A look back at: Pokemon Light Platinum

Originally, this was a blog post titled "All the aggravating things about Pokemon Light Platinum" and I basically stopped at some point halfway through. Eventually though, I finished it due to the quarantine situation basically putting me away from work for, whenever quarantine finishes I guess. Therefore I finished this post up and will reupload it right now.

I hear a lot about this game, how amazing it is for a ROM hack, possibly because of the whole "Gen-5 mons in a Gen-3 hack" thing and all. But as I played there was wrong. Lots and lots of wrong. I have to list them all, all that I can because wow, this ROM hack is amazingly bad.

1. While I'm generally okay with most familiar Pokemon characters, it's best to ensure that character names don't overlap with others. Which is why I'm not fond of the professor named Jasmine unless the Jasmine I know from the Johto region decided to migrate over to Zhery for whatever reason and dye her hair.
2. The game doesn't even give you chances to have fun right away because you're immediately confronted by the Zhery champion! Although it's of course a friendly greeting and all so whatever which then leads into the cliche where you have to fight a Poochyena, which ends up actually being owned by some random Team Steam grunt and his mon is labeled as "wild". Great job.
3. Said greeting involves you apparently being the only person in all of Zhery who can translate a language known as "Alpha". It makes no sense.
4. Oh yeah, speaking of characters, Ash Ketchum is here and is just shown to be around everywhere. He ain't the only one, as familiar faces are everywhere, the male character from Gen-2 (Gold/Ethan, here he's called Kenta), the male from Gen-4 (Lucas, known as Diamond), Red, and the two Pokemon Ranger protagonists (Lunick and Solana) are flummoxing around this place trying to beat gyms. Is this game some sort of weird crossover? Also Silver, the rival from Gen-2 is apparently in the Lauren region, along with that a female named Pearl (no relation to Dawn who's the female in Gen-4) and Yellow (clearly not related to Ash in any way).
5. Well at least you don't have a destined rival all the time, but as I played, I noticed each rival somehow gets weaker. Example: Kenta has a well-rounded team when he starts, three mons of Grass, Fire, and Water. He then gets a Pichu and a Shroomish. Third time? He evolves his mons but ditches Pichu for some reason. He then abandons most of his mons for a three-mon team that a Water type can sweep. Last time I saw him? Only Aggron and Typhlosion. Come ON. Red naturally has a Pikachu, plus Riolu and Turtwig. Okay. He gets better by evolving and catching a Gyarados, but abandons half his team for a Bagon as well as his Lucario. Next match he has Scyther, and then after that he DOESN'T have Scyther. He then loses his fully-evolved Salamence for Charizard. Why?Lucas...I mean Diamond (there's a gym leader named Lucas) again starts out good, with a Flying, Fire, and Electric type. His team dynamic changes considerably the second time, but that's okay because it's a bit more challenging. It changes AGAIN but he now has three mons, then the last two times you see him he has only two mons, and both teams are different. My guess is they just want to fight with special teams or something. Lunick and Solana don't meet you a whole lot in Zhery, but they stay consistent by keeping their respective starters, Chimchar and Turtwig. Can't say the rest for their teams as you go, again they keep getting easier. The rival battles in these cases are random, but not necessarily more fun the more you go. Also just because the people online are dumb they don't seem to document the mons used by the rivals in Lauren (or for that matter, the post-Lauren champions, Professor Ellie, or Team Steam bosses), so have a crappy MS Paint graphic that shows what mons they have.

