch, know that the Pixel Remaster has eliminated it. You now need to plan accordingly for each dragon and take note of its elemental affinities before you trigger a battle. This prep work can be time-consuming given the fiddly nature of the Relic and Esper mechanics, but it is entirely necessary with the eight dragons. The good news is that the power scale in Final Fantasy VI follows the typical D&D adage of "linear fighter" and "exponential mage." Therefore, if you do a handful of side quests and additional grinding, you can scrape by while completing the side quests that lead you to the dragons. If you want my advice, if beating the eight dragons is on your bucket list, create a list of the side quests that do not lead to any dragons and do those first with your A-Team so you have at least four party members that will be able to hold their own in combat. Likewise, some dragons are easier to beat than others. Consider trying out the Holy Dragon or Skull Dragon first, as they are the easiest to deal with as long as you have at least one character that can cast Holy or Ultima.
• Discoverability: 5/10 - I will split the difference on this one. Completing every optional quest attached to the game's character arcs or general worldbuilding leads to most of the eight dragons. There are even a few you will encounter on the mainline path of the story. If you have already set a goal of completing or attempting everything in the game, then the dragons will come to you; it's just a matter of when.

Recommendation: Maybe, but only if you have the GBA or 2014 iOS/Android/Steam version with the Dragons' Den dungeon. For everyone else, attack the dragons you feel comfortable with, and feel free to skip the ones you don't. The rewards are great, but nothing you can't make up for if you ignore them.

Using Locke To Rob Homes In Narshe And Getting Ragnarok

• Premise: After Locke rejoins your party, if you take the clever thief to Narshe, they will be able to unlock the doors to some of the houses. Exploring every home will uncover a handful of goodies, with the ultimate reward being the Ragnarok Esper. However, an old blacksmith possesses this summon and offers to refine it into a sword. If you elect to use Ragnarok as a summon, you have the most straightforward in-game resource to teach your characters the Ultima spell. If you refine it into the Ragnarock sword, you immediately unlock the second-best weapon in the game. If you successfully pawn it in the coliseum, you can unlock the game's definitive best weapon, the Lightbringer.
• Time, Physical, & Emotional Investment: 2/10 - At its worst, this mission is a terrible final reminder of how awful the floor plan is for Narshe. The intricate scaffolding was terrible at the start of the game, and they still suck in the World of Ruin. However, the encounters at Narshe in the World of Ruin are laughably easy. Therefore, this is something I can rate low in this category.
• Gameplay/Loot Utility: 11/10 - Ragnarok is busted regardless of which version of him you take. The sword and Esper forms result in end-game strategies that make beating Kefka inevitable. His sword form is the second-most most potent weapon in the game by a country mile, and when accompanied by relics and buffs, it makes whoever is holding it a murder machine. That's doubly so if you use it to get the best weapon in the game, the Lightbringer. The Esper form teaches Ultima and is more accessible than the Paladin's Shield. I usually opt for the Esper as "Ultima Spam" is my go-to cheese tactic in Final Fantasy VI, and I cannot be fucked to take the time to deal with the Cursed Shield. However, the sword version of Ragnarok is an entirely legitimate choice if you prefer to approach things with a more sword-and-board mindset. The rest of the rewards at Narshe are "nice" but not nearly as game-breaking as Ragnarok.
• Storytelling & Worldbuilding Relevancy: 4/10 - There's a fun story that the blacksmith and eventually Ragnarok tell, but it is nothing earth-shattering. I'm not going to lie. The lack of any conclusion on what happened to Narshe after the World of Ruin feels like a weird unresolved plot hole. Likewise, you never meet up with any of the members of the Returners, and that feels like a massive missed opportunity.
• Difficulty: 1/10 - The only battles to be had in the main town of Narshe are some of the same random encounters you had when you first started the game. There is absolutely nothing in Narshe that is worth sweating about when you reach the World of Ruin.
• Discoverability: 6/10 - When I first played Final Fantasy VI, I visited Narshe before I got Locke and thought the game's message was that the city was dead and there was nothing to see. It was not until much later in life that I realized you could loot the houses. I honestly think the signposting that Locke can unlock the boarded buildings in Narshe is dog shit and the fact that most buildings have nothing of value is too much of a red herring by the developers. Yes, Narshe is one of the game's most memorable and iconic levels, and that is why I'm sticking with a moderate score, but the design of this part of the game is incredibly frustrating.

Recommendation: You should 100% complete this mission, but only because Ragnarok is that BROKEN! If you have ever had issues with finishing this game, then this is one of the most important things I will tell you about Final Fantasy VI. Teach four of your characters Ultima and do everything to boost their magic stats. If you can do that and grind your characters to level twenty-five or higher, you'll have no issue with the final level.

Beating Deathgaze (aka, Doom Gaze)

Premise: Are you ready for Final Fantasy VI's "normal" superboss? With the Pixel Remaster not emulating the Dragons' Den, Deathgaze is, for all intents and purposes, the closest thing you have to a superboss. The citizens of Albrook will speak of a spooky specter that they saw arise from the nearby mountains. By the way, that's the only hint the game will provide that Deathgaze exists. Yes, Deathgaze will spawn the first time you leave Kefka's Tower. However, more is needed to scaffold what you need to do to defeat it. The game not telling you that he's hiding in a random pixel every time you pilot the airship is absolute bullshit, but more on that in a minute.

• Time, Physical, & Emotional Investment: 10/10 - There are two things about Deathgaze worth mentioning. The first part is understanding how the spawn rate for the monster works. Final Fantasy VI's World Map contains 4,096 squares and is sixty-four squares long on each side. Deathgaze occupies precisely one of those squares and respawns in a different spot whenever you dock or enter the interior of the Falcon. The second part is that Deathgaze will run away after it reaches a certain damage threshold. Thus, you fight it multiple times, and its spawning rules still apply each time. An exploit makes finding it slightly more manageable, but it's an incremental improvement over slamming your genitals against a sliding door.
• Gameplay/Loot Utility: 6/10 - Defeating Deathgaze unlocks Bahamut, and while it is an impressive summon, it doesn't stack up to the other late-game Espers. By the time you get Bahamut, most players have at least one source of Ultima, which is vastly superior to Bahamut's Flare ability. Likewise, their level-up buff, which is +50% HP, might sound impressive on paper, but because it is a late-game Esper, capturing that bonus is a bit tough. His actual use comes in physically summoning him to dole out massive damage from a character with a high Magic stat. However, you are better off sticking with Ultima or other less costly spells.
• Storytelling & Worldbuilding Relevancy: 2/10 - The citizens of Albrook discuss the presence of Deathgaze and express gratitude when you defeat it. There's a short line where Bahamut congratulates your party and states they are worthy of using him as a piece of Magicite. At the end of the day, if you are hunting for Deathgaze, you are doing it for achievements rather than experiencing a sweeping story.
• Difficulty: 7/10 - During my two playthroughs, I always tend to attempt Deathgaze at the ass-end of my playthroughs. By that point, my preferred party is nothing but walking murder machines that spew Ultimas like no tomorrow. In a "normal" playthrough, I can imagine Deathgaze being a challenging and frustrating battle, especially considering his habit of running away.
• Discoverability: 11/10 - Alright, I mentioned there was an exploit to make finding Deathgaze easier. What you do, and this tip is not a secret, is land the Falcon and immediately pop back into the sky. When you are in the air, gently press left or right, and you can pilot the airship at a 5% angle. This tilt allows you to cover the entire map by just pushing forward. It is worth mentioning that this makes a shitty process only marginally less shitty. Deathgaze still only occupies one random pixel, and it could take up to twenty minutes to cover the entire map. As such, it breaks the scale for this category.

Recommendation: FUCK NO! It's a complete pain in the ass and an utter waste of time.

The Cultists' Tower

Premise: Now it's time to talk about one of the worst dungeons in the history of the franchise! When you explore the continent of the World of Ruin, you will quickly identify a handful of landmarks that did not exist in the World of Balance. One of these landmarks is a skyscraper that juts out from what once was the Serpent's Trench. The tower itself is only accessible using the Falcon, and when you attempt to climb it, you'll notice it is a monotonous zig-zagging network of endless stairs. When you first explore it, you discover that it is inhabited by cultists who worship Kefka like a god. As you attempt to ascend the tower, two gameplay gimmicks immediately kick into gear. First, all characters other than Umaro can only use the "Magic" and "Item" commands in the battle menu. Second, almost every random encounter has the "Reflect" status as a default, making the forced requirement to use only magic-based attacks even harder. Luckily, Mog's unique ability to disable random battles still works, but the tower culminates with a ball-buster of a boss encounter (i.e., Magic Master). When you emerge victorious from this battle, your party will acquire the Soul of Thamasa.

• Time, Physical, & Emotional Investment: 10/10 - I gave the Cultists' Tower ten minutes before using Mog's ability. If you attempt to climb the tower without disabling random encounters, then you are a better person than me. The encounter rate is sky-high, and with the gimmick being as restrictive as it is, I find zero fun in any of the battles you deal with at the tower. Removing the Reflect status on enemies before you can do any magical damage, which is all you can do, is frustrating. Then there's the battle with Magic Master, which involves a bunch of cheap bullshit. I was able to beat Magic Master consistently but struggled to prepare my characters for his final pop-off of Ultima. It's a terrible experience. And that is ignoring the highly specialized party composition the dungeon requires that you may or may not have at your disposal. You NEED four solid magic casters to finish this dungeon. If you have gone full-DPS or skewed a more "balanced" build, you might not even have four characters capable of making it to the midpoint, let alone beat the boss.
• Gameplay/Loot Utility: 6/10 - The Soul of Thamasa is a handy tool, don't get me wrong. Casting two spells in one turn allows players to break this game if they know what they are doing. However, that's all you get when you complete the Cultists' Tower, and I cannot in good conscious not mention that this reward is NOT worth the time and effort when there are other more efficient ways to play Final Fantasy VI. With the Espers and relics the game already provides you, the Soul of Thamasa feels like a bow on a nice Christmas gift. You don't need it, but it completes the package and makes you feel good.
• Storytelling & Worldbuilding Relevancy: 4/10 - I do have to give the Cultists' Tower some credit; it is one of the spookier and moodier environments in the game. I also like the idea or concept of showing how some parts of the world are on-board with Kefka taking over the planet. Unfortunately, the game doesn't do much beyond showcasing the cultists as a bunch of robbed maniacs. When Magic Master attempts to kill your party, he doesn't get the expected dramatic speech where he introduces himself or how he's connected with Kefka's plot. The level oozes potential, but it doesn't make good on that, even from a conceptual perspective.
• Difficulty: 11/10 - HOLY SHIT! Where do I even start? As mentioned earlier, the tower forces players to rejigger their party composition into pure magic builds unless they have a decently leveled Umaro. If that isn't the direction you went with in your playthrough, you should skip the level entirely. I strongly recommend you use Mog's ability and make a beeline to the tower's top without any pointless battles. For whatever reason, in the Pixel Remaster, fights at this tower don't even count toward the Cursed Shield. Nonetheless, Magic Master is a complete bitch of a boss battle. He sports every high-tier elemental spell and has various debilitating status effects. Also, when you defeat him, he erupts the Ultima spell on your entire party rather than going down peacefully. If you cannot survive this spell, you must do the battle again. An easy way to make the battle marginally easier is to equip Reflect Rings on your party members, but getting four might be a bit much for most players. Regardless, the entire level, from top to bottom, is one of the worst individual levels I have ever played in the franchise.
• Discoverability: 2/10 - The one nice thing I can say about the Cultists' Tower is how it is undeniably easy to find. Figuring out you need to land the Falcon in a specific spot to get into the tower is not immediately apparent to the player. Still, it is possible to figure out organically. Similarly, with the dungeon being a linear zig-zagging staircase, it is one of the few late-game dungeons where getting lost is not an issue.

Recommendation: For 90% of all people who play Final Fantasy VI, my answer is "no." For the ten percent of people who have played the game more than three times, beating Magic Master is a sort of rite of passage when attempting your first 100% playthrough. You are better off not doing it, but for the few of you that are up for the challenge, have at it. It's in the same ballpark as beating Ruby or Emerald Weapon in Final Fantasy VII.

Part 17: Kefka's Tower Sucks Shit, But Everything You Do There Is Cool

The final dungeons in Final Fantasy games have traditionally been "tough." When many Final Fantasy fans make lists of their least favorite dungeons, the last levels in the series are common targets. When you consider Final Fantasy VI as Squaresoft's final 2D or SNES Final Fantasy game, you can better understand the design mindset of Kefka's Tower. This level is the last page in a lengthy tome of JRPG history, and it needed to be the end all be all for the genre. However, there's no denying that Squaresoft went a little too hard and raw with designing their "final challenge" in Final Fantasy VI. Nonetheless, at least everything looks cool at Kefka's Tower. The cinematic that plays when Setzer first pilots and lands the Falcon on the tower is 16-bit directorial bliss. It looks monumentally better in the Pixel Remaster with improved particle effects and better animating characters. And the sprite work for all bosses, including the different phases of Kefka, is eye candy in the best possible way.

Admittedly, the level makes a solid first impression. It features the same bio-mechanical look as the Floating Continent but with a stronger steampunk and industrial vibe. In replaying the game, I'm confident that Midgar in Final Fantasy VII is at least a partial continuation of what was going on with Squaresoft's design team when they made Kefka's Tower. The worldbuilding at Kefka's Tower is also solid. There's a sense of the stakes ratcheting up as you near Kefka with battles against dragons and the Warring Triad. To play devil's advocate, I think it was the intent of the design and programming team for you to feel exhausted by the time you reach Kefka and, upon getting offed by him the first few times, for the player to doubt their readiness at the literal last step of their journey. I certainly felt that way, and when things finally went according to plan, the game's ending felt all the more satisfying. An enormous amount of preparation and planning goes into completing Kefka's Tower, and all of my previous criticisms of the relic and Esper menus being fiddly and frustrating apply here. Nonetheless, when everything comes together, there's no denying that it is a sight to see.

All of that praise aside, Kefka's Tower fucking sucks to play. At the core of why people still hate Kefka's Tower is that it requires you to split your party into three groups. The average JRPG fan, up to this point, and to a certain degree today, is bound to have a favored "A-Team" and possibly a "B-Team" on a good day. Kefka's Tower requiring THREE solid and balanced parties is a tall order, even for veterans of the genre. Unless you enjoy grinding away levels for Strago, Relm, Gogo, Celes, or Shadow, you are bound to have at least one party that feels like it is at a disadvantage when navigating the level. Maybe you have Mog with your weakest group to avoid random encounters for at least a third of your team. Unfortunately, that still means two-thirds of your journey involves waves of Behemoths, Malboros, and dragons. Even then, all three parties are bound to butt up against the seven bosses that litter the final dungeon. The members of the Warring Triad each require you to plan accordingly to better deal with their weaknesses and elemental affinities. I had a tough time with the Goddess boss and dealing with her tendency to cast the zombie status effect on any character she kills. However, the Demon and Fiend bosses are no slouches either, and by the time you get to Kefka, there's a risk that you might have exhausted your party's resources and HP or MP pools so much that the final boss is impossible. Making that walk of shame out of the dungeon is demoralizing, and it sucks needing to redo your progress a second or third time.

The Kefka battle is nothing to scoff at, either. There are more demanding final bosses in the PS1 era, and we can never forget the fucked up final bosses in the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy, but Kefka is no cakewalk. Again, I understand the intent of the battle. It's an otherworldly experience with you fighting what looks like a magical God and with Dancing Mad playing in the background; how angry can one honestly get? However, the entire sequence is another example of Squaresoft pushing the technical and cinematic envelope while also going an inch or two too far. Every stage starting with Kefka shooting off a laser beam that reduces your party to 1 HP, is a franchise trope, and I'm not too fond of it when it happens. He also has that Forsaken ability that is entirely unblockable, which is a bitter pill to swallow. Given how much work I did to prepare for the battle before starting it, Kefka's ability to negate all that prep work left a bad taste in my mouth. With that and the stage of the fight where Kefka endlessly casts Ultima and Meteor, there's no denying a level of "cheapness." It's cool looking but unneeded in what should feel like a victory lap for the player.

Kefka's Tower is also not a well-designed level. I shared a similar sentiment when discussing my struggles with the Floating Continent, but I dread whenever an 8-bit or 16-bit era JRPG thrusts you into an industrial or mechanical level. The monotonous metal scaffolding or intricate tube work makes these levels challenging to parse out for me. That's doubly so with Kefka's Tower, with a groan-inducing number of switch and level puzzles that require you to switch between your three parties. The buttons and switches you need to trigger have always been a pain in the ass to detect, and they are only marginally better in the Pixel Remaster. With random encounters to deal with, there's no more frustrating feeling than reaching a dead-end to a level, only to discover you missed a switch with a different party on a poorly sign-posted screen. That point of order leads me to the issue of the tower's scope. Kefka's Tower is twenty fully-realized screens, with each screen having three ventricles for each of your parties to explore. I recommend you have a guide on standby because every part of the level stacks the odds against you. It also does not help that should you decide to pop out of the dungeon to power grind, restock your items, or rest your characters, there is only one point in the level's mid-point where you can do that. It's fucking evil, I tell you!

Part 18: The Final Battle, Ending, And Epilogue Are Amazing

Shit-level design aside, the ending of Kefka's Tower and the final boss battle are both must-see moments in the annals of video game history. Your party fittingly fights Kefka in a heaven-like skyline that slowly darkens and becomes like Hell as you reach the end. I have shared this sentiment before, but it bears repeating here. In the transition from 2D to 3D, something was lost in the Final Fantasy franchise regarding boss designs. There's just something about Kefka, Exdeath, and Zeromus that look and feel more intimidating than what you see in the modern Final Fantasy titles, even with all of the graphical fidelity in the world to make the people at Digital Foundry cream their pants. Each of Kefka's forms looks and feels like you are battling a god, and their mechanical differences match their physical appearance. Compare that to the final boss in Final Fantasy XIII or Seymour in Final Fantasy X. As crazy as the final bosses get in the 16-bit era, there's a coherence to them that the current generation of games would be good to recall.

If there is one bit of historical revisionism I would like to bring up, it is the Final Fantasy community overpromising Kefka's characterization. People speak of Kefa's "Life... Dreams... Hope..." speech as if it reframes your understanding of him. In reality, supporting media and subsequent Final Fantasy works give Kefka more meaning and worth as a character. In Final Fantasy VI, he's a maniacal clown from start to finish. There's no grand meaning or purpose to why he wants to set the world on fire. He does it and revels in his newfound power. If there were a master plan with Kefka other than to use him as a plot device, there would be more to his defeat than the usual flashes of light and the characters needing to beat a hasty retreat. If you have yet to see the game's conclusion in person, you might be shocked to discover how little there is to Kefka's final moments. Nonetheless, the battle against him is a visual tour de force, and the game's epilogue is by far the best in the franchise.

I know some people will fight me on this point, but I'm ready for them. I know plenty of people stan the epilogue of Final Fantasy IX, but to me, that conclusion is spoiled by the stench of Necron and Kuja's redemption arc sucking complete and total shit. It's also a little too "fuzzy mittens" for my tastes. I have always been a fan of Final Fantasy XII and how it remains the only game in the series to tackle the idea of allies and friends growing apart after their proverbial "call to adventure" ends. Also, this is my big video game confession, but I don't like Final Fantasy Tactics as much as the "normal" Final Fantasy enthusiast. All of that aside, the epilogue of Final Fantasy VI is better than all of them. Every character, even the optional ones, gets their due as everyone frantically attempts to make their way out of the collapsing tower. Seeing each character help their friends during times of need shows one last time that everyone in Final Fantasy VI genuinely cares for one another. It is a satisfying end note and one that goes a miraculous twenty minutes and features a superb musical accompaniment that merges all of the character's themes into something magical.

The epilogue also does a miraculous job of wrapping up many character arcs in record time. As I mentioned, the epilogue tops out at around twenty minutes, depending on the number of characters you recruit at the World of Ruin. So, color me surprised that the game manages to cement the brotherly bond between Sabin and Edgar, finalize the relationship between Celes and Locke, give Cyan a chance to be a "modern man," and provide Terra one last humanizing moment with her long-dead father. It's a long scene that is worth every minute and one of the primary reasons why I think all players should see what the game is like with every character back in the fold. Even the couple that conceives a child at Terra's orphanage gets some time and assists in conveying the game's message that the future of Final Fantasy VI might be uncertain, but everyone is up for the challenge.

And there's something to the game's ending that will forever "work" for me. Unlike previous and future entries in the Final Fantasy series, there's a sense of positivity as the characters set out to "fix" the world Kefka has ruined. Still, there's also an undercurrent of melancholy. Characters recognize the world's sacrifice and give props to dead friends and family members. When Terra attempts to fly with the Falcon, she has a final moment with the Magicite form of her father, and as he congratulates her efforts, he bursts into dust. All of the Espers follow suit, and there's a brief moment when you realize that an entire half of the world of Final Fantasy VI, the Esper half, is now gone. I should also mention Shadow and how he ambiguously makes amends with his long-lost friend. Other endings in the series utilize an element of melancholy to make their final moments feel more grounded. Still, Final Fantasy VI stands in a class of its own. It's one of the few games in the series where I have no idea what would happen next, and I'm perfectly okay with that. This game should NEVER get the Final Fantasy X or IV treatment, and that's all that needs to be said.

Part 19: The Credits In The Pixel Remaster Are A Historical Travesty

Mostly, I have been upbeat about Final Fantasy VI, and in this case, the Pixel Remaster of the game. With the North American release of Final Fantasy VI exceeding its 28th anniversary at the time of the publishing of this blog, replaying the game was an enthralling trip down memory lane. While I had not played the original SNES release of the game, replaying Final Fantasy VI caused me to recall the treasure trove of similar titles I played when it took the world by storm. That nostalgia is something everyone reading this blog can understand, and it leads me to the one part of the Pixel Remaster that caused me to spiral into a frothing rage. As the game transitions from its epilogue to its final credits, you'll immediately notice that the end credits are entirely different and largely omit the staff that worked on the original release of Final Fantasy VI. This change, combined with removing the opening credits crawl at the start of the game, is particularly problematic. Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nobuo Uematsu get individual callouts near the end of the credits because, OF COURSE, THEY DO! However, unless a person working on the original is still a part of Square-Enix today, their name has been entirely removed from the record books. They get a nice "We would also like to thank all of the people who worked on Final Fantasy VI in the past!" note right before the game says "The End," but even that is entirely inadequate.

The Japanese video game industry has always had a problem with giving developers, designers, and localization teams their due. In the last Final Fantasy VI blog, someone pointed out how the erasure of the original localization team started with the PS1 port of Final Fantasy VI in Final Fantasy Anthology. I can also confirm that the since-pulled iOS/Android and original Steam release of Final Fantasy VI fails to name most of the original team that worked on the initial release. Instead, like the Pixel Remaster, it ends with a vague "thank you" to everyone who toiled away at any prior version. It is unforgivable that Hironobu Sakaguchi is the only directly credited member of Final Fantasy VI's original design and programming team in the Pixel Remaster. That's doubly so when you consider that since the initial SNES release, no subsequent releases have mentioned or directly thanked Ted Woolsey, the unforgotten figurehead that played a massive role in Final Fantasy VI's success outside of Japan. I appreciate the monumental task of keeping track of over twenty years of developmental history for the sake of staff credits most people ignore, but Square-Enix can and should do better.

People not part of the design team also deserve their flowers in the Pixel Remaster for other reasons. The clearest example has to be, as mentioned earlier, Ted Woolsey, the original English translator of Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger. To say Ted Woolsey played a role in popularizing the JRPG genre outside of Japan and assisted Squaresoft in becoming a mainstay in the industry is an understatement. Ted Woolsey is why Final Fantasy VI had the international success it did when it first hit North American shelves on October 11, 1994. The SNES translation of Final Fantasy VI was not "perfect." Still, Woolsey's ability to navigate the Draconian standards of Nintendo of America while keeping the original game's spirit intact was nothing short of a miracle. Likewise, many of his creative embellishments, which some give him guff over, have stood the test of time and been canonized by Square-Enix. The original Japanese version of Kefka is a goofy jester but lacks any of the larger-than-life sensibilities that have since gone on to define him.

While TVTropes and some translation communities continue to characterize him as a dictator, with the term "Woolseyism" used as a curse word in certain circles, he is critically important to the state of the franchise. Finally, he legitimized localization as a career in the video game industry! While translation circles have existed since the dawn of time, Ted Woolsey tirelessly worked to advocate for Squaresoft and Nintendo to expand the scope and budget of their translation teams. In doing so, he helped set industry standards that are still appropriate in some areas today. Removing Woolsey from the record books is not just a blow to the series; it's a blow to the localization community and the people who work to translate media. There are no standards to ensure localization leads and directors have a fixed position in remasters or re-releases. And when I get off my soapbox about Ted Woolsey, how can I forget all of the quality assurance leads, designers, and programmers that made this game possible and are bound to be lost to time? It is depressing and a problem with no immediate industry or fan appetite to fix it.

