Review: Final Fantasy Adventure

At this point, there are few retro Final Fantasy games that I haven’t played at some point in some shape or form. The numerous ports and reissues that made up the earliest days of my JRPG obsession allowed me to experience games that were hard to find and painfully expensive to a high school student in a small town where there were no retro game shops to speak of. Some titles, of course, hadn’t been brought to the modern day, and many of them are still stuck on black and white Game Boy cartridges, much to my chagrin. After all, the prices don’t seem to be going down, and I still don’t have a good retro shop even though I live in a major metropolitan area now.

This is why I jumped as soon as I saw that Square-Enix announced that the Seiken Densetsu Collection was being brought stateside as Collection of Mana, I was ready to launch my wallet directly at them to get a physical copy. After all, I’ve bitched and moaned about not getting this since the year the Switch launched and the Japanese gaming public got this magnificent collection of JRPG classics. It wasn’t for Final Fantasy Adventure that I was excited, though it was a decent bonus. I could get a copy of that online if I wanted it, and it would be in English. I had Secret of Mana on the SNES Classic, so I was covered for that particular classic. But getting Seiken Densetsu 3 in English was only an option if I wanted to pick up a repro cart. This was much cheaper and far more legal. Thanks, Square-Enix. Now update more of your back catalog without doing more pointless ugly remakes.

You can also choose from three different versions of monochrome!

Of the three games, I had the least to expect from Final Fantasy Adventure, a game that looked like it had more Zelda in its blood than Final Fantasy, but it wasn’t off putting. I love Zelda games. So I eagerly started from the top with the Collection of Mana on the day I picked it up. I wasn’t expecting much from the least praised title in the collection, but I’m happy to tell you that I found myself enjoying it more than I could possibly have expected.

Final Fantasy Adventure opens with a protagonist I called Kain (because FFIV and character limits) busting out of the castle prison and spying on Dark Lord before being cast to the bottom of a waterfall. When he rises, he is tasked with defeating Dark Lord and defending them Mana Tree. You might be wondering why I didn’t put a “the” in front of those Dark Lords but that’s how the game handles his name.

The story is far from deep. Link’s Awakening would eventually become a gold standard for storytelling on Nintendo’s white brick, but the adventure feels grandiose thanks to early 90’s grade Squaresoft melodrama and a well designed world map that takes you through winding paths between story beats and dungeons alike. Each section of the adventure is bite-sized to meet the normal play demands of an old Gameboy game and even allows players to save anywhere, which neuters the difficulty spikes for those of us who save frequently. This isn’t to say that the game is hard, but it’s definitely nice to have the option.

So, the localization is a little dodgy…

What makes Final Fantasy Adventure special is how it tries to live up to its namesake. The original Japanese title of Seiken Densetsu includes the Final Fantasy Gaiden subtitle, a tie to the revered franchise that seems to have been dropped for Secret of Mana and each subsequent title in the series. Moogle status effects, the hunt for a chocobo, and old school Final Fantasy mainstay super weapon Excalibur make for decent window dressing, but it’s the sense of desperation that drives home the Final Fantasy vibe. Early attempts at “serious” storytelling in Final Fantasy were marked by frequent character deaths, the ongoing dominance of the villain over the actions of the hero, and blunt melodrama – mind you, I think the melodrama is a feature of the genre rather than a bug. Meeting the guardian of the Mana Tree at the scene of her mother’s death is a moment that plays like a tiny echo of any character death in Final Fantasy II.

As I’ve mentioned before, gamers who cut their teeth on early Zelda games will be ready for the basics of combat in Final Fantasy Adventure. Players use the D-Pad to navigate around monsters and evade projectiles, and attack with a variety of weapons. In addition to this, there is a meter that fills up over time that increases the amount of damage that an attack can deal. This increases in speed as players level up. Leveling up allows the player to allot points to different stats. It’s a simple enough system of progression, and doesn’t give much room for experimentation, but such is to be expected of an early Gameboy JRPG, unless I’m unaware of a game, and in that case please let me know. Anyone new to this game and system but have played Secret of Mana will be surprised by how slow the meter is at the start. It’s barely worth allowing the meter to power up early on, but as the game draws to its conclusion, it becomes necessary to wait for the heavier damage of a full meter. Thankfully, the meter fills quickly by this point. In addition to melee weapons, guest characters will jump in and out of your party and reward your progress with a variety of magic spells

For a more authentic experience.