As you'd expect the three rivals tend to change their teams quite frequently. Why would Silver remove his Typhlosion then get it back? Shouldn't Yellow have the Pikachu the whole time? And Pearl at least keeps a Sceptile but remember we were in the lab with Ellie getting Unova starters and she doesn't have one until the last battle. Even moreso, it was I that had a Serperior, and no one picked Emboar for some reason. Anyways this is blatant nitpicking because it can easily be justified by them going to Pokecenters and all. Yet they honestly should be getting harder and more refined as trainers instead of experimenting with completely different teams. That's what makes other rival battles great.
6. Where was I? Oh yeah, the prologue. Spoiler alert, Kaori apparently has an Empoleon at the beginning, but when you fight him during the champion bout, he doesn't have it.
7. Team Steam's motives are pretty much crap and like all others ("we wanna capture legendaries and rule the world). Then when you beat the bosses over and over (at least the ones that stay relevant) they're like "STOP BEING BETTER THAN US WAH". They become laughingstocks in the Lauren region and honestly should've been sidelined.
8. One of my biggest grievances with this game is the fact you don't get the running shoes until after the first gym. That is much longer than it needs to be.
9. The second town seriously has the Safari Zone? I'm okay with the Pokemon Contest building (honestly I care less about those things anyways) but why the Safari Zone?
10. Oh yeah, cool, multiple areas, different mons. It's like the game doesn't want to really challenge you. Furthermore, you can get every single mon in the Safari Zone elsewhere, so it's a waste of cash.
11. Speaking of lack of challenge, the "freebies" in this game are a perfect example of what I hate. NPCs can give Pokemon to you if you have a free slot, these usually aren't mons you can find in the wild in most cases which is alright but there's way too many of them in the game when you can probably just make them rare encounters. I mean you have quite a lot of rare encounters and I'm okay with those! The only mons that should be "freebies" are selection of starters where you have to pick one. That's about it. Also Eevee.
12. Those aren't the only freebies. Very early in the game you're able to find items you should be getting just before the Elite Four. Really? A Max Potion in the first town? Ultra Balls? Full Restores? You don't even get an Old Rod first, you get the Good Rod, and the Super Rod comes quickly afterwards. For some reason, I think that some items flat out reappear in visited places, possibly due to a glitch involving in-game saving (there's a part for this below).
13. This also applies, strangely, to the Pokemon Marts in the first few towns up until Groment City or so. Endgame stuff so soon? This also has the extreme hassle of never being able to buy an Escape Rope until you reach the second-to-last city in Zhery. That is just atrocious.
14. If there's one thing that seriously bugs me, it's the NPC dialogue. It's often repeated between NPCs a few steps apart, those who usually aren't related in any way to each other. This goes to even trainers you battle, they don't have any new lines upon talking to them again and many just say the same crap!
15. Oh yeah, and the NPCs in some places are in the exact same locations. Like there's two cities with Pokemon Centers, somewhere in the middle of the game, and for some reason the NPCs in both are completely identical down to the dialogue!
16. The small towns in the game don't have Pokemarts.
17. The cutscenes involving Team Steam awakening legendaries basically involves opposites fighting each other (Groudon vs. Kyogre, Ho-oh vs. Lugia, Reshiram vs. Zekrom, Palkia/Giratina/Dialga vs. Arceus) until Arceus calms things down. But these cutscenes take longer than necessary. Also the sounds are just generally recycled from Groudon, Kyogre, and Rayquaza with the exception of the Ho-oh/Lugia fight.
18. The whole Seanport Lighthouse area is a waste of time and is pretty much an "extension" to Lucas's gym.
19. Cool, a National Park like in Johto games! What's that? You wanna go bug catching? Too bad! There wasn't one in Glazed either, but the Johto section of that game was mostly rushed, while this game is pretty much finished.
20. Mienshao's sprite in the Pokemon or PC menu is Arceus's. And then if you catch Arceus, the sprite is Mienshao's.
21. Want a lesson in repetition? Are the pretentious NPC dialogues not enough to satisfy that? Try the actual Pokemon teams you have to fight against! Team Steam grunts especially count here, while the team itself varies its Pokemon types which is good, many don't think properly. Mt. Winter has six grunts that have two level 40 Kadabras, a level 40 Gardevoir, and a level 38 Lopunny. Six grunts have the same team of four mons. And it gets worse once you reach Steam HQ. There are nine grunts with a team of a level 41 Glameow and two level 43 Puruglys. And seven of them you fight in a row! This isn't challenge. It's just a complete slog.
22. Other trainers tend to have complete discrepancies in level by the time you reach them. One Lass trainer after the seventh gym has a level 39 Croagunk, okay, but then a level 18 Scraggy?
23. You know how in every game there's usually only one Master Ball unless you decide to Gameshark more. But in this one, a glitch allows you to have unlimited Master Balls inside Steam HQ without any Gamesharking. That's shameful. I'm not even gonna spoil where it is.
24. Those times you finish a rival battle, the rival character just pops in for a split second like he wasn't supposed to have been there earlier.
25. Probably the most notorious problem I have with this game? Rayner not appearing at the Power Plant. The idea to meet gym leaders before challenging them is a good idea, but Rayner not showing up in that Power Plant due to an unexplainable glitch is asinine. Worst part is I can't think of any solution other than "reset lots of times". After going through the Lauren region though I think the explanation for the glitch of course has to be in-game saves, which I still have issues with.
26. Oh yeah and Sophia is a troll, by not being in her gym and instead being in an ice cave you've already been to, saying she's gonna be back there once you talk to her. Only she just goes to the other cave exit. You're just delaying the inevitable.
27. How do both Ash and Wesley (the eighth gym leader in Zhery) not be able to beat down Steam Leader Zero? Especially Ash, the so-called "World champion". It's just storyline cutscene paralysis in order for you to inevitably beat Zero and face Giratina. I mean, his entire team can be sweeped by an Ice type or Dragon type.
