Momotarou Densetsu Gaiden

~ MOMOTAROU DENSETSU GAIDEN ~

Hudson Soft / Summer Project

HuCard

1992

My Momotarou RPG adventures concluded with what's probably the strongest of the three for the PCE. You actually don't play as Momotarou in this one; instead, you control acquaintances of his in three separate mini-quests.

There's a fairly standard RPG mini-adventure, but the premises of the other two quests are pretty interesting. One tale stars a princess of demons who needs to make her way up through the depths of the underworld to deal with invading beasts, and the other features a fellow who swipes money off monsters and gives it to fallen mendicants. There's also a bonus quest, a second trip through the money dude's adventure during which you can use a different character (and experience super-fast leveling).

Like Momo Densetsu II and unlike primitive Momo Turbo, Gaiden gives you groups of enemies to beat up on and multiple playable party members (for two of the three journeys, at least). In fact, at the beginning of the princess's expedition, you can select the royal lass's allies from a group of odd creatures and monsters. There's still plenty of leveling to do, but the fights are as fast as ever.

The graphics are much better in Gaiden than they are in its crusty predecessors. Battles here have some very nice-looking backdrops. The field visuals might seem only a bit better at first, but you'll notice significant improvements once you set foot in certain dungeons (which are largely well constructed and feature some decent puzzles).

Most of the enemies are kind of small, but that's okay. The music is not okay, however; it's often annoying, in fact, especially a certain battle tune that has a buzzing bassline.

The gameplay doesn't deviate from the series's simple norms for the most part, but it does deviate a bit from Momo tradition in that your characters earn spells the usual old-RPG way (upon reaching certain experience levels) rather than by passing trials of old hut-hermits. In fact, this game is more straightforward than the other two on the whole, meaning it contains far fewer potential "stuck-spots." And none of its boss battles are particularly time consuming or difficult.

II, not Gaiden, is my favorite Momo Densetsu game, as I really like its enemy art and find it to be quite funny at times. But people new to the series will almost certainly consider Gaiden to be the best, as it's definitely the least primitive (and easiest to get into and complete) of the bunch. It's too bad that Hudson never went ahead with a CD episode, as I believe the designers were really on the right track with many of the ideas they had, and such a sequel might've been like the great Ziria but even better in a lot of ways.

Momotarou Densetsu Turbo

~ MOMOTAROU DENSETSU TURBO ~

Hudson Soft

HuCard

1990

Being that I exist in a perennial state of discombobulation, I played through Momotarou Densetsu II before giving this game a go, but Turbo is the one that tells us (via stirring cinemas) of the peach lad's origins.

I found it to be remarkably reminiscent of II in many different ways. The primitive field graphics are eerily similar. Some tunes appear in both games, as do a number of enemies. Menus are navigated in basically the same manner; spells are acquired in basically the same manner. Momotarou's three animal buds tag along with him here just as they do in II; and as the group quested, I recognized many town and even continent layouts that I'd already explored in II. Turbo is essentially a different adventure that takes place in the same land.

However, as I played on, I noticed quite a few differences between the two; and most of these differences work in II's favor.

While both games are comparable to the original Dragon Warrior in primitiveness, Turbo turns back the clock even further than II (and does more to call to mind old DW) by having you control a one-man party for the entire game and requiring you to face only one monster in each battle. There are no playable allies to recruit, no bands of monsters to slay--just one-on-one stuff the whole way.

Granted, the animal chums chip in every once in a while with minimal-damage attacks and minor healing techniques, but you can't send them out to scout areas like you can in II (unless I somehow stupidly missed the way to do it). Scouting is an awesome feature and a big reason the animals are such excellent allies in II; but here, they're basically ornaments. They're also the only characters, playable or not, who tag along with Momotarou. You get none of the funny two-dozen-character-long caravans that you get in II.

Turbo also "lacks" status effects. Some enemies can "freeze" you for a turn and one boss can prevent you from using magic, but none of the traditional effects (like poison) are employed. Score one for Turbo's battles--I hate pointless busy-work status crap. Unfortunately, Turbo's battles are much less fun than II's due to their inferior enemy art. II has nice, large, colorful monsters, but Turbo's beasts are mostly boring. Enemy art is a significant reason I consider II a pretty good game, so this is a major issue as far as I'm concerned.

Along the same lines, the final boss in Turbo is a chump, not nearly as cool looking or as tough as the big ogre guy at the end of II. He's also a cheap asshole with a lot of hit points. You can be pounding away at him for a while without a care in the world when he'll suddenly decide to freeze you for a few turns or knock you out in an instant.

