Alnam no Kiba (Fang of Alnam)

~ FANG OF ALNAM ~

Right Stuff

Super CD-ROM

1994

I expected good things from this RPG. Its cover art is very nice, after all. And as for the game itself, well, I'd never read any negative reports on it. I guess I'll be the first to deliver one: Alnam disappointed me. It's merely okay on the whole--and even rather bad at times.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to play a Xenosaga game designed for the Turbo? You probably haven't, but a Xeno-esque affair is essentially what you'll get with Alnam. The cutscenes here go on and on, and it's not like they feature much cool stuff. It's almost all endless, boring conversation; exchanges that could've been completed in thirty seconds had they been handled with in-game text are pointlessly dragged out into anime-style congregations. I actually walked away to do something else during some of them. You do get a bit of tragedy, and you do get a bit of comedy, and the game handles those bits fairly well. Plus, the two leads have good "game-character chemistry." But the entertaining cinematic stuff drowns amid the useless material.

Even worse are the instances when the game decides not to switch over to cinematics but to host unskippable voice-acted babblefests instead. And get ready for some excruciatingly long load times--not just prior to cinemas, but upon entering dungeons and towns as well.

The cinemas are presented in solid style, at least, though the character designs are kind of hit-or-miss: most of the girls are cool, but most of the guys are lame. The in-game visuals don't fare as well as the anime stuff, as they're dark and drab and often ugly (except for... the water; some of the water looks really nice). Everything is small and indistinct; at times, I just barely noticed that there was a townsperson standing nearby.

The music seems pretty good at first but reveals itself to be merely decent. It's also very repetitive, as there aren't many tracks and you're forced to bumble around in certain locations for long periods at a time. Bird chirps and the like do their best to create pleasant atmosphere, but they can't make up for the ugliness of the visuals or the limitations of the music.

What almost manages to save this game (which is actually deplorable in so many respects) is a very good battle system. In fact, the ballyhooed Emerald Dragon could've learned a thing or two from Alnam's combat. You view the slugfests from an overhead perspective, as you do in ED, and you're given "move points," various amounts of which are spent each time you perform an action. The options at your disposal are quite cool and range from animal transformations to tag-team techniques. Strategy obviously plays a role here; but unlike the later-stage scrums in ED, Alnam's fights play out extremely quickly. Your characters achieve level-ups quite often, especially during stretches when you have a good magic user in your band. Unfortunately, the graphics mess things up a bit, as the battle terrain is usually dull and the tiny enemies are rather ugly and get palette swapped around at a ridiculously early point in the quest.

But another combat-related positive to note is the handling of cash. You aren't given a monetary reward at the end of each battle; instead, you have to see a certain fellow in town and collect a cash sum based on your collective killings since the previous payday. It probably seems like a silly way to handle things, but there's a feeling of anticipation that comes with each visit to the cash house, and I was often eager to see just how much money I'd get after a while spent on the battlefield.

Sadly, as much as Right Stuff did right with combat, they left me with far more to mention on the negative side of things. Long cinemas and ugly graphics don't tell the whole sad story. Dungeon designs are boring and uninspired, town layouts are annoyingly tortuous, and the random-encounter rate is high. It's somewhat convenient for those who don't know Japanese that the quest is a straightforward one, as you often can't leave or enter towns until you've hit the right trigger or discovered the correct course to take; but then again, this can be extremely annoying when you stop at a previously visited town to buy something only for some jackass to bar you from entering. I really can't see Alnam being much of a winner for anyone, unless somebody is looking for an RPG in which leveling up is the most enjoyable part.

Burai II

~ BURAI II ~

Riverhill Soft

Super CD-ROM

1992

The one thing about this game that truly intrigued me when I first played it ages ago was the colorful, action-packed combat. The first Burai's battles are ultra primitive, but the ones here feature large, animated enemies; loud, flashy, party-demolishing attack spells; cool music; and backdrops that don't look all that great but certainly represent a step up from black nothingness. Even with all the animation and effects, the fights proceed fairly quickly, unlike some other graphical combat "show scenes" like those in sloggy Monster Maker. Early on, you can actually avoid overworld fights altogether simply by staying away from the areas where monsters reside (like forests and deserts).

Whether you partake in combat or not, overworld treks are much more enjoyable in B2 than they are in the first Burai. The playfield in this one isn't scrunched, thank goodness. And while they don't exactly rank among the PCE's best, Burai II's field graphics annihilate those of its predecessor. You'll revisit many locations from the first game, but you might not even recognize them initially because they look so much better here.

The cinemas are interesting in that they have more of a "hand-drawn" look to them than do most of the anime-style sequences in other PCE RPGs.

They look somewhat basic at times, but they're neat in style as a one-time sort of thing, and there are plenty of them, especially towards the end of the game. The conclusion, which has sort of a Final Fantasy X vibe for a stretch, is quite memorable.

This is a sequel that revisits its roots in many ways and usually improves on the way things were. Your old party members return, but they constitute a much more balanced lot now. They still have to take care of personal business before coming together, but the game is split into episodes that are longer and larger in scope than the previous chapter's mini-quests. You'll still be assailed by mini-bosses, and there are still numerous secrets to stumble upon. The event scenes feature cinema-style art as opposed to the abstract drawings in the first Burai, and there's more overt humor this time around, much of which involves the funny furry folks, who engage in such antics as dancing and putting on concerts to raise cash.