28. Even the signs in the game are outright repetitive.
29. Here's something you can apparently do while using the Dive HM, you can resurface while in the seaweed. Which leads way to some dumb glitches that shouldn't be happening.
30. Why am I always facing downward when going through the Elite Four rooms?
31. Those running shoes I mentioned earlier? Glad to have them after the first gym, but the hell is that running animation supposed to be? My character model like shrinks down or something and it's just weird.
32. Oh yeah, the Steam Uniform concept is neat, except two problems. One is you can't use it indoors when infiltrating Team Steam strongholds much like running, making it moot to be infiltrating in the first place. The other is a reason for the previous problem, it's a reskinned Acro Bike, which naturally can't be used indoors. Being a reskinned Acro Bike alone makes the uniform ten times as awkward. The idea's there, but the execution is hilariously dumb.
33. I'm not a fan of HMs, but they are hilariously underused too. I just mentioned Dive earlier, but the others don't get used much. You use Strength for crates, cool, but you only use Rock Smash to go from one route to the next and that's it. Same with Cut, really. Special mention goes to the new HM Lava Surf. This has LOADS OF POTENTIAL, but you only use it to cross across a lava lake once. Of course, it's a Fire type's Surf equivalent and that's cool, but...
34. Double battles can be a load of fun but there's not a single one in this game.
35. Drakebreath City's gym is pretty much a direct ripoff of Blackthorn City's gym.
36. Team Steam's leaders and admins aren't that memorable and you pretty much stop seeing some since they get arrested easily. Then you meet completely new ones and well you just sort of forget who anyone is in that team.
37. Where the heck is the Move Relearner? Why only a Move Deleter? Oh great, two Name Raters. Two.
38. After visiting the Lauren region, apparently once I got some fossils I went back to Groment City to resurrect them. What did I notice? Those Team Steam people are back. I can't battle with them since I already did, but then again, they don't do anything new and the ones at the end don't even have lines. WTF?
39. One of the more blatant things this offers are the trainers on either flying mons or surfing mons (they are SO not swimmers). When you battle them share the exact same mons on the field basically. So the second gym in Lauren has trainers that only have one Skarmory or one Altaria and it's easy to tactically battle them. Surfing trainers are a little weirder but there's usually Tentacruel or Wailmer involved.
40. So one thing I'm glad I have so far is a Scrafty with Ice Smash (read, Brick Break) and Rock Climb, plus a Mandibuzz with Glide (read, Aerial Ace) that way the Lauren TMs won't get wasted on HM slaves or anything. One thing bothers me though. What's with the Pilot License? Just like the Steam Uniform, the License is basically a bike reskin, this time it's the Mach Bike. I don't understand this. Also in regards to Lauren field TMs, they are again only used for very specific routes that are just meant to block until you use them, but Water Pulse doesn't even get used at all (it's supposed to be used to put out fires, but there's none).
41. Apparently despite Glide being a TM all you need is a mon with it, and it's even dumber when you actually go on the flying route because for some reason a mon that DOESN'T know Glide (in my case it was Typhlosion of all mons) is the one who uses it, instead of the one that does know it (in my case Mandibuzz).
42. Music needs to be quite consistent for certain battles. So far, the trainer battles are ALL the same, including the leaders, rivals, and the Elite Four. The evil team battle plays appropriately for Team Steam grunts but also the flying trainers too?
43. I don't understand why the Giratina statues in the Sky Tower are considered "blueprints". Also the cutscene after Kratos sees a lot of people just appearing and disappearing without reason, possibly a glitch.
44. So get this, I can go a bit through the Lauren region up to Mt. Vulcan, battle Ellie cause she's a trainer, but when I return to her lab I can choose ANOTHER Unova starter? Weird. But it's even worse than I imagined because when I evolved Tepig up to Emboar, level it up to 37, it EVOLVES INTO SCOLIOPEDE. WHAT.
45. Actually I found out another huge problem in the Lauren region. You reach Flamerny City, and Ellie both before and after you battle her tells you that you need to go to Mt. Vulcan. Okay cool, I'll go there, just gotta explore Flamerny City, do some shopping whatever, save. Except that last part. I read on Vizzed that there's a huge glitch that prevents you from accessing Mt. Vulcan due to the guy standing in the entrance. And then I had to do #44 above, then fight ALL the rival battles up to that point as well as Kratos in Sky Tower, then Ellie again, and only then can I enter Mt. Vulcan. It's nonsensical and the worst part is I heard it has something to do with in-game saving. Which honestly, glitches tend to happen for save stating rather than in-game saving.
46. Merydian City's Pokemon Center has the Pokemart theme
47. So when I beat the Lauren League, it says I beat the Zhery League. Also I don't understand why after beating a league with both this ROM hack and Glazed, I immediately am back home without any Hall of Fame entries. Even more when none of my mons got healed.
48. So does Eusine not use his Skarmory in battle? Because I didn't fight one.
49. Also regarding Eusine, you battle him to access the Johto legendaries. BUT there's two problems. The 3 beasts are of course the problem, they of course have Roar (aside from Suicune), but a weird catch is that the player must not enter any building before catching any of them or they are lost forever (this is aside from Roar of course). Finally according to the site they show up in "random Lauren routes", okay.
50. You know I'm really not a fan of having just about every legendary who isn't Giratina be available post-game. Not to mention that aside from those that have Roar above (oh and Registeel has Roar too), there's one with Explosion (Azelf) and Self-destruct (Regirock). Basically you need to exploit the Master Ball thing I mentioned earlier (or just cheat). And I'm sure you need to cheat regardless because what I said with #45 and in-game saves means that some areas are pretty much locked out completely (Steam HQ has the people in front of it, they do nothing, and I go back there to get Mewtwo for instance).