A standout feature of this game is a delightful score full of catchy melodies that I’m still humming two weeks later. I was thrilled to discover that there does exist a full CD soundtrack for this game. This is one of the best Gameboy soundtracks I’ve ever heard. The somber intro over the story text sets the tone of the game and there isn’t a single bad track to follow it.

I have a reputation for being a SquareSoft snob, and it’s rightfully earned to be honest. I hold up their work in the 90s over other examples of the genre, and harp on about how I wish Square-Enix would make games as charming and engaging on a near daily basis. I’m pretty sure the modern Final Fantasy fandom wishes I would shut the hell up and get out of their circle. A portion of these people probably think that it’s nostalgia that drives my obsession with classic SquareSoft, and that probably explains some of it, such as my love for Final Fantasy VIII despite it’s flaws.

But it isn’t nostalgia that made me love Final Fantasy Adventure. It’s a tightly made adventure with all of the hallmarks of a classic entry in the series. It’s not complex, but it does what it sets out to do with aplomb. I don’t have nostalgia for Final Fantasy Adventure because I’d never had the opportunity to play it until now, as an adult, and it’s a game that has aged beautifully.

Instead, Final Fantasy Adventure set me off on my journey through the Seiken Densetsu series in the best way possible, with a gem of a handheld game that now holds a place among my favorite Gameboy titles, a change that hasn’t occurred in a very long time.

This looks painfully generic.

I am aware that there is an iOS remake of Final Fantasy Adventure, as well as the GBA remake Sword of Mana. I’ve not played either of these games, and I don’t need to. I will probably play Sword of Mana in time, but as it stands, I wholeheartedly recommend the original Gameboy title over either remake.

Backlog Burning: The Legend of Zelda 1987-1998

The Legend of Zelda (1987) – Using GBA port for review (Acquired 2008)
Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link (1988) – Using GBA port for review (Acquired 2008)
The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past (1991) – Using GBA port for review (Acquired 2006)
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (1993) – GBC DX remake (Acquired 2008)
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998) – 3DS Remake (Acquired 2011)
Total Backlog entries burned: Nine
Publisher: Nintendo
All titles are available on other consoles.

I started writing this blog months ago, after I finished, in quick succession, Ocarina of Time, Link’s Awakening, and Link to the Past. Then I plowed through The Legend of Zelda. Following that, Brandon (who you should be familiar with by now) said that he wanted to play through Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link. I then watched YouTuber ProJared (one of the best on the platform) as he played through a randomized version of that monstrous game. Now, several weeks later, I’ve finished that too.

So how do I even get into this?

The fact is, the Zelda series went through a lot over the course of eleven years. Five games in three styles were created across four platforms. Playing through the first decade of a series after it has celebrated its 30th anniversary is an interesting proposition, despite having at least…tried…to play them…okay, so I need to admit something.

I am terrible at the games in the Zelda series.

Unlike most dedicated Nintendo fans, I got to the series late. I didn’t spend my gaming youth guiding Link around 2D Hyrule. I was struggling through the Super Star Wars trilogy and completing Warioland: Super Mario Land 3 in the mid-90s. I didn’t even know about The Legend of Zelda because most of my friends had the Sega Genesis. The Nintendo owners I did know were playing the same stuff I was. It’s weird, in retrospect, that I didn’t know about what was legitimately the second largest franchise Nintendo produced at the time. I didn’t buy video game magazines during the glorious 16-bit era. I’m not even sure that I knew that there was such a thing.

