~ KAGAMI NO KUNI NO LEGEND ~
Victor Musical Industries
CD-ROM
1989
Ah, the memories. This was my first PCE "teen idol" game, and it's a horrible one... initially. It casts you as a fellow who, at the commencement of the affair, is watching a pop-rock songstress performing a concert on TV. After the show, she somehow gets teleported to a bizarre alternative world. Of course, you get sent there as well to save her.
Yes, I was embarrassed to be playing the game during this entire part.
But then it starts to play like a normal anime-style digital comic--one that's actually not too bad. It usually keeps you exploring and examining your surroundings as opposed to having you sit through Japanese dialogue. You journey through jungles and caves; visit palatial towers and "haunted" houses; and run into all sorts of odd people and creatures, including a friendly little dragon looking for its mother.
The "action" is relegated to the top-left quarter of the screen, but the cartoony artwork is decent enough, and the music is okay--the regular game music, that is. The girl's songs are terrible.
There's one of those first-person maze sequences that are usually downers in digital comics, and Kagami's labyrinth is patrolled by weird three-eyed-head things that pose quiz questions, but they make the process painless by simply pushing you back a few steps and then letting you try again if you respond to a query incorrectly.
There are some spots where you can make a choice that leads to your demise, but they're all a cinch to get past. Only the last boss might prove to be a true challenge, as the string of commands that must be entered to defeat him isn't all that easy to stumble upon.
