B-LOG SLAYING: Splatterhouse (arcade)

Gory goodness oozes around every disgusting corner!

 

    I had always been semi-aware of the Splatterhouse series. However, I had never played the games, or even seen gameplay. Maybe I was only aware of it by name only. At any rate, up until very recently, I was in the dark about what this game was all about. And, to be fair, it originally came out in arcades in 1989, so I was only two. And it was ported to a home console I would have never ever had growing up (the TurboGrafx-16). So my chances of really playing this game were very small anyway.
    I was browsing a very favorite retro gaming site of mine, called Hardcoregaming101 (guys and girls, check it out. It has some amazingly informative articles about hundreds of different retro games. I check it almost daily), and I came across their write-up of the Splatterhouse series. I read a little bit, and I looked at some screenshots. Right then, it hit me: I HAD to play this game. It looked gory. It looked gross. It looked disturbing. It looked like a game that was tailor made for me. But again, with the game being on the TurboGrafx-16, and the subsequent two releases on the Sega Genesis, how the hell would I ever play these incredibly awesome-looking games? Enter Splatterhouse for the PS3.
    This was another game I was aware of, and had seen the cover for in Gamestop before, but I never even gave it a second look. And admittedly, it's not an amazing game. The PS3 (also available for Xbox 360) remake was a straight-forward God of War-esque action game. It got very tedious and boring (despite some incredible levels of blood and gore). I was going to play that game through to completion and have a B-LOG SLAYING about it, but a few days ago I made a decision. I didn't care to play through the game. It wasn't holding my attention as I hoped it would. However, we aren't here to talk about the 2010 remake of Splatterhouse. We're here to talk about the arcade original. But Shane, you're asking yourself, what does all this rambling have to do with the game at hand? What does it all mean? Glad you asked, hypothetical reader. The entire, complete original trilogy of games is available to unlock and play on this Splatterhouse remake disc. The rub? You have to play through about three quarters of the game to unlock them all though. I still need to beat three more chapters to unlock Splatterhouse 3, but I'm not in a rush.
    I got off track quite a bit there. The ENTIRE point I'm making is this: I had no idea what Splatterhouse was all about, then I learned, and now I'm fairly obsessed. I recently played through and beat the original arcade release, and here's what I thought of it. Note: the squeamish need not apply. I mean, these are arcade/16-bit graphics, but I was amazed (and shocked) at some of the stuff that's in this game.

And so, face down in the purple vortex, the adventure begins

CONS:

• Very small variety of moves
• No ability to save/use passwords
• STAGE VI

Normally I wouldn't include a tough stage as a con, but this one was something else. One of the most frustrating, unforgiving, eh, you'll have to just read on. Here's the pros!

PROS:

• Great enemy variety/design
• No save/password system, but a very short game anyway (if you know what you're doing)
• The GORE. The aesthetics of this game are some of my favorite I've ever seen in ANY game. It's got monsters, demons, slime, blood, decaying things, deformed things, fetal things, bizarre things, and generally just some gross things. I can't stop thinking about how fucking sweet this game is. Damn

    Pretty easy list. As this is a simple game, this con/pro list is pretty simple. This post will be on the shorter side, but I'll write as much as I can.
    This game is essentially a side-scrolling beat 'em up. However, don't let that fool you; it's very, very simplistic. Rick (the main character) can punch, crouch, jump, kick while crouching, kick in the air, and perform a semi-tough-to-pull-off slide kick (which involves jumping, landing, and attacking). That's it. And there's no three-dimensional plane. It's just you, walking to the right. It's an old game, so I understand the limits of the time, but even so, I'm sure they could have figured out more things for Rick to do. He's this big, jacked, pissed off guy, and all he can do is punch and kick? Lame. He can wield a variety of weapons throughout the game (a cleaver, 2x4, a shotgun, or thrown weapons like rocks, harpoons, and knives), but they are dropped if you go through to a different room (or you are hit). Not a huge deal overall, but it adds to the very simplistic (and repetitive, which will certainly turn some people off) nature of the game.
    Since this was an arcade game, it makes sense that it doesn't save or have a password system. Still sucks. Here's a great example of why it sucks: on Friday night, I sat down to play, hoping I could conquer the game in about an hour. I had previously gotten to the very last room before the boss of Stage V. So, I got through the first five stages easily enough, and I hit a HUGE rut on Stage VI (more on that later), and I played so late into the morning that I had to shut it off. When I wanted to play the next night, I had to start from Stage I. Pretty aggravating and disappointing (even though it took me about twenty minutes to get back to Stage VI again). Again, this is a minor complaint, and it's one I can't bemoan too much.
    Now, Stage VI. Good ol' Stage VI. My friend Max at work had warned me about how much of a pain in the ass this stage was. You don't really know until you experience it yourself. The kicker is, though, that if you're good enough at the level, it's almost the shortest one in the whole game, and you could get through it in 2-3 minutes. As I mentioned above, I played Friday night. I played for about three hours. At least 90 minutes of that three hours was devoted to trying (and trying. And trying. And trying. You get the picture) to just beat Stage VI. After you beat the boss of Stage V (more on the bosses below. You know the drill), you drop down into this organic-looking hole, and it brings you into this womb-like area, where apparently all the monsters are coming from. You traverse this womb-area, and you are constantly under assault by these bubbles that appear both on the floor and on the ceiling (both in front of, and behind, you). They form, then float, and if they land after floating, a small fetus-demon emerges. They can be killed in one hit, but the bubbles can float in such erratic patterns that it can be tough (or impossible) to dodge them. Plus, if some of those babies hatch (or, are born, I guess?) then they can jump at you. If they successfully get to you, they attach themselves to you, and slowly drain your health until you shake them off. It probably doesn't sound too hard, if you've never played it, but trust me, it's frustrating as all hell. Because Rick isn't the most agile guy around, avoiding the endless stream of bubbles is hard. This level made me contemplate smashing my controller through the wall. I haven't felt such extreme anger at a game since some of those goddamn DLC bosses from Dark Souls II (Sir Alonne, I'm looking at you, you bastard).
 
