Playing the Lame Vol. 9

Ohayo! It is I, your wonderful master of all things craptacular, Mark B, here once again to ladle some crap onto your waiting plate. Sorry for the lack of me last week… life interfered with my otherwise free schedule, and combined with the inability to come up with something worthwhile to write about, I wasn’t really in the position to bang out a column. But this week, I’m back and ready to go with all guns blazing, so let’s get down with the lame.

Oh, and with the event that has just recently passed, I would like to contribute my thoughts, which are as follows:

1.) I couldn’t care less about the Tag Titles Match.

2.) Money in the Bank was, of course, awesome.

3.) I figured JBL/Beniot was going to end with Benoit jobbing, so I didn’t bother watching it.

4.) Foley/Edge would have been better if I didn’t know who was going to win. Also, Edge’s eye looked pretty messed up at the end, I thought. I can’t imagine that felt at all good. Oh, and of COURSE the flaming table bit was awesome.

5.) Wow, does the WWE hate Booker THAT much?

6.) Trish/Mickie was a solid match, but I thought the attempt at the ending was stupid. I mean, think about it a second: the idea behind the Stratusfaction Bulldog is that your opponent is dazed enough to take the move, but in sold enough shape to support your weight. Based on the psychology of the match, the move shouldn’t have happened in the first place, and blowing it, frankly, worked for me, because Trish’s leg was screwed up and she shouldn’t have been able to support Mickie in the attempt. Well, that and seeing the look on Trish’s face during the botch was pretty amusing.

7.) Skipped UT/Henry, for obvious reasons.

8.) Vince/Michaels was a strong match, and rather enjoyable, but since it didn’t blow off the feud, I don’t know what the point was. Still good though.

9.) Rey winning the title, reasons aside, was absolutely awesome IMO. The reasons suck, yeah, but it’s not like he’s ever going to see the belt ever again, giving it to him one time isn’t so bad. Sez I, the buildup was bullshit, the fallout will be bullshit, but for one night, I was okay with all of this crap. I’ll be bitter on Thursday. Friday. Whatever.

10.) Yeah, like I watched Torrie/Candace. I’ve seen them both naked already, why would I want to see them with clothes ON? It’s not like they’re good wrestlers or anything.

11.) I enjoyed the main, and I don’t care what you think about it. I like Cena, and I don’t care what you think about it. And frankly, I thought the visuals associated with the entrances of both men were ridiculous, over the top, hideously lame, and completely in character with both men, and therefore, I appreciated them. Oh, yes, and might I take the opportunity to say, for the record, that I didn’t care about Cena crapping on Capone because I have no appreciation for Mr. Capone, for personal reasons you don’t care about and I don’t want to share with you.

And that’s that. Remember, hate mail’s not effective if I don’t care.

LINKAGE:

Tommy P turns in a column and a RAW Recap. I actually watched most of RAW last night, and I can honestly say that Mickie James with blonde hair scares the crap out of me. Of course, Mickie James in general scares the crap out of me after Wrestlemania, but never mind.

Eric S does his business as usual. I have no idea why he kept expecting Samoa Joe to run in on the Michaels/McMahon match, let alone why he thinks the WWE inducted him into their Hall of Fame. Perhaps he needs a prescription change.

Also, Eric dropped me a line reminding me that, yes, the standard “RPG” as we console gamers know it is pretty far down the line from what a TRUE RPG is, hence the commentary in my Oblivion review. Yes, I pimped myself, how gauche. Anyway, for the record, I also rather enjoy the real deal quite a bit, both in P&P format (D&D, V:TM, W:TA, HOL, you get the idea) and in gaming (NWN, V:TM:Bloodlines, Fallout, etc.), so worry not, ye who think me a console only RPG fanboy. I’ll have you know I’m a fanboy of all kinds of things.

Wait…

Anyway, to continue, yes, the PC tends to be a haven for TRUE RPG’s, while consoles tend to either A.) foist out the traditional RPG’s we’re used to, or B.) show off TRUE RPG’s no one likes (Metal Dungeon, anyone?). That said, I have a fondness for console RPG’s as well, so, while yes, Oblivion was a welcome purging after having to play Ephemeral Fantasia, really, anything would have been better than that.

Kennedy interviews Mikey, thus allowing me to plug two guys at once. BONUS! Plus, y’know, it’s an entertaining read.

Ah hell. Mikey reviews a documentary of a movie I’ve never seen, yet know quite a lot about. Thankfully, he makes us aware that it sucks, which is also good.

