Beaten: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (Series)

 I've only ever played two Indiana Jones videogames, and I've beaten them both. The first was the masterful Raiders of the Lost Ark on the Atari VCS, when I figured out that the clock was actually moving and you had to be in the map room at the right time, just like the movie. After that I just never came across an Indy game in my decades of gaming across various hardware, but they kept making them.

The most recent one dropped into my lap - or more accurately, onto my pricey XBox Gamepass Ultimate Super Platinum thing, and seeing it was from trusted studio Machinegames, I decided to download it and see if it was as good as their Wolfenstein games.  It was better.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle has been carefully crafted to be a videogame that feels very much like playing through an Indiana Jones movie. The look of everything, the music, the font used to introduce a new area, all are very authentic. As is the incredible voice talent they found to sound like Harrison Ford. Speaking of voice talent, the late Tony Todd put in one last performance here as the mysterious giant Locus, another perfect role for the horror movie legend.  It was kind of bittersweet knowing it was his last.

A break in at Marshall College sends Professor Jones on a journey to capture the thief, which in turn leads to a bigger mystery with another Nazi once again arrogant enough to try to use the power of God resting in some ancient device for evil ends. This seems to take place in the timeline, if one cares, after Raiders of the Lost Ark as it’s prize is mentioned once if I recall correctly.

The game plays in first person and while Indy can use guns and blast away at enemies, it clearly wants the player to be more Indy like and just whip and punch enemies. Shooting summons every guard in the area whereas a stealthy approach is better. With a few upgrades, the whip-punch combo works well, Whip an enemy to make them drop their weapon and stun them, then punch them repeatedly until they fall. There is a block option too, so some fisticuffs require finesse.

And since the enemies are fascists, it was timely fun just punching them over and over. By that I mean, in the game's larger areas, the respawn of enemies behind you means that all the backtracking one does requires clearing out areas repeatedly. I'd take it as a sign of our times rather than design intent that makes punching fascists the least tedious part of such a game.

The game's main areas are pretty large and deviously designed to require tons of exploration. Later in the game, the player gets the option to travel back to them to complete any unfinished business, a feature which encouraged me to do exactly that. I did not go for 100% but I was close.

There is lots of lore to collect and read, as well as a camera that didn’t exist in the 1930s because it somehow instanly puts the printed photos into your inventory. Indy uses the camera a lot as a puzzle solving tool, and for general sightseeing. Weirdly enough, he doesn’t use it during the endgame cutscene where some truly historic shit is happening.

There were some weird design quirks and a few glitches but the game autosaves frequently enough that this was not an issue. Enemy AI was a little dopey, too, sometimes missing obvious chances to detect me. Or was it actually truly accurate AI, as being a fascist does require an unbelievable degree of stupidity? I’d say in this America “You know who you are” to them, but they are also too stupid to know how stupid they are.

There are lots of great puzzles for Indy to solve and they are not too challenging, but are rewarding nonetheless. Truly each large region itself is a puzzle in and of itself to explore. Indy uses his whip to swing over pits and to pull on certain switches out of reach.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a complete joy of a game, authentic to fans of the character while fun for us few gamers who appreciate archaeology and punching fascists.

Beaten: Cthulhu Saves Christmas (Switch)

 “What the what?” I said to myself as I pulled the small red case that said “Cthulhu Saves Christmas “ off the shelf of my local mom and pop video game store, where it blended in with hundreds of other Switch games.

As I turned the case around and read the back it was clear what I was holding. Chtulhu Saves Christmas is a classic 90s style top down turn based RPG from the same crew at Zeboyd Games that brought us Chtulhu Saves the World as an XBox 360 indie game way back in 2010. Mind blown.

I purchased and downloaded Chtulhu Saves the World when it came out but only sampled it at the time, so I had to check to make sure it was still there on my 360, as a part of that console’s downloaded library. Thankfully, it was, because it turns out Chtulhu Saves Christmas is actually a prequel to Saves the World, so I was right to hold out these fifteen years so I could play them in order!