Well, how about what's actually good in this hack?

1. Feebas evolving into Milotic via Water Stone helps alleviate the pains of feeding it Pokeblocks or farming nature. Also catching Feebas is better than it was in the main games.
2. The overall design barring a few glaring flaws (running shoes animation) is pretty good.
3. Again, Lava Surf. It's a cool idea for an HM (that pun was completely not intentional).
4. Trade evolutions are pretty difficult to do in the ROM hacks due to lack of proper trading protocols apart from some sort of "trade with yourself" mechanic requiring some obscure emulator. While other games used Trade Stones, this one makes all the in-game trades out to be mons that you receive evolve into the form you get. So you will always get Scizor, Alakazam, Kingdra, Steelix, Machamp, etc. that way. It's a little more challenging than getting Trade Stones (although Light Platinum is quite light on the evolution stones, pun intended, until the Lauren region) since you have to get specific mons to trade with.
5. Since it's a Gen-3 hack, the abilities and moves that were introduced in Gen-4 and Gen-5 aren't present, which changes the dynamic a bit and gives mons different movesets and abilities to work with, adding to a challenge. This hack makes Archeops a good mon, since it doesn't have the awful Defeatist ability but rather Sturdy (well Sturdy isn't THAT great, but maybe in a metagame). The same with Regigigas, who gets Natural Cure instead of Slow Start.
6. I never was a fan of mons with very limited movepools. Luckily for Beldum, it already learns Tackle, Confusion, and Hypnosis when I first get it at level 10, plus Imprison at level 12, Confuse Ray at 14, and Extrasensory at 19 before it evolves. Neat!