    I don't find the cons in this game to be terribly egregious, however I would understand people not liking the game because of them (or mainly, that it's too repetitive for them). Well, I don't really understand people not liking this game. It's a wonderful game. I'd like to explain now why it's so wonderful:

    This game is filled with monsters and demons. I find the designs of these guys to be simple yet gory. They are decayed, bloody (or "slimy"), twisted and deformed. Some examples of the variety are: zombies, mutants, decaying dogs, dismembered hands, bats, mirror-reflections of yourself, hanging dead monster corpses, water monsters, gross worms, and these fucking things:

What can be said?

     I mean, look at this thing? It's essentially a crawling, limbless fetus (are all fetuses limbless actually?) that spews green slime at you. This is my favorite enemy in the game. I think it only shows up twice, but the first time it does (pictured above, at the start of Stage III), I remember actually being a bit freaked out. Even for a game that's 25 years old, this is a pretty damn disturbing enemy. And I LOVE it.
    As I've mentioned, this game is short. So, despite there not being a save system, the game really doesn't take too long to go through. If you are good and know what you're doing, you can play through and beat the whole game in 20-30 minutes. I had to restart and play from the beginning on five (I think) different occasions, and it took my close to six hours, all told. I know I can beat the game now in an hour or less. If it wasn't for that goddamn Stage VI I could have this game beat in under forty minutes. There are only seven stages, and some are very short (Stages I and III specifically can each be beaten in about 90 seconds). So, no save/password sucks, but it ain't that long anyway.
    Now, my favorite part of this game: the GORE. I've used words like, "gross" and "disgusting" a lot in this post, and for good reason. The levels, besides even the enemies and bosses themselves, are very detailed in their over-the-top craziness. The first time I ever booted it up to play, I remember thinking, "how the hell did this get released in the late 80s?" I feel like this game is grosser than Mortal Kombat even.

Just a few examples here

Is that a large cleaver or are you happy to see me?

But I can throw these words around until the mutated fetus cows come home. Inside the game, you'll see: decayed bodies that vomit green slime/acid stuff; chained up, tortured "people"; piles and piles of dead meat or organs; as I've mentioned, Stage VI takes place inside a womb!; and really other various nasty and vile things. Look, I'm starting to realize I'm not selling this game as best I can. For some reason, I'm having a hard time writing about this without becoming repetitive myself and using the same words over and over again. If you like B-movie gore and body-horror, you'll love the look of this game. Simple as that. Oh yeah, almost forgot! Your health, as seen in the picture above, is represented by actual human hearts. This is incredibly amazing to me.

    Those are my thoughts on the game. On the whole, I really, really, enjoyed it. More than I even thought I might before I played it. It's quickly become a favorite of mine, and I can't wait to play the second and third installments. I hear they are better (and grosser). So, if you don't mind it being very simple, somewhat repetitive, and pretty short, then you'll have a blast playing it. And again, if you don't own a TurboGrafx-16, but you DO own a PS3/Xbox 360, buy the dumb remake. Sure, you have to play through eight chapters of it, but it's totally worth it. One final interesting note: the version available to unlock in the remake is the arcade version, and not the TurboGrafx-16 version. This is great because the Grafx version has a few changes from the arcade version, and they are all for the worse. First off, Rick's mask is changed from white to red. It looks like shit when it's red. I understand why they did it: they didn't want him to look too much like Jason Vorhees (or the resulting lawsuit that would come with that), but I still think the red mask looks awful. Secondly, for the TurboGrafx-16 version, ALL religious imagery was taken out. Not that there was much in the first place. The boss for Stage IV is an inverted cross (how awesome), but in the Grafx version it's just a blue head. Also, directly after this boss there is an altar with candles. The altar has been inexplicably taken out, and the candles just float in thin air. Finally, at the end (SPOILER ALERT), when you get to the grave where the final boss rises, the cross is replaced by a lame tombstone. I'm pretty thankful they included the original arcade release over the crappy-looking (and neutered) TurboGrafx-16 one. This is definitely the way to go to play this game.

    There's one final thing to get to, now that I've rambled quite enough: the bosses, sillies!

BOSSES

Body Eaters (or Boreworms)

Dead

    The Stage I boss is twenty-or-so of these Boreworms. They wriggle out of all the decaying...whatever it is that is piled in this room, and they jump at you. They can either jump very high and far, or they hop a little a slither along the ground. The easy strategy is to stand at the far right of the room, and just spam the punch button. Be weary when they crawl on the ground so you can duck and kick them. Easy first boss. They also show up as enemies elsewhere in the game.

Poltergeist Room

Eye see you!

    Another boring-looking boss (don't worry, from Stage III on, with one exception, they get better). This is a room that is haunted by a poltergeist. When you arrive here, the whole room shakes, and a bunch of shit falls from the ceiling. Avoid it, and the green-seated chair (pictured above jumping crazily) starts jumping crazily at you. Dispatch it, and three knives come at one. Once they are dealt with, the eye painting comes to life and flies around the room. Kill it to be almost done with the battle. Once the painting is done with, DON'T stand under that damn chandelier. It falls. And if it kills you, guess what. You're doing the boss over again! For whatever reason, this boss gives me more trouble than any of the first five bosses. Still, not too hard.