It’s also worth noting that I am out of touch with wherever video game journalism is these days, so news about this game never reached me until I found it on that store shelf. Finding it that way was also a weird thing, as it is a Limited Run game, produced by a small company that releases physical versions of some downloadable games for a premium price. So, it's sort of rare.

Graphically, it's gorgeous, as these modern top-down games tend to be. Cthulhu is joined by three party members as they attempt to save Santa from various non-Grinch Christmas villains. The party themselves are also characters from Christmas lore and each has unique abilities to add to the mix. Even though Cthulhu desires to destroy the world, he's a likable, personable character who gets along well with others in this quest.

The story is great and the writing and humor are superb. There is a central hub called Christmastown where, in between parts of the quest, Cthulhu can do various activities with the other party members or on his own which lead to useful loot items for the four party members. This part is important as the relationships he makes with the party members seem to play some role.

Turn based combat is fun, and sometimes challenging, but never unmanageable. What is manageable is the grind, thanks to monster variety in each area, as well as an actual countdown of the random encounters per area. A three bar meter on the screen builds up as the player explores the area, and when it turns red, a battle begins. After the first area I noticed it had a countdown number above it for the number of these encounters remaining.

In addition, there is a button on the menu to just go ahead and start an encounter. So I would start a new area, fight every encounter, then be free to explore and loot the remaining dungeon before fighting the boss. There is not a lot of loot, and it's just items, no money. There are no shops and upgrades come from the few chests found as well as the relationship quests back at Christmastown.

I had a great time playing and beating Cthulhu Saves Christmas, even though I hate the holidays myself. It's just long enough to matter and a great game for the Switch itself. I also love the fact that small games are getting physical releases thanks to Limited Run Games. I'll certainly be paying them and their releases more attention going forward.

2024 Year in Review

Well shit, 2024 was a shitfest of a year, weren’t it? I reckon it’s only a matter of time before one of these sociopaths in charge of all the nukes has a temper tantrum and all these video games I own get EMP’d or just plain vaporized, so the idea is to play them while I can! 

Back in 2020 I decided to go full retrogamer, that is to play various titles from my collection from various eras on various devices, rather than the decades-old drive to play the latest and greatest. This year I decided to formalize that a little, by creating a spreadsheet to track each category that I filled while playing every game I beat.

Some categories are eras in which the game was released, from the 1980s up until the modern decade. Under miscellaneous, the categories are "Play at Release" which is pretty self-explanatory, "Unfinished Business" meaning a game I put some effort into back in the past but never beat, and "Portable" encompasses games played on portable devices, mostly those made by Nintendo.

"System" involves games played on a particular system, and currently includes the last three generations of consoles from Microsoft and Sony. Next year I am definitely adding the Nintendo Switch to that list as I am starting to realize how awesome the Switch library has become.

The results show that portables exploded this year with my acquisition of an Analogue Pocket, which allowed me to beat a whopping four Game Boy games and two Game Boy Advance games, with a 3DS game thrown in for good measure. My love of what I call the eighth generation of games has me still playing lots of stuff on the XBox 360 and PS3, with five games beaten between the two systems. The XBox One and PS4 era took a hit this year with only one game each, while the current generation each provided two games for me to take down. 

As far as eras, the aughts were clearly still the decade my head is at, but other decades still got some attention. The exception is the 1980s, where I failed to beat any game from that era. I was close - level 47 out of 50 on The Adventure of Lolo for the NES, but ultimately I did not dedicate the time to the eighties that it required. I tried to start Ultima 3 Exodus, but the instant grind-or-die from starvation problem at the beginning of the game deterred me.

Noteworthy is that I beat an Atari VCS game, sort of. Blue 21 is a homebrew I had downloaded with hundreds of other Atari VCS ROMS back in the 2010s when I purchased an Atari Flashback Portable. It's strip blackjack for one player against a female opponent, and I beat it just to see how graphic the Atari could be with this. It's an impressive feat:

Other than the games I beat, I tried out a few other games like the aforementioned The Adventures of Lolo for the NES, playable on the Switch via their online library, to scratch my occasional puzzle game itch.  