It may have been cool back when it came out, it felt complete, so to say, and it was worthwhile for mobile ROM hack players. But there's a load of problems to it and the bad outweighs the good quite easily.

A look back at: Bahamut Lagoon

Huh, has it only been a week? I didn't expect to get through this game so fast, and even less likely to get through a strategy RPG that fast when the battles usually last an hour or more. Regardless, I managed a speedy finish of this game. This is of course owing to this global pandemic everyone knows by now allowing me a boatload of free time to mess around.

So Bahamut Lagoon. It amazingly does some cliche things well before the more famous ones did, despite this game never being outside of Japan. Sky islands? Yep, Skies of Arcadia got beat to it. Same with gay characters, porno magazine items, helpful dragons that are more than summons, something something Harvest Moon, hell Matelite is the original Adelbert Steiner. And his crush on Princess Yoyo is quite crazy come to think of it. Not to mention the love quadrangle between Byuu, Palpaleos, Matelite, and Yoyo, the lone woman here picking Palpaleos, her former captor.

The gameplay twists the Shining Force rhetoric quite a bit to make it worthwhile, the AI of the dragons also helps with battles often if you use it wisely, the main drawbacks I can think of is how much the field skills get used against Byuu alone, and like any other RPG with a main character it's game over if his unit falls. The linearity is compounded by "side quests" which are just places to level up in all honesty, the status spells have varying levels of workability, the regular spells and such get powered up if the dragons are. Basically the dragons are the maker and breaker here, without them this game would be cruel, but there's still some challenge. And of course, the terrain is something to watch out for.

There's just a lot to this game that makes it worth it. It's a certified Top 20 game for me. I'd say Square hit another one out of the ballpark but not out of Japan with this one. This along with Treasure of the Rudras and Live-A-Live were some of the finest to have never seen international release, no wonder they are all recommended in cult followings.

A look back at: Deep Dungeon 4

One major thing about all these fan-translated RPGs I have been playing over the past few months is just how accurate they are and if they have caused some serious issues with the gameplay or perhaps what I'm supposed to be doing. And Deep Dungeon 4 is a perfect example of something that went wrong with the translation. Basically, don't play Dragoon's translation because you'll never finish the game. In other words, many items and places are misnamed, as are menu things, and well a lot of other stuff really. (Hero) goes on, and Watch out! among other terrible battle lines. But most importantly, you do have to go to some mountains, and then when you actually try to enter them you basically go to this "Gear" dungeon before the game freezes.

Instead, if you decide to try this out, it's KingMike's translation you're looking for. It's fairly accurate and beatable although it is a Deep Dungeon game so expect some potential difficulty. It's actually tamer than the crap I dealt with in 3, thank god, although it does certainly get hard. The fetch quests are meh overall, the areas you go to are actually quite small. The other party members really do arrive late, which is a problem as there are gonna be tough enemies before you find the first one. Thanks to the readme in the translation some lines were cleared as to what items and spells do. The final boss is exceptionally unfair with a multi-target instakill spell and numerous ways to cripple characters.

It's perhaps the most refined of the Deep Dungeon games, although it deals less with dungeons and more with basically other locales that are NOT dungeons. There's bits of nonlinear-ness and sidequests, although the biggest issue of missing often remains. This whole series is certainly not worth it on the whole though.

A look back at: Ys III

Yikes, it's only been three entire days since my last RPG. This is what happens when I play a more simplistic NES game. But then again, not all the time. Anyways Ys III. Like the other ones, something that's an action RPG, where you can grind by any chance you get, get to max level, still have a chance to get your ass kicked in the end. Oh, and it's a side scroller in Zelda II style now instead of the normal "run into enemies" thing from the last game. I would've hated it if there were bottomless pits or anything Ninja Gaiden-style, but thankfully that doesn't happen. Bosses are once again fairly dangerous but at the same time with the proper leveling and healing items they go down in seconds. The game does attempt to make the plot important at several intervals and overall doesn't do terribly in that regard. Of course, Dogi's reappearance was somewhat interesting here.

