Startling Odyssey

~ STARTLING ODYSSEY ~
RayForce
Super CD-ROM
1993

I played through Starling Odyssey II prior to obtaining its predecessor, and I thoroughly enjoyed the game, but I found myself at a loss when attempting to pinpoint a virtue that accounted for its excellence. The first episode, as I quickly discovered, leaves players looking to identify a defining element in no such quandary, even though it's of the same traditional-style-RPG ilk. This is an affair predicated on speed. A single tap of a button can take you through a number of successive menu options (whether the ride is one you want to take or not) and may leave you rather annoyed when you cast a spell inadvertently or take a swipe at an unintended target. Still, the fact that rumbles can be resolved in relative milliseconds just by revving up the turbo is something to appreciate.

But then, if players weren't able to fly right through combat scenes, the game would be utterly intolerable, as the encounter rate is frustratingly high and practically eliminates the allure of exploration. And that's just one of many problems that plague the early stages of the adventure. The music is absolutely wretched, the cinemas are technically unimpressive and daft content-wise, and the graphics are revoltingly primitive.

Endure the aesthetic torture and you'll arrive at dungeons that are basic, uninspired sort-of-mazes inhabited by riffraff.

Thankfully, SO eventually picks up its game. Later labyrinths are rather large, and dedicated explorers will emerge from them with plenty of nice loot in tow. The plot never quite shakes itself of gratuitous goofiness, but interesting villains join the goings-on, and romantic elements are handled adequately enough.

The encounter rate will elicit grumbles regardless of how far along you are with your adventuring, but at least some respectable creatures ultimately step up to challenge your band.

While most players will view SO as a decent, worthwhile product once all is said and done, it may prove most valuable to those who are novices in the realm of Japanese adventure games. Aside from the first Cosmic Fantasy, this is as straightforward and accessible as PCE traditional-style RPGs come. A couple of potentially baffling spots can be covered here:

Make sure to have the flame sword, thunder sword, ice blade, and gaia blade in your possession but unequipped when you visit this bedridden fellow.

You'll pass through this segment of cavern early in your quest, but don't forget about it. Towards the end, those stalagmites will be replaced by an object the shape of a crescent moon--your sign that you'll be able to pass through a nearby wall.

A little bit of exploration and occasional utilization of the old "push up against walls to find secret passageways" technique will get you past most other potential problem spots. Experienced players who have had their fill of relatively simple quest games can skip ahead to the followup without missing out on anything remarkable, but SO makes for decent fun all the same.

Startling Odyssey II

~ STARTLING ODYSSEY II ~
RayForce
Super CD-ROM
1994

Startling Odyssey II lacks a calling card. Not a single thing about it stands out as being superlative. But it's an example of an RPG that achieves excellence thanks to its makers doing solid (if not standard-setting) work on just about every aspect of the title.

The graphics, though they fall short of magnificence, are likely to garner some attention as soon as play begins. Canvases done up with subdued hues are sprinkled with flecks of brightness to create appealingly distinctive field and town designs.

The element of visual intrigue extends to the cinemas, which utilize lots of bluish greens to give outdoors scenes an overcast look (which works quite well for gloomy old me). Intermissions are plentiful and showcase the game's cool (if occasionally roughly sketched) main characters. Amusing shenanigans are periodically interrupted by episodes of tragedy; one particularly stunning event stuck with me through the years separating my first and most recent playthroughs.

The combat scenes are also visually interesting in that the action is presented in a "slanted" manner. Nice-looking backdrops and large enemies are on offer, and the characters are hardly the stand-still types: kicks and sword swipes are actually carried out rather than simply being told of via text messages, and badly hurt warriors slump to the turf in agony. The skirmishes don't play out quickly, and the encounter rate leans a bit towards the gratuitously high side, but the positive aspects of the brawling render those issues minor.

While battle sequences proceed methodically, field play is never slow or arduous (provided that you dig through the menus and ramp up the character-walking and message-relaying speeds). Your determined little party members let nothing stand in their way as they travel from one important location to the next--even bumbling townsfolk can simply be shoved aside.

Among those important locations are labyrinthine areas that seem rather plain appearance-wise but earn accolades for offering lots of treasure- and trap-strewn paths to explore.

Once the last of those areas has been conquered, you get to enjoy a long and interesting cinematic sequence that concludes matters in atypical (for a PCE RPG) fashion.

The music is perhaps the only element that disappoints. Early promise of classical symphonic greatness is quickly forgotten as annoying town and combat tunes come to the fore. A masterpiece of a soundtrack just might have elevated the game to the tier of the classics. But even as it is, SO2 is absolutely fantastic and far superior to its respectable predecessor.