II doesn't focus much on dungeons, but when it decides to do one up for its last stretch, it does up a good one. Turbo's caves are larger than II's and play a slightly more central role, but they're duller than II's multi-area labyrinth by a long shot.

As is the case in II, there are plenty of troubled towns to help out. But in II, I feel like I'm regularly moving along and helping fresh faces and new villages, despite a decent amount of required leveling time. Turbo, on the other hand, gets bogged down in leveling and fetch questing. And some of the puzzles in Turbo can be quite difficult to solve, much tougher than just about any of the tough spots in II. They're the types of dilemmas that the Japanese walkthroughs don't bother to address (or address in a manner that will be of little help) because some essential elements would be obvious to someone proficient in Japanese while completely eluding the rest of us. I eventually solved them all because I'm a lunatic, but I don't think most people will want to bother.

II gets better and better as it goes along, with cooler and bigger enemies showing up and the whole affair culminating with the impressive dungeon and awesome boss at the end, but Turbo trudges along at times, bogged down by the aforementioned issues along with cheap enemies that either launch repeated major attacks without granting you a chance to counter or simply freeze you for successive rounds.

While it obviously fares very poorly in comparison with II, Turbo does what it does adequately enough. Allowed a little leeway as a primitive RPG, it doesn't have any flaws that would make a person run away screaming or anything. But there isn't anything particularly good about it that would warrant a recommendation either; and if you're interested in trying one of the two, don't hesitate to skip Turbo and go right to the second episode. In truth, II is the one that does all the rehashing; but it does everything in such superior style that we can disregard that somewhat inconvenient fact.

Momotarou Densetsu II

~ MOMOTAROU DENSETSU II ~

Hudson Soft

HuCard

1990

As I'm sure anyone can surmise by looking at screenshots, MD2 is an archaic traditional-style RPG that hearkens back to the days of the first Dragon Warrior with its crude map visuals and reliance on menus for actions as simple as talking to townspeople. The adventure is a linear one: you basically trek from town to troubled town and club a trouble-making demon before moving on to the next area to repeat the process. There's much more emphasis on field travel and town business than on dungeon exploring, with most of the caves simply acting as links between continents. And as you might expect from an RPG reminiscent of Dragon Warrior, there's quite a bit of leveling up to do.

Surprisingly, MD2 is a pretty decent game. It has quite a few innovative/noteworthy/charming elements that work in its favor.

You're joined early on by three NPC animal-pals who chip in with occasional attacks and healing techniques in battle. The coolest thing about these chums is that you can have them scout out an area without having to worry about being attacked. You know how annoying it can be in RPGs when you reach a new area and just want to find the next town and save or you enter a new dungeon and just want to regain your bearings only to be troubled constantly with random battles? Here, you can just send an animal bud out for a little reconnaissance and figure out the course you'll take without entering a single fight. I wish more RPGs had such a feature.

In addition to the wildlife, you're joined by all sorts of other wacky NPCs during your travels. Consider the actual playable allies as well, and the caravan you lead can sometimes number close to two dozen. It's funny to watch this long line march across the world, especially since some of the characters look very strange, particularly a really skinny dude who's about five times taller than everyone else.

Also funny are the celebrations that are held when you lend a hand to a town in need of some help. One town shoots off fireworks, another has its denizens do the wave, and another hosts an amusing village dance.

The problems faced by these towns are sometimes pretty interesting. One village is populated by tortoises and hares who are doomed to run endlessly around a track until you defeat the evildoer who cursed them to their curcuitous fate.

The bosses causing all these troubles for the towns are large, funny-looking monsters reminiscent of the beasts in Where the Wild Things Are.

The last guy is an enormous ogre standing before a backdrop of huge flames. It's a cool-looking fight scene, and he's one tough bastard.

While the map visuals are obviously very primitive, the big, cartoony enemies (not just the bosses) actually look quite nice--better than the monsters in a lot of CD RPGs, in fact. And there are almost two hundred of 'em. After you beat the game, you get to visit a special mode where you can view the enemies and listen to the tunes.

Speaking of the tunes, while many of them are pretty plain, some of the happy town music is actually quite catchy. The music in the mazes isn't as memorable, and the caves themselves aren't too memorable either, but the last dungeon is pretty darn large and contains a number of different areas for you to battle through.