Also The Oath of Felgana is apparently the remake, fledging out and retconning a good chunk of the story I played from the Famicom release. But for the most part I don't care all that much. It's just help some miners, find out the conspiracy, the next few plot twists, kill the unsealed evil, and more adventures await. And it doesn't take long, even to grind or go through things. This is easily the simplest of the Ys game and that says...not a whole lot, really.

Doom Musings: What does it mean to be "speedrun-friendly"?

In my last Doom musing, I looked at Hell Revealed, a mapset known for its difficulty and for having the most amount of demos on the speed demos archive. There's a reason for that. Despite all the faults that Hell Revealed may have that many others have done better than it, one thing remains true, and that is it is "speedrun-friendly".

If you looked at some of my Doomworld reviews, some of them will have me using the hyphenated words "speedrun-friendly", or sometimes even "max-friendly" as well as the "unfriendly" variants. What these have to do with, they are referring to levels inside the WADs. As I have played so many WADs over the years I got to understand many of the ways several maps can be played. I pick out routes of travel that will net me better outcomes as well as pinpoint places that could be potential exploits. I'm no speedrunner, but I play to analyze the individual maps for those who wish to speedrun them. Or max them (meaning UV-Max). Either way, Hell Revealed's maps definitely are speedrun-friendly, assuming you can study the many demos and routes that many have taken before you and replicate them to the best of your ability. Many other classic sets from the 90s and the 00s will contain speedrun-friendly map layouts, but many more exist in those sets that are "speedrun-unfriendly".

Maybe I should have titled this post What does it mean to be "speedrun-unfriendly" because I'm gonna show the mechanics and things that make some maps speedrun-unfriendly right now.

Forced arena fights

I pick on this quite a lot in slaughtermaps, because a lot of slaughtermaps in the modern age seem to employ these things as an excuse to make a slaughterfest fight, but it doesn't end up good in most cases. Basically you enter a big arena-like room, get locked in, and once you get what you need, the monsters start teleporting. All the while something is consistently lowering. It's something so prevalent, and as you might expect, some do it better than others. Some try to make it seem like new waves every now and then, the best example would be Hell Revealed's The Descent and all its derivatives, as the platform you're on is the one constantly lowering. But regardless, a caveat to consider is that faster players, or those who are playing on lower settings and have to deal with less enemies, will probably get done with everything faster than usual, and then they are basically forced to wait until whatever it is that is lowering finally lowers all the way. These forced arena fights do seem like fun to some, but for speedrunners, they pretty much are just prolonging the overall level length.

Unintuitive backtracking

The best wads tend to not have these thankfully, but all the ones that are practically B-listers have this in some form. Two come to mind, Urania and Illuminatus. Let's use the latter as an example. So I press this switch, what does it do? I go a long, long way to figure out what it even did. That sucks. To be frank, backtracking can always be decent if you provide the ways to know where you're going and to add extra monsters, because that always signals that you are definitely going in the right direction. Indicators, which can be basically anything, lights on the floor, bars near the switch that match up with the bars elsewhere, and what not, help out. I know that you can also use automap markers in some cases, although I'm probably the only modern player who even uses them nowadays. MAP12 of Eternal Doom basically is built for this premise, but also after you hit each marked switch, you will be greeted by new monsters, which is proof that the author definitely makes sure that the backtracking isn't gonna be unintuitive or such. The worst kinds of backtracking are across huge expanses with nothing to go for though.

Generally bad usage of lifts or floor/ceiling triggers

Not in the way that The Descent or derivatives use, but a few that come to mind include Requiem MAP27 (way too many lifts, stairs are more speedrun-friendly) as well as those maps that do include waiting triggers but without any fighting, often found near level exits. I don't really have a lot to really say about this item to be honest, just know that waiting for a lift to go down and then all the way up may just be leaving me groggy at times.