Biggy Man

He is quite a biggy man

    Despite the fact that this boss sounds like he was named by a five-year-old, this guy is awesome, if not completely nonsensical. He has two chainsaws for arms, has a bag over his head a la Jason from Friday the 13th Part Two (although with no eye holes...), and seemingly has no skin. You get a shotgun right before the battle. It has eight shells. Unfortunately, eight is not quite enough to take him down. There are two ways to do this: use the eight shells on him, then just get close and punch away, and hope you can juggle him; or you can actually bring a shotgun found earlier in the level to the battle by holding it throughout the level and then continually picking up and putting down both that shotgun and the other shotgun you will find right before the boss battle. You're essentially "walking" them both, since you can't equip more than one. I think he takes ten or eleven shots to kill. With this method he's very easy, and with the more "legitimate" method he's tougher. But, if you have full health, you'll be fine (it's absolutely impossible to get close to him without getting hit).

Evil Cross

Who would have a problem with this? Babies

    The boss of Stage IV is a floating, inverted cross. It's protected by floating bloody dismembered heads. How fucking awesome is that? When you walk into the room you need to walk towards it as it floats to the end of the room. Halfway through, you'll get a cleaver. Very helpful. Once it's at the end of the room, it floats around the screen, and it has it's (infinite amount of) heads fly at you. You need to destroy the heads around the cross, then give it a few good whacks with the cleaver. The heads regenerate after a short time, so this boss is best done quickly. Still, not too hard.

Jennifer

So adorable!

    This is Rick's girlfriend, who he's trying to save. She's been turned into a decaying demon. At the start of the battle, she jumps across the screen. As soon as she lands, she extends her claws to attack. After the attack, she jumps to the other side of the screen. It's best to hit her while she's in the air. This will give you enough time to make space in between you and her, so when she uses her claws, you're far away.
    After you hit her a few times, she changes back into regular Jennifer briefly. After this, she has the long-and-high jump plus a much shorter jump. Same strategy applies though: just punch her in the air.
    She will once again turn back into her former self, then turn back into the demon. This final "phase" is the toughest: besides her two other jumps, she will also hop forward a short distance. Here you need to get up close to her to deliver a punch, but you can do it where you can punch her as soon as she lands her small hop. and still back up in time. It can be a bit tricky, but overall it isn't terribly difficult.

Mother

I love my mommy

    The boss of Stage VI, and apparently the source of all the monsters. The boss itself is just this big heart that's attached to a stem. It can't physically attack you. However, the damn babies still spawn as you fight it, and this makes it very difficult. My general strategy was to try to clear the area of the babies as best I could, then go up to the heart and low-kick the ever-loving shit out of it. Most of the bubbles spawn low, so the low-kicks get rid of them. If some spawn at the top of the heart (as pictured), stand up and take a few punches. Otherwise, make sure to turn and kill any babies/bubbles that come behind you. This boss takes like fifty fucking hits to kill. And, can I just say why do bubbles kill Rick? He's this huge, muscle-bound maniac that fights monsters and demons and all sorts of ghoulies, but a fucking bubble grazes his arm and, oops, that's it. You're dead. Man, fuck Stage VI

Hell Chaos

I'm very sorry for this picture

    [note: I didn't realize until just yesterday how AWFUL this picture looks. Here's a link (with a MUCH better picture. Scroll to the bottom) to the (now-defunct) West Mansion website, which besides being the best Splatterhouse website, is also run by the guy that runs Hardcoregaming101. Circle of life.]
    This is Hell Chaos. He rises from a grave to fight you. He's a rotting (or decaying. Not sure if it really matters) head. He also has some rotting hands that try to grab you (and come from more the front of the screen). He himself just goes underground and emerges on the other side of the screen. When he does this, he shoots rocks. To avoid these, I generally stay away from him, towards the middle of the screen, until they all fall. His hands are tougher to avoid. You can see them at the bottom of the screen right before they attack. You can either jump away (which I try not to do), or you can just walk in the opposite direction. Sounds easy, but both hands attack right after one another, and they are pretty quick. Otherwise, just punch the hell out of the head for a bit, and it goes down (it takes WAY less hits than the Mother boss).


    And there you have it, Splatterhouse for the arcade. I would suggest it to everyone, unless you don't like gross things. If that's the case, I have nothing to say to you. Good day (everyone else, I'll see you all next time!)

FIN

Final Fantasy IV Advance Diary, Week 3

Losing and gaining

Airshippin'

    This post is going up on Friday instead of Thursday. Sorry for the slight delay, but a family emergency took precedence this week. Onward to the diary!

DAY 8 (1/5/15. PLAYTIME: 4:52 TO 5:46)

 

    Half my day was spent grinding to level up some characters. Mainly Cecil. I realized that since Cecil is now a Paladin, he was reset back to level 1 (maybe it was 2 or 3, I’m not exactly sure as I didn’t notice it at first. Level 1 makes the most sense…). I stayed around Mt. Ordeals to level. Afterward, I went back to Mysidia to talk to the Elder. I was told I could use the Devil’s Road to get to Baron, to steal an airship.

    After I wandered around for a bit, trying to find this so-called Road of the Devil, I found a little Chocobo forest, which was pretty cool. Hopped on a Chocobo and rode my way back to Mysidia, which was where the damn Devil’s Road was to begin with. I stepped in, and it transported me to Baron. Let’s find an airship!