Part 20: Why Final Fantasy VI Is STILL Required Reading & Will I Continue To Write These Blogs

From time to time, almost like clockwork, I am asked which game in the Final Fantasy franchise is "the best." After covering the series and its many crossovers and media tie-ins, some on the internet believe I can authoritatively speak on the series. Honestly, I'm not too fond of the question, and my answer flips between three to four games, depending on my mood. The question I find far more compelling is what titles I think any self-respecting hobbyist or appreciator of the history of video games MUST PLAY. Final Fantasy VI is the most essential game in the series for people to play. Final Fantasy I was the first; VII made the franchise an international hit; IX is a storytelling masterpiece; X moved millions of PS2s. However, to understand why Square-Enix still clutches to Final Fantasy as a tentpole franchise or why fans swoon if they see so much as a smidge of Tifa Lockhart's taint, Final Fantasy VI is your answer.

In between blogs and articles, I'm a full-time public education teacher. The concept of accepting more than one possible answer when providing a writing prompt is familiar to me. When people share what they consider "the best Final Fantasy game," I am willing to hear out a cornucopia of possible answers. You can tell me it was Final Fantasy I because it introduced you to RPGs. I will allow you to defend the job systems in III and V. I understand that IV was the first game to honestly give a shit about telling an epic story with named and relatable characters. Final Fantasy VII is a technical and directorial masterpiece that set standards for the industry and brought millions into the PlayStation ecosystem. Final Fantasy VIII is narratively and mechanically ambitious and challenges what it means to create a sequel to a beloved classic. Final Fantasy IX is the culmination of what the "old guard" pioneered up to that point and features the most complete world seen in the mainline franchise. Final Fantasy X moved away from the aging ATB system and struck an emotionally resonant tone that still holds up to this day. Final Fantasy XI has an active community that continues to persist. The society behind Final Fantasy XIV is even more impressive, with feats of communal cooperation previously unheard of in gaming accomplished daily. Final Fantasy XII sports an incredible motley crew with the best voice acting to grace a modern Square-Enix product. Tactics even deserves some recognition for codifying the conventions of a genre while also telling a complex geopolitical drama that puts current titles to shame. I have even met more than one person who said that Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII means more to them than I could ever understand and that she assisted them in identifying their current gender or orientation.

All of these statements are true. And the last message that I would add is that Final Fantasy VI is a "forever good game," and you owe it to yourself to see why. There's no "timeline" that we exist on where the Opera House scene is not considered a seminal work of art. Even if Final Fantasy VI is not your favorite Final Fantasy game, you need to understand how and why the parts and pieces of your favorite game come from it. If your favorite game in the series predates VI, then it is worth exploring again to understand how it represents a final capstone to the 2D era. The words "they don't make games like they used to" is a regressive sentiment in general, but it applies in this context. Final Fantasy VI includes everything that makes the series worth following in a single package. It has the prototypes of character arcs and trope representatives that persist in the series.

I started the first episode of this retrospective with a tidbit I want to repeat once more as I wrap up things. Compare, for just a minute, the release date of Final Fantasy IV to Final Fantasy X and realize they are only ten years apart. For ten years, this franchise constantly reinvented itself and set standards for everyone besides the CRPG circle and Enix. If the Final Fantasy franchise tried something different in one of their games, then there were bound to be a dozen games that followed suit. Final Fantasy VI represents the inflection point when Squaresoft, and eventually Square-Enix, very honestly ruled the world. That still applies today, but to a lesser extent.

Even then, it's crazy to see the series lurch closer to its thirty-fifth anniversary. Even as newer titles fuel the expected meme-making machines for social media, the number of people who strongly identify with characters in its many titles is far more than most are willing to admit. I've been doing these Final Fantasy retrospectives for seven years. That's an unimaginable amount of time. Unless, of course, these games meant something to me. As cheesy and wild as it might sound, I want to thank Final Fantasy VI and everyone who put blood, sweat, and tears into it. It was a game that put everything into perspective as I repeatedly struggled with writer's block and apathy over whether or not I wanted to continue to put hours into writing text the regulars on the internet may or may not read. So, thanks to Final Fantasy VI, I'm not giving up until this website tells me I must stop. However, a palate cleanser is up my alley for my next Final Fantasy series. I'm excited to announce Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII as my next topic.

The Weirdest Elder Scrolls Game Ever Made Is On PC Game Pass! (Maybe Don't Play It!)

The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard has a reputation. It is widely considered one of the worst games in the series and plays almost nothing like what we all would consider the norm for the franchise today. It is the only entry in The Elder Scrolls franchise that locks players into a third-person perspective, lacks RPG leveling mechanics, and follows a single predetermined character. To call The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard a "weird" game is a bit of an understatement; it is an anomaly the likes of which we will never see again. However, it is an oddity that Bethesda Softworks is not ashamed of, and years after its release, even before the advent of Game Pass, they made it and Daggerfall downloadable on their webpage for free. However, with the company's purchase from Microsoft, the game has since become available on PC Game Pass, though unfortunately, but understandably, not for Xbox Game Pass.

Much like when I decided to check out Zelda II, I wanted to give the game a whirl as it is, ostensibly, an adventure game, which is now becoming my bread and butter on this site in between my JRPG and Final Fantasy retrospectives. After giving the game over ten hours of my life, it became a rare "DNF" for me, however, not for the reasons you might expect. Even after I bounced off the game, I came away with at least a partial appreciation for it, absent in most contemporary reviews that excoriate it for being downright terrible. To me, the game is a snapshot into that odd period before the release of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind when Bethesda wasn't the CRPG figurehead we consider it today. The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall was an ambitious project, but it was one with a reputation even in 1996 of being rough around the edges and not for the faint of heart. Oblivion gets some credit for partially sanding off the series's crueler sensibilities, and Skyrim is one of the most successful CRPGs ever made. Nonetheless, we should look at the OG Xbox release of Morrowind as an underrated inflection point for Bethesda and the CRPG genre. It and KOTOR paved the way for the genre's quick but substantial jump toward the console clientele until its rejuvenation with the growth of digital PC marketplaces and crowdfunding.

But what does any of that prattle have to do with The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard? As I will review shortly, Redguard should be treated as Bethesda's first olive branch to those outside PC-centric traditional CRPG circles. Even though it never launched on consoles and remained an MS-DOS exclusive until recently, upon start, you can tell Bethesda envisioned it as a "baby's first Elder Scrolls" experience. With the expected RPG leveling and character creation mechanics thrown to the wayside, it plays much like the late 90s PC platformers that were all the rage at the time of its release. People often forget this point, but the original Tomb Raider is one of the most important games ever made. It codified many of the design and control conventions of 3D action-adventure platforming that we take for granted today. Also, it spawned an INSANE number of copycats, and Redguard, in parts, is one of them. This matter leads me to my first discussion point.

The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard Is An Understandable Experiment And Should Be Approached As Such

Before we delve into Redguard's Tomb Raider-inspired design, I need to spend some time articulating why the game, despite its first appearances, represented a massive risk on the part of Bethesda. Redguard is not something I recommend unless you are an incredibly dedicated Elder Scrolls fan or gaming historian. Nonetheless, it is highly ambitious. For one thing, the game features a complex scripted mission structure with a character-focused storyline. That's something you are not bound to experience in an Elder Scrolls game today. I also found it interesting seeing Todd Howard and the rest of the old guard at Bethesda try their hands at a traditional fantasy narrative. Correspondingly, to make the predetermined characters resonate better with players, Redguard is fully voice-acted from start to finish, and it was the first game in the series to do that. I'm not going to sit here and tell you the voice acting is perfect, but it generally gets the job done. When the voice acting errs on the questionable side, which usually occurs when it is time for female characters to talk, which I suspect were male actors pretending to be females, it is "of an era" rather than a complete and total failure.

On a similar note is the game's massive 3D open world. In terms of scope and size, Redguard's world pales compared to Daggerfall or Morrowind. Still, when you consider the design objectives of Redguard, I think you can come to appreciate it as a technical accomplishment. Every explorable environment has a smattering of characters with at least ten to twenty minutes of fully voice-acted dialogue. The characters even flap their lips in synch with the spoken dialogue, which is not something everyone had the time or patience to do in 1998 or with MS-DOS. These technical achievements are why you might be surprised to know that Redguard was reviewed relatively well at its release. Its production values were enough to tilt some to give it the benefit of the doubt. However, the game bit off more than what Bethesda was capable of chewing at the time. With Redguard spending so much time vocalizing wordy lore while trying to convey a cohesive narrative, its gameplay feels like an afterthought. In fact, its slapdash attempt to copy Tomb Raider feels all the more "off" because its action set pieces feel so rote and by the numbers. Also, I will discuss this point in more depth, but it plays like absolute garbage. Tomb Raider's gameplay, wherein players navigate levels split into room complexes with a kaleidoscope of designs and challenges, is fluid and quick. Redguard is the opposite of those two words.

Unfortunately, Bethesda was out of its element when they were making Redguard. Whenever you need to transition Cyrus, the game's protagonist, from one quest to the next, instead of emulating the snappiness of Tomb Raider and immediately transitioning the player to a new environment, Redguard prefers to have them wander deserts, sparsely populated towns, and vast distances for unmarked NPCs. That design might work in the scope of a CRPG where players already assume they need to explore their surroundings for hints, but with something that is trying to be an action-platformer, it presents the sometimes shoddy patchwork of the game. Bethesda's lack of experience with platformers resulted in scenarios wherein they did not know what to do and them defaulting to 90s-era CRPG conventions. So, when the game presents you with saw-filled or lava-drenched platforming arenas that feel ripped from Tomb Raider or Prince of Persia, Redguard is downright excruciating to play because it has the mechanical deathtraps of early 90s platformers but with the added anti-player rough edges of a CRPG as well.

It's A Semi-Decent Lore Bible

Here's where I will significantly diverge from the consensus on Redguard. Many of the negative reviews for the game, which I agree with overall, cite the overwhelming amount of talking as a significant barrier to it being an entry point to the series. To the credit of these reviews, they are correct in one regard. When you first boot up the game, there's an initial fight scene on a boat, but it's quick, and if the player explores all of the possible dialogue trees that exist after it, talking could represent most of your first three hours with the game. I reviewed the archive of my first stream of the game's opening, and I would hazard to say that fighting random pirates in the starting bar and hub world took about twenty minutes of my two-and-a-half-hour stream. That might sound odd to some people, but with the combat being the same shit, over and over again, I came to find the lore dumps in Redguard to be a welcomed change of pace.

I'm going to let you in on a weird fact about my relationship with the Elder Scrolls franchise. I enjoy reading the in-game books in every Elder Scrolls game. Whether it is learning about the failed invasion of Akavir in Oblivion, Palla in Morrowind, or consulting the Lusty Argonian Maid or A Game at Dinner books; I think the amount of worldbuilding the series has accomplished through its in-game books is nothing short of amazing. The majority are well-written and have vivid personalities and voices that exude far more charm than many of the characters you meet in the game. They also do a lot to fill in the gaps regarding time skips or jumps from one game to the next. If you're like me, and you spent HOURS scouring Oblivion or Skyrim, buying every possible book you could and reading them from page to page, there's a core to Redguard that's not a terrible value proposition. The game takes place in Hammerfell, a criminally underrated setting, and tackles a period in the franchise that I found conceptually and literally compelling (i.e., the Second Era). Seeing Hammerfell under a recently established Imperial occupation, with citizens split on if being a part of the Empire is an improvement, sets a lot of the foundational work Bethesda would later explore in more depth in Oblivion and Skyrim. Redguard also showcases a low-tech version of The Elder Scrolls universe most are unfamiliar with unless you play The Elder Scrolls Online.

The game's initial exploratory moments in Stros M'Kai were among my favorite of what I played. The vast majority of the NPCs have folktales, parables, and unique perspectives about what's happening, and they all share a different part of the history of Tamriel up to that point. When Cyrus meets up with an old friend, they croon about battles they fought, speculate on geopolitics, and shit-talk the crime boss currently employing your character. It's far from perfect, with the vast delta in the quality of the voice acting being a constant issue. Likewise, the game's "proper noun problem" leads to much of its lore dumps being overwhelming even to fans of the series. However, it's an incredibly earnest game, and I get the sense that Bethesda was so excited about sharing the world of The Elder Scrolls with newcomers that they couldn't stop themselves from putting everything they accomplished in the series up to that point. In Stros M'Kai, an NPC talks about the sinking of Yokuda for forty minutes and another about Dwemer technology for thirty. There's even a guy who will speak about the Imperial Battlespire for twenty minutes while loudly wondering about the state of the Ayleids. The game leaves no stone unturned, and its nerdy effervescence is admirable. Now, if only the game were fun to play.

Redguard Is No Goddamn Fun To Play!

Oh, fuck me. I WISH for a universe where I could genuinely pen an essay on why this game is an "over-hated" buried treasure. I went into the game with low expectations, and while I found it technically and narratively impressive, I cannot advise anyone to play it. As I detailed in the first section, the game borrows heavily from Tomb Raider. Unfortunately, with Bethesda lacking any design or programming chops regarding platforming games, their attempt to graft their CRPG controls and engine to a genre where you cannot do that is an unmitigated disaster. Imagine playing a third-person action-platformer with the jump in Oblivion or Skyrim. Now imagine playing that game for fifteen to twenty hours with Prince of Persia-styled lava rooms that kill you immediately if you mistime a single jump. And this game being "of an era" means if you are not speedy with your quick saving abilities, dying can cause you to lose hours of progress because the checkpointing is NONEXISTENT!

Bethesda games have had a floaty-ass jump since their inception, and it's FINE in open-world CRPGs where you can use it to get into out-of-bounds areas or summit mountains. However, with Redguard expecting a certain amount of precision, IT'S NOT GOOD! One of the game's first "real" quests involves you hopping over platforms on a bridge, and as you walk along it, beams fall, causing you to need to leap over gaps. There's no easy way for me to express how fucking awful it felt trying to accomplish this simple feat, and it is made even worse thanks to the bridge hovering over a shark-infested ocean. And before you ask, the sharks will eat you, resulting in a "Game Over." Later in a cemetery, Cyrus will need to climb and leap around a giant stone statue and let me tell you, getting Cyrus to attach his hands to ledges is one of the most frustrating things in the world. His animation is incredibly jerky, and he puts his hands up on the ass-end of his parabolic jump. There were times when I thought he would die, only to see him miraculously cling to a ledge I did not even realize existed. There were other times when he bumped up against the edge of a platform and did not bother to throw his hands in the air, and I was forced to watch him scream in agony as he fell into a pit of spikes.

Even more curious are the mechanics Redgaurd lacks when you compare it to other games in the series. The game has a third-person combat engine, but with no stats to plug into Cryus or upgradable equipment to purchase, what you see at the start of the game is what you get in its final hours. That's a real problem for several reasons. While the enemies he fights begin to don impressive armor and require more strategy to defeat, Cyrus is stuck with the same paltry HP bar from start to finish. Another source of frustration stems from Cyrus being a single person, but he can wrack up more than one foe, and if he gets surrounded, you're essentially fucked. There's a way for you to spam pokes and slashes while also parrying and dodging attacks, but after a certain point, people take fucking FOREVER to die because you are stuck with the same shitty sword. However, Cyrus goes down much as he did at the game's start, which feels incredibly unfair to the player. And with Redgaurd sporting a relatively large open world packed to the gills with horrible monsters that can murder you, the lack of any character progression makes its end-game nigh unplayable for me.

Speaking of that open world, it isn't very good! Like all Elder Scrolls games, there's real-time travel where you must walk vast distances to get to the game's many set pieces. That's a tired and true format for RPGs, but in something trying to copy Tomb Raider, it pulverizes the blow-for-blow pacing expected in an action platformer. The quest design also employs the open format of previous and subsequent Elder Scrolls games to hilarious results. You can do missions out of order, meaning some difficult late-game quests can be completed before early-game ones. In my case, what caused me to rage quit involved accidentally exploring a late-game area and not knowing it, getting my ass handed to myself, and lacking enough money to get my health back to parity. This issue leads me to my final quibble with the game. There are ways for you to get into unfixable death spirals, and Redguard knows this. Instead, it employs ye olde CRPG trope of expecting the player to "re-roll" and try again from scratch when they get into sticky situations, which is beyond fucked even if that was all the norm with previous games from Bethesda.

This Game Reminded Me of Why I'd Like The Elder Scrolls VI Explore The Past

If there's one last positive takeaway I'd like to make of Redguard, it has to be its setting. Exploring a version of the "Second Era" in the scope of a single-player experience is such an incredible idea to me. The times when Redguard revels in more fanciful magic or traditional high-fantasy themes were my favorite moments. There's a scene wherein you enter a Dwemer observatory and look at a complex, Steampunk-like moving gadget, and it is visually and thematically impressive. I miss the times you could play an Elder Scrolls game and expect to see goblins, trolls, fairies, and other "funner" fantasy icons. With Skyrim, the series has moved in such a dire and realistic direction that I found the sillier sensibilities of Redguard refreshing. Remember when Elder Scrolls games had unicorns or octopus monsters? Redguard's fast travel system involves Cyrus transforming into a parrot to fly to alternate locations, and it is the funniest shit!

With The Elder Scrolls VI likely years away, I cannot help but lament that I can close my eyes and imagine almost perfectly what it will look like and how it will play. It will have a bunch of hyper-realistic Creation Engine humanoids that err freakishly close to the "Uncanny Valley" with dead eyes and poorly animating faces. You're going to swing your sword at a bandit's face, and the only feedback you will get are grunts. The balls of fire you summon out of your hands will look even more like real fire than they did in Skyrim. And you know what? It all sounds incredibly generic to me in a post-HBO Game of Thrones world. Even in Skyrim, I felt like a significant disconnect existed between you spewing streams of magical energy from your body and the game's unflinching grim-dark seriousness. You still have Sheogorath or Cicero in Skyrim, keeping the goofier roots of the series alive, but those are outliers. Honestly, I don't see the appeal in swinging the pendulum toward Game of Thrones in the world of The Elder Scrolls. You'd think things would be more comedic or silly in a game with cat people and lizards.

I don't think going backward in time will fix all those problems, but I sure don't think it would hurt. Bethesda has been about technical ambition and scope first and storytelling second for a while. Nonetheless, I think there's untapped potential in seeing how they would approach the narrative foundation they set for their tentpole franchise twenty years ago. I'm going to be perfectly honest with you. I'd be curious to see what goblins and unicorns would look like in the hands of modern Bethesda. Before anyone chimes in about The Elder Scrolls Online taking place in the Second Era, I want to remind you of my emphasis on "single-player experiences." However, that game has giant toad-like Sloads spewing vomitous acid on players as they try to bring down criminal syndicates, and if that was included in a mainline Elder Scrolls game today, I say, "Sign me the fuck up!" That's the kind of dumb but great fanservice I feel is only possible if the series revisits its past. And if Bethesda has no interest in doing that with The Elder Scrolls VI, maybe it is time to revive the "Adventures" spin-offs.

Also, here's a link to the first episode of my mini video series of me attempting to play this game:

Preamble (i.e., Edgerunners Is A Good Show, But....)

There's a bit of a storyline on Giant Bomb of me not being a fan of the well-known anime studio, Studio Trigger. During the Whiskey Media days, I penned several scathing reviews for Kill la Kill that got me endless hate mail and even death threats. Later, equally undesirable were my early calls that Darling in the Franxx was one of the worst big-titled animes I have seen in the last ten years. That last point is far from controversial nowadays, and hindsight has largely vindicated me. Still, regardless of what the studio touches, I have always called them one of the more straightforward examples of current anime direction favoring style over substance to get internet fandom salivating over one or two action scenes. Additionally, in my perspective, everything you could say about the modern Marvel movies always having the same style and structure applies to the lion's share of Studio Trigger's output. Hence, I went into Cyberpunk: Edgerunners with tempered expectations, even with universally positive reviews marching in like they were on a Henry Ford-approved assembly line.

Overall, the show met and exceeded my expectations, though I am predictably not as effusive about my praise as most. It is a good show that is recommendable to people who want to see a highly stylized cyberpunk world with enough quality storytelling to keep you wanting to see more. The two main characters are absolute highlights, but I found the surrounding secondary cast to be one of the weakest in a Trigger story. Most of the surrounding characters felt like they were in the "just tagging along for the ride" bucket, which made some of the show's emotional deliveries less potent, which I found weird considering how character-driven Edgerunners is, especially near the end of the first season. The pacing also feels like typical Trigger, with them taking their sweet-ass time to kick their main plot into overdrive, making some mid-season plot-focused story dumps clunky and awkward. Also, with the show having a natural lead-in to an additional season, I still cannot help but worry that season two will buckle under the weight of its unresolved plot threads and characters, which is a problem with every show Trigger touches. However, it's a technical masterpiece that exudes style and sports two memorable and compelling primary characters. Also, the soundtrack for Edgerunners is absolutely worth tracking down.

So, if Edgerunners can satisfy a Studio Trigger skeptic like me, it stands to reason that its driving interest back into Cyberpunk 2077 makes perfect sense. Some of you might even be aware that following the season one conclusion of Edgrunners, 2077 saw a 300% jump in concurrent online players and even became the most-played single-player game on Stream for a short bit. Forbes even reported a week in September when 2077 was the best-selling game on Steam. Likewise, when developer CD Projekt Red announced a smattering of new Witcher games, they simultaneously announced a full-fledged sequel for 2077. It's a notable turn of events after the game's incredibly rough launch, which I will not belabor here. Instead, I wish to explore how the company-wide climate that led to Cyberpunk 2077's problematic launch, whether it be the company's repeated transphobic marketing, dysfunctional upper management, or use of crunch, all appear to be present at CD Projekt Red to this day. With many people gravitating towards Cyberpunk 2077, whether it be because of Edgerunners or sequel excitement, it's important to remind ourselves why there's likely no ethical way to consume its content.

Edgerunners' Diverse And Well-Written Cast Does Not Absolve CD Projekt Red's Repeated Edgelord Marketing That Used Transphobia

One of the critical reasons for the excitement around Edgerunners stems from its diverse and heterozygous cast. The show revels in the attributes that define the cyberpunk genre. Principally, it empowers all of its characters to fight against their limitations and, with the help of technology, wage war against their sources of oppression. Regrettably, Cyberpunk 2077 fumbled with that defining characteristic in its marketing and framing of LBTQ people, particularly trans people. The launch of Cyberpunk 2077 was an unmitigated mess, and it, unfortunately, overshadowed a different tire fire leading up to its release of CD Projekt Red's own creation. To try and make Cyberpunk 2077 seem grittier and edgier, CD Projekt delved into edgelord/tough-guy jock talk that repeated several stereotypes and echoed demeaning and offensive commentary.

Now, I know this section will be the only part some people on the internet will read, so I'll try my best to present a solid case on why CD Projekt Red's leadership doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt. Their off-the-cuff nonsense was NOT a one-time or even two-time problem. The company made the same mistake, even after repeated promises they would "get better" across a four to five-year span. The first example stems from the official Cyberpunk 2077 Twitter account replying to a random Twitter user with, "Did you just assume their gender?!" For those unaware, that particular line is a transphobic punchline and soundbite traditionally used by individuals to diminish trans perspectives and input on media. Shortly after the reply was published, CD Projekt Red deleted the Tweet and stated they were not aware of the implications of their comment but failed to issue a full apology. Then, two months later, GOG, a subsidiary of CD Projekt, used "#WontBeErased" to promote their commercial storefront. The hashtag was initially created to bring attention to a Trump administration memo that proposed revoking protections and rights for trans people on a federal level. GOG and CD Projekt Red deleted the Tweet, but instead of issuing a full apology, added that GOG would stay away from politics in the future. Instead of communicating how they would work with an LGTBQ partner to prevent further mistakes or even donate to a charitable cause, they took the most middle-of-the-road centrist route possible. And centrism isn't precisely a defining characteristic of cyberpunk if I must say, myself.

If we open things up to include GOG, I should also remind you of the time CD Projekt fired an employee that used GOG's Twitter account to espouse anti-trans sentiments. I mention this case because in subsequent interviews on alt-right media platforms, the fired employee stated they were surprised at their sacking because they felt like they were simply repeating sentiments, humor, and viewpoints they heard at CD Projekt. Take that last bit with a grain of salt, considering it's coming from a fired employee. Still, when you look at the preponderance of the evidence, it's easy to imagine CD Projekt Red has some of the toxic male-centric sensibilities we have seen manifest in other larger studios (i.e., Activision-Blizzard, Ubisoft, etc.). Need I remind you of all of their weirdly edgelord promotional stuff in the lead-up to the release of The Witcher 3, where they even described the game "Skyrim in a Game of Thrones sauce?" Then, there are the TWO controversies associated with the artwork contained in Cyberpunk 2077 proper. The first and far more notorious has to be the ChroManticore advertisement, wherein what many believe to be a transgender character is posing next to a soda can named "ChroManticore." The first issue is that one of the more prominent examples of a trans character in the game boils them down to their sex organs or, at the very least, their sex appeal. The second is how the soda they are advertising uses wordplay that manipulates "manticore," which traditionally translates to "man-eater." Then there's the less prominent advertisement for "Watson Whore" wherein you see what appears to be a trans person puking their guts out into a toilet in a state of undress. Both of the in-game advertisements with possible trans characters make the most vulnerable and sensitive parts of their body and possibly their identity the focal point, as if it's no big deal. Oh, then there was that time when CD Projekt hosted a cosplay contest and awarded a cis-gendered woman cosplaying as a trans character while sporting a glowing fake dick with their grand prize?