It wasn’t until I purchased my second ever video game magazine that I learned about The Legend of Zelda. It was the 100th issue of the legendary Nintendo Power, a magazine that I bought largely because it was the 90’s and I thought the gargantuan list of cheat codes was interesting. Of course, I then spent more time reading the Top 100 Nintendo games list. After getting over being annoyed that my beloved Star Wars games had been piled under the entry for the shiny and new Shadows of the Empire, I noticed that there were a lot of games I’d missed out. Metroid. Final Fantasy (yes, imagine a Brad who has never played a JRPG!). And, occupying several spots on the list, The Legend of Zelda. On the bright side, this is where I learned the name of a game I’d played as a young child, Shadowgate.

A few years later, I would find myself fascinated by JRPGs and unable to indulge in such fantasies. The SNES had been retired by retail stores in my area, and I didn’t have access to retro game shops of any kind. We had Walmart and would occasionally make a trip to Target. Having spent my entire life playing Nintendo consoles, a fact renewed after playing StarFox 64 at a different Brandon’s house, I was playing the Nintendo 64 at the time, and was still a couple of years away from my first PlayStation. It was during the summer of 2000 where I finally picked up a game that I had only recently become aware was supposed to be one of the greatest games of all time.

I gave forty dollars to the Walmart in Clinton, NC, and took home a golden box containing a Player’s Choice cart of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

My First Zelda Game

I’m going to be saying some stuff in this section that’s going to piss some gamers off, or at the very least, confound them. I do hope I’ve given some context about what kind of gamer thirteen year old Brad was though. I’d spent the majority of those first eight years of gaming playing platformers and Star Wars games, so diving into Hyrule for the first time was decidedly different.

It didn’t go well.

Ocarina of Time didn’t click for me in 2000. I only got to Jabu Jabu’s Belly, and escorting Ruto around did little other than infuriate me. It fell off after a few months. I didn’t think the game was bad, mind you. I just thought it was too hard. I eventually came back to the N64 classic while I was in college after picking up the Gamecube Zelda collection that was sold as a bonus with Gamecube’s around the time of The Wind Waker’s release. I got further this time, reaching the Shadow Temple. It was on this run that I realized that a large part of my frustration with the game was borne from the platforming controls. After all, the combat is excellent considering the time it was originally released, and the puzzle design was satisfying enough. By this time, I’d finished Twilight Princess and The Minish Cap, and, to be frank, I genuinely liked both of those games more than the venerated time travelling adventure that everyone else raved about.

Fastforward another decade, and I’ve picked this game up a third time thanks to writing for a little 3DS news and review site, left it on the shelf for years after getting to the Forest Temple, and finally finished it. It took eighteen years of thinking it was too hard to finally crawl through the hellish design of the Shadow Temple to finally reach that climactic battle with Ganon.

And I think it’s a good game. It’s not great. It’s got problems that are apparent due to age, product of nothing more than being an early 3D action game on a console that didn’t have the camera controls we wouldn’t get on a regular basis for until the next generation of consoles. I can look at it from the perspective of 1998 and see its quality, but I can not ignore the fact that I wanted to snap my 3DS in half simply due to the fact that the controls have aged poorly. It’s usually not an issue, but I will remind you that I struggled through one of the shorter late game dungeons simply because of the age of the controls.

I appreciate its influence, but this series produced better games before and after Ocarina of Time. Let’s talk about some of them.

Fighting Ganon Again and The Darkest Side Game

My experience with Link to the Past largely mirrors Ocarina of Time, but not because of the complexities of early 3D game design. The sole SNES adventure was my second venture into Hyrule, and while I was able to hold my own in the first three dungeons, I quickly fell off of being able make progress. I didn’t have a solid run on this game until picking up the GBA port when I was in college. It was this run that I finished a few weeks ago, after finishing the last three dungeons of the game.

In the end, I never thought that Link to the Past was insurmountable so much as I just rage quit in the Misery Mire during when playing the game in college. By this point I actually had a frame of reference for what a Zelda game was, and I was able to actually enjoy the game as it was rather than for what I didn’t see in it. I was also trying to assemble a complete set of games in the series. Whatever it was that I was doing with these games, I did at least like playing them.

As the first proper 2D Zelda game that I finished, Link to the Past is almost my ideal 2D Zelda game. The gameplay is still pitch perfect after twenty six years, complete with stellar level design, tight controls, and some of the most rewarding exploration that you’ll find in a game.