    At the inn, who do I find but Yang! He’s in control of some soldiers, and he is none-too-pleased to see me. After whooping the asses of the guards and Yang himself, he snaps out of being an asshole. Apparently, after being thrown off the ship by Leviathan, he lost his memory. He does say Rydia was swallowed by Leviathan…

    He joins the party, and he has a Baron Key (used to open various doors in Baron). Now, to find Cid, who’s locked somewhere in the castle. Find him, find the airship. This day was the least exciting of the three you will read for this diary entry. Let’s look at notes:

• Not much today. My friend Max did clue me into what some of the mystery commands do, like “Twins”, “Cry”, and “Cover”
• Twins: the two mages (P & P I call ‘em) sit out a few turns, then they use a random, semi-powerful spell 
•  Cry: Confuses the enemies
• Cover: Cecil will take damage for an ally 

• I’m still enjoying the HELL out of this game. I wish I had a little more time every week to play this gem. No wonder this game is so revered. 

 BOSS: 

 

    A big fat "none"!

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DAY 9 (1/6/15. PLAYTIME: 5:47 TO 6:37)

    Holy shit! Quite a day today! Started off in Baron. I found an underwater passage that lead right into the castle. The passageway itself was pretty easy (I did miss a few treasure chests though. For shame). In the castle, you find some old military assholes that Cecil used to know. His name is Baigan. He briefly joins your party, but P & P don’t trust him. And wouldn’t you know it? He’s a damn monster! You fight him (this is definitely the toughest boss in the game so far. Yowza). Right after you defeat him, you walk into the throne room to talk to the king. Well kiss my grits, it’s not really the king! Oi vey! It’s really another Elemental Wizard, like Scarmiglione (but of Water instead of Earth), named Cagnazzo, disguised as the king. You fight him as well. He’s not nearly as tough as Baigan, but coming off the heels of that battle, this one can be pretty rough too.

    Right after these two battles, they find Cid. As they attempt to leave the castle, Cagnazzo, from the Netherworld, tries to kill them, by trapping them in a small room and having the walls close in on them. P & P, those noble, silly kids that they are, sacrifice themselves. They turn themselves to stone to stop the walls from closing in. Thanks for everything, little kids! You won’t personally  be missed by me, since I couldn’t ever keep your damn names straight.

    We then get a scene of Golbez and Kain talking. They need one final Crystal, the Earth Crystal. For reasons unknown, this particular Crystal will be quite the pain for these two to get. They decide it would be easiest for Cecil to get the Crystal for them. Then, they would trade the kidnapped Rosa for the Crystal. Of course, Golbez plans on killing Cecil during the exchange. That dastardly scamp!

    Finally, Cid brings them to a hidden airship. As they start flying, Kain intercepts them and tells Cecil of the proposed trade (minus the killing, of course). Phew, that’s everything! Some notes, eh?

• Tough, tough stretch. I used most of my consumables.
• Since P & P aren’t with us anymore, I don’t really feel bad that they were KO’d during those boss battles and didn’t receive any of the experience.
• So THAT’S why the king has been acting like such an asshole recently. Case closed there
• I LOVE THIS GAME

BOSS:  

 

BAIGAN (plus left and right arms):

Another day, another goofy fucking boss

     This battle actually began easily enough. I thought I was in for an easy ride. I had Cecil and Yang attack the right and left arms, which had probably 400-500 HP each. Tellah and Palom used offensive magic, and Porom healed when necessary. After Baigan's arms are taken away, he will restore them after a few turns. After he did this a second time, I (probably foolishly) decided to ignore the arms and focus all my attacks on his body. If he was just regenerating them anyway, why waste precious turns attacking them? Right when he casted Reflect on himself is when the battle took a turn for the ugly. THEN he casted Reflect on one of the P's (I honestly don't remember which one. Porom I think?), and things really got complicated. I couldn't group-heal anymore, which really sucked. One of the young mages was KO'd and I just left them like that. It was easier for me to do that than to constantly resurrect them (also, I was running out of Phoenix Downs and MP for the Life spell).
    At any rate, Cecil and Yang attacked (or healed, as necessary) and anyone else alive also healed. This was a nasty battle. Through perseverance, LOTS of consumables, and some hard hits from Cecil and Yang, I finally took him down. I was relieved. That feeling wouldn't last long, however...



CAGNAZZO:

Probably my favorite looking boss so far

    This one was tough at the beginning, but really got easy towards the end. But, coming directly from the Baigan battle, it was not fun. He used Tsunami towards the start of the battle, and he took out Tellah, Palom, and Porom. I decided to leave all three of them KO'd, and I just used Cecil and Yang for a large majority of the fight. Luckily, Cagnazzo only attacks, uses Tsunami, uses Haste on himself, or goes into a Turtle Defense and heals. Also, it seems that every cast of Tsunami he uses does less and less damage. The first one he did caused between 200-250 damage per character. By the end, it was only doing 50 or less. I had Yang use Double and smash him for some good damage, and I had Cecil use group Cura until he ran out of MP. The first time Cagnazzo went into his Turtle Defense, I resurrected Tellah, and I had him slam away with his medium magic. Cagnazzo went down easily enough once those three were all attacking (didn't bothering reviving P & P).