You'll need some good magic spells to get through that dungeon and some of the other tough spots. Reminiscent of Tengai Makyou, you acquire spells by visiting little huts, in which you'll deal with some magic-using old fellows. You'll have to prove yourself worthy of learning the spell on offer by fighting the old man, completing a task, or overcoming a trial.

Some of the spells you get are pretty interesting. One character can create doubles of herself that not only confuse and bait your enemies but also launch attacks of their own. And when you use the spell that warps you back to town, your characters actually run a million miles an hour over oceans and whatever else is in their way until they reach their destination. Funny stuff.

When Momotarou returns to his little home at the very end, it really does feel like you and he have experienced quite an adventure. (Good thing, too, because the game tops twenty-five hours in play time, which is pushing it for a stone-age-style RPG.) Being that it's so straightforward in concept, about 95% of it can be played through easily without any knowledge of the Japanese language. There are some tasks and puzzles that are unsolvable without a walkthrough on hand, so it's a good thing that there are many Japanese ones available.

Well, despite all the nice things the title has going for it, I know that most folks will find MD2 too archaic for their tastes and will give up on it immediately after glimpsing the old-fashioned visuals. But it's not a bad game... honest.

Monster Lair

~ MONSTER LAIR ~

Hudson Soft / Alfa System / Westone

CD-ROM

1989

Monster Lair isn't an easy game to get through. Its challenge is derived more from its length than from its combat or run-and-jump action. Taken on their own, the two-part stages (each of which contains a "hack-and-blast" section as well as a straightforward shoot-'em-up segment) aren't very difficult to get through. But with fourteen of them to conquer, players must put in practice and engage in repetition to be able to anticipate all the tricky spots.

The many weapons at your disposal comprise the game's greatest strength. Not a single one of them is a dud, but using them optimally calls for changes in strategy whenever a switch is made. And with the near-constant icon grabbing and weapon swapping that take place, you'll have plenty of on-the-fly decisions to make.

Also, it's often beneficial to alter your turbo-switch setting depending on the weapon you're using and the situation at hand. All of this injects a welcome dose of strategy into an experience that seems quite simple at its core. The only "negative" I can cite regarding the weaponry is that the missile seems a little too powerful. Most of the bosses are defenseless against it.

Actually, while I like the designs, most of the bosses don't put up much of a fight, period. Their lineup is curious: the toughest ones appear in stages six through eight. The sixth guy is like a tougher version of the very cool giant-knives guy in Psychosis, and he's always a blast to fight. The seventh-stage ice guy and the crafty eighth-stage cactus head can also be trouble.

But those are the last difficult bosses you'll encounter until the final board. The cloak-adorned bat tosser and the gambling mushroom in subsequent stages are complete pushovers, and you don't even need to move against the guy camped within a ring of flames in Round Twelve if you have a decent long-range weapon.

While almost all of the bosses are cake, if one of the tougher ones happens to kill you and deprive you of whatever good weapon was in your possession, quick additional deaths may follow. And the boss fights are basically all there is to look forward to in the shooter portions of the game. Preceding the showdowns are brief stretches reminiscent of the early segments in Gradius stages where you pound on chumpy small-fry in order to power up. Proper levels would've been nice.

Perhaps the makers of the game should've cut down on the platforming stages a bit and developed the shooter stages further. The platforming ones become thematically redundant: one slippery ice level is cliche enough, so do we really need two?

And the strips don't even become particularly challenging until the eighth, with its wily cast of vultures, scorpions, snakes, and cacti. Things do become tricky and interesting later on, especially during the eleventh stage's sequences of rising and plummeting platforms...

...but the designers could've easily kept all the good platform-based material and still lopped off four or five strips, leaving themselves time to construct proper shooter parts instead of the formalities they ultimately delivered.

The game isn't an aesthetic superstar, but as is the case with Dynastic Hero, the bright, appealing colors often make up for the general "flatness" of the visuals. Some of the tunes have an old-school flavor to them that makes me a bit nostalgic, but the cacophony in Round One makes me want to turn the game off at once.

When Monster Lair is analyzed in this manner, it doesn't seem like much of a winner, but the weapons system makes it more than simply playable, and gradually making it deeper and deeper into the lengthy quest has its rewards. Amazingly, I didn't become bored with the requisite practice sessions, mainly because there are so many things to keep in mind if you really want to play through the game perfectly. While ML isn't a favorite of mine, I definitely feel that I've gotten a lot out of it.