But it’s the Gameboy entry that I find myself thinking about more often. Originally slated to be a portable remake of Link to the Past, Link’s Awakening launched on the Gameboy with a smaller world and a strange tone that didn’t mesh with the other three adventures in the series. Characters from the Mario franchise popped up all over Koholint Island. And a mystery lurked beneath the cheery exterior that, when thought about out of context, actually makes the little Gameboy game that could a far more dreary game than we usually get from Nintendo.

The gameplay is largely a continuation of the design methodology from Link to the Past. Combat is tight and smooth. The visual design is amazing, and miraculous when placed against Mario’s first entry on the platform four years prior. There are a few dungeon design quirks that can be frustrating, but nothing that’s not completely unreadable (but we are getting to a game like that). Out of all of the games I’ve spoken about so far I feel like this is the one that its possible that gamers skip when going back to play the older games in the franchise. Mind you, I can’t be sure of that, but it doesn’t come up nearly enough when discussing the highs of the Zelda franchise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Legend and the Adventure

The Legend of Zelda is still a genuine masterpiece of game design. That’s all I should really have to say. The NES was in its infancy when gamers were first transported to Hyrule, handed a sword, and thrown in the deep end. An open world map with hidden treasure, mini games, weapons and equipment served as the basis for the games mode of exploration. Hidden across the world were several challenging dungeons that can be tackled at any time. It’s an incredibly satisfying game that has actually aged fairly well, despite how much I cursed the darknuts in dungeon seven. Of the two NES games, this is the one modern gamers should revisit. Unless they like punishment. I don’t even have a lot to say. Just play it. If you feel a little intimidated by the difficulty curve, feel free to try out the SP version available on the Nintendo Switch NES Online service. It’s a bit of a cheat, but it sets you up with all of the items that can be collected before going into the first dungeon. I’ve actually started another run on this version just for fun. I’m already about half through the game.

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link arrived on the NES the same way many sequels did on the 8-bit gold mine. It’s a completely different experience than the first. Much like Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest, players have to guide Link through side scrolling towns to learn from NPCs, fight monsters in random encounters for experience points, and come to grips with the most challenging combat that the series has ever produced.

My experience prior to tackling this beast was limited. I’ve owned the game for several years, but I’d never found the patience to dive in deep on this game until a few weeks ago. After grinding some levels, I tackled the first few dungeons and died a lot. Then I made it through to Death Mountain and died a lot. I then took a few weeks off, tried again, died a lot, and finally reached the ending of that challenge.

Honestly, the difficulty dips a little after that spike, and I didn’t have too much trouble getting through the next couple of dungeons. There are some hard fights to be had, but the most challenging aspect of the game is how the continue function works. In The Legend of Zelda and every other game that followed it, using the continue function upon death would allow players to start from the beginning of the dungeon. Zelda II sends players back to the very beginning of the game, having to walk back to where they died to start again. This isn’t so bad most of the time, but trying to crawl through the valley leading up to the final dungeon took several continues away from me. Thankfully, once you arrive at the final dungeon, you are there until you are done. Or turn the system off.

Don’t turn the system off.

Backlog Burned

It’s difficult to discuss a series as revered as The Legend of Zelda. While everyone is going to have a different opinion about each of these games, largely influenced by their own nostalgia for each game. All I wanted to do was talk about my history here. This isn’t so much of a review as it is a quick run down of thoughts I’d had while playing these games over the past few months. After all, there was no way I was going to be able to review all five games.

With these games completed, I have now finished half of the games in the series. Ten out of nineteen. I still have a handful of games already in my library that I need to finish, including Majora’s Mask, Oracle of Seasons, Wind Waker, and Skyward Sword. I don’t know when I’ll work on the series again. I honestly didn’t expect that I would make such quick business of Zelda II.

Few series have aged as gracefully as The Legend of Zelda. As Nintendo keeps these games alive through Virtual Console and 3D remakes, I can not think of any reason for gamers to avoid playing these classics. Aside from Zelda II anyway.

I can see why you might skip that one.