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DAY 10 (1/8/15. PLAYTIME: 6:38 TO 7:33)

 

    (hey, Cid is in my party now! Didn't even notice that on Tuesday). Not quite the crazy day that Tuesday was, but still pretty eventful. After flying around in the airship trying to a.) find Troia and b.) trying to figure out where the hell to LAND the airship near Troia, I entered the castle. There are clerics here that say the Earth Crystal was stolen by a Dark Elf. He went into a nearby cave with it. Of course he did. Don't these kingdoms have better storage areas and security for these sacred, powerful Crystals?
    Before leaving to go retrieve the Earth Crystal, we find Edward! Sarcastic hoorah's all around. Thankfully, he's too injured to join your party. But he does give Cecil a mysterious harp.
    I was told that the cave where the Dark Elf resides is on an island to the northeast. I found it easily. What I couldn't find easily was where to land the airship. I had to consult an online walk through (for shame, I know. Hey, only the second time I've had to do it so far. Not too bad). Apparently, there is a Chocobo forest north of Troia, and there is a black Chocobo that you can use. He can fly and land in the forests of the island. Maybe I didn't talk to enough people in the castle or the town (which is a possibility. I was in and out pretty fast. No time to waste, you know?), but how was I supposed to know there was a VERY inconspicuous forest that had a Chocobo that could fly? I only saw one other Chocobo forest, and it was quite clear it wasn't a normal forest. It was a perfect circle of forest area that was surrounded by the normal forest. It's tough to explain, but suffice to say that you could immediately tell it was something different than just a normal forest area. This Chocobo forest? Looked like all the rest of the forest areas. It wasn't OBVIOUS like the other one.
    Oh well, I got to the cave at any rate. The Magnetic Cave is a semi-annoying place. If you have any kind of metal equipped, you can't do anything in battles. So some of my equipment had to be taken off, and Cecil's sword had to be switched for the Crossbow. Luckily the cave is pretty short and it's not too tough.
    Once you get through it you find and fight the Dark Elf. At first he kicks your ass embarrassingly. Somehow though, far off in the castle in Troia, Edward senses you are in trouble. He plays a melody on his harp that negates the magnetic field of the cave. You are able to hear it through the harp he gave you earlier. With no more magnetism to ruin the fun, Cecil can equip his normal sword. Now the battle is super easy (even though the Dark Elf transforms). After the battle, I grabbed the Earth Crystal and saved it and shut it off. Besides the bother of trying to figure out where exactly I could land, this was a good session!

• There's an enemy in the Magnetic Cave called "Cait Sith". He actually looks like the serene, spotted leopard-like enemies from Final Fantasy VII (and others, I believe) "Cuahl". Interesting
• It's great to have access to an airship. Love zipping around in it. 
• I also love the look of Cid. He looks like a psycho
• I'm going to complain about the random battle rate again. It's very frustrating. If this was a traditional B-LOG SLAYING, that would definitely be a "con"

BOSS:

 

DARK ELF/DARK DRAGON

Really, does this game have a penchant for silly-looking bosses or what?

    Very first time you fight him, he wastes you pretty easily. After Edward gives you the ability to use Cecil's sword (which cleans house in this battle), this is an easy fight. Cecil, Yang, and Cid all do pretty good damage, so I just had them attack. Tellah's magic does jack shit, so he's in a supporting/healing role.
    After you beat on him a little bit, he transforms into the (not very intimidating) Dark Dragon:

Nothing like fighting a huge tapeworm

    It's really more of the same. The Dark Dragon is a little more powerful than the Elf, but not by a whole lot. The three non-magic users attack (with Cecil stepping in occasionally to heal) and Tellah heals. Easy peasy. He goes down easy, like delicious fresh-squeezed orange juice.

    There it is, folks! I hope you enjoyed it, and look for a new one next week on its normal day: Thursday!

B-LOG SLAYING: Brain Lord (SNES)

Brain damage (*rimshot*)

    I haven’t done one of these in a while. Shucks. Bear with me if I have forgotten how to do these. This is my first big gaming disappoint with my backlog journey so far. Most of the other games I’ve played and documented have either exceeded my expectations, or at least met them. This game here, this Brain Lord, has definitely fallen quite short of my high expectations. Why were my expectations so high? Maybe because I saw that beautiful purple “e” on the cartridge. Maybe because the few screenshots I checked out before playing looked great. Maybe because the box cover art is badass as all get out. Or maybe because of the few other people on Instagram telling me this game rocked. Well, folks, it really didn’t rock. Now, this isn’t a bad game, per say. I know a lot of people do like it. I would probably suggest it to someone to play through at least once. I bought my copy from Amazon (with a birthday giftcard) for $16 (and the obligatory $3.99 shipping), and I don’t think I’d paid any more than that ($20 including the shipping). Interestingly enough, and I didn’t know this until just yesterday, this game is sort of part of a trilogy of games published by Enix, with the first being The 7^th Saga and the final game being a non-North American game Mystic Ark. Apparently the main character’s name (if you choose to keep the default) is Remeer, is used in both those games as well. 7^th Saga is on my radar to buy, but I’d never heard of Mystic Ark. Maybe that’ll be added to my, “modded PSP non-English games to download” list (ssshh! Don’t tell anyone). I guess I was just hoping I’d get more of a Soul Blazer kind of game (which this game sort of looks like). Even though Soul Blazer has its problems, that’s a game I would like to play again at some point. I’m pretty sure I can’t say the same about Brain Lord. Do you guys wanna look at a lopsided cons/pros list? I knew you would!