Image Fight II

~ IMAGE FIGHT II ~
Irem
Super CD-ROM
1992

The first Image Fight is no pushover, but I don't think it's nearly as demanding and punishing as many tout it to be. Its sequel, on the other hand, is nightmarishly hard and really seems to revel in the dismembering of players. If you're okay with risking dismemberment, go ahead and take up its challenge--and prepare yourself for a ten-level-long journey that'll demand constant attentiveness and be nothing if not hellish for long stretches at a time. You'll frequently find yourself navigating uncomfortably tight spaces as powerful enemies soar onto the field from the front, side, and rear (and even emerge from the backdrop at particular points). These steel-ship berserkers typically dart about erratically and launch hard-to-evade projectile attacks.

But they do play fair when it comes right down to it. IF2 is tough, but it's seldom cheap, and it actually grants players what amounts to a fairly stacked hand. Back to tag along with you are the series's trademark option pods (blues shoot straight ahead while reds fire in the direction opposite the one you're moving in). You can adjust your craft's speed at any time and acquire a wide variety of highly destructive weapons as you blast apart the enemy legion. And if you experiment with those weapons a bit and give matters some thought, you just might figure out ways to take out the large, formidable bosses with ease.

But even if you're a skilled pilot and a master strategist, you'll have to take a few knocks and endure some frustration as you attempt to make headway in this realm where shooter fans die. You'll also have to remember that you can't afford to let up once you do get on a roll. Like its predecessor, IF2 sends players who fail to destroy a significant portion of the enemy's frontline forces to an extremely difficult "penalty area." But while achieving the kill percentage required to avoid penalization is practically a given in the first game, it takes quite a bit of hard work and smooth flying here.

You won't get much incentive cinematically to continue getting pummeled. IF2's interludes primarily consist of terribly drawn characters chatting within the confines of tiny windows.

The in-game graphics get the job done, however. The rings of Saturn and wavy gas storms make for extremely appealing backdrops. The soundtrack is also of fairly high quality, boasting plenty of tense numbers that lend to the game's sinister air. Image Fight 2 knows that it's brutal, which is why players feel so good once they've put it in its place.

But most people won't get to experience that feeling. Frankly, I don't think there's much fun to be had here for "casual" players, as the game will pound on them mercilessly. And this is no cheapie, so those who whimsically decide to "give it a shot" will have to part with a pretty significant sum of cash to take their thumps. But if you're good--and I mean if you're sure you're good--and you're willing to put in plenty of practice and weather some frustrating times, then go ahead and try to make your way through IF2. The process won't always be enjoyable, but it can prove very rewarding.

Alshark

~ ALSHARK ~
Right Stuff / Victor Entertainment
Super CD-ROM
1994

Alshark is quite reminiscent of Fang of Alnam, another traditional-style RPG released by Right Stuff. Both games feature excellent battle systems, but they share the misfortune of being plagued by abysmal visuals, and neither lives up to its vast potential.

As appallingly primitive as Alshark's field graphics are, they're hardly a major concern, as the strikingly speedy characters need little time to scurry from one location to the next. Interruptions occur in the forms of overhead-view combat scenes that play out in entertaining fashion. Your party consists of heroes and heroines who wield lightsabers and mow down their foes with missiles and machine-gun fire.

Not nearly as engaging are the spacecraft duels that take place as your fellowship travels amongst the stars. You can allow the game to carry out each visually unimpressive orbital scrum in a predetermined manner, or you can take matters into your own hands and partake in the rudimentary VCS-shooter-like action.

Complete an important mission on a given planet and chances are you'll get to view a lengthy cinema, but these occasions are seldom worth getting excited about, as the quite-cool main characters usually aren't displayed in the most flattering of fashions.

Almost every aspect of this fairly ambitious effort ends up dragged down to some degree by the poor visual work. Even the battle scenes, which remain entertaining for the duration of the quest, could've benefited from superior sprite design. The few bosses that appear are tiny and nondescript.

The soundtrack, which travels a back-and-forth line between goofy and generic, is of little help, but superficial elements are hardly the most significant concern here. A far more serious issue is the immense slowdown that frequently occurs as your characters are strolling about towns (of all places). With some villages being quite expansive and requiring plenty of mundane, here-and-there fetching and conversing, the sludgy hiking constitutes an absolutely unforgivable flaw.

The game does get its act together to some extent during its latter half, as it turns its focus to dungeon-depths combat and away from in-town antics. The labyrinths themselves are never particularly innovative in design, but there are some dramatic plot points to be experienced within them.

It all culminates with a surprisingly fantastic ending, but in typical Right Stuff fashion, the dreadful accompanies the awesome--the dreadful in this case being an atrocious end-credits tune.