Backlog Burning: Shadowgate Classic

Shadowgate
Year Purchased: 2000 (I think…)
Publisher: Kemco
Gameboy Version Reviewed

There are spoilers for a thirty year old game in this review.

I’m not entirely sure why I remember playing Shadowgate on the NES at my uncle’s house. I was probably four or five, and I didn’t have my own NES. The chance to play an NES was still a special experience, and for whatever reason, the visuals in this particular game stuck out amidst playing the Mario games to death, and that one time I got to try out Vice: Project Doom. I think that was what it was…

Regardless, memory is a strange thing. Finding out that there was a Shadowgate port on the NES was an exciting prospect, one that paralleled my hunt for Metal Gear Solid for Game Boy (otherwise known as Ghost Babel), and it joined my collection at the height of my handheld gaming on the Game Boy Color. I put a lot of time into trying to figure the game out at the time, but the constant death screens due to running out of torches and finding all of the numerous death traps meant that impatient thirteen year old me wasn’t going to go the distance with Shadowgate. Of course, young me couldn’t beat Riven either, and I finally bested that glorious monster last year.

A typical Shadowgate moment

This wasn’t a random attempt to finish the game. Shadowgate met my lovely NES themed GBA SP thanks to the Challenge segment of the Z-Trigger Live Show (which goes live on Friday nights). So, I picked up an existing save, and tried to find my footing in the game once again.

This was a weird and stupid decision. But I’ll get to that.

Shadowgate is a point and click adventure designed by ICOM Simulations for the MacVenture series. It was ported to the NES and Game Boy Color, and was recently remade by the original creators for PC and PS4, featuring new graphics and other updates. Players venture into a devilish castle to hunt down the Warlock Lord who is summoning the Behemoth, a creature capable of wiping out the entire world. It’s a stock story line, right down to the Chosen One protagonist and rewards of a kingdom and your very own arranged marriage to someone’s daughter. It’s as bland as fantasy gets. The real meat of Shadowgate is the puzzle design, riddles, and fact that you die more in this game than in any other point and click adventure game that I’ve ever played.

Get used to seeing this guy a lot.

Players are given a series of options on the bottom of the screen, joined by a movement grid (which is a genuinely helpful navigation tool for quickly backtracking through areas), an image of the room, and the inventory. Players can Look, Hit, Use, Open and Close objects. They can even do things to themselves using these options, which is mostly used to equip items like a cloak and magic glasses. Torches have to be kept lit, or the death screen doth come forth to give you the skeletal finger. The most useful skill in the game is the Look function. I say this because, otherwise, the game tells you nothing about how to achieve your goals.

Shadowgate isn’t a particularly special game. It’s not even one of the best point and click games available. However, my personal, oddly misplaced nostalgia for it kept its memory alive for me long enough to buy it in my teens and finally finish it as an adult. So, given that I don’t have a lot to say about the overall quality of the game (read: it’s alright), I decided that I’d give a little attention to the way this game is built. Not in regards to code, but rather, how it flows for the player.

Shadowgate is divided into hubs, divided by a series of bridges and a courtyard at the middle of the game. Items collected in the first hub are used in coordination with one another in the various rooms to reach the courtyard, which features a few “battles” (use thing on monster), before reaching the second hub. I’ve prepared a few visual treats for this review, and God help your miserable eyeballs if you try to decipher my chicken scratch.

Behold, the reason my teachers hated me.

The first hub is made up of around twenty-five rooms, split off at forks. The first leg of the game is made up of a mere two rooms. In a way, the first ten minutes of Shadowgate make for an effective tutorial about the way that this game operates. The first screen shows the front door of the castle. Screen two has two doors, both of which are locked, and the first torches of the game. Collect the torches, light a second one up to keep the timer under control, and then players are left with the question: how do we proceed? The answer is fairly simple, of course. The key is hidden on the very first screen of the game, requiring players to use the Open function. Screen three reveals the first death trap, a device of which there are over a dozen spread across more than forty-five screens. More keys are added, and the path splits for the first time in the game.