CONS

• The jumping sucks. And it’s such an integral part of the game
• The enemies respawn if killed. This is disappointing. Compound this with the fact that they respawn if you just leave the screen and come back, and it’s downright frustrating. Isn’t that NES-type garbage?
• While I appreciate the puzzles, there just is not a good variety of them. Almost all are of the “pushing things onto buttons to open doors” kind.
• The menus are very tedious. It’s a small complaint, but it gets old really fast

Yikes. That’s a lot. The pros are gonna look kind of silly in comparison:

PROS

• The bosses are pretty fun. There are only four of them, but they are all big, varied, colorful, and in general provide a decent challenge
• On the inverse of the puzzle complaint above, the puzzles do break up the monotony of the game. None of the puzzles are brain-bustingly hard, but there were a few that took me a long time to figure out
• Oh yeah! I like the Jade system (and the magic system is good too)

    The cons seem to far outweigh the pros in this game. That isn't to say this game is no good, no. It has it's flaws, but I know people like this game a lot (on Instagram, and a few forums, at least). Is it worth a playthrough? Probably. While you are playing through, expect to run into shit like...
    ...jumping. How can a game get jumping wrong? When I first started playing, I was shocked (and excited) that you actually could jump in this gamed. Seems a little odd for most action-adventure games like this. Too bad any sense of excitement goes out the window the first time (of many) you have to jump across platforms. Ugh. The jumping feels stiff, and it needs to be fairly accurate. I mean, no shit right? Obviously jumping has to be accurate. What I mean is, you need to jump from the middle of a given platform. Say you're on a platform, and you need to jump to one that is in front of it. There's black nothingness in between one platform and the next. So you go to jump, but you hit the "jump" button too late. Even though you are still on the platform, since you waited until you were at the edge of said platform to jump, the jump won't register. You'll go falling into the abyss, like a moron. You have to make sure you jump when you're in roughly the middle of whatever you are standing on. Seems like it shouldn't make one monkey-shit of a difference, as long as you are on the platform when you press the "jump" button. This gets very aggravating, because, as I said, there is a fair amount of jumping in this game. Very disappointing.
    This next complaint isn't as heinous as the bad jumping controls, but it can be annoying. Enemies respawn. It happens in lots of SNES games. Hell, it still happens in games nowadays. It can suck, but it's not a huge deal. Except in this game, you can kill an enemy, walk five or six steps away, then walk back, and that enemy will be alive again. It's great for farming, but it's very irritating otherwise. I can understand an enemy respawning if you leave the room and come back, but just taking a few steps? Bummer!
    As I said above, I do appreciate the puzzles, even though generally I'm godawful at puzzles. But they take puzzles, which are a pretty integral part of the game, and they make them boring and tedious. Most of the puzzles consist of a room with a certain amount of buttons, and a corresponding number of rocks/balls. Once pushed, the balls roll until they hit something (the walls, the rocks, etc). It's usually about configuring the rocks so they stop the balls, and the balls can be pushed onto the buttons to open the doors. They can be fun, and pretty challenging, but when a good 75% of all the puzzles in the game are this basic premise, it gets old. Fast.
    I suppose you could lump this next grievance in with puzzles, but I'd like to bitch about the Dark Zones in the final area of the game, the Platinum Shrine. They look like this:

Whoopie! So much fun!

    Looks fun, right? Ha, WRONG. It's a totally pitch black area. Your light-Jade (I'll get into the Jade's in a bit. For now, just know they are helpful fairies) can't even light the area. These huge Dark Zones are just mazes that you have to get through. Obviously, the rub is you can't see where you're going, or where the walls are. To call these some lazy fucking puzzles would be a horribly understatement. They are the single reason why I most likely won't ever pick this game up to play again. These are so annoying and ill-conceived, I'd rather not waste my time again in the future. So, after the Dark Zones and rock/ball pushing, what other kinds of puzzles are there? A few where you have to figure out the right order to step on buttons (so many damn buttons in this game); a few where you have to navigate a crumbling floor and figure out which way to go; uh, maybe that's it. I'll get to the puzzles more below.

A typical menu screen. Evil incarnate

    God, the menus. The MENUS! Tedium, thy name is Brain Lord's menus. Firstly, every item/weapon/armor/key (there's dozens and dozens of keys to acquire during the game)  is represented by a crude picture. You will often find items in treasure chests, and then you will have to locate them in your inventory. This can be tough, because you won't know what anything is until you click on something, then a subscreen with the name and description comes up. It's annoying. By the end of the game, you know what most of the items look like, but all the Jades are represented by gem-looking icons, and these all look very similar. Do you want to know what the worst part of the menu interaction is? The X-ray glasses. These are used to bring up a map of the current floor of the dungeon you are on. They are really only needed for the first and the last dungeon, but they are pretty helpful for those two. Here's how a typical usage of those X-ray glasses goes (in steps): 

1. Press button to bring up menu
2. Choose "items"
3. Choose the X-ray glasses
4.  Wait for the flavor text to scroll through
5. Choose "use"
6. Wait for dumb sound effect to fully play
7. Here you get to see the map screen. When you're done looking at it, exit out
8. This brings you back to the flavor text screen, where you chose the "use" option. Wait for the text to scroll again.
9. Exit out of this menu, back to the inventory menu
10. Exit out of this menu, back to the main menu
11. Exit out of this, back to gameplay

    How much fucking fun was THAT? EVERY TIME you need to use those X-ray glasses, you have to go through that song-and-dance. Especially in those aforementioned Dark Zones, it's helpful to bring up the map several times. This gets beyond tedious to have to do this four, five, six times in a one-or-two minute span. Just thinking about it makes me very sad.

    Finally, this isn't a part of the puzzle complaint, but this game relies heavily on locked doors. Every dungeon has probably a dozen plus locked doors. This means, a lot of the game is just trying to find keys to unlock doors to gain access to new areas where more keys will need to be acquired. It's kind of lazy, and I feel pads out the experience a bit.