Now, there might be some of you that say, "Hey, most of this seems like it might be a coincidence," or possibly, "But Cyberpunk is trying to create a seedy world where EVERYONE is shitty or down in their luck!" To the first claim, I'm not sure how you can look at all of these "accidents" that CD Projekt made in the lead-up to, and even after the release of their game, and call them a "coincidence." They have had plenty of opportunities to learn, reach out to possible community partners, and reflect on the hurt their actions might have had on others. Shit, after the second twitter mishap, some pro-trans and LGBTQ charities and organizations happily offered their services to guarantee Cyberpunk 2077 could be an empowering gaming experience rather than one that felt like an attack. Instead, they issued the same corporate platitude that they would "get better" while they STILL made the same mistakes again and again. They either don't care or actively think their actions are morally correct. To the second claim, I have to return to what traditionally represents the "heart" of the cyberpunk genre. It's about using your technological edge to fight back against sources of oppression or discrimination. It is well within CD Projekt Red's right to interpret the source material how it sees fit. Though, I'm reminded of George Carlin's comments about being uneasy about Andrew Dice Clay picking on traditional "underdogs" like women, gays, and religious minorities for his comedy routines. You can certainly do that, but you have to be careful because the crowd you will invite isn't a crowd you want to associate with. In fact, CD Projekt's case is doubly uneasy, considering they took the Voodoo Boys, who were white in the original board game, and were that way, as a metaphor for cultural appropriation, but made them Haitian in 2077.

Let's Talk About The CEO "Stepping Down" And How That Shows There's No Accountability At CD Projekt Red

When I first passed the concept of this blog by a friend I knew was far more optimistic about Cyberpunk 2077 and CD Projekt, they immediately pointed towards the recent leadership change in the company as evidence that the "winds of change" were finally coming. They are correct, at least on paper, that former joint CEO Marcin Iwiński is stepping down and handing over their responsibilities to someone else. What I think got lost in the reporting of this matter is how this "leadership change" is incredibly superficial and in no way a sign that a new face is bound to bring the systemic changes that the company desperately needs. First, Iwiński isn't leaving the company because of shareholder outrage over his mishandling of the release of Cyberpunk 2077. He's transitioning from being one of the company's joint CEOs to being a member of the company's supervisory board. He fills a now vacant position, and Adam Kiciński, who was the other joint CEO, is now assumed to be in a position to become the company's sole CEO.

Cycling a CEO to a business's board of directors, which is still a highly compensated position, and then promoting the figurehead of many of said business's examples of mismanagement is not "accountability." That's a move that would make Carl Icahn or Victor Posner proud. I want to clarify that I am in no way accusing CD Projekt of criminal wrongdoing or that this shakeup is ethically suspect. When Iwiński states that his intent is that he wishes to continue being a part of CD Projekt, but in a less formal and limited capacity, I believe him. However, with everything we have learned about CD Projekt's management, not the design or programming teams, being why 2077 launched hot and busted, I have very little confidence that the company is in a better situation to avoid future launch window controversies. Likewise, with Adam Kiciński in a position to take over as the company's full-time CEO, CD Projekt isn't gaining a forward-facing developer or consumer-oriented speakerphone. We will discuss this in more depth shortly, but Adam Kiciński was the person who mandated that all employees at CD Projekt work six-day workweeks for months before and after the launch of 2077.

Speaking of CD Projekt never holding itself to an exceptionally high standard, let's return to the marketing fiascos in the lead-up to the release of 2077. It wasn't until their second fuck up that the company issued a proper, albeit weak, apology. When they improperly used a hashtag, they stated, "GOG should focus only on games." Even after the second and third controversies, the company issued tenuous apologies at best, with no statements about setting new standards for how they will market or advertise their games. Requests for diversity training or even sharing diversity demographics across the company compared to its leadership went largely ignored. And again, the only time there was any sign that CD Projekt cut or fired someone for espousing these views was when one of their marketing staff flipped to the alt-right on their official corporate social media accounts. With the same faces in charge of the company as it gears up for more Witcher and 2077 content, it is hard not to imagine the same fuck-ups happening again.

Witcher And 2077 Sequel Hype Has Caused Everyone To Forget About CD Projekt Red Repeatedly Backtracking Promises Related To Crunch

One year before the release of Cyberpunk 2077, the corporate leadership of CD Projekt Red promised the game would not utilize crunch. Approximately one month before the game released, those same bosses announced the entire design, programming, and testing teams for 2077 would be working six-day workweeks. Adam Kiciński, the then-joint-CEO of the company, even stated to shareholders the company was engaged in a "necessary crunch" to ensure the game met its 2020 release target. He even went so far as to say the company's use of crunch was "not that bad—and never was." Kiciński eventually apologized for his comments. However, it is essential to note that within that same report, Forbes and PC Gamer reported on developers and designers echoing heinous and grueling work conditions. Even when Kiciński apologized, sources confirmed that CD Projekt remained steadfast in its enforcement of a six-day workweek with paid, but required overtime. Regrettably, none of these actions should have been too surprising. Despite Kiciński's claims that CD Projekt Red envisioned itself "treating developers with respect" years before the release of 2077, many of its own employees were coming forward that the crunch period for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was "inhumane."

Whenever the topic of crunch comes up on this site or any video game website for that matter, there is a contingent that takes it upon themselves to defend the practice. The reasoning for these people is that crunch somehow guarantees that their highly anticipated games will come out earlier and better. For these people, I plea for some compassion for the developers who stomach perpetual hardship so you can swoon over extra pixels or a new ultra-impressive cinematic. The science of remaining in a chair for prolonged periods fucking up your body is pretty definitive, let alone staring at a computer screen for an equal amount of time. A physical toll is not displayed on the sticker price of your hotly anticipated AAA title. Similarly, few people deliberately set out to make a bad video game when entering the industry. Studios across the planet are asking their developers to put their entire hearts into the games they work on, and to have that hard work not translate into something that does well is soul-crushing. Even if Poland's labor laws guarantee paid overtime or employees in other areas of tech are expected to slug in 80+ hour work weeks, I'm unconvinced the human body and mind are designed for this labor, especially if it persists in a culture of dysfunction.

It's also worth mentioning how Cyberpunk 2077 is a case study on why crunch doesn't work. CD Projekt Red backtracked and broke their promises about not using crunch, and to what result? Even after asking their employees to work beyond the norm for over a month, the game STILL launched busted. It only corrected itself after the studio engaged in a long-term plan and roadmap that persisted for over a year! 2077 didn't need a month-long crunch session; it needed additional development time and healthy management expectations. Finally, if crunch was a necessary and critical aspect of CD Projekt's game development, why has the new development lead for The Witcher 4 promised it would not be present during the game's production? Using crunch to get Cyberpunk 2077 to the "shippable" state seen during its initial launch is not evidence of an effective development strategy. It is a clear sign of rampant mismanagement and company leadership that prioritizes quick fixes over systemic change that could improve production and staff morale.

That leaves many of us that enjoy Edgerunners and the property associated with it in a dispiriting position. CD Projekt already is seeing the revival of interest in Cyberpunk 2077 as confirmation that they "got there" and that everything they did to get to this point worked. This point returns me to a conclusion I do not wish to make but feel safe in saying. There's no ethical way to consume Edgerunners, Cyberpunk 2077, and the hype train for any of these sequels. Unless CD Projekt makes the development process of their upcoming games as transparent as possible and starts working with some of the communities they may have harmed, they are bound to repeat the same mistakes they have been making for over ten years. Sure, the new project lead for one of the upcoming Witcher games said they are committed to not using crunch as a strategy. None of that addresses whether their marketing team will espouse a bunch of transphobic memes. Also, with everything that has happened up to this point, the burden of proof is on them. If they honestly were committed to that point, then they should allow an independent accounting firm to anonymously poll every one of their employees to see if the head honcho's interpretation of "no crunch" met their expectations. Otherwise, welcome to capitalism. I do not purport to the have the solutions to any of the problems and never did.

Author's Note: This the second part of a two-part series on The Legend of Kyrandia. If you missed the first part please click this link:

• The Quest For The Worst Adventure Game Puzzles - The Legend of Kyrandia: Book One [Part 1]

If you enjoy this blog and would like to read my other adventure game retrospectives, here's a list of my previous episodes of this series:

• Episode 1: The Dig
• Episode 2: Atlantis: The Lost Tales
• Episode 3: Loom
• Episode 4: Drowned God
• Episode 5a: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis Part 1 & Episode 5b: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis - Part 2
• Episode 6: The Journeyman Project: Pegasus Prime
• Episode 7a: The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time (Part 1) & Episode 7b: The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time (Part 2)
• Episode 8a: The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time (Part 1) & Episode 8B: The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time (Part 2)

Ratings Explained: I'm using a continuum ranging from 1 to 10. Puzzles ranging from one to four are considered accessible sequences or set pieces that can be solved without guides or hints, regardless of your puzzle game expertise. Puzzles ranked between five and six are ones that only intermediate puzzle game players can solve, but beginners can solve in-game through clues, hints, or significant trial-and-error. From seven and above, we get into puzzles that most players cannot solve without consulting outside resources. Also in this category are puzzles that have major accessibility issues.

Zanthia's Area

Picking Up The Crystal Ball - [Rating: 4/10] - I did mention in the last episode that Legend of Kyrandia's difficulty drops off a cliff. While there are some tricky sequences in the following two acts, nothing therein remotely rivals the cave labyrinth or birthstone quest. Regardless, with Brandon awakening from his slumber, he discovers himself in the laboratory of Kyrandia's most extraordinary alchemist, Zanthia. She reveals that she knows about Brandon's quest and plans to help him if he is willing to help her first. She asks Brandon to collect water from a magical fountain using a beaker. However, when you reach the fountain, Malcolm arrives and destroys it. You'll need to find a crystal ball to repair the fountain before you can collect the water. For the first step, you will need to move Bandon Down, Down, Left, Left, Left, Up, and Up from the fountain. Brandon will notice a bush on fire, and if he uses the frost scroll on it, he will be able to nab a crystal ball previously protected by the flames. Return to the fountain, and place the crystal ball into the area Malcolm destroyed.

This sequence is not too demanding but is yet another friendly reminder of Kyrandia's open-world format. If you decide to play the game blind, you might end up doing things out of sequence, which is still perfectly acceptable. Instead of prioritizing the crystal ball, you could also get the Royal Chalice or some blueberries Zanthia will ask for later. There's more than one way to skin a cat in Kyrandia, which makes things more engaging. For me, the only part of this equation I dislike is how unnecessarily separated important locations are from one another. There are so many interstitial levels that add NOTHING to the game, or its mechanical progression other than the designers wanted the game's world to feel bigger. Two of them are even named the same thing (i.e., "A Rocky Wall"), making it challenging to know where you are going.

Getting The Dispel Ability - [Rating: 2/10] - Here's something I forgot to do the first time I played the game. When you first collect the magical water from the fountain, you should drink one bottle rather than immediately depart for Zanthia's laboratory. Doing so unlocks the blue section of Brandon's amulet and provides the game's "Dispel" ability. Suppose you accidentally go to Zanthia's laboratory first. In that case, Zanthia will take the bottle and then hand over a new empty bottle in return. It's an impossible sequence to fail, but one you can make quicker, and I appreciate that. Though, due to the dialogue and writing in the game being as strong as it is, I think the least efficient route is the recommended one. Zanthia's snark is one of the best parts of the first game, and that's what makes the second game the best in the franchise.

Fixing The Ruined Fountain & Collecting Water - [Rating: 2/10] - Oh, but I forgot to review the process of repairing the fountain and what happens after that! All you need to do is place the crystal ball into a broken light fixture, which causes it to transform back to its original state. Magic is a beautiful thing. It is worth mentioning that when you use items on parts of the environment, they have hitboxes, and the fountain, for whatever reason, has an incredibly picky hitbox. It's a minor annoyance, but with this being a click-based adventure game, it's worth mentioning. When you deliver the bottle of water to Zanthia, she provides a new glass. This action ducktails into another fiddly aspect of the game I have to mention. When the game gives you an item after a dialogue sequence or cutscene, it automatically gives it to you without placing it in your inventory. That means if you make any click besides putting the item into an inventory slot, the game flings it out of Brandon's hands to bounce around the environment before landing on a spot the game will allow it to rest. This design quirk is not a deal-breaker, but it isn't enjoyable when it happens.

Getting Zanthia Three Blueberries - [Rating: 3/10] - After completing the first part of Zanthia's quest, she then asks Brandon to fetch her three blueberries. Before you depart, there is a second empty flask for you to pick up in the lab in the background near Zanthia. The nearest blueberry bush is, predictably, a long walk away from Zanthia. The best route for Brandon is Left, Left, Down, Down, Left, Left, Left, Up, Left, Left, Left, and finally, Up. Considering all you do is pick three blueberries, I think that is at least five to six steps too many. There's no puzzle to solve when you find the berry bush. The bush is front and center in the screen, and nothing impedes Brandon's foraging. It is a glorified fetch quest, with the game getting a little indulgent with its tour of Zanthia's domain.

Getting the Rainbowstone - [Rating: 6/10] - When you attempt to hand over the blueberries to Zanthia, you discover she's missing. However, when you scan her laboratory, you'll notice the furniture has been moved, and in particular, a rug has been shifted ever so slightly. When you click on this rug, you will discover a trapdoor that leads to a new area of the forest inaccessible anywhere else. This second half of Zanthia's domain provides the segue to Malcolm's mansion, but for now, Brandon needs to examine a nearby stump at the entrance of the trapdoor on the other side to pick up the Rainbowstone. To save some extra steps when it is time to make potions, you should also move Brandon up two screens to pick two orchids. Then, with both of those matters settled, it's time to make some potions.

For the most part, I think the game does an excellent job of encouraging a sense of exploration while you are in Zanthia's domain. However, it struggles at even the most basic sign-posting, a problem the second game largely rectifies. When Brandon discovers Zanthia missing, he exclaims he must search her abode for clues but provides no further assistance directing the player on what they should do next. As was the case the last time a quest giver mysteriously disappeared (i.e., Brynn), the game feels shockingly directionless. Furthermore, while the trapdoor has a decent "tell," the Rainbowstone does not. No noticeable flicker or glow emanates from the tree stump, and it's not like Zanthia or Brandon clue the player into knowing to look for it in the first place. This puzzle is one of those sequences where the moment-to-moment individual tasks are not in and of themselves challenging. Nevertheless, the real challenge is knowing how to piece together each step in the first place.

Mixing Potions In Zanthia's Laboratory - [Rating: 7/10] - Remember all those random gemstones and flowers I implored you to keep on your person when you started the labyrinth? Well, now is the time to put them to good use! Using Zanthia's large cauldron, you'll need to make three "basic" primary color potions before taking them to a combination area. Adding a ruby and orchid to the pot allows you to collect the red potion, and you'll need two copies. Mixing a blueberry and sapphire results in the blue potion, and tossing in a tulip with a topaz creates the yellow potion. With enough of each primary color in tow, Brandon will need to locate an environment with two large emeralds and placeholders for him to put his potions. These crystals allow Brandon to take the primary-colored potions to make secondary-colored potions. For example, placing a red and blue potion there creates a purple potion, and mixing red with yellow results in an orange one.

There are three fundamental design issues with this part of the game. First, if you somehow lost the items needed to make the primary-colored potions, you might be screwed. Well, unless you want to backtrack through the labyrinth a third and fourth time! The gemstones don't respawn in Zanthia's area, which reminds me of the second problem with this puzzle. The player already has limited inventory slots. Therefore, they can only reasonably make so much of any given potion. As a result, the room for error is slim. There's no tome of knowledge for you to consult on how to get the correct potions, and when you get to the mixing station, which is over ten steps away from Zanthia's laboratory, I highly advise you to have a cheat sheet on the standby. This quibble leads me to my last issue. If you use up all of your red potions to find the orange one but before the purple one and don't have any duplicates, you can end up in a bind. Yes, there are only so many correct color combinations, but it is possible for players experiencing the game for the first time to run out of workable materials. The good news is the potion mechanic in the second game is LEAGUES better and genuinely fun to use.

Refining The Purple & Orange Potions - [Rating: 4/10] - I already mentioned that Brandon needs to combine some of his primary-colored potions to create secondary-colored ones. The process is simple, but it is important to note that only two secondary colored potions allow you to progress the story, and any other colors will kill you. Brandon needs an orange potion to transform into a Pegasus and a purple potion to become tiny. If you manage to create a green or black brew, both are toxic, but Brandon does not immediately identify them as such. Also, the orange and purple potions need to be on your person at all times, and they play into my earlier criticisms of how the game poorly structures itself regarding item and resource management. That said, you don't have to deal with a complex color wheel here, so as long as you have the needed items, you should be okay.

Getting The Royal Chalice - [Rating: 4/10] - Before leaving Zanthia's neck of the woods, you first need to do a bit of item collecting. For one thing, Brandon will need an apple from her laboratory and then explore the first half of the forest until he finds a golden chalice floating in the air. A magical barrier protects the goblet, but luckily, when Brandon uses his newfound "Dispel" ability, he can remove the forcefield. Unfortunately, as he is about to pick it up, a satyr nabs it and hides it in their home inside a nearby tree. Brandon then needs to follow the satyr to their home and use the purple shrinking potion to sneak inside the back door of their residence. When Brandon meets the woodland creature, he trades the apple for the chalice. When he exits the tree, he transforms back to his normal size and finds it behind the tree. Before you ask, you cannot check the back of the tree before using the potion and trading the apple to get the chalice.

This sequence is fun when you find it, and the puzzle-solving is intuitive when you get into it. Knowing to use one of your newly minted potions is a simple enough task, and following the satyr isn't that difficult to start things off, either. I even enjoyed how this puzzle is one of the few that requires the player to utilize both the potion and magic systems, with Brandon needing to down one of his brews and recall his dispel ability. If you take the time to talk to the satyr, you can learn more about the portion of the forest they occupy and their relationship with Zanthia. Unfortunately, it's spoiled slightly due to the game's usual formatting and structural choices. Picking up the apple is the real monkey wrench here, and if you attempt to strike a bargain with the satyr without it, you have wasted your purple potion. Given how hard it is to make one, let alone two, forgetting the apple when entering the creature's home is grounds for a reload by my metrics. Likewise, going from the emerald pillars to Zanthia's lab and then to the floating chalice involves a ridiculous amount of backtracking I won't bother to detail. Trust me, it's a lot and doesn't add anything to the game.

Turning Into A Pegasus - [Rating: 5/10] - With the chalice and at least the orange potion in tow, it's time to make a beeline to Malcolm's castle. However, much like earlier portions of the game, you'll need to do an inventory check before you attempt this. To avoid accidentally forcing yourself into any fail states, ensure you have the orange potion, chalice, orchid, iron key, and lavender rose. If you are missing any of these items, you're fucked and need to load an earlier save! If you have all these trinkets, find a tropical lagoon in the second half of the forest beyond the trapdoor. The lagoon has a golden platform, and if Brandon consumes the orange potion while on the platform, he turns into a Pegasus and automatically transports himself to Malcolm's mansion.

This puzzle is either one of the easiest in the game or the one that results in you smashing your computer screen in frustration. With items like the lavender rose or orchid, the game allows you to pick up multiples but never communicates the minimum amount. Also, the rose can only be picked from a part of the game that requires a massive amount of backtracking, so if you are down one, you're fucked. Mercifully, the game does respawn Brandon with all of his items on the floor of Zanthia's laboratory. Still, because there's a cap on how much any environmental screen can contain, they might spill over to the second part of her abode. Therefore, tracking down where all of your shit is can be a fucking pain in the ass.

The Castle

Meeting The Ghost Of Your Mother - [Rating: 4/10] - The landing pad from where Brandon first arrives is a ways away from Malcolm's mansion. However, when you move one screen to the right of the starting location, Brandon will note a handful of tombstones and notice one of them bears the name of his mother. If Brandon knew his mother's name, don't ask me how he managed to avoid knowing he was the prince of a kingdom. No matter, Brandon mentions wanting to pay tribute to the mother he once loved before continuing his journey. Select the rose in your inventory and place it on the correct grave to give Brandon some comfort. The ghost of Brandon's mother appears and provides him with words of encouragement. She also unlocks the last section of Brandon's magical amulet, which contains an invisibility spell.

I thought this puzzle was clever! There's a nearby gravestone with a wreath, so it's easy to deduce what you need to do here. It's also one of the franchise's more melancholy and humanizing moments. The voice actor for Brandon has a brief point of inflection when he talks about his mother that sounds like genuine grief, and it caught me entirely off guard. This scene also proves how Westwood cared more about telling stories with a "wholeness" of emotions than some of the other studios copying Sierra or LucasArts' homework. If there's one thing I hate about this puzzle, it has to be how easy it is to miss the tombstone. It isn't until the gargoyles at the front gate of the mansion begin murdering Brandon that the game provides a hint that there's something you need to do in the graveyard to continue the story. Furthermore, it's been a while since you last unlocked a new magical ability in the game. It does not help that the pacing with the amulet is all over the place. You unlock two amulet spells in the starting forest, one in Zanthia's area, and the last in the opening section of Malcolm's domain. As a result, it is impossible to know when the game is itching to teach Brandon a new essential ability. Nonetheless, while the fiddly structural stuff can rub some people the wrong way, none of it is game-breaking or immersion-shattering. I hate to sound like an apologist, but it is par for the course in this era.

Entering The Mansion - [Rating: 3/10] - After consulting with his mother, it is time for Brandon to make his way to Malcolm's spooky abode. Unfortunately, two sinister-looking gargoyles guard the entrance and will murder Brandon if he gets too close. To get past them, Brandon will need to recall the new invisibility spell he got from his mother, activate it, and quickly sneak past the gargoyles before the magic dissipates. I'm giving this a few marks above the lowest level because newcomers might have difficulty piecing together using the grave marker to get the invisibility spell. Other than that, it's a clever sequence that perfectly connects to Brandon's newly acquired ability.

Getting The Gold Key - [Rating: 6/10] - When you first enter the mansion, Malcolm enthusiastically greets Brandon. He goads him to explore the estate, believing that the traps and obstacles he has placed in it will quickly dispatch Brandon. I mentioned earlier that the mansion is the only part of the second two acts that even remotely approaches the labyrinth, and I stand by that. It tries to interpret the game's earlier open-world format but in a self-contained environment and is far less effective. Knowing which doors are usable is challenging, and some of the mansion's turns and avenues are impossible to tell apart from the foreground and background textures. Finally, there are those traps Malcolm mentioned at the start of the level. Unlike in the previous forest levels, if you elect to explore every part of Malcolm's estate, it will occasionally murder you. That means it is essential to follow the game's untold critical path.

Unfortunately, that's easier said than done. For example, after Malcolm chides Brandon, your best bet is to find a gold key or collect the rest of the crown jewels accompanying the chalice. For the first gold key, Brandon will need to navigate a groan-inducing network of repeating hallways and room systems that begin to blur due to their repeating design. Additionally, getting to the key and returning to where you need to use it requires over TWENTY STEPS! To highlight how I am not bullshitting you after Malcolm departs, you'll need to move Brandon Left, Up, Right, and Left, and while in a study, click on a statue to activate a revolving door. While on the other side of the revolving door, you explore a basement catacomb and need to click Left, Left, Up, Up, Left, Up, Right, and butt up against a force field. To destroy the energy wall, use Brandon's dispel ability and move left. While it appears you might be at a dead end, the truth is the opposite. You need to notice an out-of-place brick, click it and pick up the key hiding underneath it. With this trinket in tow, you must repeat the same steps to get back to the study to complete a different puzzle.

Getting to far-off corners of the castle only to pick something up and then needing to trace your steps to where you started defines the lion's share of what you do in the mansion. It's at its most potent form here, but needing to return to similar repeating hallways or dungeon passageways is something you do several times. The naming conventions for these interstitial levels have never been good, but it is unforgivable here. The game knows it is throwing you into a catacomb, and every screen save for the one with the force field is titled "A Dark, Dungeon Passage." Getting to where you need to be once is a tricky proposition, but when you add backtracking to the mix, you're dealing with something I think could cause you to quit with the finish line on the horizon. Yes, it's not nearly as bad as the cave sequence, but that doesn't give what was done here a complete pass.

The Bookcase Puzzle To Get The Royal Crown - [Rating: 5/10] - I mentioned in the previous ranking that you need to solve a puzzle in the study with a statue that unlocks a revolving door. When you return, you must solve a variant of the "Pull Books That Start With The Correct Letters To Spell A Word" puzzle. In this case, you need to find a purple book about Opals, a grey book about Potions, a blue book about Enchantments, and finally, a book about Nature; with Brandon spelling, the word "Open." This action causes the mouth of the revolving statue to become slack and allows Brandon to gain his father's crown. I have no problem with book-pulling puzzles, but Kyrandia's version gets a few added levels because it does not appropriately communicate that it even wants you to complete one. When you enter the study with the library, some of the books you can click are already jutting out, but nothing suggests the rotating statue has something in its mouth. When you get to the penultimate screen before the end, Brandon chimes that the three platforms require a crown, scepter, and chalice. However, he offers no further assistance beyond that, which leads me to believe that this might catch some first-time players entirely unprepared.

Getting The Royal Sceptre - [Rating: 1/10] - For the final part of the royal jewels, head over to the main hall and then to the right to enter the kitchen. The Royal Scepter is on a table on the far right portion of the room. When you detect this golden wand, click it and promptly place it in an inventory slot. This "puzzle" is BY FAR the easiest part of the entire mansion because the joke is that Malcolm is using it as a meat spit in the kitchen. And you know what? It got a chuckle out of me!