Over on XBox, Game Pass allowed me to play a good chunk of Gears 5, which I abandoned at some insane boss fight. Also on Game Pass was Squirrel with a Gun, which I only dabbled in a little, and Star Trucker, which was an amazing game to play a little but ultimately was too harsh of a sim type game to dive any deeper. Another Crab's Treasure looked like fun until I realized it was Dark Souls difficult. I hit up STALKER Shadow of Chornobyl, Demon's Tilt, Powersalve Exhumed, and Back 4 Blood on the recent XBox consoles as well.

My heart still remains with my old Xbox 360, as I put a little time into El Shaddai, a stylish action hack and slash, and two of the three legendary Burger King games - Pocketbike Racers and Big Bumpin'.  Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth reminded me of my inability to stay too long in those sorts of strategy games. Kengo: Legend of the 9 similarly reminded me that Japan makes some brutally unforgiving fighting games. Add to the list for the 360 Guncraft: Blocked and Loaded, Yie-Ar Kung Fu, Assault Heroes, Sega Superstars Tennis, A World of Keflings, Risk, and Worms, some of which were last minute downloads before the XBox 360 store closed. 

Over on the Playstation 3 I finally played Tokyo Jungle, a crazy animal survival game. On the PS5 I tried a little of Sekiro Shadows Die Twice and died a lot more than twice.

And as always, I walk around our apartment and stop by the Vectrexes for a quick game, or play an Atari VCS classic on my Atari Flashback Portable, or just see what's in my Odyssey 2 library.

Of course my wife still pushes me to play Mario Kart 8 on the Switch, even though the entire franchise has sucked since Double Dash on the Gamecube. She wants me to help her get 3 stars on all 150cc tracks, so we make a little progress on that here and there. Mario Party Superstars wore out its welcome this year in time for Mario Party Jamboree, which I'll be forced to play until I die thanks to its seemingly endless content.

My goals for 2025 inlcude more of the same - playing all sorts of games from the now forty-plus years of software acquisition. Acquiring classics and new games I want will continue. I really should start looking at Vectrex homebrews too. 

I need to make time for another eighties classic or two. I also plan to acquire an second Switch for the upstairs setup and squeeeze in a few more Switch games, For my portables, my Sony, and my Xbox consoles - I plan to keep building up their libraries as well and beating a few from each.

I also want to devote more time to this website and have already expanded it a little by adding a new section called Mutliplayer Hall of Fame. Be sure to check it out! As the world burns down around us all this year, and my dream of gaming retirement seems to be more of a fantasy than ever, the remaining time left becomes even more special.

Damn right I'm filling those remaining moments with fucking video games.

Beaten: Paper Mario: Sticker Star (3DS)

 I've loved the Paper Mario series since I played the second installment back on the Gamecube in the early 2000s, but have been sporadic in my revisiting the franchise. I played Super Paper Mario on the Wii when it came out, but then did not revisit the series until a few years ago, when I beat the first Paper Mario, originally released for the Nintendo 64 back in 2000.

So now I'm continuing the series chronologically, which meant Paper Mario: Sticker Star for the Nintendo 3DS was next. This story also ties to my history with Nintendo handhelds in a funny way, too. I was all aboard the portable train when the Game Boy came along, followed by the Sega Game Gear, the Atari Lynx, and even the Turbografx 16's TurboExpress, a portable in the early 1990s that - just like Nintendo's Switch - plays the same games as the home console.

But the XBox 360 and PS3 era was such that my interest in portables waned in the early 2010s, and I ignored the arrival of the 3DS. Luckily, my wife kept the flames going and asked for one for a present at some point, and she built up a small library for the device. So I've had my eye on Paper Mario Sticker Star for a decade, which aligns with my newfound desire to revisit the 3DS thanks to my recent playthrough of Phoenix Wright Dual Destinies.