My boss reviews an obscure PC game. It sounds like something I’d enjoy, for obvious reasons.

WHAT’S PLAYING:

No Feedback this week, aside from Eric S, so I thought I’d debut a new section to PtL: basically, if I’ve played a game, but either due to time constraints, lack of interest, or it being claimed by someone else, I can’t do a review, I’ll dump an opinion up here. So here’s some of the games I’ve played in the past month or so, along with some mild opinions.

FINAL FIGHT: STREETWISE:

If you like the Final Fight world, it’s a solid (if mildly questionable) representation of such. The beat-em-up gameplay is solid, but the game lacks the pure personality of Beatdown: Fists of Vengance, so if you prefer presentation to gameplay, you might want to wait for Beatdown 2 (hopefully). Also, the game goes back and forth between simple ass-kicking and some more odd stages (using guns to shoot down a boss, for instance), and about halfway through, becomes something akin to Dawn of the Dead, which is still fun, but less interesting. The two-player mode is pretty amusing for a while, which is good, but the emulation of the original Final Fight seems off (I had sound issues when I played it), though it’s fine if you don’t own the Capcom Classics compilation. I’d also have liked to see the various other FF games emulated here on the disc in some form or fashion. The game also kind of sort of plays out some points of FF, but ignores others. Where’s our boys Sodom and Rolento? What happened to Jessica, Haggar’s daughter and Cody’s love interest? Why does Cody still wear his prison shirt (though it is nice to see Capcom remembered THAT from Street Fighter Alpha 3)? Overall, it’s a solid title, but not what I wanted.

Call it 6 out of 10.

ONIMUSHA 4:

Looks good, plays good, sounds good (even with English dub), overall a solid title. You have multiple partners this time around, each of which can be upgraded appropriately, and they’re all pretty cool to have around, as they can all do different things. The game encourages going back and completing older stages to unlock all of the hidden items, which boosts replay nicely. There is a two-player mode in the game, but it’s only accessible by code, and with good reason: it’s broken. The game isn’t meant for two players sadly. Most boss fights, and some entire stages, are single player only, which leaves the second player to sit and watch, which is boring. The camera is hideous in two player as well, and until you get about halfway through the game, you’re stuck with whatever characters the game gives you instead of picking who you WANT to play as, which is annoying. As a single player game, O4 is great fun; as a multi-player experience, it CAN be fun, but is problematic as often as it’s enjoyable.

Call it 7 out of 10.

GHOST RECON: ADVANCED WARFIGHTER:

Played two stages and one online match and determined that GRAW, much like Rainbow 6 and GR before it, isn’t for me. If you like these sorts of games, it’s awesome; sadly, I don’t. No score. Oh, and while everyone out there is touting it as “the most visually impressive game for the 360 to date”, I didn’t really see anything that impressed me too terribly much. Oblivion is impressive; GRAW looks very good, but does nothing so special as to make me care about it. Just saying.

THE GODFATHER:

Mikey called this bad boy, so I rented it to screw around a bit. Good fun in the GTA vein, though Coppola’s writing is far superior to anything GTA has put out. Creating your own gangster is pretty cool, too. Strong-arming rackets into paying you for protection keeps things fresh, and the hand-to-hand combat is far superior to GTA, but the driving is on par, and the gunplay, while better in some respects, is less so in others. Aiming for individual body parts is cool; using cover is cool; dying in five shots isn’t. Still, a good experience, and if you’re a GTA fan and a Godfather fan, you have no reason not to own this.

Call it a 6.5 out of 10 if you’re not a fan of the movie, and an 8 if you are.

KINGDOM HEARTS 2:

Bleh. The original brought me to tears (only because of Winnie the Pooh’s existance within the title), but so far, the first five hours of this one have bored me to tears. They say it picks up; if so, I’ll comment on it next week. No score yet, just giving first impressions.

That’s all for this week. We’ll see if I have anything else next week. In the meantime, let’s get to the lame.

PLAYING THE LAME, VOLUME 9.

Name of the offending title: Miracle Warriors: Seal of the Dark Lord
What system was this forced upon: Sega Master System
Who was responsible for this crap: Kogado, Ascii, Sega (three people to make this piece of shit? Wow.)
Date this abomination was foisted upon us: Sometime in ’87/88 (yes, I can read, but no one has an exact date, so I’m working with an average here)

Your soundtrack for this week is The Birthday Massacre. Part Industrial, part Horror music, part Eighties silliness, all pretty damn good. Plus, the lead singer is a woman who likes Phantasy Star. You can’t say no to that.