Dealing With Zombie Herman - [Rating: 5/10] - If you take the time to explore the "Great Hall" in more depth, you can have Brandon observe a large door in the back that appears to require two gold keys to open. To get the second of these keys, you'll need to find the royal bedroom, but mid-way during Brandon's trek, he'll encounter a zombified version of Herman the carpenter. Herman will pull out his saw from earlier, and if you are not quick, he will end up sawing Brandon in half. To stop him from following through with his massacre, click the yellow portion of Brandon's amulet to use his healing spell on Herman. The timing on this is incredibly tight, and it does not help that Herman's hitbox is not as big as you'd expect. If you misclick or don't land the command, it's "Game Over." I will give the game some credit. The last time you used the healing spell was when Brandon got poisoned, and his face turned the same shade of green as Herman's. Therefore, it's not impossible to figure out organically what you need to do.

Finding The Gold Key In The Yellow Room - [Rating: 5/10] - After dealing with Herman, move one screen to the left to find Zanthia petrified in the royal bedroom. However, you'll also notice a few musical instruments when scanning the room. Using a nearby mallet, Brandon needs to play Do, Re, Mi, and Fa to reveal the final gold key. This puzzle involves a bit of brute force if you cannot judge musical notes from their pitch, but even then, it is not inconceivable. It is worth noting the game doesn't immediately jump out and tell you to pick up the mallet and start playing a riff, but the musical motif is there. The only monkey wrench is the player knowing what to play, but with the solution being the first four letters of the solfège system, I can't fault it that much.

The Royal Foyer - [Rating: 4/10] - With the two gold keys and the crown jewels of Kyrandia in his pocket, it is time for Brandon to return to the Great Hall. When you reach the Great Hall, find the double doors in the back and use both keys in the proper receptacles. When the doors open, Brandon enters the penultimate level in the game but first must discover the appropriate placement of his crown jewels in a royal foyer. There are three pedestals, and Brandon must find which ones match the crown, scepter, and chalice. With three pedestals and three objects, there aren't that many permutations to worry about, and you can use brute force to solve this puzzle. If you were wondering, this part of the game is not randomized. The scepter goes on the left pedestal, the crown on the middle one, and the chalice on the right. It's a straightforward puzzle Brandon even muses about before the game releases control back to you.

Beating Malcolm - [Rating: 8/10] - When Brandon unlocks the final door, Malcolm waltzes out and begins taunting him. After pushing the prince one step too far, Brandon knocks out Malcolm, but as he enters the final room, he realizes he will need to hide from Malcolm or otherwise risk the same fate as his grandfather or Zanthia. To prevent Malcolm from turning Brandon into a stone pillar, you need to move him directly in front of a mirror in the room and then quickly pop off his invisibility spell. If you fail to do this in time or cast the spell in the wrong location, Malcolm will be able to locate Brandon due to the mirrors refracting the invisibility effect, thus resulting in a "Game Over." If you are in the correct location, then when Malcolm attempts to cast his petrification spell, it will bounce off a mirror and hit him. Somehow, this causes Malcolm's magical curses on everyone else to wear off, and the land of Kyrandia is finally free.

It's an interesting conclusion to the game but also incredibly fiddly. The location Brandon needs to occupy is tight, and the timing is even more unforgiving. If you are even off by the slightest pixel, Malcolm will detect Brandon, and you'll have to restart the entire sequence from your last save. The placement of Brandon is so specific in this one sequence that if he's even facing the wrong way, the game will still detect that as incorrect and consider the player's actions a failure. No other part of the game functions like this particular level, and this part always takes me a few tries. I wouldn't consider it incomprehensible, but it is something I don't think is possible to solve on your first attempt during your first playthrough.

Should You Play The Legend of Kyrandia: Book One (Answer: Sure! Consider It If You Want A Different Take On The SCUMM Era of Pixel Adventure Games)

The second game will always be the true high-water mark in the series by my metrics, but the first game in the Legend of Kyrandia series is no slouch. It provides a mostly seamless, non-SCUMM, and non-parser-based alternative to the genre conventions at the time. Games like it and Loom were the exception to the norm, and I cannot help but view the first Kyrandia game as a more "complete" experiment than Loom. It spawned two sequels and, unlike Loom, has a final act that doesn't feel like a mad dash to the finish line. The first Kyrandia game maintains the core appeal of its mechanics and gameplay for almost the entirety of its runtime. The labyrinth in the second environment is a low point, but the game at least follows it up with Zanthia's Domain, one of the game's most substantial acts.

There's also something about this game I prefer over the wackier tone of the second and third games. As mentioned during the first episode, the lush purples and dark greens of the starting forest, while the game plays its opening act relatively straight, work for me more than the circus act nature of the second game. Don't get me wrong, Zanthia is a far better character than Brandon, but the sense of exploration in the first game is more robust and rewarding. Yes, its open-world template comes at a massive cost, but when it works, learning more about the world while also tackling tasks in whatever order you want is far more empowering than the more scripted and rigid structures pioneered by LucasArts and Sierra. However, there's no denying a level of JANK present in this game Westwood managed to boil out in subsequent releases. Zanthia's alchemy mechanic is VASTLY SUPERIOR to Brandon's magical amulet, and you don't have to sweat bullets regarding item management in the second game, either. This game feels like a studio working out the kinks in real-time. As the game progresses, it gets more cinematic and relies less on its fiddlier aspects.

The first two games in this series are underrated buried treasures. While most adventure game fans from this era will go back and forth over whether LucasArts or Sierra should get the shine for helping the genre reach its zenith, Westwood also deserves commendation. Likewise, don't let some of my gnarlier rankings dissuade you from playing this game. If you could deal with the brick wall in Full Throttle or the absolute bullshit puzzles in The Dig, this game should not pose too much of a problem. It's a visual tour de force and has some excellent writing when you take the time to explore optional dialogue trees. Now, if only the third game weren't a complete tire fire. But more on that another time! For now, thanks for reading this two-parter, and next time, I hope to cover the second game in the Kyrandia franchise.

Also, here's an archive of my attempt to beat the game in a single sitting:

Preamble

If you enjoy this blog and would like to read my other adventure game retrospectives, here's a list of my previous episodes of this series:

• Episode 1: The Dig
• Episode 2: Atlantis: The Lost Tales
• Episode 3: Loom
• Episode 4: Drowned God
• Episode 5a: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis Part 1 & Episode 5b: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis - Part 2
• Episode 6: The Journeyman Project: Pegasus Prime
• Episode 7a: The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time (Part 1) & Episode 7b: The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time (Part 2)
• Episode 8a: The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time (Part 1) & Episode 8B: The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time (Part 2)

After hitting some writer's block, I decided to treat myself to a good time. The Kyrandia Series has always been an interesting middle ground between the two dominant classical adventure game schools of thought. The team at Westwood Studios, Inc. that worked on the first two Kyrandia games pulled the best ideas and concepts of LucasArts and Sierra On-Line while also putting their spin on things. While Westwood Studios has the reputation of being an RTS powerhouse, most forget how diverse their video game portfolio was before the Command and Conquer series took off. The studio started out with a strategic partnership with SSI and Epyx, porting AD&D campaigns and properties to 8 and 16-bit home computers. Then Westwood had their first proper hit with Eye of the Beholder (1991), and when Virgin Interactive bought them, they started putting their hands in every PC gaming cookie jar.

When EA bought Westwood, independent estimates claimed that they alone represented 5% to 7% of all PC game sales. Imagine every person in the world spending $20 on Steam and knowing $1 of that was going to one developer. It's simply impossible to fathom these days, but it highlights how dominant a player Westwood was in the PC gaming arena. They did everything. Hence, you shouldn't be that surprised to hear they made a moderately successful adventure game series with The Legend of Kyrandia franchise. I will go to my grave saying that I think the second game in the series is on par with the peak works of LucasArts and Sierra and deserves far more respect from defenders of both of those studios when talking about the highlights of this era of adventure games. However, this time, we are talking about the first game, The Legend of Kyrandia: Book One.

In this game, you can tell Westwood was still trying to figure out how to take the core mechanics of the adventure game genre and streamline them to make them more appealing to the general audience. The first sign of this streamlining comes in the absence of any verb parsers or SCUMM Engine equivalent. In the Legend of Kyrandia games, you click on objects with your mouse cursor and place them into inventory slots without worrying about matching verbs to those objects. When you want to combine two items, you again rely on a limited number of mouse clicks. You can even de-merge two things by double clicking, which is incredibly seamless. None of that should suggest the click-based system in the first Kyrandia game is perfect. The game only provides ten inventory slots, which is not enough in such an item-focused game. Often, I had to use random screens or levels to "dump" items I knew I needed for future puzzles but didn't have any space for them. Likewise, the first game in the series lacks item-burning and a key-item mechanic that the next two games mercifully do have. In Book One, you must remember to include necessary items on Brandon when transitioning from one act or environment to the next. Furthermore, the game doesn't remove useless things you will no longer need. Nonetheless, neither of these quibbles prevent the game from being a fun time, except for maybe ONE LEVEL we will discuss shortly. So, without further ado, let's review the first half of the game and its many puzzles!

Ratings Explained: I'm using a continuum ranging from 1 to 10. Puzzles ranging from one to four are accessible sequences or set pieces that can be solved without guides or hints, regardless of your puzzle game expertise. Puzzles ranked between five and six are ones that only intermediate puzzle game players can solve, but beginners can solve in-game through clues, hints, or significant trial-and-error. From seven and above, we get into puzzles that most players cannot solve without consulting outside resources. Also in this category are puzzles that have major accessibility issues.

Brandon's Forest

Exploring Brandon's Home - [Rating: 2/10] - After the opening cinematic introducing the game's antagonist, Malcolm the jester, you eventually take control of the game's protagonist, Brandon. Brandon enters his home and discovers his grandfather has been turned to stone by some evil hex. After locating a note on a nearby desk, Brandon struggles to read it, believing that a magical seal prevents its contents from being read. However, before he gets to that, Brandon will need to search his abode for any valuable items that may assist him in his journey. Unless you enjoy needing to backtrack when running into assumed dead-ends of puzzles, you will need to find a garnet, saw, note, and apple. Some of these items, like the saw, are harder to find than others.

I usually grouse about item collecting in these early adventure games. They feel like glorified pixel hunts as if they are hidden object games. Nonetheless, Legend of Kyrandia gets a pass from me for one specific quality of life design decision. Unlike LucasArts or Sierra games, where you will need to work with a verb parser or the SCUMM engine, in Kyrandia, you click on things once and drag them into your inventory without any added steps. The seamlessness of this process means that when Kyranida presents an environmental puzzle, you can more quickly deduce solutions because you do not need to fiddle around with dozens of permutations of your desired action. Your early folly in Brandon's treehouse is a fun tutorial of Kyrandia's more freeform structure and gameplay. For that reason, I think it's a great way to introduce its mechanics, especially to those more familiar with SCUMM engine games. For that reason, I have to give it some props.

Helping The Rotting Tree - [Rating: 2/10] - With all the starting items needed to make Brandon's upcoming adventure marginally easier, it's time to exit his arboreal abode. After leaving the starting room, step on a tree branch and then walk right from the tree twice to encounter a grove of trees crying over Malcolm's recent flurry of destruction. As you approach a pool of water, click on it to collect a teardrop from one of the weeping willows. Next, you will need to move left until you find a tree that was a recent victim of Malcolm's rage. Apply the teardrop to the tree to revive it, which then initiates a new sequence involving Merith. Overall, I found this puzzle to be another friendly tutorial on how differently the rules of Kyrandia function in comparison to its then contemporaries. It also does a decent enough job at world-building, and if you decide to explore optional screens while trying to complete this puzzle, you'll get some fun hints about what to expect in the future.

The trick here is to mention that Kyrandia is an open-world adventure game with three distinct acts. The first act takes place in the starting hub world of Kyrandia, the second involves the other side of Kyrandia when Zanthia rescues Brandon, and the final is when you enter Malcolm's mansion. Each of these environments has dead ends and interstitial screens that exist for no other purpose but to create a sense that the worlds you are exploring are more extensive than they are on paper. The downside is that exploring the world can result in you losing sight of what your objective might be or what essential items you need to acquire. In this case, moving left from the treehouse leads to dozens of weird subplots that might lead you down paths that are red herrings. There's no denying this downside, but the format of Kyrandia is also one of its main selling points, with its breezy structure leading to a much less regimented pace you would find in any LucasArts title at the time.

Chasing Merith & Picking Up The Peridot Gemstone - [Rating: 2/10] - After helping the dying tree, a young boy named Merith appears and challenges Brandon to take a marble from them. While Brandon seems annoyed at Merith's command, you need the marble regardless. You chase him for a few screens until you watch a leaf fall from a tree. The leaf turns into peridot, and it is safe to assume the game wants you to nab this gemstone. After picking this up, continue until you find Merith attempting to hide behind a tree. Sneak up on him, and upon taking him by surprise, pick up the marble he drops. It takes a little longer than I'd like, but as long as you remember to pick up the peridot and carefully evade Merith on the final screen, it's not too difficult. If you keep moving right, you'll find the solution. This sequence is more cinematic-based than a full-on puzzle, but it introduces a handful of critical locations and backdrops you'll return to later in the game.

Fixing The Forest Altar - [Rating: 1/10] - After acquiring Merith's marble, he mentions he picked it up at a nearby altar. Upon moving right, you'll find the altar and notice Merith's vandalism has rendered it inert. To fix it, place the marble in the missing slot on the altar to repair it. Before you leave, remember to pick a rose from a nearby bush. That's all there is to this puzzle. Not everything in this feature is going to be an eighteen-step process.

Meeting Your Sister Brynn And Making A Silver Rose - [Rating: 3/10] - With the altar repaired, it is time to pay Brandon's sister, Brynn, a visit at the local temple. To do that, move Left, Down, Left, Left, and then Up, and upon entering the temple, show her Brandon's grandfather's note, and she will be able to read it aloud. To Brandon's surprise, he learns he is the heir apparent to the throne of Kyrandia and is capable of performing magic. To assist him in starting his journey, Brynn asks Brandon to fetch a "Lavender Rose." If you forgot to pick one up from the altar, they are there, and when you give her a rose, she transforms it into a "Silver Rose." She states that Brandon will unlock his first magical ability upon activating the Silver Rose on the forest altar.

The next part of the game is a far worse example, but it is around here when Legend of Kyrandia's open-world format will either make or break your impressions of it. The temple is not that far from the altar, but the lack of signposting and the game's many varying pathways and interstitial screens make navigating the game's world a chore. Even when you know where you need to go, you need to cross upwards of ten to twenty screens, and when you need to move back and forth between two locations, which is the case here, I can only imagine some people becoming frustrated quickly. This specific sequence is not an absolute ball-buster but, instead, annoying and fiddly.

Unlocking The Magical Amulet - [Rating: 3/10] - After your run-in with Brynn, the world of Kyrandia will begin spawning gemstones on random screens. When you encounter these stones, you must pick them up and place them in your inventory or on an easy-to-locate screen. Nonetheless, you will need to return to the forest altar from the temple. To highlight my slight annoyance at the game's reliance on back-and-forth mission design, I'll mention the fastest route is Down, Right, Right, Right, Right, Right, Up, and then Right. Trust me; it will only get more convoluted as the game progresses. When you approach the forest altar, Brandon places the Silver Rose there and gains the amulet Brynn mentioned earlier, but it does not have any of the magical abilities she said. Next, you backtrack to the temple, likely repeating the same steps from before, only to discover that Brynn has been kidnapped and cannot assist in teaching Brandon the magic he will need to succeed in his adventure. I'm bumping this puzzle up a few notches above the tutorial puzzles, not because it is more challenging but because it involves a ridiculous amount of aimless wandering. There's no real reason for the locations to be this far away from one another other than the designers wanted you to get lost and extend the game's playtime. It's a padding technique and a frustrating one at that.

Helping Herman Build A Bridge - [Rating: 3/10] - With Brynn out of the picture, for now, it's time to unlock the second half of the starting continent of Kyrandia. To start that quest, you need to move Down, Right, Right, Right, Right, Right, Down, Down, and then Left. Inside a cave, you'll find a hapless carpenter attempting to repair a broken bridge but lacking a saw. Hopefully, you remembered to pick up the saw at Brandon's house because it is a relatively long journey back from the cave. When you hand the saw to the carpenter named Herman, he moves to the right and out of the cave. When you follow him, you watch him sawing down a tree. To move the story further, you'll need to walk up to spawn him back in the cave with the bridge fully repaired.

I first have to mention how directionless the game becomes when you discover Brynn is missing. Brandon muses that he likely will need to find someone else to help him on his journey, but that's all you get. There are seventeen screens in this starting hub world, and Herman occupies one tucked away in a corner you likely have never seen. Likewise, knowing how to trigger things and repair the bridge is slightly tricky but nothing extraordinary. The final monkey wrench has to be the saw, which is obscured enough in Brandon's home that it is easy to miss in your first playthrough if you are not careful. I can't get too angry, considering the small scope of Kyrandia the game locks you into at this point. Nonetheless, wandering around in circles is never a great feeling in any video game, let alone an adventure game.

The Timbermist Woods

Restoring The Glade - [Rating: 5/10] - After crossing the newly repaired bridge, Brandon finds himself at the "Timbermist Woods." Brandon exclaims he wishes to confront Malcolm but first runs into the wizard Darm and his female dragon companion. After an extensive conversation with both, Darm shares that he can help Brandon but requires a quill. You then move Down, Right, Left, Left, Left, Down, Right, Right, Right, Right, Down, Down, and finally Left. By the way, the second part of the forest has A LOT of walking! Along the way, you must pick up a walnut, acorn, pinecone, and yellow tulip. At the end of the journey, you end up in a dead grove, but Brandon identifies a hole where he suspects he could grow a plant if he had a seed. As you might imagine, you plant the tree nuts into the hole, and after some rumbling, a massive yellow flower erupts from the ground and teaches Brandon his first magical spell, which allows him to heal himself and those around him.

I will bump the score for this puzzle a few notches because Darm's mission provides a bit of a red herring. When you first meet him and his dragon, they suggest that helping him get his quill should be your priority, but that is not the case. A random NPC in one of the interstitial levels tells you, "In order to harvest, you must sow," which is a clever enough hint that you cannot immediately gather a feather from a nearby songbird. However, the clearing is so far from where you meet Darm and eventually collect the feather for the quill that I cannot help but wonder if the game would have been better off if the environment here was smaller. Yet again, the hardest part of the puzzle is not getting lost or losing your bearings. The good news this time is that there are more monuments, and they can serve as your mental compass markers. Unfortunately, the different tree nuts have the same monochromatic brown texture and can be incredibly difficult to find if you don't know what you are looking for in the game. We still have a few more puzzles that are miles above this one, but I thought this was a step up from what you have encountered in the game up to this point.

Getting A Quill For Darm - [Rating: 2/10] - Now that Brandon knows healing magic, he needs to locate an injured songbird north from the dead grove. When he finds this bird, the player needs to click the yellow portion of the amulet and then the target, in this case, the bird, to heal them. After performing this feat, the bird flies away but not before dropping a feather Brandon can pick up and then present to Dram as a quill. The wizard uses the feather to write on a scroll, which you later learn is a Frost Scroll, and his dragon companion lectures about gemstones that have been littering the world of Kyrandia recently. There's nothing too complicated here, though I feel it is worth mentioning that the amulet is fiddly and if you misclick your spell, you'll have to wait a bit because it has a non-insignificant cooldown. Otherwise, Darm and the dragon provide some fun world-building.

Getting Random Gemstones & The Sunstone - [Rating: 6/10] - We are now truly adventure gaming! There are twelve gemstones in Legend of Kyrandia: Book One, and the vast majority have randomized placements strew all across the two halves of the starting forest. Except for rubies and the Sunstone, you need to scan every possible screen and environment you have encountered up to this point and see if it has a gemstone. There are two of every type, and getting them is a colossal pain in the ass. During the introduction, I mentioned how much I'm not too fond of inventory management in this game, and this puzzle is where my distaste takes complete form. You only have ten inventory slots, and that's not even enough to hold one of every gemstone type. As such, you will need to place most of your gemstones on the ground next to the shrine where you will be using them. However, the game also has a hard cap on how many items you can have in a single environment! As such, it's a complete NIGHTMARE collecting all the needed gemstones and knowing where to put them!

The ruby gemstone and Sunstone deserve a separate explanation. To get rubies, you'll need to find a tree north of an oak grove that grows them. However, when Brandon attempts to pick one of the stones, a viper bites and poisons him. You can still grab the stone, but you will also need to use his healing magic or otherwise risk him dying. The cooldown on the spell makes getting the recommended two of every stone type grueling. The Sunstone is also tricky and requires some environmental detective work. You'll need to find a babbling brook and search it to find the Sunstone. The creek is tucked away in the furthest corner of the map, and there's nothing there to suggest you need to find a precious mission-critical gemstone there. Getting rubies and the Sunstone is NOT fun, but the real kicker here is getting the other gemstones. I spent twenty minutes wandering around every observable part of the starting hub world, hoping to find stones that I did not understand how their spawn rate worked. Sometimes I had four copies of a rock, and other times I only had two. It's not necessarily a tricky proposition, but it is time-consuming, and the game doesn't give you any "freebies" or hints about how best to go about this part.

The Birthstone Quest - [Rating: 7/10] - Holy shit, this game ramps up its difficulty out of nowhere! In the second half of the forest is an ornate marble altar, and while there, Brandon must place four birthstones in the correct order. However, Brandon has no idea what his birthstones are, and everyone in the world is none the wiser. The good news is that the Sunstone always occupies the first slot. The unfortunate news is that placing a gemstone in the wrong position causes the altar to destroy it. The implication is that you could burn all your copies of a single gem on the first two empty slots only to find out it was needed in the final one. In that case, you would need to return to wandering around in the forest, hoping to locate another one. That is why I strongly advise you to save scum if you decide to play this game.

I cannot emphasize enough how the vast majority of the stones have randomized spawn locations entirely unknown to the player. To have their use boil down to a luck-based math problem is the ultimate cherry on top of a shit sundae. However, as I said before, this puzzle is not impossible. It's just tedious bullshit made more problematic because of the game's enormous sense of scale and limited inventory system. In the game's defense, I will say that it is "top-heavy" regarding its difficulty curve. There is an odd spike during its mid-point, and if you get past this and one more puzzle, which we will discuss, do not worry, my sweet summer child, then getting to the end is no problem.

The Labyrinth

Meeting Malcolm & Entering The Cave - [Rating: 4/10] - With the gemstones out of the way, at least temporarily, it's time for Brandon to give Malcolm a piece of his mind. From the marble altar, move Right, Right, Down, Down, Down, Right, and Right to reach the entrance of a cave that features a dragon façade. When Brandon attempts to enter this cave, Malcolm appears and pushes him backward. After a bit of back and forth, Malcolm throws a knife at Brandon but misses. You must click this knife as soon as possible to throw it back. Otherwise, Malcolm casts a spell that results in an immediate game over. I initially thought I had to move closer to the knife before clicking it, but I discovered that it is considered an incorrect input, and the game will only allow you to click the blade during this sequence. Any button click not in the knife's hitbox causes Malcolm to murder Brandon.

The second part of this puzzle is significantly easier. When you impress Malcolm with your knife-throwing skills, he departs but not before he seals the cave's entrance with a wall of ice. To break down this wall like you're Ronald Reagan, click the flute you got from the marble altar, and it will destroy the barrier. I know I have already groused about the game's lack of an inventory "burning" mechanic, but sequences like these are exponentially more challenging because of their absence. Let's say you did NOT pick up the flute because you already have an inventory filled to the brim with gemstones, roses, rocks, and other random bullshit. Plenty of previous inventory items make sense when destroying a wall of ice. If you have been relying on plopping your shit on the ground of a specific screen or two, getting what you think you need to use on a puzzle that requires a particular item can result in needless back-and-forth trips. Again, it's an annoyance that had an easy solution that other contemporaries utilized to avoid this exact feeling of frustration. Otherwise, this is one of the few tasks associated with the cave I do not actively hate.

The Labyrinth Part 1 - [Rating: 10/10] - HOLY SHIT! I remember hating this puzzle when I first played this game, and still, I'm not too fond of it, even with age. First, starting the labyrinth level with a specific assortment of items is essential. The game does not tell you this information and is happy to make you trace your steps back out of the dungeon to run around the forest, picking up random stuff it demands you to have in your possession to progress the story. These items are a flute, frost scroll, apple, rose, tulip, sapphire, ruby, and topaz. The flute and frost scrolls are important story items, and their necessity is understandable. However, the tulip and rose are pickups dating back to the game's first hour, and there's no rhyme or reason why the game wants those three specific gemstones instead of the other ones. Nonetheless, you move from the starting mineral pool until Brandon triggers a pressure plate that traps him in the dungeon. If he wishes to get out, he will need five rocks to flip a counterweight.

There are some tricky puzzles in Legend of Kryandia. The gemstone quest can be frustrating if you don't save scum and the final mansion sequence has some shitty parts as well. But none of that, no, none of that compares to the labyrinth. In what I can only call the worst part of the game, you must navigate an endless zig-zagging dungeon with the same three to four repeating room designs until you pick up a handful of MacGuffins. First, remembering to pick up the fireberries and knowing how to use them is critical unless you enjoy seeing Brandon eaten by a Grue. However, the berries explode in your inventory after Brandon navigates three screens, and if you are caught in an unilluminated room for too long, a monster will eat him. The complete lack of signposting or signaling from the game as to whether or not you are going in the right direction is gut-wrenching. Dozens of dead-ends can result in an immediate "game over" if you are not following a guide and the game stacks the deck against you in other regards. Remember those plot-critical trinkets I mentioned a while ago? They are found in "special" rooms like the "Pantheon Of Moonlight" or "Cavern Of Emeralds," but there's no indication in-game if you have collected the needed items from those rooms to continue your journey.