    I think that's all I have for my cons, but I'd like to talk about two others things. These aren't quite cons, and they certainly aren't pros, so I'll just throw them here. Firstly, the music. It's fine. It does it's job. It isn't memorable though. That's a big let-down. Some of it, towards the end especially, really reminds me of the music from Turtles in Time. So, not all bad, eh? Also, the graphics are only okay. They are fairly bland (especially the dungeons. They are usually just one uniform color, like brown or silver), and maybe even a little ugly. Except the bosses, like I said. They look great.

   Okay, I've bitched about this game enough. There was some fun to be had. Let's try to have it!

    I would like to get back to the puzzles. I really complained about them more than I had intended to, and it probably hurts this point a bit. Oh well, that's just the way it is. Disregarding the horrendous Dark Zones, and ignoring the over-reliance on button puzzles, the puzzles ARE a nice change of pace. There's no better feeling, in general, than finally figuring out a puzzle you have been stumped on. This happened to me a few times throughout my playthorugh. Even better, none of these puzzles are stupidly hard, and I only had to look up the answer to one of them (which, doing just a bit of research, it seems a LOT of people had to do the same. I believe it was an instance of bad translation). I appreciate what the developers wanted to do, which was have an action-adventure game that balances puzzles and combat. I can't help but think how much better, and more varied, the puzzles in Link to the Past are, for example. Shoot, that's negative. We are in the positive section of this blog! Sorry. Um, so yeah, the puzzles. They

can suck, but they can also be okay? Ugh

    Okay, something that is genuinely great about this game. The bosses! I always make it a point to discuss the bosses in all the games I play (duh. Anyone who frequents this blog (do those people exist?) knows that!). This game has pretty good bosses. Where so many other

things are disappointing (including the enemies. They aren't great), the bosses excel. There are unfortunately only four, but they all manage to be unique and fun. I'll go into greater depth with each one, but I can say that they are big (except for one), colorful, and very varied. There's a giant cockroach, a large cycloptic robot, some skeletal ghost guys, and...whatever the hell the Demon King is. They all provide a decent challenge and all are fun to fight. Read on for

more detail on them!

    Finally, this game has two interesting mechanics. Firstly, the magic. You can get several magic spells (I ended the game with five, but I know there are more), and you can use them as you please. You can cycle through them with the shoulder buttons. Each one has a small bar

at the bottom of the screen, and to use the spell, you have to attack and hold the "attack" button, until the bar fills up. Each spell has a differently-lengthed bar. Some spells have bars that only take a second to fill, some take two or three seconds. It's interesting and different. I like it. Also, you can find things called Jades. They are all fairies that help you through your journey.

That white alien-looking guy is the defense Jade. I used him quite a bit

    The Jades can do lots of different things, including: giving you offensive/defensive buffs; giving you actual offense (some shoot fireballs or lightning); lighting up dark areas (as I mentioned above); or revive you if you die. There could be more, I didn't have all of them. Before I started using them (I didn't touch them for the first few hours of the game), I noticed that some defeated enemies left these small blue balls. I couldn't pick them up. I eventually ignored them, until I started using the Jades. These blue balls (tee hee) are experience for your Jades. They can all be leveled up! Honestly, I didn't notice a huge difference with some of my leveled Jades. I think the highest level I got to was 9, with maybe two different Jades. I'm sure there obviously is a difference between a Jade at level 1 and a Jade at level 9. I think it's a subtle one. But these guys give the game a small sense of strategy. It's a neat concept.

    That's my list of pros, however I have something else to add. I discovered this in the town of Toronto (why it's called Toronto, I have no idea. I'll be a monkey's uncle, and all that jazz). There's a small boarding house/apartment type building. On the second floor, there's a hallway with three doors. There's a guy standing outside of his room (the door on the far left), complaining that the room next to his is so loud. He wants to file a complaint to management. If you go into that room (the one in the middle), you'll find two newlyweds standing near their separate beds. They want to be left alone. If you go to the room next to THEIR room (the room on the far right), you'll find a guy standing right near the wall that is adjacent to the newlywed's room. When you talk to him, he stammers about how he's fixing the wall. Demons had broken it, and LEFT A HOLE, when they invaded Toronto. If you've can't quite piece this little narrative together, let me help: a newlywed couple is fucking in their room (otherwise known as "consummating the marriage") so loudly it keeps their neighbor awake. Meanwhile, their OTHER neighbor is peaking in on them doing the nasty, through the hole in the wall. This is incredibly awesome. This little throwaway thing makes me like this game much more than if it wasn't included. 

For reference, this is what Toronto looks like

    This is a flawed game. This is an annoying game. This is, at times, a LAZILY INFURIATING game. But, it's not a bad game. It's just very odd. There are only five dungeons (and only two towns), and each one is VERY LONG (and it gets monotonous after a while). You notice it more because of the lack of dungeons. If they had included one or two more, and shortened the length of each one (maybe took out a few locked doors or Dark Zones), I think the game would flow better and overall be better for it. In each dungeon, you'll experience bad platforming, puzzles (both good and bad), drab colors, boring enemies, and great bosses. I would suggest this game to fans of Enix, or specifically the Soul Blazer trilogy. This game isn't as good as those games, but it's worth playing once, at least. I bought mine for about $16 on Amazon, and that's all I'd pay. So, play it if you have it, or buy it cheap if you find it. But don't really seek it out. It's just not worth it. Sorry for being such a scrooge.

The final screen. I missed the screen that said "Fin".

BOSSES:

Giant Cockroach (located on 4th floor of the Tower of Light)

Fear me!