It’s a gorgeous game on the 3DS, of course, as Paper Mario exists in its own 2-1/2D perspective. The 3D depth effect totally works with Paper Mario and the 3DS smoothly handles this style, rotating the perspective and zooming in and out at times.

Mario once again explores a bunch of environments looking for five royal stickers and battles various enemies and bosses. The action is turn based, meaning Mario takes a turn, by using stickers to attack, defend, or heal, followed by the enemy turns. 

One of those attack stickers is the Slaphammer, which I only note because an enemy hit with it and killed will go flying around the screen, sideways and backwards, before finally splatting in the foreground, like they hit the screen from the inside. It’s hilarious.

What’s not funny at all is the complete lack of usefulness of Mario’s companion, an annoying talking crown sticker. This little shit redeems itself at the end of the game, but offers only vague hints about environments, puzzles, or other stickers during the game. 

I was stuck for over two weeks at the halfway point of the game, where I could not access the second half of the map until a certain item was found. I spent weeks scouring previous areas over and over, only to give up and look it up online, which I hate to do. Turns out the item I needed, a lightbulb, was right there in plain sight in a temple full of torches, sitting in a wall sconce just like the regular torches, blending in somehow in my aged brain every time I had previously passed it.

All my companion said about where I was stuck was the obvious thing, that it was dark. Also useless was the lack of any printed manual with the game, but that’s just a sign of the times.

Once I got past that I finished the second half of the game without further difficulty. The overall obtuseness permeates the game design, especially in regards to “things”, everyday items like scissors and vacuum cleaners, that Mario converts to stickers.

There are dozens of different “things” that make stickers with various uses, but only through experimentation can one know what they do. In one boss fight, the background was a baseball stadium, so naturally I used the baseball bat thing-sticker. It did a good amount of damage but no more than any other thing-stickers.

Nonetheless, the useless companion mentioned earlier chided me AFTER MY VICTORY against the boss. If the baseball bat wasn’t the sticker I was supposed to use in the baseball stadium, then what was? I’ll never know, or really care to know. 

Don’t get me wrong, Paper Mario Sticker Star was still the lite-RPG I needed, and a great showcase for the 3DS. It was just sort of a slog at times. It’ll be a few years before I attempt the next Paper Mario game, though. Kind of like Assassin’s Creed.

Beaten: James Bond 007 (Game Boy)

That Analogue Pocket I brought earlier this year is so good, it keeps begging for more use. While I've been tapping my existing library of games so far to enjoy on it, I've also done some research into any Game Boy "hidden gems" that I might have missed. People post those sorts of lists all the time these days.

One game I saw appear while looking for Game Boy role-playing games was James Bond 007, another licensed Bond game, but not based on any movie past or present. It's a top-down action-adventure similar to The Legend of Zelda Link's Awakening, featuring travel to multiple global locations, cool gadgets, and cameos by some previous Bond villains like Oddjob and Jaws. Early in the game, as in the movies, James returns to headquarters and gets to interact with Moneypenny, M, and Q.

Items are assigned to the A and B slots, which was pretty standard, and weapons run the range from bare hands to rocket launchers. Gadgets include the classic watch-with-laser, a primitive mapping tool, a grappling hook, shields, and so forth. 

Combat involves using whatever item one has equipped with whatever button it is assigned. There is also a basic but important block ability that can be equipped and used, body armors, and even shields. It’s pretty basic but gets complex when pixel perfect timing is required in a certain boss fight.

Speaking of those, there are a few boss fights scattered around and they’re all unique and fun. Health packs are plentiful enough that being mostly thorough in exploring the game will give the player an ample supply, although it was really really close for me at the end of the game. Searching for hidden items is just a matter of pressing A or B when near it, then it loads itself into the player's inventory. There are no visual cues about what is to be searched, though, leading to just walking along every wall and object in an area pressing A and B to see if something pops out.