I must admit, last week I was stumped on an RPG to parade around for all of you to point and laugh at. I mean, most of the RPG’s I’ve played either fall into the “I hate them but others do not” category, or the “I didn’t hate them enough to rag on them” category. I have Master of Monsters waiting for a play-through, but I was kind of hoping to avoid repeating systems, and since we just mocked Beyond the Beyond, I was out of ideas.

Then, last night, as I lay dreaming in my bed, I received divine intervention. I heard a voice call out to me, as if from beyond the grave…

“MARK.”

Uh? Who’zat?

“MARK. I HAVE COME TO AID YOU IN YOUR TIME OF GREAT NEED.”

Can it wait? I’m trying to sleep.

“NO.”

Right, right… who are you, and why are you bothering me?

“I AM THE BEGINNING OF ALL THINGS YOU REVERE. YOU WOULD KNOW ME AS MANY THINGS, BUT NONE MORE POWERFUL THAN THAT OF HE WHO YOU LOVE ABOVE ALL OTHERS.”

God?

“NO DIPSHIT, ALEX KIDD.”

Oh.

Oh! Hey, can I get your autograph? I still have my Miracle World cartridge around here somewhere…

“NO.”

Why not?

“BECAUSE I’M NOT ACTUALLY PHYSICALLY PRESENT. BESIDES, I’M A FICTIONAL CHARACTER. WHO’S GOING TO BELIEVE I GAVE YOU MY AUTOGRAPH?”

Point taken. So why are you bothering me?

“I HAVE COME IN YOUR TIME OF GREAT NEED TO AID YOU. WE WENT OVER THIS.”

Right, I forgot. Aid how?

“YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN MUCH IN YOUR TIME ON THIS EARTH. I HAVE COME TO REMIND YOU OF THINGS LONG FORGOTTEN.”

… o-kay… right. Look, if this is about the sheep, I swear she told me she was twenty.

“WHAT? NO. WAIT, WHAT?”

Never mind.

“LOOK, YOU NEED A CRAPPY RPG TO WRITE ABOUT.”

Ah. That. Okay, so what-

“HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN IASON?”

Iason? What?

“IASON. TERRARIN. A MAP SO SMALL NO HUMAN COULD POSSIBLY NAVIGATE BY IT.”

Wait… wait… oh! Right! Miracle Warriors! I remember now! God that was awful.

“YES, YES IT WAS. THIS IS WHY I HAVE COME TO YOU.”

Wow. Thanks Alex, I apprecieate it.

“NO PROBLEM. YOU BOUGHT ALEX KIDD IN HIGH-TECH WORLD, THIS IS THE LEAST I CAN DO.”

Fair enough. So what are you doing these days?

“I’M A PREACHER NOW, ACTUALLY.”

A preacher.

‘YEAH. JUST GOT DONE A CIRCUIT OF THE MUSHROOM KINGDOM… THESE KIDS TODAY, ALL THEY CARE ABOUT ARE THEIR COINS AND THEIR POWER-UPS. I DID THREE DAYS OF PREACHING… SAY NO TO SUPER MUSHROOMS, THE USUAL… NOTHING. I SWEAR…”

He went on about that for another hour before he left. I swear, you play their games and they think you care about this stuff. Ugh.

So, right, Miracle Warriors. There’s not much to say about it as a game; it predates Phantasy Star as the first RPG for the SMS, but otherwise it’s fairly non-descript. It’s a weak, underdeveloped, thoroughly confusing RPG that is an RPG in the most minimal way. It’s a marginal title that frankly has no reason to exist, and yet somehow exists in the corner of my mind as the first RPG I ever played (in either case). This may, in turn, explain my fondness for crap, so we can safely blame Sega for that, I think. Lord knows if it wasn’t MW:SOTDL that did it, Zillion 2: The Tri-Formation, Aztec Adventure, and every Alex Kidd game after Miracle World could certainly take the blame as easily.

A BRIEF LAYOUT OF “MIRACLE WARRIORS: SEAL OF THE DARK LORD”:

A thousand years ago, a shepherd named Iason let an evil demon, Terrarin, who proceeded to wreck all sorts of stuff. Iason, realizing he was a colossal dumbass, trained for some period of time in the arts of war before returning and laying an unholy smackdown upon Terrarin. He then made the proclamation that in 1000 years time, Terrarin would return, and a band of warriors would rise up to defeat her. As opposed to, y’know, proclaiming she would stay forever dead, which would make life easier, though it would remove the storyline of the game (minimal as it is). Anyway, you are summoned to the castle 1000 years later, and armed with a fairy and a hit list, you head out into the world to whip some evil ass, assuming you survive past the castle gates.