    He's a big, green cockroach. Pretty random boss for this place. He scurries along the outside of the walls of the room. He won't physically attack you (although if he touches you, it'll hurt), he'll just move around. After you hit him the first time, he will continually shoot out little yellow cockroaches. These bastards are very annoying. Besides these, the big cockroach has no offensive attacks. He just continues to move around the room. Killing the little guys can be tough, because there's usually a lot of them, and unlike their large counterpart (parent?) they like to try and attack you. Kill these little buggers (har har) while you whale on the big one. After you've smashed the big one enough, he dies in an amazing explosion of fiery fire. Observe:

I love when roaches explode when you kill them

    This guy can be annoying, but he's not super tough. Next!

Cycloptic Robot (located in the laboratory in the Site of Civilization)

Robot testicle?

    This one, as you can see by the picture, is a large, round robotic thing. He has an orange "eye" in his center, and wouldn't you know it? That's his ONLY vulnerable spot. It opens and closes periodically, so only attack when it's open. He only really has two means of attacking,

and both are pretty passive-aggressive: firstly, he hovers around the room. Coming in contact with him hurts. So, don't touch him. Secondly, there are two of the big steel balls in this room. These are the ones you push around to solve the button puzzles. These things roll around the room, so they have to be avoided. Occasionally, he will magnetize himself, and pull you (and the balls) towards him. If you get sucked into him, you die instantly. To avoid this, you have to constantly jump while he is trying to suck you in. This will keep you far enough away. I found the boomerang was the best weapon to kill this guy with. He might be a little easier than the cockroach, but that insta-kill attack killed me twice.

Ramus (located at the top of the Ice Castle)

Sorry, crappy pic. It was tough trying to isolate these guys

    Ramus is a little grey goblin that is just up to no good! For whatever reason, the fight isn't against him, but three spectral skeletons. Perhaps they work for Ramus? Who knows. Certainly not me. These skeletons float around, and cannot be attacked regularly. They have to be hit with your newly acquired "stop" magic. If you hit one with this, he will become vulnerable for a short time.

Very vulnerable

    Each one has a set amount of health, so they can each be killed. All you have to do is avoid them floating around, and just try to focus all attacks on one, until he is killed. Once you take out all three skeletons, the battle is over. The skeletons have no offensive attacks, per say. They just try to float into you. It seems most of these bosses aren't overly aggressive. They'd rather sit back and just let you die on your own. However, this battle does take place on an ice floor with some holes in it. That adds an extra layer caution to your battle plan. These guys are tough, and probably tougher than the robot, but a step below the cockroach (I remember him really giving me some early-game problems).

The Demon King (located on the fourth floor of the Platinum Shrine)

Doesn't it look like he has a goofy smile?

    This big green, goofy looking clown is the final boss of the game. Hell, he's the damn Demon King. I can't imagine many demons wanting to take orders from him. But, that's besides the point. This battle has several stages, and it's decently tough (and fun).

    Firstly, he moves around the room, swinging his big scorpion-like tail. That's all he does. It's easy to avoid, as the tail doesn't have the greatest range. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to hurt him. The only way I found was to use the Lightning Bow and shoot him right where his tail connects to his body. An awkward vulnerable-spot for sure, but it doesn't take too many shots to destroy his tail.

Sans tail

    His tail will eventually explode, and his "face" (I guess?) comes out from the middle of his body. He still moves around, but now he shoots fireballs. They arc in the air and hit the floor. These fireballs will cause the floor where it hits to become weak. If you step on that spot, the floor will break. If you fall in any of the eventual-holes, well guess what? You're starting this whole battle over again. Besides the fireballs, if you are directly underneath him, he'll charge at you. At any rate, you have to attack his face. I found it pretty easy to stand to the direct left or right of his face, and just whale away. I was using the heavy mall weapon. Hit his face enough, and the next phase of the battle starts.

    One of his arms will detach after the face has taken so much damage. This arm is basically a big centipede. It can transport around the room and shoot two tough-to-dodge energy balls. The Demon King still moves around and shoots the floor-destroying fireballs, so be aware. You can either attack the centipede arm, and destroy it, or continue attacking his face.

    Either way, eventually you'll have to attack the face so many more times that his other arm detaches itself. It's a flying pterodactyl-like creature. It only flies around the room, and has no other attacks. He's pretty easy to kill. I would suggest trying to kill the centipede first, then forcing the pterodactyl to come out. I had both the centipede AND pterodactyl out, and it got to be a little overwhelming. At any rate, kill both those detached arms, and the final phase of the fight begins.

Armless (love those tortured faces though)

    I must admit, I don't think you actually have to kill both those arms for the final part of the battle to take place. I think it's all predicated on how much damage his face takes. Once it has sustained enough, the "mask" (for lack of a better word. It's the blue-ish thing you've been attacking since destroying his tail) comes off. He still moves around the room, and he still shoots fireballs (by this time, the floor should be pretty cracked up, and it probably has several holes), albeit he moves a bit faster. All you have to do is continue to attack his newly exposed face (love those tortured faces on his back. Like he's trapping doomed souls), and avoid the holes, until he explodes. Once this happens, the boss is defeated, and the game is over.

    This is my favorite boss of the game. He's decently tough, there's lots going on (mini-phases, if you will), and I think he looks cool (despite being goober #1). I ended up using two Reviving Mirrors, two Apples, a Chicken, and a Heart. The toughest part of the battle is keeping an eye on the floor while you're fighting. You want to avoid the cracks when possible, and you REALLY want to avoid the holes, obviously.

    We've come to the end of this post. I think I've covered everything I wanted to about this game. In the end, I'm glad I played it, but I don't see myself playing through it again (at the very least, not for YEARS AND YEARS AND YEARS). Again, find it cheap enough, grab it at least. It's uncommon and looks great on a shelf in a SNES collection.