Burai II is certainly a successful title, but there are a few not-so-positive things to note about it. Once you've assembled a seven- or eight-character party, random battles can take an extremely long time. In addition to selecting actions for all those characters and watching their magic-spell light shows, you'll have to deal with enemies who can take lots of hits and perform attacks that do damage to each of your party members, one at a time.

Still, I've experienced worse, and this problem plagues only a couple of chapters. In fact, the last area of all is packed with enemies who go down quickly. But while it isn't much of a challenge, that last area can take quite a long time to get through, and it doesn't allow you to save your game as you proceed. It's a cool final stretch that features lots of cinemas and bosses, and it provides plenty of healing spots, but you'll have to set aside a lot of time to play through it, and there's always that chance that you could screw up at some point.

And I should warn prospective buyers that the game occasionally freezes at the end of skirmishes. Luckily, the old "tapping trick" has worked every single time this has happened to me. So just give your system a few taps or tosses and everything should get back on track. B2 has never completely crashed on me.

Burai

~ BURAI ~

Riverhill Soft

CD-ROM

1991

I took a chance on this RPG for two reasons: it was inexpensive, and its cover flaunts some really cool character designs. When I powered it up for the first time, the kick-ass opening cinemas made me think I'd stumbled upon a diamond in the rough.

But moments later I laid my eyes upon the most primitive PCE visuals I'd ever had the "privilege" to be blinded by. Please note that I can tolerate bad graphics; it was the limited scope of the ridiculously small playfield (which occupies merely one-fourth of the menu-and-stats-dominated screen) that I found particularly appalling.

I concluded that the game was useless, as I couldn't even see enough of the surrounding landscape to have any clue of where I was supposed to go. And so Burai stood rotting on my shelf for years. Eventually, I decided to play it and finish it once and for all, if for no other reason than to finally clear it from my queue.

Well, its premise is fairly interesting. You have to play through seven mini-quests that involve wacky characters who meet up for one final adventure during which they search for legendary weapons and make a "dramatic" charge through the ultimate bad guy's castle.

And it all actually works thanks to the fact that the game generally makes life easy for the player. The mini-quests are short and straightforward: typically, you make your way to a nearby town where you hang around and power up, and then you venture out into the world to find a mazelike area (be it a tower or cavern or mountain path). You'll experience event scenes and fight bosses and mini-bosses during the proceedings.

Even when a given mini-quest diverges from that rudimentary pattern, affairs remain simple and fun. One young fellow needs to bust out of prison--not exactly a unique theme, but the mischievous rogue gets to free other "criminals" along the way, some of whom team up with him to pummel the guards.

The game does very little to annoy the player aside from the infamous playfield scrunching, and even that ultimately isn't much of an issue, as the overworld proves to be quite linear and the (first few) dungeons are far from tortuous. In just about every area, you can find enemies who regularly drop restorative potions, so you don't have to take many "inn breaks" during requisite leveling sessions. Most of your enemies can be dealt with fairly quickly, and encounters not only are spaced out so they don't become annoying but also happen at an amazingly consistent rate: you can usually tell when you're about to be attacked just by listening to the music, as confrontations occur at a particular part of the field tune nearly every time.

Speaking of the music, it does seem horrible at first, but play on and you'll get to hear some surprisingly nice field and town themes. There's also one particularly cool rock number that accompanies certain "showdown time" event scenes (it's worth noting, however, that poor acoustics make the track sound as if it were recorded in a grotto).

These nice things make the game playable but not necessarily memorable. But when your characters finally get together, the overworld really opens up, and the game ascends to another level. The final stretch covers a lot more territory than the mini-quests that precede it, but by the time you reach said stretch, you'll have a good handle on how the game works, and you shouldn't have much trouble figuring out the lay of the land. You'll suddenly have a whopping eight different characters to suit up, but enemies drop lots of equipment articles, most of which can be sold off for tons of cash. And matters become more interesting thanks to some really cool tasks that your party must complete, like butchering an ogre and then annihilating his persistent, "never say die" body parts.

You never know when you might find a secret weapon or be assaulted by one of the game's many mini-bosses. You could be stumbling along in a desert when you'll suddenly spot a remarkable blade lying in the sands. You might be jaunting along merrily when a giant gorgon or octopus or mammoth (with minions in tow) will decide to attack you.

Some of the last few dungeons are absolutely enormous, but unlike the large labyrinths in the abominable Last Armageddon, they never quite become drags, as Burai sticks to its roots of simplicity and convenience throughout.

When I finally decided to play this game in earnest, I pretty much promised myself that I wouldn't end up making it out to be some sort of Cinderella story if it somehow were to prove acceptable. Then I found myself staying up really late, pressing onward to see what kind of weapon I'd find or boss I'd fight or event I'd experience next. The secrets and dungeons and crazy characters made sure that whenever I put the controller down, I did so begrudgingly. I'm not sure there's any better sign of a quality RPG than that.