Infernos
Reviews
Fire Emblem Gaiden (NES)
Far from the "black sheep" of the series
The Good
As its name suggests, Fire Emblem: Gaiden is a side story to the original game. It takes place on a different location but a few characters, such as the Pegasus Sisters make return appearances.
Compared to the first game, Gaiden gives the player a lot more freedom to move around the game world as here you're not just taken from one battle to another, you actually get to visit towns, villages and fortresses - walk around and talk with NPCs, unlike in the original where visiting a town meant positioning the main character on a house icon.
There's an open-ended class change system for the villagers. You have the option of changing these villagers into one of five classes - mages, cavaliers, mercenaries, archers or soldiers. This brings nice customizability to the table. Also, class changes are done at certain statues in shrines so you don't need to find special items. Furthermore, weapons don't break in Gaiden and that's a good thing in a game like this. You see in the first game on the Famicom it was a rather tedious process trying to get all of your troops ready for the next map, as it took a long time, sometime even longer than the actual battles.
The magic system in Gaiden is fairly unique for the series, and more akin to traditional RPGs. Units learn a fixed set of spells as they gain levels, rather than needing to acquire particular limited-use items to cast each spell. Also, magic spells drain the HP of the spellcaster so you need to take that in consideration when deciding on the tactics.
Story telling wise it's presented in an interesting manner, there's two main characters, fighting in separate armies and scenarios until the game's end.
The first chapter focuses on one group, while the second focuses on the other group. However, by Chapter 3, you get to control both groups, and you advance to the next chapter once both groups have reached their final destination. The groups exist independently, but fortunately items can be swapped between the two groups by talking to a specific NPCs in certain villages. The surprising thing (for a Fire Emblem game) is that Gaiden is rather generous with revivals - 6 in total (3 for each side).
The Bad
The game is on the grindy side as you will have to grind at certain areas (mostly caves and graveyards) a fair bit otherwise the opposition will demolish your units sooner or later.
At first the need for grinding isn't that apparent as the 1st chapter is easily doable without any grinding whatsoever but later on - no way. So there's going to be some enemy types you'll certainly won't want to see anymore (zombies, skeletons and gargoyles) as you'll be fighting them over and over again. However, if you find the game too tough there is a hidden easy mode where EXP is doubled.
Graphically it looks pretty much identical to the first game so for a 1992 Famicom title it certainly doesn't shine in the graphics department. Especially if you keep in mind that another Tactical RPG - Enix's excellent but unknown gem Just Breed would be released later the same year and featuring much better visuals.
The Bottom Line
Although most of the features introduced in Gaiden vanished in the next game, some would eventually reappear in later games, such as Sacred Stones and Awakening. Nevertheless Fire Emblem Gaiden introduced new concepts and played around with unique ideas so give the oddball amongst the series a try (there's an okay English fan translation available if you're interested).
By Infernos on January 30, 2014
Broken Sword: The Smoking Mirror (Windows)
Rushed sequel, fails to live up to the first game
The Good
As this game uses the same game engine as its predecessor the graphics are as beautiful as ever, plus the credits even have a song with lyrics now.
There are some technical improvements to the interface, for example, you can now jump to locations by double clicking on an exit.
The puzzles, for the most part, are straightforward and logical. You won't find anything similar to the infamous goat puzzle from the first game. The big difference to the first game, is that in Smoking Mirror the player has the opportunity to control two characters at different times. And even though it's nothing special like, say, Maniac Mansion, you just play one chapter with George another with Nico, it's still a nice diversion.
There's still plenty of interesting characters you'll meet along the way. Plus you'll also run into a few old faces from the first game like the American tourists Duane and Pearl, and get to find out what happened to Sergeant Moue.
The Bad
After the Templar grand plot in the first game, here the story feels rather cliche - bad guy trying to resurrect evil god and prevent others from stopping him. And that's a shame because the Mayans are just as an interesting subject as the Knights Templar but here it's wasted with the rather thin plot this game has.
The story is not nearly as well-conceived nor executed. There's one major event near the end that takes place totally off screen and isn't explained or even showed in a cutscene at all. But seeing as this game was released just one year after the original it's easy to suspect why production was rushed and major scenes were dropped.
It starts out rather dull despite beginning the game strapped into a chair guarded by a deadly spider. Unlike the first game, it failed to pull me in right at the start. Though it does get significantly more interesting from there one, that is once you get to Quaramonte and the Caribbean. But still, compared to the first game there isn't nearly enough location variety. Also the first one had an abundance of interesting and funny characters, here there's only maybe a dozen, there's also way less conversations (which to some might be a blessing though).
This game is also more linear than the original. There's no map and in only one area you have more than one choice about where to go next. You also no longer can ask everyone about every item you're carrying, only a selected few. If you try to ask about the others, the main character will just say: "I don't think he/she would be interested in that". Why not? For me that was one of the numerous strong points in the original, where you could, for example, show plaster to a museum guard and get some snarky response from him.
I don't know what is it with mazes in adventure games but there's one here as well. Even though the Zombie Island maze is not nearly annoying as the one in the third Kyrandia game it still felt unnecessary.
The Mayan setting feels wasted on the puzzles as well, with only the last 2 puzzles right at the end happening in the Mayan temple. However the problem is that they don't gel at all with the pacing of the game by that time. Oh don't mind me while I do some wheel & lever puzzles, the villain will just have to wait resurrecting that evil god.
The Bottom Line
As expected the first one was a tough act to follow, as a result the second Broken Sword game doesn't really pull it off. In fact, I would say it's not even close, however Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror is still a solid game with plenty of style and character, well worth checking out if you like adventure games.
By Infernos on January 24, 2014