WHY THIS GAME SUCKS:

First, let’s look at our cast of characters:

ME:

Yes, that’s right, me. Not you. I played this game, so therefore I’m the star. Suck it.

Anyway, you can name your character whatever you want, and if you fail to do so, you get blank space as opposed to any sort of default name. I suppose if you wanted to be the nameless hero, that’d work as well as anything else, but it just looks really stupid when the game says, ” attacks!” on-screen. On the other hand, you only have a whopping FOUR letters to work with, so if your name is anything more than that, I hope you have a good nickname lined up.

GUY

Not to be confused with the far cooler Guy of Final Fight fame, Guy here is a hulking monstrosity of a man (supposedly) who is incredibly powerful. I say “supposedly” because he looks like everyone else in this stupid game, so who knows? He’s also the only person who stands half a chance of killing skeletons for some unspecified reason. To gain the services of Guy, you need two things: a large enchanted sword that you get from a king who wants something like a billion fangs in trade for it, and the spell “AWAKE GIANT”. Now, I dunno about you, but I’d tend to distrust the capability of a spell named something as simple as “AWAKE GIANT”, but then again, when we live in a world where people are told shouting “RIDICULOUS” is a perfectly acceptable spell-casting technique, lord knows anything is possible. You cast this spell, by the way, in a healer’s shop in a town several countries away from where you would even remotely consider going under normal circumstances, which really just kind of proves how utterly… well… ridiculous this whole experience is.

MEDI
Medi is your third party member, and the only female of the group. Unlike most games, however, she’s just another character who hits things, as opposed to being a healer, or a character with any meaningful dialogue. For some reason, I remember her being a statue or something when I first met her, but it’s been a while since I played that far into the game. To get Medi in the party, you must have the Armor of Legend, as opposed to the Fist of Legend, because 1.) Jet Li was probably five when this game came out, and 2.) I have it on good authority that ladies don’t much care for the fist. Just trust me on that one.

TREO
Treo is your fourth, and final, party member. Poor Treo is most commonly known for being mistaken for:

CHOOSE YOUR OWN PUNCHLINE:

A.) a cell phone with Palm Pilot capabilities;
B.) three guys who travel together playing instruments;
C.) that kid from “The Cosby Show”;
D.) that kid from “A Never Ending Story”, or alternatively, the hardcore band of the same name;

which made him so depressed, he decided to hide in a cave in the middle of nowhere. The fact that he’s been turned into a hideous monster didn’t help any. To save Treo his horrible fate, you require the Shield of Ulysses, which is located on the island of Ikaros, thus screwing Homer and the Greeks at the same time into being in this stupid game. And, come to that, given the choice between being a playable character in this game and being stuck as a monster in a cave, well, just call me Grover and stick me at the end of the book, kay?

Got all that? Good. Let’s get down to the game itself.

So I start my adventure outside of the castle, with no real goal in mind, and upon starting… upon… that is… I…

… nice skirt, jackass.

Note, please, the layout of the screen, if you will. On the right, you have a map, a 5X5 square of terrain. THIS is your overworld map. Yes, really. A 5X5 square of crap, with a white block in the middle, is how you navigate the world. Not only is this highly offensive (considering how many games make the WHOLE SCREEN the world map), but it makes finding where you’re going nigh impossible. You’re more or less left to bumble around the map until you find something. It’s really quite absurd, but I guess if you like “Where’s Waldo” you might be amused.

In the bottom right corner, you’ll note four listings, which denote my total amount of cash, my total amount of healing herbs (no points for guessing what those do), my total amount of fangs (which supposedly denote my bravery in battle, but are really only there for trading to other people), and my character points. Basically, as I kill enemies, my character points go up, but if I kill GOOD people, these points go down. In theory, your CP dictates if you can enter towns and such, but in practice, if you never kill any good guys, it doesn’t really matter much.

That the rest of the screen is more or less taken up by me in my flapping skirt really doesn’t improve my mood. Your other characters will eventually fill in the remaining empty spots, but it doesn’t make me feel any better about the 5X5 map. And for those of you wondering what the f*ck is up with that fairy, keep wondering, I don’t know either. She does nothing and ultimately serves no purpose.