However, the breadth and scope of the labyrinth make it an all-time worst puzzle I have ever played. To give you an idea of what I am talking about, after finishing the game, I looked up the most efficient way to navigate it and was shocked to discover my blind playthrough was only ten or so steps away from it. For example, to get to the "Pantheon Of Moonlight," you will need to move Right, Up, Right, Down, Down, Down, Right, Right, Down, Left, Up, Left, Up, Right, Up, Up, Right, Up, Left, Up, Right, Right, Down, and Right. That's right, the most efficient way to get to the pantheon AND cover rooms with fireberries, so you do not die requires TWENTY FOUR STEPS! But that's only the first part of the sequence! After Brandon learns about the woes of the Will-O-Wisps, he has to find the "Cavern of Emeralds." To get there from the pantheon, he must move Right, Down, Right, Right, Right, Right, Right, Right, Up, Down, Left, Left, and Down. I forgot to mention how critical it is to empty your inventory before you trek deeper into the caves because you have a LOT of shit to pick up! You have up to three berries at all times in your pockets, eventually five rocks, a gold coin, and two emeralds. But we are only HALFWAY DONE with the labyrinth! From the Cavern of Emeralds, we need to get to the Cavern Of Twilight to pick up a gold coin that is nigh impossible to see. The best route to get there is Down, Left, Up, Left, Left, Down, Down, Right, Right, Down, Left, Left, and finally Left. When you pick up the gold coin, the game expects you to find your way back to the entrance!

Fuck this entire level! I have previously ranked labyrinth sequences in classic adventure games reasonably high on my scale. The final dungeon sequence in Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis immediately comes to mind but Drowned God and Atlantis: The Lost Tales also features some heinous last levels that are Greek-inspired mazes. This specific labyrinth sequence might be the worst of the batch because it comes out of nowhere and, unlike the other examples, isn't the culmination of a massive thematic climax. Legend of Kyrandia: Book One still has two more acts to go, and it provides a difficulty spike during its mid-point. It's a long slog where players can loop around in circles and not even know it. Even with the fireberries marking your path, there are times when you need to retrace your steps, and that is nigh impossible to do if you don't have a map or guide on standby unless you have no qualms with spending hours of your time looking at the same three to four dungeon screens. I'LL TELL YOU; IT'S NOT A GREAT TIME!

Using The Ancient Well - [Rating: 2/10] - When you wrap back to the cave entrance, you should have five heavy rocks. After selecting these rocks, aim them at a hanging dish and end up with four triggering the gate out of the dungeon. If you met with the Will-O-Wisps, you might recall they need a Moonstone before they teach Brandon a new magical ability. To get this stone, exit the grotto and move two screens left. Then move up twice and locate the "Ancient Well." The Moonstone is at the bottom of the well, but climbing down the well is not an option. To obtain the stone, take the gold coin from the Cavern Of Twilight and toss it into the well to trigger a geyser that shoots the Moonstone next to Brandon. The only tricky part of this puzzle is knowing to go to the well in the first place. Everything else is cake. The only part of this sequence I truly disliked was the growing existential dread of knowing I would need to return to the labyrinth to complete one last trek inside.

The Labyrinth Part 1 - [Rating: 7/10] - The good news is that your second rodeo in the cave system is far easier than the first. For one thing, there are far fewer items for you to pick up, and the sequencing is much shorter. Your first task is to return to the Pantheon Of Moonlight, and I will not repeat the steps to get there because they are the same, and if you used the berries during your first journey, you don't need to worry about that step during this bit. When you hand over the Moonstone to the Will-O-Wisps, they teach Brandon how to levitate, which he can put to good use by getting over to the other side of a chasm in the dungeon. To get there, walk Left, Left, Down, Down, Down, Down, Down, Right, Right, Right, Right, Right, Right, Up, Right, Down, and Right. Brandon will now find himself next to a volcanic flow that he can only cross if he applies the Frost Scroll from earlier on himself. Initially, I thought you had to use the scroll on the lava, and I was confused when I watched Brandon die in a flurry of fire and flames.

After Brandon crosses the lava flow, he and you are in the cave's home stretch but don't forget to pick up the Iron Key one screen above before you move left. After exiting the volcano, you need to smash another series of directional inputs. Eventually, you will find the chasm I mentioned earlier. Use the amulet and the levitation spell to get to the other side. When Brandon mercifully exits the cave, a tree branch unceremoniously smacks him on the head, and when he wakes up, he discovers he is in Zanthia's laboratory. As I said earlier, this trek in the caves is much easier than the first one, but it is by no means a fun experience. The most efficient paths you can take are still fifteen to twenty inputs long, and getting lost is still a bitch. The rooms in the cave are still monotonous enough that you can never get your bearings down, and again, there are still those monsters that will wreck you if you don't take the time to put down the berries on the ground.

Why Would I Play Zelda II: The Adventure of Link In 2022?

Don't ask why, but I had a hankering to play Zelda II: The Adventure of Link this year. With The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom a ways away, I felt like getting my Zelda "fix" through less than orthodox means. Likewise, Zelda II was the talking point to a podcast I guested on a while back. At the center of the debate was whether or not the game counts as an RPG. Likewise, my co-hosts and I wondered if the game's novel ideas equated to a worthwhile experience. At the time, I summarily brandished the game as a failure and outright advised against recommending it to even the most dedicated Zelda fans. However, after toying around with the game for a bit, I have since softened my stance. By hook or crook, Zelda II is a game I continued to think about even after I disavowed playing it, and that alone is worth remarking upon even slightly. So, with nothing to lose, I buckled down and finished the game on the Switch.

If you are wondering, I felt like sticking with the game because of its reputation. Ask fans of the Zelda franchise what their least favorite games in the series might be, and after rattling off the CDi games, Zelda II is always right there near the bottom. Even though I feel the game has its share of issues, I can safely say that the delta between Zelda II and The Wand of Gamelon approaches around twenty to thirty fathoms. Zelda II is guilty of finding new ways to make your life shitty, but it is a feature-rich game with a massive world and gameplay hooks that better capture the spirit of the franchise than either CDi title. Zelda II's most significant flaws come from its attempt to graft an RPG-lite Metroidvania structure to a Zelda action-platformer. The game almost revels in forcing the player into death spirals and situations that extol a mountain of cheap bullshit. Even when you take the time to interact with its mechanics at face value, whenever you think you've started to turn a corner, it throttles you back to square one. As a friend once said, "Zelda II and Kid Icarus are the most 'NES Hard' NES games to come from Nintendo proper."

Nonetheless, in the current era of the video game industry we occupy today, Zelda II is interesting to look back on in another regard. With the industry becoming less competitive and emphasizing sequels and remasters, Zelda II is a hallmark of a forgotten era. Today, when a game is a massive success, and a sequel is announced shortly after its release, it's safe to assume what the follow-up will look like or how much it will "rock the boat." When Ubisoft announces a new Assassin's Creed game or 343 a new Halo, you can make generalized assumptions about how those games will control or even what they might attempt narratively. Back in 1987, no such guarantees existed, and as we will discuss next, anything was on the table. Things could get funky, and that's why I think I've fallen in love with Zelda II.

Remember When Video Game Sequels Could Be "Weird?"

When the NES was the only home console worth talking about, and the arcade was the preeminent place to play games, video game sequels were few and far between. The ones that did see the light of day ranged a wide gamut. For every Street Fighter II, a dozen Space Harrier IIs or Snake's Revenge would reinvent a winning formula for the worse. When it comes to the NES in particular, there was a bit of a trend that Nintendo started for the initial follow-ups to blockbuster titles to resemble their predecessors only in spirit. Super Mario Bros 2 (i.e., The Lost Levels) being a hostile rebuke about the first game being too easy or Fire Emblem Gaiden having dungeon crawling elements and two simultaneous campaigns are reflections of that. And other companies in the industry at the time followed Nintendo's form, with Capcom and Konami being the most prominent examples. Castlevania II: Simon's Quest significantly deviates from its predecessor, and Zelda II shares more in common with Simon's Quest, at least in spirit, than most might think.

If you are asking why developers at the time felt like using sequels to games to try out new ideas or gameplay mechanics, I do not have a clear answer for you. What I have gleaned from a handful of roughly translated interviews is that many developers and programmers would often view the first title in a franchise as being flawless or acceptable as is. If a sequel was going to be made, why would it play exactly like the first when the last game was "perfect?" As such, most developers treated sequels as an opportunity to hone their programming and design chops or to test out ideas that got the ax the first time around. That desire to test things out leads us to Nintendo's reputation and modus operandi during their debut console. While the company gets a lot of credit for refining genres and gameplay ideas for the general audience, they rarely outright invented genres. At the core of the Zelda franchise was an adventure exploration template that was informed by decades of prior releases. Even when Breath of the Wild turned the series on its head, no one claimed it was the first open-world action-adventure game at the time of its release. However, though they rarely invented novel ideas, that didn't mean their games weren't "strange." Nintendo sequels these days are seldom weird, but Zelda II is definitely "weird."

This recent folly wasn't my first rodeo with the game. Nonetheless, this time around, I tried to play the original Famicom Disk System version, the PAL NES version, and the most recent Switch port. Each version has its quirks, but, as we will discuss shortly, the Switch version now provides what I consider the "definitive" Zelda II experience. The Disk System original provides the most unadulterated experience with the "crouch glitch" for the final boss absent. It also boasts one of the evilest save mechanics I have ever experienced. For those wondering, in the Disk System version of Zelda II, not only is your stat growth slower, but upon saving, the game identifies your lowest stat category and applies that value to all of your core attributes. For example, if your health points were level three, your strength score level four, and magic points level one, all of your stats would level out to level one after saving. I read the warning for this design idiosyncrasy in a guide but saved my game accidentally and, upon seeing my progress wiped clean, never returned.

Playing the original NES version without save states or tool assists is only marginally better. The lack of an in-game economy beyond your stat growth makes exploring Zelda II's world a continually risky affair. Every nook and cranny in the game wants to murder you. Likewise, controlling a level one version of Link doesn't feel great. Including instadeath causing traps, pools of lava, or bodies of water in Zelda II does not result in the same platforming snappiness as the first three Mario Bros games. Constantly respawning in the same central temple after running out of lives makes the game's back-half an absolute chore because you replay the same four to five interstitial levels ad nauseam. When I checked the recorded credits for Zelda II, I was not exactly surprised to see this game represented many people's first go at making what is ostensibly an RPG. It is admirable that they used a well-known game's sequel to test out a genre they had never done before, but the results are incredibly raw. However, something immediately came to mind as I interacted with Zelda II's RPG-like mechanics. It is a friendly reminder of my previous claim that the Zelda series, and Nintendo in general, are far from being guilt-free of copying other people's homework.

Zelda II Is A Case Study On How Even Nintendo Wasn't Immune to Dragon Quest Fever

The topic of the "Mt. Rushmore of Video Game Developers" comes up quite often on the internet. Regardless of people's stance on the console wars, everyone has come to an uneasy agreement that Shigeru Miyamoto deserves the top position, and positions two through four are the ones that are honestly up for debate. I think there's a point to be made on how you fill those remaining three slots, saying a lot about how you eased into the hobby of gaming. However, if we look at this exercise as a list of developers purely in terms of their importance and industry impact, if Yuji Horii isn't on your list, then you're telling me you don't know what the fuck you are talking about in the first place. As a fun exercise, I checked out a nearly ten-year-old NeoGAF thread debating this "Mt. Rushmore" topic. I thought I was about to blow a fucking gasket when I saw people rank Fumito Ueda, Yoshinori Ono, Goichi Suda, Hideo Kojima, and Todd Howard as more critical to the history and evolution of the video game industry than Yuji Horii.

The usual dismissive remarks that Dragon Quest simply represents video game "comfort food" actively ignore how essential and revolutionary the 8 to 16-bit era Dragon Quest games were. The series has had an indelible mark on the Japanese video game industry, and there's no denying that. I'd even argue the small changes and improvements across its timeline are not the "small potatoes" its detractors might characterize. The first game took the core systems of Wizardry and made them palatable for younger audiences; no small feat. The second game introduced a party system; the third a class system and JRPG roles every subsequent JRPG would copy verbatim. The fourth game employed a caravan system and revolutionized the JRPG overworld. Finally, the fifth game nigh invented the New Game+ gameplay concept! I'm sorry, but you cannot be more of an industry disruptor than what the Dragon Quest series was to Japan for an almost thirty-year crease! Nonetheless, even during the NES era, Nintendo has never definitively recognized Dragon Quest and its role in moving millions of console units. However, Dragon Quests I through VI helped shore-up Nintendo's domestic dominance for two console generations, and the franchise pioneered the hallmarks of an entire genre.

The fundamental tenet of Yuji Horii's output throughout the years he's been in the industry is as clear as day. If you put in the work to play his games, you'll see the ending; it's just a matter of time. For the most part, that holds for the JRPG genre to this day. Even when you reach a tricky boss or what initially appears to be an impossible dungeon, as long as you keep at it and continue to level up your characters; eventually, you will turn the corner and be able to beat the game. Sure, sometimes you'll need lady luck and RNG on your side, but no matter what, in most circumstances, you'll have something to show for your time wailing away against trash mobs or Byzantine dungeons.

Miyamoto's core team attempted to graft that idea to an adventure platformer and called it Zelda II. However, they also put their own "spin" on the already institutionalized conventions of the JRPG by throwing in a few monkey wrenches. First, Zelda II has no economy beyond your collection of EXP or heart containers. Second, not all enemies reward experience points, and when you take a hit, some will even take away from your pool of "uncashed" EXP. Also, the usual collection of items and new abilities in a Zelda game feels bizarre in Zelda II. Picking up the expected "1-Ups" in the Zelda franchise, but for them to have zero permanency in the scope of an RPG is one of many examples of Nintendo's patchwork fraying at the seams. And all those core mechanics constantly clashing with each other is beside the game's overall cruelness, which we need to discuss separately.

But If You Are Looking For The Answer To My Question, "Yes" this Game Is Hard, And "No" It's Not That Bad

Zelda II is a challenging game. That part of its reputation is well-earned. As mentioned, even when you attempt to engage with its RPG mechanics at face value, it finds ways to make your life shitty. You can't upgrade Link's shield or sword, and the length of his only offensive tool is woefully impotent. Your sole projectile option is only available if Link is at max health and losing that ability makes every enemy or boss encounter demonstrably harder. The progression with his magic and advanced combat skills is all over the place, with some early-game powers scaling better than most of your late-game ones. Finally, there's a certain rawness to Zelda II, throwing you into the fray and against a wide assortment of new and old Zelda foes, with barely a functional version of Link to boot. The game starts you with enough stats to keep Link breathing, but only slightly. The first two dungeons are among the hardest in the game because you have half the resources needed to succeed at that point in the game, and things get worse as it rachets up the stakes as you progress further.

Death Mountain. Those two words hold a lot of cache to people who enjoy the original Zelda. The final level in OG Zelda features over fifty rooms packed to the gills with Wizzrobes, Lanmoles, lava pits, and a fucked up Ganon boss battle. What often gets overlooked is that Zelda II repeats this dungeon, but in the form of a series of caves and as its SECOND GODDAMN DUNGEON! Death Mountain in Zelda II remains one of the most INSANE difficulty spikes I have ever seen in an official Nintendo-made product. As you can hopefully see in the screencap above, it is BY A COUNTRY MILE, one of the cruelest tasks Nintendo has ever asked its audience to complete. Conceptually, I understand what Nintendo is attempting with Death Mountain. At some point, the team behind Zelda II looked at Dragon Quest and noticed that JRPGs tend to have mid-game "gear checks," which force the player to engage with leveling mechanics before they move any further in a game's story.

Nonetheless, it's malicious. There's a baffling number of dead ends that all but spell the player's doom as returning from whence you came is no easy task. Every individual cave features streams of knights, goons, and dragons, which in this case, are spaced apart by centimeters rather than by whole screens or rooms. Finally, I cannot emphasize enough how this is the second required combat environment in the entire game. Unless you have found a spot to power grind, you must ferry Link across dozens of mini-dungeons with only two to three levels into his base stats and a paltry number of his usual abilities. It's insane that this part of the game got past Nintendo's much-ballyhooed QA team in its current state. Likewise, there's a level of coherence lost in the move from the top-down dungeons of the original Zelda to the dungeon-crawl third-person action-platformer ones in Zelda II. After reaching Death Mountain, I tend to suspect Nintendo wanted to push the technological limits of the Disk System and original NES, and they went too far. Every temple and dungeon goes on far longer than it should, and Death Mountain is the first example of this problem. To see the issue reach a breaking point, look no further than Zelda II's final dungeon, the Great Palace.

Zelda II's Great Palace will forever stand as one of the most unrelenting dungeons to ever grace the Zelda series. It's a massive labyrinth that requires backtracking, item collection, and the expected end-game boss rush. Also, anything you can imagine from this era that would make an individual level actively unfun is present in the Great Palace. Pits of lava that immediately kill you? Yup, that's here! Zero checkpointing, so you must do the whole level from scratch if you die? You bet that's here! The cherry on top has to be the Thunderbird boss, whose main gimmick is that you can only beat it if you have a unique magical ability (i.e., Thunder). However, this spell is NOT present in the dungeon and can only be obtained by completing an unmarked quest in a nearby town. And if you're going to employ the Angry Video Game Nerd's "pro tip" about ducking and stabbing at Dark Link's knees, know that that tip only applies to the PAL NES release. In future releases and the original Disk System version, Nintendo programmed the final boss in the game to leap and attack you from above if it sees you crouching. That's right, over time, Nintendo has made Zelda II harder!

The Switch Version Of Zelda II Is Low-Key A Good Time

Many people behind Zelda II, including Miyamoto, have recognized it as an aberration. Nonetheless, Nintendo has never attempted to whitewash it from the history books. The game has been made available or re-released for virtually every single platform Nintendo has launched since the game debuted on the Famicom Disk System. The game's most recent re-release on the Switch is notable for one particular quality of life addition. If you fan through the menus, you'll find an official ROM-hacked version of Zelda II. With this version, the game provides Link with max stats across the board and entirely allows the player to ignore the game's leveling system. As a result, with its RPG mechanics thrown to the wayside, you can enjoy the game far better and navigate its innate bullshit more easily.

Not needing to worry about unlocking levels or new abilities allowed me to appreciate the ambitious size of Zelda II's world. The game is so much larger than its predecessor that, even while I was cursing the game, I couldn't help but respect the effort put into it. Yes, the dungeons are labyrinthine to a fault, but they also have so much variety in how they play and function; you cannot help but commend the team behind the game for thinking outside the box. The enemy variety is enormous, and the game does a fantastic job crafting this sense of biomes or different ecosystems in the world of Hyrule. It's still a flawed experience with traps that spell immediate doom at every corner, but when I didn't have to fret about RPG stat growth, I admit I had a better time. Also, the Switch version of the game replaced the original English translation with one that is far more coherent, which makes knowing what you need to do in the game far easier.

Nonetheless, the part of the game that clicked with me the most was its combat. Until you learn the three or four exploits that break this game sideways, Zelda II emphasizes Link engaging in one-on-one sparring matches. The clearest example in the game involves the Iron Knuckle enemies. These knights have an almost uncanny intelligence as they raise and lower their shields when dueling Link, forcing you to treat your battles like a chess match. You must pay attention to visual cues and time your button presses, almost as if you are playing a rhythm game. If you check out any speed runs for Zelda II that feature commentary, you will find that is a recurring comment about the game. It's a cool thing to see and experience in a video game made in 1987, and with Souls-like titles all the rage today, I think a growing population should consider checking the game out when possible. It's a messy, ambitious, crunchy, and beautiful game that underscores the creative heights and limits of Nintendo and Shigeru Miyamoto.

Even if you come away from Zelda II hating the game, it has one massive feather in its cap that Wand of Gamelon can never claim to have. Zelda II has a legacy. Zelda II was an early pioneer of action RPGs or platformers with light RPG elements. Faxanadu and Crystalis came AFTER Zelda II and did much to refine and hone many of its ideas into more playable and enjoyable packages. However, there's no denying either title borrowed HEAVILY from Zelda II and likely would not have existed in their current forms without its presence. Modern titles, too, owe much to the game. Shovel Knight is the clearest example of a game drawing mechanical inspiration, not from Zelda 1, Ocarina of Time, Wind Waker, or Breath of the Wild, but Zelda II instead. Shovel Knight's side-scroller format and boss design utilize the same vinegar strokes as Zelda II, but in a complete package that sands off the rough edges. In that regard, Zelda II is on par with the de Havilland Comet. A flawed early pioneer that tried ideas before anyone else did and committed design flaws others likely would have made if they were in Nintendo's place at the time. And hopefully, in playing it, you'll understand why I think pairing it along the likes of Wand of Gamelon or Zelda's Adventure is entirely unfair.

Preamble

About a week ago, the figureheads behind Wild Arms and Shadow Hearts debuted a double Kickstarter campaign to fund two projects billed as spiritual successors to those long-dormant franchises. These games are Armed Fantasia: To the End of the Wilderness and Penny Blood, and the teams behind both titles have decided to pool their star power together to get both projects some marketing attention. This combined crowdfunding campaign has since crossed the $1 million mark and has wholly smashed the original goal of $750,000 for both titles. As we speak, the teams working on each project are setting new stretch goals, and the games have since secured PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Switch ports. The consensus has been mostly positive since the debut of the crowdfunding page, and given that funds and backers are still rolling in, I find myself in a weird position. Neither Wild Arms nor Shadow Hearts are the tentpole franchises they once were, but they boot vocal enough fans that want to see them return, and I don't want this blog to come across as raining on those people's parade. What the campaign is banking on is no different from what Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is attempting to do as it bills itself as a spiritual successor to Suikoden or what Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night accomplished just a few years prior. Likewise, I want to clarify that I am not implying that WILD BUNCH Productions and YUKIKAZE, the development houses connected to Armed Fantasia and Penny Blood, respectively, are guilty of criminal wrongdoing or deceptive marketing. However, something about this crowdfunding campaign still does not sit well with me.

First, and this will come up repeatedly throughout this blog, the combined nature of the Kickstarter campaign immediately comes across to me as a marketing gimmick. Many problems with the current campaign page would be demonstrably better had each game gotten individual Kickstarter pages with referral links and recommendations to the other project prominently affixed at the top. I get that Wild Arms and Shadow Hearts fit into two similar B-Tier JRPG niches, but each franchise aimed for wholly different tones and audiences. Wild Arms always had the reputation of featuring light-hearted and newcomer-friendly JRPG adventures. In contrast, Shadow Hearts started as a horror-themed JRPG, with its first outing being the highly atmospheric Koudelka. Likewise, both IPs have different progenies, figureheads, and sources of inspiration. Seeing spiritual successors to both franchises presented next to each other, as if they are a one-to-one swap, fucks with my brain in a way I still have not been able to get over even after a week.

Second, the presence of a handful of Kickstarter red flags has me concerned. Let's not beat around the bush. While Kickstarter, Indiegogo, Fig, and several other crowdfunding platforms have allowed hundreds of indie developers to secure the funds necessary to get their passion projects off the runway, none are perfect. For every example of an independent studio successfully reviving an oft-forgotten classic franchise, there is double that amount in scams or projects that never see the light of day. We live in a post-Mighty No. 9, post-Unsung Story: Tale of the Guardians, post-Star Citizen, and post-Ouya world. While there's no denying that great things have been done thanks to crowdfunding, there's also no denying the presence of abuse and malfeasance with the business model. Whether intended or not, the developers working on Armed Fantasia and Penny Blood haven't exactly put their best foot forward. Both projects, and the combined campaign, in general, have massive question marks that prevent me from getting excited or even humoring the idea of shelling out money to support the teams working on either game. So, without further ado, let's jump into some reasons for my hesitation.

Problem #1: The Kickstarter Tiers Are A GODDAMN FUCKING MESS!

As mentioned before, I'm still not sold on the premise of a "combined" Kickstarter. I understand there are two listed developers for each project and that the studios working on their respective games have plans to make the development process as transparent as possible. However, the fact the current Kickstarter page is trying to annotate tiers for TWO GAMES means that navigating and figuring out which tier to back is an absolute fiddly nightmare. I do not think I have seen a single Kickstarter page with as many backer options as the one for Armed Fantasia and Penny Blood. I give the teams behind these games credit; they have every conceivable base covered. There's even a ¥1,000,000 (~$7,120 or ~€7,200) tier aimed at business owners or people with connections in the video game industry.

That said, I find it impossible to figure out what cosmetic upgrade packs are worth the investment. My guess is most of them are worthless in the grand scheme because many of these upgrades are still entirely conceptual. However, Kickstarter was not designed to make navigating this many tiers a fun or intuitive user experience, and I found it downright PAINFUL scrolling down the tabs after ten minutes. It was nice of them to have "Click This Tier If You Want Both Games" options, but doing so means you have triple the number of choices to fan through. However, that's not the only issue of having this many tiers associated with a Kickstarter campaign. There's another issue with how the developers of these games have structured this campaign that I feel I can best articulate using images rather than words.