A look back at: Silva Saga II

It seems really strange for a JRPG, but to really beat the crap out of this game you have to abuse the petrify spell. So Silva Saga II, it's quite an interesting game in its own right if you don't count the other two games in the franchise, but for someone like me that plays franchises from the ground up, I took easy notice of what I saw. The game in turn has the exact same world, town, and dungeon layouts of the original Silva Saga for the NES. The storyline is adapted slightly differently in that you start somewhere different and you play a different character, but also completely retcons the original hero of the first Silva Saga. Don't know why they would do that, but whatever. The improvements to the mercenary and idol systems are noticeable, but you can just full-on Dragon Quest-style the gameplay with your normal characters. The swaps still exist, and you do have to go through basically all the same places that the previous game did, fight the same bosses, all of that. They just look nicer in the SNES for some reason.

But my first sentence for this look back is that the petrify spell flat out destroys this game. They didn't have that spell or status effect in the previous game, but your spellcasters get it early, and most enemies are not immune to it. Hit them with it and you essentially win since they are completely defenseless. You'll only have trouble if they are immune to that magic, OR if they can cast it too, since the Relax item is a rare find in certain nooks in towns until the very last town of the game, luckily the Meta Mahal spell exists to fully resist all magic including the status ones. Crazy how the petrify spell makes the game a cakewalk so long as you know what you're up against (so it doesn't work on bosses for instance).

What other things to look back on? Those damn crystals that float around are basically annoying bonus bosses that have way too much health and are absolutely insane to challenge. Compared to the final boss, who even in three phases wasn't as hard as those crystals. And for the towns, you basically want to look at everything, windmills, bridges, signs, tables, beds, flowerpots, fireplaces, firewood, liquor barrels, pantries, cupboards, all to get those items you may or may not need. There was a bit of grinding for money, but I bet low-level players can still go through this without that much in trouble. I say it's a little better than the NES game overall, and there's a map you can use, something I'm definitely glad to have.

A look back at: Ranma 1/2: Treasure of the Red Cat Gang

Ah, the missed opportunities. I feel like some franchises just get an RPG out of them but that's about it. The more I think about it, the more I realize it only works plot-wise. And this game is a fantastic example. Nothing new to the traditional genre-savvy RPG player as far as anything this game has to offer. It just has an interesting story. Not even the "defend to increase special power juice" thing is new. For shame.

There's barely much to talk about in this game overall, it's over quickly, you level up a lot, the walking speed is slow, encounters are frequent but special abilities basically get rid of them all the time. There's a moment near the end where you can use any other party members you got for the finale, which is nice, but not all that new. The idea of characters with cursed forms has some potential to it, but they are marginal, for example one character can only use one special in cursed form, another has access to all but one special in cursed form, and another has access to all specials in cursed form but one isn't available in normal form. But Ranma and Shampoo, they get absolutely not one change gameplay-wise in cursed form, so it doesn't even matter which one you prefer in that case. Bosses are usually just damage sponges, but some don't even last one turn.

There's just really not much to say about this game that hasn't been said about many others just like it.

Doom Musings: Hell Revealed's shoddy legacy

Yes, more Doom musings to go through the day. You should probably be aware of the classic Doom WADs that many people still go back to these days. The 2000s for instances has the timeless classics of Scythe and Alien Vendetta, while the 90s had Requiem, the Memento Mori wads, Eternal Doom, and the subject of this post, Hell Revealed.

What is Hell Revealed exactly? It's a wad with a simple story, you are a Doom marine, you end up in a megawad by two sadistic WAD creators, and you just kill what you have to kill. And that's basically the story, as the two authors of Hell Revealed knew there's not much story in the classic Doom games to go by. It's funny in a few ways, because it describes a "visible status bar" along with a "pistol and 50 bullets" as if they expect every player to actually believe you'd wake up with that stuff on you. And then you start playing the levels of Hell Revealed, and the thing to take notice as to why this particular megawad is so (in)famous is its apparent difficulty. Hell Revealed is highly accredited with being a pinnacle to the "slaughterfest" WAD genre.