Anyway, upon starting my crusade, I adventure around for a while, trying to figure out more or less what the holy hell I’m supposed to be doing, when I come upon a merchant:

Now, surely our friend here should have some sage words of advice for me about my quest, right?

… thanks for the words of wisdom there, Condoucheous. Glad you were here to help.

Eventually, of course, we run into monsters throughout the course of the game; after all, slaughtering the flora and fauna is part of the experience, right? And of course, Miracle Warriors has its own varied assortment of interesting creatures like…

… the Great Lion, who is apparently great because of his CRACK ADDICT EYES and the HORNS coming out of his head. We also meet…

The Weasley Wimp! If that’s the name of your creature race, mayhap it would benefit you to NOT attack the hero of the game. And also…

… okay, I don’t know. It looks like a cross between Eric Cartman, the Kool Aid man, and a bukkake victim. I give up.

Also, for some reason, more than a few of the game enemies have trunks, which leads me to believe the entirety of the denizens of Hell in this world are either elephants or anteaters. The idea of Babar and Arthur either cross-breeding their evil magically… or… y’know, the OTHER way… makes me nauseous, but I felt it bore noting, so enjoy my pain.

Combat, such as it is, is a pain in the ass. Of course, this being an 8-bit game, you hit a random encounter about once every two paces, but unlike most RPG’s, there’s no balance here. Basically, you could go from fighting this…

… to fighting this…

… to fighting THIS…

literally in the same 5X5 area. For the record, running is entirely a possibility, but you’ve got something like a twenty percent chance of actual escape, and failure to do so results in the opponent smearing your ass all across the countryside. THANKS GUYS.

You might also note that, as you fight enemies, you do significantly little damage, but take quite a lot. Indeed, you’ll spend quite a lot of time grinding in this game to accomplish anything. You might ask, “don’t you mean leveling?”, to which I say, nononono. Let’s take a look at the “Status” screen for the rationale:

So, the first thing you’ll notice is how… barren the whole thing is. Indeed, your characters have NO stats to speak of; the only thing that dictates their increased abilities is the rise in their life bar. Now, this isn’t entirely uncommon… Y’s did something very similar with its systems, though unlike this game, Y’s was fairly enjoyable. Still, that you’re wandering the countryside, your skills dictated by your equipment alone, is quite silly.

The second thing you might notice is that, well, I’ve nothing listed under my name. This is because, despite my status as the hero of the land, the king saw fit to cast me into the world with nothing by my fairy and my blue skirt for protection. So yes, I’ve been beating enemies to death with my bare hands, which might be incredibly manly, but is also pretty suicidal.

Well, I’m near a town anyway, let’s see what I can do here.

Great. Instead of a side view of my dipshit character, I get to stare at the back of his big iron head. Go me. Otherwise, I get the same 5X5 map of town.

Alright, okay… so, after buying a bunch of crap and recruiting a smithy to travel along with me (oh, yes, weapons and armor break in this game, unless you recruit this guy, which kind makes the whole thing pointless, since you can recruit him about an hour in), I go off to find Guy, Mendi, and Treo. With them in my group, we go off to locate their ancient weaponry, as well as my own, so that we might smite the dark lord Terrarin.

So, in case you’re wondering, basically, everyone in the game has a sum total of two weapons, armor, and shields they can equip, except for me, because I can buy a knife. TWO of everything, total. Christ, Phantasy Star had more equipment than that, and one of your characters was a f*cking talking cat. LAME.

It also bears noting that, despite the fact that I have three other party members, and despite the fact that we’re combat-class characters, we’re all apparently very polite, because only ONE OF US attacks every turn. Yes. One. One attack between four characters. There is absolutely no logical, reasonable, or understandable explanation for this, yet there it is.

So, after finding a boat that can cross “The Stormy Seas” (AKA dark blue pixels instead of light blue pixels), we find our way out into the desert. Once there, we seek out the temple where Terrarium the dark lord of plant and animal observation is hiding. They tell me take five steps this way and ten steps that way, but apparently Iason (the guy who took these steps prior) had humongous feet, because five steps turns into sixteen. Why Iason didn’t just step on Tarantula, the dark lord of spiders, is beyond me.

You can tell I’m not taking this at all seriously anymore, right?

So, after venturing into the desert, finding the temples, shouting “COME, IASON” to the heavens (I don’t know why, either), and descending my way to the basement of the final temple, my party and I finally come upon the source of all evil:

TERRARIN, THE DARK LORD.

I tried to get a picture, but my camera broke.