So, yeah, that's a mess if I have ever seen one! Again, I must emphasize that WILD BUNCH Productions and YUKIKAZE are not guilty of doing anything beyond the pale here. They are, in fact, following a Kickstarter playbook I have seen one too many times. While your brain might tell you otherwise, having graduated backer tiers as has been done here makes perfect business sense. Maybe, you went into the Kickstarter page only expecting to back the basic digital release tiers but noticed that for just $5 more, you could get some merch or an exclusive Kickstarter-only upgrade. Psychologically, $5 doesn't seem that much, so you make the bump once but then notice the tier above that one has a fancy sword and is only $2.50 more than the previous one. This template is how EVERY current Kickstarter works these days. The issue with this particular campaign is how "hard in the paint" they went, and I fear they are providing too many versions of the same games. The last thing you want to do is seriously fracture a new fanbase and cause early backers to feel like they opted into an inferior product. We will discuss why I think this campaign desperately needs better communication later. Still, as things stand, the aggressive tier model employed here makes it impossible for outsiders to feel comfortable making an informed decision. As a result, the current campaign page may scare away some consumers.

Problem #2: The Fundraising Goal Is Not Close To Enough Money Unless The Devs Aren't Telling Us Something

$750,000 across two game projects. That was the initial goal of this combined Kickstarter campaign. Now, the scope and sequence of each project are still up in the air. However, with both being billed as spiritual successors to long-standing video game series that delivered on full-fledged JRPG experiences, I think it is safe to say both are planned to be more in-depth than your average RPG Maker joint. I'm not going to pen what I think would be the "best" number of hours each game should boot for me to feel like they delivered on their initial promises when the Kickstarter first launched. Nonetheless, looking at what the development teams have already shown and indicated they have planned for each project makes me slightly concerned that something is up and the campaign is withholding some pertinent information. I feel that because, even at the current total of over $1,300,000, they still have not raised enough money for the two ambitious projects they are promising.

With this Kickstarter, there are a lot of possible scenarios to consider or run through your head. If we are going with the idea that all these projects needed were the initially advertised $750,000 split right down the middle for each game, then I think you need to temper your expectations. If all these two productions are using is their Kickstarter money, then, at best, the development teams MAYBE have enough to get a vertical slice put together that they can then pitch to a larger studio. However, I doubt that's the case considering both teams are already showcasing what looks like story and gameplay footage of projects that are well past the prototype phase. Coming from Xenoblade Chronicles 3 to these projects gave me an odd sense of déjà vu. The screenshots and demos they have shown thus far don't look fake and showcase big 3D avatars and combat sequences, and that's not something you accomplish without having some money in the bank.

Both projects being this far in development, signals one of two possible scenarios. Either:

A) They are starting with Kickstarter before they pitch the games to a larger studio with their backer numbers as evidence of why these projects are a good investment.

OR

B) The combined Kickstarter is being done purely for marketing, and these games don't necessarily need earth-shattering campaign numbers to keep the lights on.

I want to clarify that I have no moral issues with either scenario. Both have become widespread business models for larger named Kickstarter campaigns. However, a little transparency would go a long way for both projects. If the Kickstarter money is primarily going into marketing while also being marketing itself, there's a way to communicate that to your backers. I have seen dozens of campaigns start things off by stating, "This project is going to be made regardless, but we want to know how wide a net to cast or how many more people are interested in what we are making." The bluntness of this might initially rub some the wrong way. Still, more often than not, I have seen this specific example of transparent signposting resonate well and make sure the long-term ambitions of the developer do not clash with their backers. This point leads me to the first of my scenarios. In the year of our Lord 2022, you want to avoid a Shenmue III Kickstarter situation. Suppose you are still pitching possible partnerships with other publishers after debuting a Kickstarter. In that case, you might want to communicate that at some point before people get angry that their platform headcanons aren't real. Look, I'm not faulting someone trying to run a business, but history has shown that when a Kickstarter project locks in a deal with Sony or Nintendo after the fact, people get fucking pissed. I know the current Kickstarter page promises not to sign any console exclusivity contracts, but I doubt that rules out Epic throwing them a wad of money and blocking them from releasing their shit on Steam. Therefore, the lack of ANY clarity on either development team's "end goals" feels skeevy.

Problem #3: Supporters Prefer The Wild Arms Project Over The Shadow Hearts One, And Both Fanbases Want Completely Different Things

One of the reasons I highly doubt the currently raised Kickstarter funds are all Wild Bunch Productions and Yukikaze is working with is because the current proportion of Kickstarter backers is far from equitable. When scanning the individual backer tiers, you will notice Armed Fantasia (i.e., the Wild Arms-inspired project) outperforms Penny Blood (i.e., the Shadow Hearts-inspired project) about two-to-one. It is worth mentioning the vast majority of backers are selecting the tiers that support both games. Some of the individual tiers barely crest the 50 backers mark, whereas the duo tiers are already in the thousands. The most popular tier right now is the "Combo Digital Deal," which will likely break the 3,000 mark before the campaign ends. However, there's no denying that the Wild Arms-like project is getting more attention and press coverage than its Shadow Hearts equivalent. This detail poses a few problems in the future.

I again have to question if, long-term, these games would have been better off with individual Kickstarter campaigns. If one project netted more workable funds than the other, if the drives were separate, they would be better able to stand on their laurels rather than be judged by the production values or scale of the opposing project. Nonetheless, it is almost good that the Kickstarter backers have been slightly inequitable because one of these projects (i.e., Armed Fantasia) seems far more ambitious in scope and sequence. Armed Fantasia appears to be going for a more open-world format across a still unknown number of chapters or hours. In contrast, Penny Blood promises a more linear but cinematic experience. Similarly, the fanbases for each project want two almost diametrically opposed things. The fans backing Armed Fantasia want a fun, light-hearted adventure that showcases an enormous world on par with Wild Arms 2 or 3. The fans supporting Penny Blood care less about scale. Instead, their concerns lie in the new game emulating the first game's mood and tone and avoiding the mistakes committed with the third game, From the New World. I'm not going to suggest that this partnership can't thread this needle, but it won't be easy.

Finally, the combined Kickstarter has clarified that two development teams are working on each game. However, how these two teams interact with each other throughout their game's development remains muddy. For example, when you back one of the combined tiers that net you both games, you get TWO Discord invites, one for Armed Fantasia and the other for Penny Blood. Looking at the current Kickstarter page, both teams agree to surface each stage of their game's development. However, when you dig further, you find that both games have notably different development goals and release targets. There's also no mention of how the two projects will interact, if at all, and little context on why they sought out a combined Kickstarter in the first place. That, at least to me, seems like a recipe for disaster unless both teams are completely on the same page and will agree to withhold their products, so they launch around the same time. I can only imagine the nightmare situation of one project coming out and the other being one to two years behind schedule.

Problem #4: The Communication From The Devs Has Been Concerning

Speaking of pending release date controversies, let's discuss the number one reason why I'm not backing this campaign. If you scroll through the FAQ section of the current Kickstarter page, you will find what I consider the gravest Cardinal Sin in the realm of video game crowdfunding projects. While both games have a March 2025 date listed as the "expected" release date, both development teams want you to note that it is a placeholder and not even a fuzzy release target. You read that right. If you back either of these games, you are backing something with no promised or official release date! Don't believe me? Here's what they say on their Kickstarter page!

We have been here before, so I don't think I need to belabor this point as much as my previous ones. While a handful of crowdfunded video game undertakings have delivered on products with fuzzy release dates, most have not. Likewise, even if we interpret the March 2025 date as a target, which the development team doesn't want you to, that puts both games on par with Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes. However, Eiyuden Chronicle raised over $4.5 million, and even it struggled with its three-year development cycle, especially with the pandemic in full swing. Armed Fantasia and Penny Blood will likely not face as many pandemic-related barriers. Still, with fewer resources and what I can only assume is less staffing, the challenges ahead are nothing to dismiss flippantly. Likewise, with Armed Fantasia and Penny Blood working with different design scales, I can only assume they are also operating under different development roadmaps. What one team or crew views as their "end goal" is not necessarily going to fly for the other. I think this alone is why both studios are so cagey about talking about solid release dates. They need to hash things out more in the coming months and years, so they are at least within a stone's throw of each other. And even when you look at a game like Bloodstained as a gold standard for spiritual successors to beloved Japanese-made classics, there are some caveats worth mentioning. Yes, Bloodstained is very good, but it took them four years to make the damn thing, and they're still working on stretch goals to this day.

I should note that some have noted the confusion related to the campaign's statement on its release might be a translation issue. I can see that, at least partially. As someone with Japanese-speaking relatives, I can see some non-native English-speaker-related struggles on this current campaign page. Nonetheless, they're still asking people to contribute their money in non-insignificant amounts and should be judged for their present lack of coherence. However, release date confusion isn't the only source of poor communication from this Kickstarter page. I have already discussed how the current Kickstarter does a TERRIBLE job of conveying why this needs to be a combined effort and how these two projects will interact. Another issue I have noticed is that the current campaign does a poor job of building the credibility of each game.

If you ask me to pick one of these two projects to see the light of day, nine times out of ten, I would say Penny Blood only because I have a soft spot for the insanity of the Shadow Hearts games. Nonetheless, Penny Blood's current director, Matsuzo Machida, has had a bit of an inconsistent track record. Sure, he was the mastermind behind the first two games and their fascinating mix of alternate history and Lovecraftian horror. However, he also is the person who ratcheted up the second game's "sex appeal" and insisted on including a lot of fanservicey bullshit in the third game. Things are EXACTLY THE SAME for Armed Fantasia, with Akifumi Kaneko, the lead designer and producer of Wild Arms, being the big named attached to the project. However, even he has a bit of a credibility gap, considering he was the figurehead that led the Wild Arms franchise to the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. You can give the man all the credit in the world for making and designing Wild Arms 2 and Wild Arms 3, but he was equally responsible for the bizarre design decisions in Wild Arms 4 and spearheaded many of the groan-inducing creative choices in Wild Arms XF. So, I need to ask which version of Wild Arms or Shadow Hearts we are getting.

I don't mention any of this to indict the names attached to either revival effort. Instead, I include it in this write-up to remind everyone that the people connected to this campaign have bumps and bruises in their careers, and there's no guarantee that what they are working on presently will manifest itself into a flawless stellar crystal. Likewise, if both teams are promising "throwbacks," I will insist on more clarity on what they mean. Saying you're "making a new Wild Arms game" or "a spiritual follow-up to Shadow Hearts" can mean way more than when Bloodstained promised a new Castlevania or Eiyuden Chronicle a new Suikoden. Wild Arms and Shadow Hearts have seen mechanical evolution and different storytelling styles attempted across their entries. So, the onus is on the teams working on Armed Fantasia and Penny Blood to articulate better what direction, both narrative and mechanical, they plan to take with each game before I would feel comfortable backing either. But barring that and clarity on my other points, I'm withholding my financial support. However, that does not mean I don't wish the best for these games and those working on them. With both Wild Arms and Shadow Hearts inactive, it's comforting to see someone taking the novel ideas from both series and putting them to use. However, only time will tell if you or I will ever get the opportunity to see that come to fruition.

Author's Note: The the second part of a multi-part retrospective on Final Fantasy VI, If you missed the first part here's the link:

• Finishing Final Fantasy VI - Episode 1: Is This The Greatest Video Game Introduction?
• Finishing Final Fantasy VI - Episode 2: Hot Take Time: The Opera House Scene Is Very Good (But Setzer Sucks)

If you enjoyed this episode, here's a directory to the first episodes of every Final Fantasy game I have covered on this site thus far:

• Part 1 of Final Fantasy I series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy II series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy V series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy VII series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy VIII series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy IX series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy X series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy X-2 series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy XI series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy XII series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy XIII series
• Part 1 of Final Fantasy XIII-2 series

Part 11: Thamasa Is The Last Time This Game Is Deliberately Funny

This blog's three big talking points are exactly what the title suggests. Today I'm going to review the game's "big twist," introduction of the World of Ruin, and its cavalcade of character recruitment-focused side quests. However, there's plenty to discuss before and in between that trifecta. For example, after you wrap up the events surrounding the Sealed Gate, there's a poignant and solemn moment at Vector with the Emperor. In the previous two episodes of this retrospective, I have mentioned how much I enjoy how the game breaks up the usual town-dungeon-boss formula with interstitial set pieces. The Opera House scene is the ultimate example, but plenty of others do as good a job mixing things up in the game. The dinner table scene with Vector's Emperor is no slouch, given that it plays into the story's gut-wrenching "big con." In this case, after the Espers break from their realm and enter the world of humanity, they unleash an onslaught of destruction that torches Vector and leaves other surrounding towns in ruins. When the Returners approach the Emperor, he swears that his wars of conquest are over and will assist in alleviating the Esper threat. However, your interaction with him is a diplomatic game of chess wherein your dialogue prompts must press the Emperor to admit his wrongs without putting all of the blame on him and his fellow citizens. There's a shocking amount of nuance with each choice you make, and the best answers are not immediately apparent, which threw me for a loop because I felt like the dialogue prompts were harder to weigh and assess than most modern BioWare or Bethesda games.

This point of order leads us to the journey to Thamasa and the mysterious village we encounter there. Before you reach Thamasa, it's important to note how much the game wants you to believe you are nearing the end. Having played I, II, IV, and V before VI, I knew the game had something up its sleeve. Nonetheless, when General Leto nobly speaks of the mission to Thamasa as the "end of the road," there's no denying that you want him to be correct. Through your interactions with him and your scavenger hunt at Vector (i.e., the part where the Emperor asks you to talk to twenty soldiers), you begin to accept the game's message that the everyday soldiers on both sides of this specific conflict are not so different. Now, I want to make a bit of a hard stop and say that Final Fantasy VI is not the first game, nor is it the last, in this series that has this message. Final Fantasy IX and General Beatrix's redemption arc come to mind first when I think about this topic. I want to say that modern Japanese writers conveniently love this idea and sneak it into a ton of anime, manga, and video game stories. However, I find it to be a wicked cop-out. It tells the audience that individual soldiers are pathetic and have no agency in their actions as they are accountable to orders from a higher power. Not only that, but we should judge these soldiers by the weight of their hearts, and if they did something heinous at a time of war, then golly, we can't blame them because they couldn't help it! All I will say is fuck that shit! Fuck that shit straight to the fucking sun. Also, I should note that I took the time to recruit Mog, and I like Mog, thanks to their high HP. Nonetheless, the actual use for Mog comes during the World of Ruin and when you can equip them with the Moogle Charm.

Nevertheless, there's no denying how quaint and pleasurable the quest at Thamasa is on paper. Leto has a touching interplay with Terra about coming to terms with one's emotions and falling in love. There's the brief hint that the two have a potential subplot in the future, and when the game rips that hope away from you, it does a magnificent job of further hammering home the nefarious nature of Kefka. I also want to mention how fearful I was that Terra would spend the entire game as a pseudo-robot that everyone needs to teach emotions, and I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that not to be the case. Once you reach Thamasa, I have to be honest; the game insisting that the villagers being mages is a mystery annoyed me. Watching the characters see kids throw fireballs and not know what was up makes them seem like complete dumbasses. However, eventually, the game stops fucking about and begins to punch its weight when we learn that a girl named Relm is stuck in a burning building. With the assistance of her grandfather, Strago, you make your way to Relm and pull her out in the nick of time. Many of you might point out how rescuing children or family members from a burning building is a recurring trope in the Final Fantasy franchise. I think a little bit of context in this matter is necessary. While working on Final Fantasy III, Hironobu Sakaguchi learned that a fire had broken out in his childhood home. When he arrived at the scene, the house had burned to the ground, and his mother had died. That tragedy informed his outlook for the better part of a decade, with fire and flames engulfing the most tragic and devastating moments in the series until he left Square. Final Fantasy VII's "Nibelheim Incident" is the most prominent example of Sakaguchi's grief bleeding into his work.

And yet, Thamasa is defined very much with an undercurrent of comedy. The back-and-forth dialogue between Strago and Relm is a manzai comedy act, with Relm and Stargo exemplifying the boke and tsukkomi archetypes, but luckily without any physicality. This story beat continues into the Esper Cave, where you battle Ultros. This boss encounter is honestly the last time the game attempts at comedy within the scope of the mainline story. From this point forward, the characters need to earn their rays of hope. For those who played the game on the SNES, you may recall a nasty bug where the game locks up and erases your save data if you attempt to use Relm's Sketch ability. That's not the case in the Pixel Remaster, but I don't use Sketch outside this battle. Most enemies either are immune to the elemental or status effect-inflicting moves you reflect on to them, and "Control" is such a vastly superior alternative. Then, when it comes to Strago, he's introduced far too late for me to give a fuck about his Blue Mage gameplay hooks, especially after I took the time to make Gau a murder machine. It was nice he started with a water-based attack to make things easier in the burning building, but the rest of his starting abilities are weak.

Part 12: The Big "Twist" Isn't That Big In Hindsight, But It's Still Good!

However, the game's light-hearted nature comes to a quick and brutal end. Though General Leto manages to parley with the Espers and convinces them that there is a peaceful solution to their current conflict, Kefka arrives to ruin the scene. The clown begins massacring the Espers to turn them into Magicite and even has a company of soldiers to support him. Leto is horrified and attempts to stop Kefka by battling him in a one-on-one confrontation. However, Kefka gets the better of him through trickery and murders him. With a treasure trove of Magicite and Leto out of the picture, Kefka departs after summoning the Floating Continent. The party learns that the Floating Continent is the island on which the Cave to the Sealed Gate was residing and contains the "Warring Triads," three statues holding three powerful gods that keep the world in balance. Again, the story wants you to believe this is the end of the game. My hindsight did not allow me to buy that for a minute, even during my first playthrough. Even then, the Floating Continent is one of the game's most prominent "points of no return." If you have any business to attend to on the World of Balance, now's the time. If there is one niggling nitpick, I think locking Mog's Water Dance exclusively to the World of Balance is a dick move.

Before we discuss the fantastic storytelling on the Floating Continent, we need to talk about it in some capacity as a level. I understand why the Floating Continent is the most challenging level you have encountered up to this point. However, I think the design team went a little too hard. First, the random encounter rate is INSANE. There were times when I felt like I took three to four steps in between random encounters. The frequency of those battles makes the second issue of the level even worse. That problem involves not knowing where you need to go or what to do to trigger the next boss battle and ensuing cutscene. Some like the Giger-inspired biomechanical look of the Floating Continent, but it has one massive drawback. Its monochromatic color palette makes it difficult to parse what the interactable elements might be. I cannot begin to list the number of times I missed a switch because I misunderstood it as an ancillary background texture. And it isn't easy. The enemies you encounter at the Floating Continent don't just hit hard, but a large portion of them inflict a myriad of status effects that can be a chore to cure. I understand the designers did this on purpose as a "gear check" for the player. However, nothing leading up to the Floating Continent even remotely prepares you for what you deal with there.

However, who honestly gives a shit about Platinum Dragons and Behemoths? If we are going to talk about the Floating Continent, then we need to talk about the story. Whenever the topic of the Floating Continent comes up in Final Fantasy fandom circles, two discussion points usually crop up. First are those that relay how shocked they were to discover Kefa was the main antagonist. Second are the people who present the plot twist involving Kefka defeating the heroes and bringing forth the World of Ruin as a massive risk the likes of which the franchise had never seen. I appreciate the spirit of these mindsets but disagree with them violently. Final Fantasy I features an ass pull twist boss that comes out of nowhere. While Kefka is narratively more interesting than Garland and Chaos, there's no denying that every Final Fantasy game since the first one has been refining and perfecting this plot device. Also, I don't buy the premise that it is surprising Kefka is the ultimate bad guy in the story. Even if you disregard hindsight and that he's a mascot for Final Fantasy VI, Kefka is a larger-than-life character that you know is up to something.

Regarding the World of Ruin being a shocker, I have to check my privilege of playing previous games in the series before completing this one. Final Fantasy VI was a gateway game for a massive number of people. To those who got their start playing RPGs, thanks to it, this revelation sticks out as a daring and beautiful masterpiece. Also, a significant amount of gall is needed to make players of a video game wade in their failure as thoroughly as Final Fantasy VI does. The sense of loss and disappointment the characters convey persists longer than you think. While some, like Sabin or Gau, rejoin your party enthusiastically and answer the call to adventure without missing a beat, other characters like Locke, Cyan, and Terra require more work. Part of me almost wishes that there was at least one member of your party that entirely refuses the second call to adventure to hammer home the characters being at their lowest point. Nevertheless, the game wants to show you the value of perseverance and provides every character with at least some form of emotional or psychological release. All of that is only possible if Kefka is allowed to blow up the world, and the writers had great foresight in recognizing that.

Yet, I think it is essential to recognize Final Fantasy VI not as the Ur-example of genre and series standards but as the final 2D torch-bearer and the narrative codifier for the future of the series. I remember the characters of Final Fantasy IV fucking up so bad that they needed to play makeup for two hours and chase after the big bad to the moon. I also remember the characters of Final Fantasy V losing an entire party member while allowing an evil tree man to smash two dimensions together. The Final Fantasy games, for much of their history, are about a series of self-contained narratives that share a collection of storytelling and mechanical traditions. Final Fantasy VI can remain the best emblem of those traditions while still owing much to its predecessors. It also left many of these devices with plenty of room for further refinement. All that aside, the cinematic introduction of the World of Ruin is simply outstanding. I audibly gasped when I saw Setzer's airship break in half and was enthralled at how the game made me care for random NPCs as they plummeted to their deaths as earthen mounds suddenly jutted from the ground. The absolute carnage of Kefka's master plan in full action is a sight to see and something I can assure you withstands the test of time.

Part 13: The Start Of The World Of Ruin Is Great (Except For Setzer)!

To make up for the fact that I spent most of the last section lecturing semi-negatively about the reveal of the World of Ruin, I want to discuss a scene I love more than the average Final Fantasy VI fan! That's right; I want to talk about catching fish for Cid! I know some people actively hate the sequence on Solitary Island because they feel like it is an anti-climactic follow-up to everything that takes place on the Floating Continent. To those people, I say "hogwash!" The Returners FAILED, and the best way to make that crystal clear to the player is to make you attend to the basic needs of one of your characters. In this case, you control Celes in a physically compromised state and struggle to help her feed her adopted father. Going from trying to avert a world crisis to working to meet the foundational blocks of Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a spectacular fall from grace. Some might contend the physical process of catching the fish and dragging them to Cid is monotonous and mechanically unsatisfying. I would counter that's the fucking point because Cid dying is the more logical outcome given the circumstances.

I'll be honest, the one part about Solitary Island I'm not too fond of stems from the ending in which you save Cid. Cid revealing that he made a raft for Celes to use to get to civilization has always felt like a cheap deus ex machina. That is why I think the ending in which Cid dies and Celes attempts suicide by jumping off a cliff is the more impactful outcome. It gives Celes a strong sense of why she needs to complete the adventure she started in the World of Balance and better communicates her frame of mind. Regardless of what you think, the game uses the subsequent two cities after Solitary Island to show the nigh omnipotence of Kefka. While at Tzen, beams of energy set buildings on fire and toast innocent civilians. Luckily, it is also here where Celes meets up with Sabin, and if you want to know, I was jumping with glee. As I hinted at during the last episode, I tend to make the mistake of under-leveling Celes partly because she spends much of the World of Balance away from your party. Dragging her ass to Tzen is no fucking fun because the random encounters at the World of Ruin are notably more brutal than the ones in the World of Balance. The World of Ruin doesn't fuck around and is NOT programmed to account for you only having one player character for a brief moment. To add insult to injury, you can't grind on the Solitary Island before entering the main continents as the enemies there immediately die because they are afflicted with Sap. So, if your version of Celes is three to five levels behind the pace, you will have a miserable time during the bit inside the collapsing house.

However, at least with Sabin, you have some crowd control options even if the two characters don't have a substantial assortment of Esper abilities. I appreciate how Sabin is your only "easy" party member to recruit. Every subsequent character requires you to explore their life after you fail to stop Kefka. Some of these explorations are brisker than others, with a handful requiring the player to engage in repeat prodding and long-form quests. Edgar is a fun middle ground wherein the game wants you to see how everyone copes and responds to failure without too much fuss. Initially, it appears as if he's masquerading as a different person and no longer wishes to keep up with his duties as a king. You find him commanding a merry group of pirates under a new name and assume he's developed a persona to move on from the past. However, eventually, he announces he's secretly defeating criminal operations from within when it seems like you have him figured out. Part of me wishes the game committed to Edgar needing to develop a facade to come to terms with the wasteland of the World of Ruin, but discovering he's Final Fantasy VI's version of Batman isn't all that bad either.

Along the way, you explore villages from the World of Balance and immediately register the dire situation of the characters. Once bustling town squares now only have half the number of NPCs as before, and everyone has something to relay about how they survived and what toll the last year has taken on them. Later, there are examples of the NPCs showcasing flashbacks to better times, like when a bartender laments his present lack of customers and recalls when people were lining up to have a good time at his establishment. The new filter on the overworld gives the World of Ruin a sickly orange hue as if the planet is still ablaze. It is worth repeating that the Pixel Remaster neuters the punch here a bit with an overbearing amount of brightness that removes much of the World of Ruin's moodier shadows. Nonetheless, the introduction of the World of Ruin provides a solid first impression regardless of how you play Final Fantasy VI. I know when Avengers: Endgame came out, everyone and their grandmother wrote about the similarities between that film and Final Fantasy VI. Nevertheless, there's something timeless about the World of Ruin and people needing to get by on a dead planet.