Said slaughterfests that came after Hell Revealed did many things different than what the originals did today, offering larger monster hordes, forced arena fights, better detail, and these are basically the things that Hell Revealed itself fell flat on. You're not gonna find good examples of detail in Hell Revealed, because even the best detailed maps don't go far from the traditional Doom IWAD architectures. There are quite a few instances of monster hordes in Hell Revealed, but they all differ and many of them were done significantly better in future wads. In most cases, like the middle maps, the areas are all open so the monsters have free-roaming and that basically is the gist of the monster hordes for the most part. Other cases cause monsters to just be behind cages, or in particular perches, the kind of stuff that proves the turret tropes that followed this WAD. The WAD definitely is hard, there is no questioning this fact, but the gameplay isn't as comfy as it may have been back in the day.

I'm not sure where to really start on how poorly Hell Revealed aged, but a map that comes to mind is one of the usual least favorites, MAP07.

Yeah, it's certainly innovative in what it is. A mostly open arena in the shape of a spider and sure enough, every enemy is an arachnotron. Neat for its time, but it doesn't hold up later on since all you're doing in the map is super shotgunning every arachnotron, getting on the step, and fighting a (completely optional) spider mastermind. That's literally the whole level and it's a fine example of something that did not hold up well.

I guess a few other maps do the concepts well for their time, but there are more interesting things to do in the wad than some might think. The optional rooms in Top Hell (MAP28), especially the reverse Tricks and Traps room, were quite funny back then, but are pretty meh now. The layouts of Core Infection (MAP05), and Great Halls of Fire (MAP12) featuring lots of orthogonal walls, something that I've seen people continuously frown open for reasons. Great Halls of Fire even features a weird super shotgun room where you can apparently practice your super shotgun shells on individual barons one at a time. Too bad in this day and age, you can just get the gun, leave, then come back and fight them all at once for a more fun challenge. Mostly Harmful (MAP32) does its course as an evil slaughtermap, but it compounds it by an easily accessible exit and complete symmetry.

Gates of Hell (MAP15) has one of the better concepts, going to different sections while fighting off slaughter-like setpieces in each one. The Hell knights and barons on the walls are kinda lame though. And then there's this silly little level...

Yep, that's Everything Dies, a map where you are given everything and must basically make do with it. A quick and dirty level. But it also follows a very egregious level and one of the more infamous ones...

Hard Attack (MAP18), one of the nastier levels, as if the cyberdemon at the start is more than enough to prove that point. The paranoia of this one lost soul who keeps perpetually teleporting and making it seem like there's always more, being surrounded with chaingunners upon getting a super shotgun, a weird winding hallway containing a secret with some strange teleporting enemies and that's just the beginning. The headaches of getting onto the ring walkway around the center arena rear their ugly head as you basically fight off mostly revenants along with other monsters that can't stop using the damn lift. The inside arena has the nasty arch-vile trap once you collect the BFG, not to mention the monsters already present inside, and outside. The side areas to the north and west with the teleportation gimmick to the north, and the spiderdemon criss cross to the west, are poignant. The room with reserve arch-viles for the cages, and one last nasty trick summarize this one. It's oddly one of the nastier levels in the entire wad, but it brings me to a notable point.

For those of you who play this on lower settings, you may find certain parts a lot harder than on Ultra-Violence, and this level is a blatant example. On Hurt Me Plenty, the western section replaces the spiderdemons with arch-viles, impossible to dodge in that open space and even harder to hit given how small they are. There's a few other instances of arch-viles replacing bigger enemies, such as in MAP31, but this is the one that makes me think that certain difficulties were somehow made harder than Ultra-Violence.

So these particular maps I mentioned are pretty memorable for the most part, but for all the reasons that make it rather nasty to replay over and over again. MAP18 in particular. The good maps are definitely good maps, including the standout slaughtermaps, stuff like MAP14, MAP22, and MAP24 hold up, and MAP26 has lots of memorabilia to it. However, all of Hell Revealed's creative children beat it in many ways, and there's no denying that. So much that its legacy got ripped for the better wads itself.

Even though it's quite sad that Hell Revealed is easily surpassed, one thing remains. It was a megawad by speedrunners for speedrunners. No wonder the WAD is one of the Compet-N WADs and also the one with the most attempted runs on it on DSDA. Casual players, however, are more concerned with fighting hordes strategically, but also nitpicking on the problems that Hell Revealed had.