So, I have all sorts of magical items in my possession by this time… The White Sphere, to protect myself from evil, the Staff of Earthquakes… I don’t know why… the Sacred Nuts, NOT THOSE NUTS YOU FREAKS, and some Resurrection Potions I got by killing sea dragons in the Stormy Seas. Why the sea dragons had Resurrection Potions in the first place is only slightly less confusing than why my CP went down for killing them. So, what, I’m not supposed to kill EVERY hostile monster I see? Save the Sea Dragons, something like that? Screw the Sea Dragons, save my ass.

So, here I am, at the final battle. Sure to be a climactic battle of epic proportions, a battle which will shake the very Earth to its foundations…

… okay, I brained her with my nuts and then beat her to death. Wow, that sounds all sorts of wrong.

So.

As my time in these lands comes to a close, I sit back and reflect upon my adventure. Upon the limited amount of weapons, the poor visibility, the ridiculous balance, the lack of stats, the poor selection of weapons, and the fact that the game lasts, MAYBE, ten hours, eight of which are spent grinding for levels and cash. I sit back, reflect upon all of this, and come to the realization that, thanks to the reminder from one Alex Kidd himself, I was forced into service with this pile of crap once again, for the betterment of video gamers everywhere.

The next time I see you, Alex, I’m going to kick you in the Sacred Nuts. Be warned.

WHY THIS GAME REALLY SUCKS:

It’s a ten hour RPG with no stats, little storyline, bad translation, a 5X5 map, and ultimately next to nothing to do. Yes, it was an 8-bit game, but consider the original Dragon Warrior, which (as little as I liked it) had FAR more depth, FAR more storyline, and *gasp* A FULL-SCREEN WORLD MAP. Consider Phantasy Star, a game that was far superior to Miracle Warriors in every possible respect, which came out not even a YEAR later. That Ascii felt the need to produce such a title is shameful; that Sega felt the need to port is stateside is confounding; that my mother felt the need to buy it for me… well, that’s par for the course.

What? I was eight, where was I supposed to get money?

So, Miracle Warriors is one of those few titles that sucks for the simple reason that it does, no more, no less. We’ll probably see plenty more of those before our time together is done, so I suppose we might as well get used to it now.

WHERE IT COULD HAVE BEEN IMPROVED:

Five simple improvements would make this pretty much on par with every other 8-bit RPG of the times:

First, FULL SCREEN MAP. Kay? Kay.

Second, some more variety to the weapons; y’know, KNIFE, SWORD, GREAT SWORD, then the legendary sword. Something like that.

Third, give the characters some basic definition beyond “hits things with a sword”. Teach a character or two how to cast some spells. Balance things out a bit. Something like that. When your characters are effectively comparable to EACH OTHER, there’s a problem.

Fourth, ALL FOUR CHARACTERS ATTACK IN ONE TURN, NOT ONE PER TURN. Kay? Kay.

And finally, clean up the dialogue so, if nothing else, you actually GET SOMETHING from it other than confused. None of the dialogue really explains anything or tells you anything that’s of any use; at least games like Dragon Warrior and Phantasy Star pointed you in SOME kind of direction. Here, the characters hold up their little arrow, and it’s more like a spiral into nothingness. Fix it.

Would Miracle Warriors be a GOOD game after all of this? Not really. It’s still ten hours, there’s still no statistics, and there are still better RPG’s out there, but it would be playable, at least. To make it good would require doubling the game’s length and actually putting some DEPTH into its systems, which is far more than I’d ever want to be bothered doing. That said, it’s entirely possible there’s a good game somewhere under the surface here, but I’m not really willing to play Jules Verne here; all I’m here to do is fix the simple, stupid problems. This has been done, and while the final result isn’t an award winner, it’s at least something that might, possibly, have merited a sequel someday. Hey, that’s better than nothing.

WHERE YOU CAN GET IT:

Ebay. SMS games are entirely too ancient to find most places, and Sega hasn’t released Miracle Warriors onto Gametap yet (for what I would have assumed to be obvious reasons, until I saw Cosmic Carnage and Aztec Adventure up there; GT is a haven for crappy games, for those that harbor this fascination as I do), so that’s your best bet.

CLOSING COMMENTS:

And thus wraps up another Playing the Lame. Nothing exciting seems to be coming out this week, so I’m going to see what sorts of old crap I’ve got lying around. I can’t guarantee anything special, but we’ll see what I can turn up. And so, as always, remember, I’m Mark B, and you’re not. Have a good one folks.


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