The decision to have Setzer be one of your four "required" characters is understandable, considering he's the pilot. However, everything the game does with Setzer sucks complete and total shit. Setzer's "Boo hoo, I'm a victim of grief just like the rest of you!" act is something I have never accepted. Just because his girlfriend died many years ago doesn't excuse the fact he kidnaps women. I understand that Celes, Sabin, and Edgar chastize Setzer for turning to alcohol as a coping mechanism. However, it sucks that their efforts amount to joking about it and humorously calling him a sack of shit. Darril's Tomb is also the proverbial "Undead Dungeon" where you fight a bunch of ghouls, ghosts, and Malboros that inflict you with every status effect under the sun. It's annoying to play and made worse thanks to the MANY flashbacks where you get more of Setzer's unconvincing sob story. Whether intended or not, I think there's something incredibly shitty about a male character putting his foot down and saying, "I NEED ME A WOMAN TO COMPLETE MY LIFE!" and that's the parting message with Setzer. There's also no denying how Setzer always feels like a cheaper, less charming facsimile of other members of your party. His philandering ways in the World of Balance echo Edgar's, and the conclusion of Darril's Tomb, wherein the completion of the dungeon absolves Setzer of his grief, is done much better with Locke's quest.

Part 14: Because I Love You, I Played Every Single Side Quest In Final Fantasy VI

Whenever I reach the "point of no return" in a Final Fantasy game, I spend excessive time completing optional quests. Final Fantasy VI is no different, but I want to clarify one point. While recruiting the rest of your party members is technically optional, I think the opposite is true in execution. I know there are ways to complete the game with the default four characters. However, outside the context of speedrunning, you honestly owe it to yourself to get everyone back on the team. The storylines and plot threads associated with some of your former teammates are among the best in the game, and having the whole cast adds a lot to the epilogue. However, as we will review shortly, the characters and Final Fantasy VI's end-game content are shockingly uneven. Some characters, towns, and environments get a ton of love, whereas others get one-off scenes that add very little to the overarching themes of the narrative.

So, I did everything and want to share my "recommendations" for anyone who might play Final Fantasy VI for the first time. I'm sticking with the character recruitment missions for this episode and will do the other ancillary tasks next time. To assist in my reviews, I will evaluate the game's side quests based on five categories:

1. Time, Physical, & Emotional Investment (1-10): How long does the side quest take to complete? A score of 1 suggests completion is almost instantaneous, whereas a score of 10 indicates the side quest is as exhaustive as finishing the entire game.
2. Gameplay/Loot Utility (1-10): Are the mechanical and gameplay rewards for this side quest worth it compared to the average time investment? A score of 1 or less suggests the rewards are trash or nothing, whereas a score of 10 indicates the item or items provided are overpowered or strongly recommended.
3. Storytelling & Worldbuilding Relevancy (1-10): Is this a pointless fetch quest for a random hat, or does it add something to the story? A score of 1 means there is little character or story relevance. In contrast, a score of 10 indicates the side quest is as or possibly more narratively essential than some or many mainline quest missions.
4. Difficulty (1-10): How hard is the mission to complete for the everyday person or someone playing this game for the first time? A score of 1 means no barriers to finishing the side quest exists. In contrast, a score of 10 means the side quest either has major dexterity-based accessibility issues OR conflicts, encounters, or boss battles associated with the side quest pose a significant hindrance that requires extensive planning or grinding on the part of the player.
5. Discoverability (1-10): How much of a pain is it to get to and start this quest? Likewise, what's it like traveling to all its associated locations and places? A score of 1 means the side quest is on a well-worn path or right in front of the player. A score of 10 means we have reached Knights of the Round levels of ridiculous backtracking and wandering around in circles.

Oh, one quick note. I will review Cyan's dream sequence in the final blog because that sequence comes AFTER you succeed at his recruitment mission.

Getting Sabin's Ultimate Ability

Premise: If you have been paying attention to Sabin's backstory, then you know he once trained to be a martial artist under the tutelage of a master named "Duncan." If you return to the cabin next to Narshe and Mt. Kolts with Sabin in your party, he will duel Duncan on top of the house. After their brawl, Sabin will unlock his final Blitz, the Phantom Rush (i.e., Bum Rush).

• Time, Physical, & Emotional Investment: 1/10 - No leveling is required to complete this quest. While it seems like Duncan and Sabin should have a one-on-one boss battle, that's not the case. All you need to do is remember to have Sabin in your rotation, and the game does the rest of the work for you.
• Gameplay/Loot Utility: 7/10 - Phantom Rush is an outstanding ability as it inflicts massive damage and is non-elemental. If Sabin is decently leveled, it quickly outpaces Flare and is only a few steps behind Ultima. However, it is a complicated command to perform, and if you are playing anything BUT the Pixel Remaster, it takes a lot of practice to get right. Also, during the late game, you should start to wean the characters from their abilities in favor of Magicite.
• Storytelling & Worldbuilding Relevancy: 2/10 - This scene is concise to the point where I consider it a massive disappointment. Sabin's relationships with his brother and Gau during the World of Balance were significant parts of his developing characterization, but neither fully forms in the World of Ruin. Also, Duncan is a nothing burger.
• Difficulty: 1/10 - It is a non-interactable cutscene.
• Discoverability: 2/10 - I guess one could argue knowing to go to the cabin is tricky. However, it's next to Narshe, a location you will visit at least once if you intend to make your party whole, and it's not as if the cabin is hard to find.

Recommendation: Do it, but only because it is so low-stakes that you might as well. Also, if you enjoy using Sabin, getting his ultimate ability is a must.

Gau's Sidequests

Premise: Gau has two distinct parts to his characterization during the World of Ruin. First, you need to get the Falcon and then park it on the Veldt. If you have three or fewer party members, you can encounter Gau, and he rejoins the party without a single protest. The second part involves reuniting Gau with his father. To accomplish this task, you must locate a home north of Doma and east of Nikeah. A cutscene will play when you enter the building with Sabin and Gau in your party.

• Time, Physical, & Emotional Investment: 2/10 - Like Sabin's cutscene, you do not need to worry about collecting trinkets or having characters leveled up to a certain point. However, I'll give this a point more than Sabin because getting Gau to spawn on the Veldt can take some time.
• Gameplay/Loot Utility: 5/10 - I'll give half credit because the first part of the quest adds Gau to your party. For the second part, surprisingly, there are no physical or material rewards for reuniting him with his father. Gau doesn't gain a locket his deceased mother once wore, nor does he gain a new powerful Rage ability. This sequence is all about character development.
• Storytelling & Worldbuilding Relevancy: 6/10 - I find the cutscene involving the party dressing up Gau to be supremely satisfying. While you can complete this sidequest at any point, I think it is essential to do it at the end or at least until you have your entire party back. That way, you can watch all the fun ways the characters play off each other. Also, the conclusion of Gau's scene with his father wherein he thanks Sabin is incredibly sentimental. It does not compare to some of the other character arcs in the World of Ruin, but that doesn't prevent it from being a fun, heartwarming moment where the characters get together and shoot the shit. I honestly think the game needs more moments like these.
• Difficulty: 2/10 - Reuniting Gau with his father is a non-interactable cutscene. Finding him on the Veldt can draw some gnarly random encounters, but nothing out of the ordinary.
• Discoverability: 4/10 - I have to ding the game slightly in this regard. It's easy to forget this house exists because you only encounter it during Sabin's route during the game's first act. It also doesn't help that it is tucked away in an easy-to-miss corner of the map, and you need TWO specific characters in your party to initiate the starting cutscene.

Recommendation: This is 100% worth it, but again, wait until you get the entire party before initiating it so you can maximize the storytelling.

Cyan's Recruitment Sidequest

Premise: The minute you finish things off with Setzer, your characters will find a pigeon with a note that has handwriting that matches Cyan's. The characters remark that the pigeon is heading for Maranda, a city you probably want to visit because an old lady there will identify where every old landmark and town from before is in the World of Ruin. When you find the letter's intended recipient, she states that the pigeons come from Zozo. When you head to Zozo, you discover it is as much a mess as before, but you'll eventually find a rusted-shut door to an apartment that can only be pried open by using oil from a merchant. Upon entering the building, you see Cyan, but he runs to the nearby mountains. You eventually chase after him and find his abode inside a cave and convince him to rejoin the party.

• Time, Physical, & Emotional Investment: 6/10 - At face value, you must explore three distinct locations (i.e., Maranda, Zozo, and Mt. Zozo) to recruit Cyan. I know you can skip the first of these, but you might as well go to Maranda because there are some excellent items and weapons there, and it's nice to reconnect with an old environment. The Zozo and Mt. Zozo parts of this mission are what almost kills it for me. Both are dungeons with a freakishly high encounter rate, and as we will talk about shortly, this recruitment mission is tough to complete when the game presents it to you.
• Gameplay/Loot Utility: 7/10 - Getting Cyan back is clutch. If you take the time to level him up, Cyan is a workhorse. I'll give him an extra point over Gau only because the late-game armor and swords he can pick up are ridiculous.
• Storytelling & Worldbuilding Relevancy: 6/10 - I love what the game does with Cyan as a character. Since his introduction in the World of Balance, the game has presented him as a "man out of time." His plot threads in the World of Ruin continue that. Furthermore, I enjoy the sentimentality of his Cyrano de Bergerac impersonation. Unfortunately, if you failed to start or finish the letter-sending quest in the World of Balance, the conclusion here might seem sudden or out of place. Also, the real payoff to Cyan doesn't happen until you return to Doma Castle and initiate his dream sequence.
• Difficulty: 6/10 - If you follow the game's recommendations and attempt to recruit Cyan after raising the Falcon, you might find yourself in a bind. I highly doubt a party featuring Celes, Sabin, Edgar, and Setzer is anyone's "A-Team." Additionally, some random encounters are absolute ball busters if you work with a sub-optimal party composition, making this a taxing ordeal. Delaying this mission until you have a few more characters in your rotation seems like a better course of action, but that doesn't change the serpentine dungeon design on the mountain being any less annoying.
• Discoverability: 2/10 - The game tells you how to start this mission right after you wrap up your shit with Setzer. There are extra steps, but even then, it tells you exactly what you need to do. The only curveball is maybe the rusted door, but even that's resolved quickly.

Recommendation: Yes, you should complete this mission.

Terra's Recruitment Mission

Premise: Terra is in Mobliz running an orphanage for children who lost their parents when Kefka brought forth the World of Ruin. When you first encounter her, she welcomes you but refuses to rejoin the party citing her obligations to protect the children around her. If you talk to her after raising the Falcon, you can press her further about the issue, but your dialogue is interrupted by a monster named Humbaba. After Terra intervenes in your battle against this beast as an Esper, she realizes she needs to join the fight against Kefka to learn more about herself.

• Time, Physical, & Emotional Investment: 2/10 - Mobliz is on the main continent, and you can even trigger the first part of your interactions with Terra before you get the Falcon. Because the town was a central focal point during the story, I cannot imagine anyone skipping it or struggling to find it. Likewise, everything you do here is appropriately paced, including your battles against Humbaba.
• Gameplay/Loot Utility: 10/10 - You get Terra back. What more needs to be said? Oh, and the Fenrir Magicite is incredibly useful. Terra is one of the strongest magic-casters in the game and the most lethal if you understand how to take advantage of her Esper form. Fenrir, on the hand, has the Banish ability, which can be handy on a few bosses, and the +30%MP buff it gives upon level-ups is enormous.
• Storytelling & Worldbuilding Relevancy: 7/10 - I enjoy what the game does with Terra at the orphanage. It's almost flawless for wrapping up her tragic backstory. I know some people dislike how her characterization errs ever so closely to the "frailty of women" trope Squaresoft was incredibly guilty of during this era. However, knowing Terra to be someone who never had a childhood, I couldn't help but feel emotional in watching her help children live their bests lives.
• Difficulty: 4/10 - The battles against Humbaba can be groan-inducing if you don't know they are coming. The first battle is a forced loss, and the second is only slightly above the random encounters you have experienced. The third battle is supremely annoying as Humbaba can blow away up to two party members. This move can prove meddlesome if you are trying to beat him with a top-heavy team. However, eventually, Terra arrives to bail you out as an Esper. Mercifully, the boss is weak to poison-based attacks, which Terra should have on tap.
• Discoverability: 3/10 - When you first explore Mobliz, finding the orphanage's hideout can be tricky. However, with the theme of the World of Ruin being "Hey, what if you saw how every city from the World of Balance is doing," it's hard to imagine missing Terra because you didn't know to go to Mobliz and check out every abandoned building.

Recommendation: Yes, you should do this mission. What the fuck are you doing if you don't recruit Terra?

Shadow's Recruitment Mission & Dreams

Premise: Shadow is somewhat in the same camp as Gau. To recruit him, you need to track him down to a specific location and then talk to him. The difference here is that he will only appear if you remember to wait for him when leaving the Floating Continent. Where things get murky is when you start to delve into his backstory. If you have Shadow in your party and stay in an inn, there's a chance a cutscene will play that shows the life and times of a man named Clyde. Clyde starts as a petty thief, and things come to a head when he tries to rob a train with his pal, Baram. Clyde ends up in Thamasa, where a woman attends to his injuries from the train robbery. In the final flashback, you see Shadow leaving Thamasa with Interceptor and leaving behind a baby girl.

• Time, Physical, & Emotional Investment: 4/10 - I will be honest. I have never authentically triggered all of Shadow's cutscenes in a normal playthrough. I always forget they exist, and by the time I remember, I'm scrambling about the World of Ruin and seeing how many of them I can trigger before fighting Kefka. It's weird. I can manage to trigger three cutscenes in a row, but I have never been able to watch the last one. That's part of the reason why I can't rank this too low. You need to go out of your way to have Shadow in your party AND use different inns, preferably at various intervals in the story.
• Gameplay/Loot Utility: 8/10 - Getting Shadow is "nice." At this stage of the game, you can start stocking up on shit for him to throw. Shadow hits like a truck with the appropriate equipment, and I can't forget to mention the various high-tier ninja-only equipment in the World of Ruin. Beyond that, his backstory is another cutscene-heavy sequence but takes multiple attempts to get the complete picture.
• Storytelling & Worldbuilding Relevancy: 6/10 - I think some people rank Shadow high in their rankings of Final Fantasy VI's characters because of his "coolness factor." I like how his music is unlike any you hear in the rest of the game. However, people often embellish what the game does with Shadow and instead graft their headcanons. It's fun to note that Final Fantasy VI leaves things ambiguous. Shadow being Relm's father, was not made canonical until AFTER Final Fantasy VI's release.
• Difficulty: 4/10 - Recruiting Shadow requires you to return to a cave on the Veldt. There's a decent number of random encounters to deal with, but the good news is that the enemies in the cave are weak to fire. As you follow Interceptor, you eventually run into a Behemoth boss, which is also mercifully vulnerable to fire. Annoyingly, however, the boss can revive itself, thus causing you to need to fight it twice.
• Discoverability: 5/10 - If you visit Thamasa, the citizens there will mention a ninja that "set out to defeat a horrible monster." Finding the next cave where Shadow resides isn't that hard, considering it's a previous environment from the World of Balance. What throws this category for a loop is getting all of his cutscenes. The game isn't particularly clear about how to trigger them or if you need to do something special to guarantee them.

Recommendation: Sure! Shadow is a good character when you decide to fight Kefka, especially if you feel your party is under-leveled or underprepared. His throw ability can make up for a lot because you probably have a ton of junk by this point. Just don't expect a ton from his cutscenes.

Recruiting Gogo

Premise: To get Gogo, you'll need to head to a triangular island near the upper-right portion of the map. You need to park the Falcon on this island and continue spawning random encounters until you find the Zone Eater. The trick is to allow the monster to eat your characters. Allowing this action to happen is the only way to access the secret dungeon in its belly. While there, you can encounter other trapped adventurers and plenty of goodies (i.e., the Genji Armor). When you reach the final chamber, you discover the legendary "Master of Mimicry," and he promptly joins your party.

• Time, Physical, & Emotional Investment: 6/10 - I will discuss this more in the "Difficulty" section, but the Zone Eater dungeon is not for the faint of heart. There's a lot of stuff in and about the dungeon that can get you in trouble. Between the heavy-hitting samurai enemies and platforming section, I found this to be one of the most challenging end-game dungeons short of The Cultists' Tower. Parts of this level are downright exhausting to play in a single sitting, and it does not help that it goes on a bit too long.
• Gameplay/Loot Utility: 5/10 - Gogo is an impossibly tricky character to assess. He cannot be taught magic via the Magicite System and instead needs to rely on his Mimic ability. If you can plan this out appropriately, he can do some decent damage. However, the random number goddess doesn't always love you, and if the characters get out of order, that makes Gogo's main gimmick a hindrance rather than an asset. That said, the Zone Eater dungeon is worth exploring, even if you don't like Gogo. There's a lot of high-tier loot worth catching if you can stay alive as you explore it.
• Storytelling & Worldbuilding Relevancy: 2/10 - Gogo is a non-factor in the story. He has a fun scene during the game's epilogue if you have him, but other than that, he adds almost nothing to the narrative. I will give him one point more than Umaro only because of the location you recruit him. There's some compelling worldbuilding inside the belly of the Zone Eater.
• Difficulty: 8/10 - Once you get past the first two screens, the level starts spawning samurai and ninjas that can easily wipe your party if you are unprepared. Also, there's a platforming section to this environment, which controls like hot garbage. If you fall off a platform, you have to start from scratch, and there's another section where you need to avoid falling rocks that is equally punishing. If you allow a stone to squish your party, you get an immediate "Game Over" and need to restart from your most recent save. There's a lot of cheap bullshit in this dungeon that makes it a complete pain in the ass.
• Discoverability: 7/10 - Not only is the starting location in the middle of nowhere but knowing the trick with the Zone Eater is a definite curveball. Once you enter the Zone Eater, the subsequent dungeon is labyrinthine to a fault. With no light at the end of the tunnel, it isn't easy knowing you can get Gogo in the first place.

Recommendation: Maybe. If you have a strong "Gotta Catch 'Em All!" sentiment, go for it. Getting Gogo is a decent gear check before you attempt some of the more challenging late-game content. If you can breeze through this part of the game, you are ready for almost everything else. However, if you feel like this part of the game is making you miserable, feel free to skip it.

Recruiting Mog & Collecting Valigarmanda (i.e., Triotoch)

Premise: If you forget to pick up Mog at the World of Balance, they can still join your party in the World of Ruin. Either way, head over to Narshe and make your way to the secret entrance you used to get out of Narshe during the game's first chapter. You'll find Mog, and he will join the party without much protest. However, he mentions a yeti in the upper caves and reminds the player of the frozen Esper from earlier. To save time, I'll lop getting Valigarmanda (i.e., Triotoch) in with Mog. The Esper challenges the player to prove they are worthy, and when they do, they relay a legend before turning into Magicite.

• Time, Physical, & Emotional Investment: 6/10 - I wasn't a fan of the floorplan of the Narshe Caves the first time, and I am not a fan of it here. I know the game wants you to go to the frozen Esper you saw at the start of the game, but it has been HOURS since you last saw it! Narshe doesn't have a yellowish World of Ruin filter that makes its pixels harder to parse out, but it still is tough to tell where you need to go in the caves. As a result, I always forget how to get to Valigarmanda and need to look it up in a guide. Other than that, it's the same dungeon you have seen countless times with the same encounter rate but with more formidable enemies. I didn't find it too demanding.
• Gameplay/Loot Utility: 8/10 - Mog gets plenty of praise for two reasons. First, their dance mechanic has its uses, and if you remember to pick up the "Water Dance" ability during the World of Balance, there are a lot of random encounters that will go down fairly quickly. The second and far more critical reason to pick up Mog is to utilize its Moogle Charm, which disables random encounters. That makes Mog a HUGE asset even if you put in zero time to level up their stats. Also, the Valigarmanda Esper is among the most useful because it teaches the best elemental spells and gives a nice Magic stat boost upon level-ups.
• Storytelling & Worldbuilding Relevancy: 4/10 - I can't say Mog adds nothing to the story, but his best story moments are in the World of Balance. The actual storytelling comes from your interactions with Valigarmanda. While brief, it is nice seeing things come full circle with something that was the focal point of the game's first act.
• Difficulty: 4/10 - The encounters at Narshe are more demanding in the World of Ruin than in the World of Balance. However, they should be manageable as long as you have been doing some world exploration or grinding. Valigarmanda is no slouch, but it has an easy out as it is weak to fire.
• Discoverability: 4/10 - As I said before, I find navigating the Narshe Caves unfun. Beyond that, I cannot imagine anyone having a hard time finding Narshe or not feeling like they should explore the town and its nearby cave in a normal playthrough. All you need to do is keep moving forward, and the game will do the rest. If you elected to skip Mog during the World of Balance, he might not immediately come to mind when you get the party back together. But even then, that's a low barrier to entry compared to the other party members.

Recommendation: Sure! For the Moogle Charm alone, Mog is a must for me. Being able to turn off random encounters makes some of the latter portions of the game (i.e., Locke's dungeon and the Cultists' Tower) far more tolerable. Returning to Narshe is also fun and worthwhile beyond picking up Mog.

Getting Umaro

Premise: After you pick up Mog and beat Valigarmanda, the Moogle will mention that a friend of his can be found in a different part of the Narshe Caves. It is important to note that you need Mog in your party if you wish to recruit Umaro. When you enter a new opening, you will eventually run into an abominable snowman that immediately attacks you. Luckily the monster is weak to fire and goes down rather quickly. When you knock out the yeti, Mog chastises the beast, and Umaro promptly joins the fray.

• Time, Physical, & Emotional Investment: 5/10 - The part of the Narshe caves that leads to Umaro has some annoying pitfalls, but other than that, it is a straightforward route. When the battle starts, Umaro goes down relatively quickly because he's weak to fire, and that's one of the most manageable elements to level up to its highest form.
• Gameplay/Loot Utility: 2/10 - Umaro is a terrible character in most circumstances. In fact, he's a massive liability if he's in your party. Not only can he not equip armor, but he also is unable to use Espers. But the cherry on top is that Umaro is a berserker, and you have zero control over his actions. You can give him an orb that adds a snow spell to his repertoire, but that's about it. That said, Umaro is immune to the Cultists' Tower's restrictions prohibiting physical attacks, and his limited move-set makes him an asset in the Colosseum.
• Storytelling & Worldbuilding Relevancy: 1/10 - Umaro adds almost nothing to the story. Like Gogo, Umaro has a fun moment during the game's epilogue if you have him. But that's about it.
• Difficulty: 3/10 - As I said earlier, Umaro is weak to fire, making him an easy target. Admittedly, he hits hard, but as long as you fight him with four relatively prepared characters, his boss encounter should be cake.
• Discoverability: 2/10 - The door to Umaro opens the second you pick up Mog. The only reason why I'm not giving this a one is because navigating the Narshe Caves sucks.

Recommendation: Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! You might as well, considering he's about three steps removed from where you pick up Mog. But don't worry about feeling like you need to use him. Umaro is complete dogshit.

Recruiting Relm

Premise: Remember when you had a minor in your party? Every Final Fantasy ensemble needs at least one child party member! To get Relm back, head to Jidoor and find the large mansion at the top. When you enter it, you will notice something is amiss. When your party destroys a painting that comes alive, they find a secret passageway that leads to a haunted portion of the mansion. In the final chamber, they find Relm painting a portrait under the watchful eyes of a possessed Owzer, who owns the estate. The painting comes to life, and you must defeat it to gain Relm and a piece of Magicite.

• Time, Physical, & Emotional Investment: 5/10 - I think Owzer's Mansion goes on far longer than it should. There's some fun regarding the initial premise of the mansion being haunted, but it wears thin rather quickly. The location is a bit of a gimmick and has a lot of random encounters that reflect that. I usually have Mog in my party with the Moogle Charm enabled when exploring the mansion. Even with those random encounters turned off, the mansion actively seeks pleasure in making you confused about your location.
• Gameplay/Loot Utility: 6/10 - I'm not going to turn down a full-fledged party member, but I don't particularly enjoy using Relm. Her special move is too situational, and her low defense stat means she's always getting KO-ed when I did not prepare her Relics sufficiently for the end of the game. Nonetheless, she has her uses with her insane MP pool and is a strong secondary candidate for teaching Ultima after Terra. Lakshmi, however, is clutch. It introduces a bevy of high-tier healing magic, albeit at a slower rate, to Phoenix. Combined with Phoenix, you can wean yourself off designated healers and have everyone capable of party-wide white magic.
• Storytelling & Worldbuilding Relevancy: 5/10 - Like Mog, I'm not going to sit here and say Relm doesn't add anything to the story. However, as I will discuss in the final section of this blog, her character arc feels like a self-contained vignette with no grounding in the main plot. It's a decent story, especially if Shadow is alive during your playthrough. Additionally, it is vital to note Relm is needed before you can get Strago's character mission. Still, even Final Fantasy VI stans will be hard-pressed to claim Relm's characterization is as beneficial to the game's overarching themes as Cyan or Locke's character arcs.
• Difficulty: 5/10 - As I said, I usually disable the random encounters when I get to Owzer's Mansion. There's one encounter that is a toughie wherein the enemy throws an almost endless supply of elemental scrolls at the party. As for the bosses, and there are two, both are one-trick-ponies. "Still Life" is a living canvas and is weak to fire, and Chadarnook employs ye olde trope of having one version of itself you can attack and a different version you need to block continuously. Neither are too tough to handle but require some strategy in mind.
• Discoverability: 2/10 - When you are in the World of Balance, you encounter Owzer's Mansion repeatedly and think there's bound to be something important there. The game continually teases you until you reach the World of Ruin that something big will happen in the mansion. With that in mind, I don't think the breadcrumb trail leading to Relm and Lakshmi is perfectly cogent either.