Upon reaching the first fork in the path, we are introduced to the very reason why the Look function is vital to progress. Behind a not-so-hidden door in the back wall of the third screen, there is a room where an arrow is hanging on a wall. Taking the arrow, it is added to the inventory with the bland labeling Arrow. Using the Look function, players learn that it is a Silver Arrow, though the name doesn’t change. Cut to the second half of the game, where our nameless hero climbs to the top of one of the two towers of Shadowgate itself, and finds a woman chained to the wall. This woman isn’t what she appears; she is a werewolf. This puzzle moment could be easily solved if the tag on the time said Silver Arrow, and isn’t complicated as is. But the reality is that I cycled through the weapon items in my inventory. This process can often lead to the death screen, as most things in this game do.

The Dumbest Puzzle

There are also bizarre leaps in logic that required to finish the game. There is a laboratory in the second half of the game that are only slightly hinted at in their item descriptions. For example, a rickety bridge back in the first half of the game can not be crossed on foot. The hero has to levitate to the door. This feat isn’t achieved using any of the five magic spells. Instead, the hero has to use an item called Bottle2, which is described as being incredibly light.’

A bottle is described as being light, and it makes the hero levitate.

This marks the only part of the game that I actually looked up the solution to. Most of the other riddles are spelled out so long as you’re reading the scrolls and books throughout and taking notes. Even the silly serpent puzzle on the other side of the Bottle Chasm makes a degree of sense when you examine the magic wand that is described as being inscribed with a snake, and then discovering that the snake is made of stone. It’s not clear what will take place, but the entire game is predicated on the simple process of Using Things on Things. Rubbing various objects on other objects until something works is usually how progress takes place.

My other complaint about the bridge puzzle is its placement in the flow of the game. Actually mapping out the game in my notebook made navigating the castle much more manageable than attempting to play from memory. Noting incomplete rooms along the way allowed me to go back to those rooms when I thought I might have an object that would help push the game forward. The Bottle Chasm is given a solution in the second half of the game, which means that players can be left completely in the dark if they’d written off the wooden bridge as a mere death trap rather than the location where one of the five key items is located. It adds a layer of messy and unnecessary backtracking to what, in a way, is an otherwise smooth traversal of the games map.

Otherwise, Shadowgate flows well throughout its run time. It’s a short game, made shorter by experience and a knowledge of the way that the game operates. The only other problems I see in this game are just indicators of its age, like the clunky inventory system and lack of buttons on the Game Boy. I can imagine that the Mac original would be an easier experience thanks to hot keys for the functions. Not to mention that point and click games on a D-Pad will never feel as good as using a mouse.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More than anything, Shadowgate helped me relive a time I never really experienced properly in my youth. Video games weren’t entirely something that happened on the console and computer exclusively. The activity of playing a game in that time extended from the screen onto a pad of paper. It was part of the experience, drawing maps, writing down riddles from the in-game lore, and jotting down quick notes about progress. I have been trying to indulge myself when playing games from this era when the time comes to play them. For example, I wrote about seven or eight pages of notes when doing my run through Riven last summer, and I actually dedicated a Moleskine notebook to my last run of Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (a game I have to restart thanks to Windows 10 trying to murder my laptop a couple of years ago). I am fully aware how pretentious this sounds, but the technological restrictions on some games of the time made for gameplay experiences that are now gone, passed into history with no fanfare at all. I’m not saying that games are worse without, but the level of involvement required in some of these games feels woefully absent in modern games. We’ve traded it out for simplicity, and that’s not always a good thing.

Where else are you going to get a shark pit in a medieval fantasy game?

Recommending Shadowgate thirty years past its release is an interesting prospect. Aside from That One Dumb Puzzle, it’s still a solid experience despite the weak narrative. It’s definitely a product of the era, with its windowed gameplay and trial-and-demand execution, but I personally find the entire experience charming. I have a copy of Deja Vu at the house, a game that runs on the same engine. Now that I’ve toppled the Behemoth, and saved the world from the evils of Shadowgate, I find myself willing to take on that mystery a little bit sooner.

And for a final note, I would love to find a box for my copy. That shiny GBC box design was something to behold at the time.