Recommendation: Sure. This will sound harsh, but I think getting the Esper is more important than Relm. Relm adds some fun flavor to the story, especially when it is time to complete Stargo's character arc, but even that's not critical. I know Relm is a Magic tank with one of the highest pools of raw MP in the game, but her special is highly situation, and her alternative is only helpful if you want to take the time to collect Blue Magic for Strago.

Strago's Sidequests

Premise: Strago's quests break into two parts, the first being incredibly quick. To recruit the old geezer, you must find the Cultists' Tower and convince him to abandon the cult. After he joins the party, remember to have him AND Relm in the same rotation when you revisit Thamasa. Doing so will trigger a cutscene with Gungho, whom you may or may not have encountered at the World of Balance. Gungho speaks of a legendary monster and begs for Strago to defeat it. However, the beast in question is in a newly formed dungeon called "Ebot's Rock." After some coral collecting, they encounter Hidon, defeat it, and watch a scene where Strago reminisces with his old friend.

• Time, Physical, & Emotional Investment: 6/10 - Okay, Ebot's Rock is unlike any dungeon in the game in that it is a mystery dungeon. The format is randomized to a degree. Your objective is to collect enough coral from treasure chests to feed an anthropomorphic chest at the entrance leading to Hidon. If you are not careful or take an inefficient route, you might end up short in that regard. If that happens, you must do the entire dungeon again. That sucks, and if you don't utilize Mog, this dungeon is populated by many undead enemies that enjoy inflicting your characters with the Zombie status effect. Even with random encounters turned off, it's still a tiresome dungeon.
• Gameplay/Loot Utility: 5/10 - You get Strago and his ultimate ability. Due to the coral mechanic, there's no loot in the dungeon, and defeating Hidon does not provide an Esper. Still, getting Strago back and better than ever is better than nothing. Grand Delta is FINE as a last resort, but it doesn't compare to most of the end-game magic spells you should be teaching Strago at this point.
• Storytelling & Worldbuilding Relevancy: 8/10 - You know what? I'll cop out and admit I enjoyed the scene at the end with Strago and Gungho. It's a touching scene that ends with a nice message about keeping your elderly family members in mind. Likewise, the interplay between Strago and Relm is, as always, excellent. Seeing more of their chemistry and relationship is worth the price of entry alone.
• Difficulty: 3/10 - "Wait a minute ZombiePie, didn't you just say you find the design of this dungeon annoying and time-consuming?" Now, hear me out for this one. Yes, this dungeon is annoying, and some enemies are gnarly. However, because most of your foes here are undead, you can instantly beat everything using Phoenix Downs or revival spells. That includes Hidon, but you'll want to hold off on that until it performs Grand Delta. With such an easy out, it's hard to rank Ebot's Rock exceptionally high.
• Discoverability: 4/10 - Navigating Ebot's Rock is the worst part of Strago's mission. You can memorize the pattern or look up the floorplan on a guide. Nonetheless, that doesn't stop you from needing to run around searching for boxes of coral whose amounts are randomized.

Recommendation: Sure! But if your time is limited and you don't use Strago all that much, I think it is reasonable to pick him up and leave things at that. The conclusion of his character arc is quaint, with some heart-warming moments, but there are bigger fish to fry with your party. Speaking of which...

Locke's Sidequest

Premise: We now transition to what I consider the second-best character storyline in the entire game. Suppose you brought Locke to Kohlingen while at the World of Balance, then you know he has his former love, Rachel, in suspended animation. One of his driving motivations for joining the Returners is so he can explore the world for a legendary treasure that can reverse death. There are a few hints about where this might be, including a random portrait in Owzer's mansion, but eventually, you end up in the Phoenix Cave. While here, you need to create two parties that alternate in flicking switches and progressing further into the cave. Ultimately, you'll find a cracked and worn Magicite version of the Phoenix Esper. Locke will take this to Rachel, but it will only revive her for a few seconds before she merges with Pheonix and reforms the Magicite.

• Time, Physical, & Emotional Investment: 7/10 - Navigating the Phoenix Cave is a chore. The random encounters are no slouch, with a handful happy to inflict you with adverse status effects. Because you need to divide your party into two groups, you can't rely on Mog to avoid random encounters. Also, the backtracking and lever flicking isn't fun and becomes wearisome as soon as it introduces itself. The dungeon also has a platforming bit where you need to pay attention to moving walkways or otherwise risk falling into a pool of lava. In other words, this dungeon finds plenty of ways to make your life shitty, even if you have taken the time to make your characters more than decent at combat.
• Gameplay/Loot Utility: 10/10 - All my grousing aside, the Phoenix Cave is 100% worth completing. Locke is a good character with a lot of utility thanks to his Steal command. Some optional bosses have fantastic loot if you can manage to get Locke early and can steal from them. Likewise, Phoenix is one of the best Espers in the entire game. It teaches the best revival and healing magic in the game, which makes up for the fact that it has no level-up bonuses. Curaga, Arise, and Reraise are all CRITICAL late-game abilities at least one of your rotational pieces should have in their repertoire. Finally, with Locke, you can also steal treasure from some of the locked buildings in Narshe!
• Storytelling & Worldbuilding Relevancy: 10/10 - Locke's story arc is one of the best in the game. I understand it's problematic, considering it revolves around him putting a woman in a comatose state without her permission. However, the game recognizes this point and allows you to render a personal determination if Locke is in the right or not. The ending wherein Rachel pleads for Locke to look to the present instead of the past spoke to me. When she implored Locke to realize some people love him in the present as much as he loved her, I couldn't help but get a little emotional. With Final Fantasy stories the subject of many recurring jokes on the internet, it speaks volumes that this one quest in a nigh thirty-year-old video game speaks louder and truer about the human experience than 90% of what modern Square-Enix outputs.
• Difficulty: 7/10 - As I said before, the lava portion of the dungeon is not easy. One way the game enjoys screwing you over is by mixing enemies with the opposite elemental weaknesses. There's at least one random encounter possibility where half the enemies are weak to fire but absorb ice, and the other half is the opposite. The good news is that there isn't a final boss battle at the end of the dungeon. When you reach the Magicite, you immediately transition to a cutscene that requires no player input.
• Discoverability: 6/10 - Exploring the Pheonix Cave is exclusive to the World of Ruin. Likewise, your hints about its existence are few and far between. That said, when you start using the Falcon, it is odd that there is a star-shaped mountain jutting from the ground. The real issue then is navigating the cave, which is a colossal pain in the ass. Switching between two parties prepares you for what you'll eventually have to do at Kefka's Tower, but it sucks there as well. There are dead-ends and horrible monsters happy to end your session in failure. It's exhausting, but at least it is worth it.

Recommendation: Getting Locke is a requirement by my metrics. Locke is a good character; the game tells a fantastic story with him; the rewards for completing his mission are impressive. In other words, do this shit!

Part 15: The World Of Balance Is Better Than The World Of Ruin

I understand the above chapter title is bound to throw some of you in a tizzy, but I want to clarify a few points before I lay out my thesis. First, I'm not saying the World of Ruin is "bad." I was and still am enamored by the sheer gall that the mad lads behind Final Fantasy VI commit to, and the atmosphere of the World of Ruin is some of the best in the game. Second, I agree that the character arcs at the World of Ruin are highly satisfying and sometimes on par with what you experience in the main plot. I'm not going to sit here and lie to you that Cyan and Locke's character missions didn't make me feel something. Third, I know some people LOVE the free-form and open-world nature of the World of Ruin and feel it organically inspires the player to explore their surroundings and pick up on context clues to "get the team back together." Finally, there's no denying that the World of Ruin feels like a hand-crafted sandbox for the members of the party you need to recruit. I do not reject any of this. Instead, I think there's something far less compelling about the World of Ruin's grind-heavy and "leave no stone unturned" structure than the snappiness and blow-for-blow nature of the World of Balance's construction.

There's something far more thrilling, at least to me, about the pacing in the World of Balance. At the World of Balance, whenever you complete a level or set piece, the characters converse and immediately identify where they need to go next. That linear structure might rub some people the wrong way, but I think it fits the ensemble nature of the cast faultlessly. Each character gets their introduction during a backdrop explicitly connected to the main story rather than during a siloed sequence. There's equity with how much the World of Balance divides its time among your party members, and I wish that were present in the World of Ruin. No one character overstays their welcome in the World of Balance because there's more afoot than just them. And as you can see in my reviews, some of the longer character sequences in the World of Ruin are simply self-indulgent and make characters that get less look worse. The top-heavy nature of the character arcs is one thing, but the bigger problem is how the main plot stops dead in its tracks and depending on how much time you invest in the optional quests, you could be forgiven for forgetting about the story's finer details. The simple process of exploring the overworld and getting to locations takes time, and it adds up the more you play.

Each character's level and sequence feeling like a self-contained vignette is the best and worst part of the structure of the World of Ruin. You better understand who they are and what they have been hiding through these vignettes. However, chasing after everyone with little guidance is a burdensome load the game doesn't sufficiently frontload. There's also no more frustrating feeling than taking the time to travel to a far corner of the known world and discover your only reward is a short cutscene or quick back-and-forth dialogue sequence. Worse, the main plot involving the Warring Triads and Kefka falls to the wayside. In fact, during my first playthrough, I completely forgot what the Warring Triads were until I started to fight them in Kefka's Tower. The game does a terrible job of building up their mythos and backstory. Speaking of Kefka's Tower, I again have to bring up the topic of how much harder the World of Ruin is compared to the World of Balance. Some of the dungeons and random encounters you run into feel unfair or rely on tired and true old-school RPG design. The bowels of the Zone Eater have hard-hitting ninjas that can wipe your party if you are not careful. The trippy sequence in Cyan's subconscious is visually and narrative impressive, but with no accessible exits, you can end up in a frustrating situation of constantly reloading your progress. Sometimes the simple task of trudging to a dungeon inflicts you with punishing random encounters that employ any number of cheap bullshit. This problem leads us to the inevitability of grinding, and goddamn, you need to do a lot of grinding in the World of Ruin.

Something about the World of Ruin causes me to burn out when I try to replay Final Fantasy VI. Unless you know the several combat exploits in the game, if you attempt to enter Kefka's Tower the moment it becomes available, it will kick your ass. If you do not try to collect all of the remaining party members like they are Pokémon, the game expects you to park your ass in a dungeon and grind until your characters bridge the level twenty-five or higher mark. The problem is, even when you collect everyone, you still need to do this. Kefka's final castle requires you to split up your party, and as a result, you need to spend time making three well-rounded teams. Completing this task is downright painful if you spent most of your time on the World of Balance with a favored team of four. Trying to get Setzer, Celes, and Strago on par with everyone else fucking sucks no matter which version of Final Fantasy VI you play. The grind-heavy nature of the World of Ruin exacerbates many of the fundamental issues I have with the game's leveling and Magicite Systems. You don't make an army of soldiers with distinct playstyles with the Espers at your disposal. Instead, you make the same one or two types of super soldiers repeatedly, and that repetition becomes tedious after a certain point. Worse, having to constantly fiddle with the Relic and Esper menus when swapping one party for a different one never ceased to drive me up the wall. I felt like setting up a blank slate of four characters on a good day took me about seven to eight minutes. Now, imagine doing that at least twenty to thirty times!

None of what I'm saying here should suggest I think the World of Ruin is a failure. Quite the opposite. It's packed with excellent storytelling, and the game's worldbuilding shines when you get there. However, something always feels "off" whenever I get to the World of Ruin. There are mechanical and narrative structural issues later games in the series would refine and eventually perfect. However, I plan to continue to explore this topic during my final write-up on Final Fantasy VI. Next time you see me publish a blog about Final Fantasy VI, we will discuss the game's ending!

Preamble - SPOILERS INCOMING!

Every year when GOTY season rolls around, I award a special commendation titled the "Ostrich Award." This superlative goes to the game with the most significant delta between my opinion and the game's consensus between reviewers and the internet. I recognize wholeheartedly I am a stubborn person and react to change and popular gaming zeitgeists by sticking my head in the sand, and pretending they do not exist, hence the name of the award. I know ostriches don't bury their heads in the sand, but you get the idea. You might wonder how this random lecture relates to Digimon Survive, but it's simple. I'm having a perfectly "okay" time with the game but have been shocked to see people talk about it with effusive praise on various online channels. I know the game recently was subject to a review bomb by thousands of people unaware it was primarily a visual novel, but for the most part, people and publications are recommending it even at its asking price of $60. That last part is bananas to me, and I was pleasantly surprised to see Jan, a noted fan of Digimon, echo most of the problems I have been having with the game during the Bombcast.

Some real pressing issues with Digimon Survive make it only recommendable to the most die-hard Digimon fans. Even then, this game might not be the nostalgia trip you are looking for if you want to experience a pure encapsulation of the tenants of what makes the Digimon shows special. I'll just come out and say it: I don't think this game is worth $60. Even when you judge the game as a visual novel, it's a rough time that takes FOREVER to bear fruit. If I had to speculate, I suspect Namco Bandai was aware of this possible shortcoming and the game's limited appeal overall. Many circles have pointed out, as Jan did during the 8/2/2022 Bombcast, that it seems as if Namco Bandai has zero confidence in the game as it was released with almost no promotional backing. And what trailers the game did have primarily highlighted the monster raising and tactics side of things instead of the visual novel aspect, which is the lion's share of the game. I get that the lack of a Digimon movie or anime tie-in opportunity limits what they can do, but it seems like Namco Bandai sent this game out to pasture, considering how little love and attention they have shown the game, which makes it one of the more bizarre games to assess.

The Good: Yes, There's Stuff To Like In This Game

Look, I'm not going to stand here and say I don't think there's anything redeeming about Digimon Survive. The game has its share of fans for a reason. The turn-based tactical combat feels nostalgic because it takes more notes from Final Fantasy Tactics than modern contemporary releases. The tactics aspect of the game, which I think is the worst part, is breezy and accessible for the generalized audience the game appears to be targeting. People that have not touched a single modern Fire Emblem or XCOM game do not need to worry about being overwhelmed outside of a few late-game scenarios.

Digimon Survive also bleeds charm from top to bottom, and exploring its cast of characters is delightful. It is a love letter to the growing portion of people who have aged with the Digimon series, particularly those who remember the first two seasons of the original series in the 1990s and are looking for something that compliments their newfound maturity. Likewise, when judged purely as a visual novel, it does a pretty miraculous job of conveying a "Best Hits" rendition of what the shows and movies share across multiple episodes or theatrical releases, but in Survive's case, in a single package. I cannot deny that there were characters in Survive I began to care about and was compelled to see their character arcs to the end. I also want to say the game's middle chapters are its best and did a lot to get me reinvested in its story after what I consider one of the slowest starts to a game in 2022. When shit started popping off both on the battlefield and in the story, the game reminded me of peak Digimon Tamers or Digimon Adventure tri.

Speaking of Tamers and tri., I should note that Digimon Survive represents a recurring thematic of the IP very well. The game tackles darker themes like death, depression, and anxiety with grace. Some publications have expressed surprise that Namco Bandai gave a game with the Digimon name featuring ritual sacrifice a greenlight. Still, I think that's reasonable ground to cover for the Digimon IP. Remember when a little girl watched her Digimon DIE IN FRONT OF HER EYES and spent an entire season wracked with depression and PTSD? Did none of you get to the end of Tamers, by which point multiple characters and Digimon died horrible deaths? And what about the Digimon Adventure tri films having multiple montages in which you watch dozens of characters meet grizzly ends? Did we all just up and forget about that? Digimon is not Pokemon, even if that's what 4Kids wanted it to be. This game having child murder makes it more authentically Digimon than almost every previous Digimon game, and I think that's commendable.

For those wondering what the deal is about, Digimon Survive involves an original cast of characters falling into the Digital World and discovering some Digimon have developed a thriving society independent from humanity. Unfortunately, to keep the lights on, the Digimon need to sacrifice humans that fall into their world to appease their gods. The Digimon feel justified in their practices because offering people results in peace and abundant resources when done. I want to clarify that this is not a spoiler. This sacrificing mechanic is the game's namesake and a driving core mechanic introduced within the first few hours. While your characters struggle to deal with dwindling supplies and resources, this easy out is always looming over you like a Sword of Damocles. We will discuss this point more in a future section, but it is impossible to end the game the first time with the same number of starting characters. Some have surmised this is why the game has some of your go-to anime trope-laden characters, which might ease the grim reality of offing a child. However, no matter who you pick when the time comes to make an offering, your characters will have an adverse emotional and psychological reaction. On paper, the game's built-in hand wrangling is its best attribute and is bound to leave players wondering what they could have done better. Despite all of its shortcomings, there are times when this game "works," and it is a sight to see.

The Bad #1: The Translation Is Scuffed

If you frequent Twitter, you will find any number of screencaps that depict Digimon Survive's localization in a pretty sorry state. Social media is bound to give you one side of a coin better than the other, but I can confirm the translation job is pretty rough. It is important to note why having a seal-tight localization is especially important for Digimon Survive: all of the audio, including the voice acting, in Digimon Survive, is only in Japanese. Given how few shits Namco Bandai has shown for the game's Western release, it is doubtful an English dubbing will come out for the game. I know some corners of the internet are likely praising the game for not having a dub. Still, the lack of one not only presents accessibility issues but also puts a greater spotlight on the sometimes haphazard translation job. Also, this is not a fully voice-acted game in general. Much like the Persona games, the spoken dialogue pertains to storyline scenes and meaningful character interactions.

The issues plaguing Survive's localization are unconscionable. I have seen placeholder text instead of an adequately translated line on more than one occasion. There's also weird softball shit the localization gets wrong that caused me to break out in hives. The above example is just one where a character misnames a monster, but the characters CONSTANTLY fuck up Labramon's pronouns. In the year of our Lord, 2022, how is that even possible? During the game's more dramatic scenes, there were times when I struggled to accept those scenes at face value because there was a shocking lack of syntax. When listening to the Japanese voice acting, there were many times when long, verbose line-reads resulted in a single five to seven-word sentence. I understand there are times when that is necessary when translating Japanese into English, but damn near every scene in this game has an example of that. Worse, there were a few times when, after talking with a character, I was presented with a dialogue choice for a question I did not understand. Part of that is by design. Usually, the downstream effects of your choices do not come to a head until later. However, sometimes when I selected what I thought was a neutral choice, I saw the prompt that my affinity for a character went down, and I had no idea why my choice would negatively impact that character. If you had issues with the super simplified dialogue wheel choices in Fallout 4 or Dragon Age: Inquisition fucking you over because they lacked context, this game will drive you crazy.

The Bad #2: The Production Values and UI/UX Don't Look And Feel Like A $60 Game

Despite only having five minutes, Jan did an excellent job highlighting the most jarring aspect of the game. Whenever it transitions from its crisp 2D character portraits during the visual novel portions to the almost PS2-looking character sprites and monsters during the tactics portion, you cannot help but grimace. Also, every single 3D render or design in this game looks like shit. The battlefields especially look washed out and lack finer details that are present when the game is in 2D. That is particularly a problem when navigating parts of a field and you struggle to discern why you cannot move to a part of the map. The best example of Survive's shoddy quality-of-life feature set stems from its use of elevation during battles. The translucent blocks that depict your unit's movement area almost need a color-coded gradient to illustrate what parts of the map are higher than others. If you decide to play this game, trust me, you will say, "Oh, I guess that's a hill," or "Huh, I can't get there because I think that's two levels too high!" Worse, the default camera is reminiscent of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance's camera, which might have worked in Tactics Advance because the 2D art there has better shading. Nonetheless, it is a perpetual headache in Survive because it lacks those artistic details. Jutting buttes or hills can block out whatever might be hiding behind them, which sucks.

While I think the character portraits are charming and do a great job expressing the cast's quirks and emotional states, you sure do look at those 2D portraits a lot during its twenty-five to thirty-hour playtime. Likewise, the visual novel portion of the game, being the best-looking part, presents me with a simple question. Why the fuck is this game launching at $60? I don't want to sound like a weeb calculating hours to dollars for review purposes. However, Survive does not feel appropriately priced, especially with the competition in the visual novel market well below that point. Even on the Switch, you'll notice that almost every visual novel is priced below the $50 mark! Sure, AI: The Somnium Files - Nirvana Initiative is right there with Digimon Survive, but that game has way more going for it than Survive! Referring to my blog highlighting the best visual novels of 2021, I need to remind everyone that The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles launched at $39.99/£32.99! Bustafellows, an otome game that relies as heavily on its 2D character portraits as Survive, was listed at its launch at $49.99. Whoever priced this game is shamelessly banking on you to buy it regardless of quality.

The Bad #3: I Got Railroaded Into A Story Route Thanks To A Random Decision I Made Hours Before The Ending

There's going to be a little give and take with this point. On the one hand, I appreciate how Survive makes you assess your choices even if I don't think it provides sufficient resources to make an informed decision. When its survival systems kick into gear and force you to mull over trolley dilemmas, I felt the most engaged with its narrative and characters. However, there's no denying how arbitrary some of its scenarios feel. On top of that, it hits you with pop-ups and alignment chart notifications at almost every turn. As mentioned before, there are times when you pick a choice when responding to something random when talking to a character, and you are notified that choice hurts your standing with another character. The game loves showing you three virtues (i.e., Moral, Wrathful, and Harmony) that grow as you progress the story every waking minute you play. Unfortunately, I don't always feel like these three virtues fit the scenarios the narrative presents. Likewise, while I like it when the game forces the characters into crummy situations, too often, it employs cheap tricks to swing a character out of your favor.

However, maybe the survival politicking in this game sounds appealing to you. Be aware that chapter eight is where your moral choices can outweigh the ones you made during chapters one through seven. In my case, I was teetering between two possible routes, and the eighth chapter hard locked me into one of them after two to three choices. For reference, I completed the game and got the "Wrathful Ending." I will not go over what getting to that route entails or what led to that point. However, it is defeating to know that there is a single chapter that weighs MORE HEAVILY on your ending route than the totality of the game. It is also worth noting that Digimon Survive revives an old visual novel trope in that the "true" ending only becomes available during New Game+. With average playthroughs clocking in at around twenty-five to thirty hours, that's a DIRE value proposition. The conclusions available in your first playthrough are considered non-canonical and don't provide you with a fuzzy mitten feeling when you roll the credits. And if you are wondering if the game mixes things up during your second playthrough, I can confirm it does, but only after a certain point. Until that point of deviation, you mull over the same scenarios and character-based prompts with better stats so you can pass skill checks. And that goes on for the better part of an hour.

The Bad #4: The Game Commits The Two Gravest Cardinal Sins In Tactics Game Design

I have spent the lion's share of this blog extrapolating why the visual novel part of Digimon Survive only partly works for me. Now, we need to talk about the tactics part of the game because it ranges from being boring to an absolute headache. I would even go so far as to call the tactics part of the game an afterthought, considering how poorly it plays and its absence of any semblance of balance. The first issue is one that I have with many of the modern Fire Emblem games and their many clones. Too often, you go into a battle and know you will win because what you are up against amounts to pointless trash mobs that have no hope of beating you. In the case of Survive, there are "Free Battles" that you can undertake in between the visual novel social link mechanics that level up your characters and provide new Digimon and items. It would be best to tackle these battles as the story doesn't have as many required fights as you'd think. However, none of the free battles remotely pose a challenge as they usually involve you fighting one to three random monsters, and at some point, they start to blur. Essentially, you're grinding in a plodding tactics system.

However, the lack of difficulty with most tactical battles is a sin even the Fire Emblem franchise is guilty of fudging. This next sin, however, is utterly unforgivable. Taking a note from OG Final Fantasy Tactics, Digimon Survive features large square and sometimes rectangular battlefields and plops you on one side and your enemy on the other. Much like the old-school tactics games that inspired it, you spend the first four to five turns getting to your opponent or engaging in a prolonged game of chicken to see who crosses over to the other side's area of attack. Not all of the maps in the game are huge, but the ones that are made me want to eat my eyeballs out of my skull. Usually, I would deal with this issue how I have since the dawn of time: corner camping—however, the AI is programmed to guard and not move until you get close enough to them. This means every battle involves some degree of you needing to cross fathoms of space to get to the action. The reboot XCOM games get away with this due to their fog of war mechanics, but there's no such mechanic in Survive to keep you on your toes and engaged with battles. For the most part, you are plugging along, praying something remarkable will happen, but with no guarantee that it will.

Since the release of XCOM 2, my tolerance for mediocre tactics gameplay is at an all-time low. However, "mediocre" is what the combat in Digimon Survive amounts to on a good day. The required prolonged storyline battles have every box checked in the "generic-ass tactics game tropes" checklist. Percentages being bullshit when you least need them to be? CHECK! Conflicts that were previously in your favor rubber-banding after a single bad turn? CHECK! Watching the computer's units enter guard mode when I'm STILL two turns away from reaching them? CHECK! If you can think of a common design flaw or frustration with the tactics genre, it's probably in Digimon Survive! All of these problems are a shame because if the tactical battles were tighter or faster-paced, I might have been able to stomach the game's snail-like start better. However, as things stand, Survive represents a "fine" but incredibly problematic game to tide over Digimon fans until something better comes out two to three years from now.