I was worried as the first few areas were relatively small, but when the player gets to Marrakesh the map gets really big and meaty, with maze-like city streets and tunnels to navigate. Opening parts of the map may require items and side missions to get there as well. The story unfolds as one explores and plays, and it's standard James Bond stuff. That's a good thing, though, as NPCs are lively and helpful with tips and items. There is humor and innuendo, as one would expect in a James Bond experience. Sound effects are good, and hearing the James Bond theme throughout the game was a treat.

There is also a casino that has Blackjack, Baccarat, and some other basic card game to gamble on. Upon completing the game, these open up to free play. There is one part of the game where James must get to a certain amount of winnings, but the ability to save anywhere (both built into the game by design as well as the option to use the Analogue Pocket to save) allows the player to simply bet everything and if they lose, reload and try again.

It's almost mind-blowing that Goldeneye 007 came out for the Nintendo 64 in August of 1997 and then this Game Boy title followed in February of 1998. One was a state-of-the-art shooter that was a commercial and critical success and has been lauded ever since. The other came out for a nearly decade-old monochrome portable system at the end of its life cycle. These were developed by different companies and had no connection to each other that I could discern. Nonetheless, James Bond 007 on the Game Boy shines as a fun adventure, and those who made this game should be just as proud as the team behind Goldeneye 007.

Spoiler alert: James gets the girl at the end.

 

Beaten: Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel without a Pulse (One)

 There was a brief few years in 2004-2006 where I actually had an original Xbox and played a few games for it but I was mostly playing PC MMORPGs then, along with a few handhelds. I had already missed the PS2 console era pretty much, except for a seldom-played Nintendo Gamecube, so the surprise XBox gift opened up that console generation’s library a little. 

One of the titles that caught my eye was Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel without a Pulse, a third person action game where the player plays as the zombie, rather than the other way around as seen in most games that involve the undead. The hook is that your victims become your horde and the player can sort of herd them ahead into attacking police and other living entities. 

 I got pretty far in my old play through, but quit in frustration when the game had a Simon-like dance off minigame that I couldn’t get past. 

I will say, in addition, my play style was less, uh, completionist(?) than it became a few years later with the XBox 360/PS3 era. That era got me up to speed on modern campaigns and what it took to actually commit to beating a game.

In 2021, the game was re-released with improved controls and a few other bells and whistles like achievements, so I recently decided to revisit it. Like my recent play through of Alpha Protocol,  I was hungry enough for the concept that I could overlook the issues.

This was a re-release and not a remaster; a distinction I have learned in recent years, meaning the look and the feel are the same, but a few quality of life improvements were added. Fortunately, one of the improvements was to skip the dance minigame entirely, meaning the studio that remastered it was well aware of how much that part of the game sucked.

In fact, that studio also acknowledged that the tutorial level was awful, as the achievement awarded for beating it was called “That Didn’t Age Well” and was described as “Complete the painfully slow, forced tutorial “. 

None of it aged well, so a discerning gamer will surely turn away from the old graphics and janky gameplay. There are different things to do in the game and a few fun boss fights, so it really doesn’t get monotonous. 

Stubbs also has a fun revenge story and the game’s undead humor shines. I’m glad I returned to Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel without a Pulse, and I’m glad I got to skip the dance minigame and see more of it than my previous attempt to beat it. It’s unique and fun enough, and these days that’s enough for me.

Beaten: Alpha Protocol (PS3)

 I really really need to write these reviews immediately after finishing a game, and not months later.

Alpha Protocol was released in 2010 at the height of the XBox 360/PS3 era (which I call generation nine but the world says is eight) and there was a lot of anticipation for it. It is a full on espionage role-playing game, so a lot of us were thinking "Mass Effect meets James Bond", what could go wrong?

The reviews hit and it appeared that a lot went wrong. There were bugs and glitches of course, but for the most part the consensus was that the action - shooting, hiding in cover, and so forth - was very bad, even if the storytelling and character conversation options were great. So Alpha Protocol came and went, lost to the ages as many much more better games came after. 

There has been, however, an internet wave of nostalgia towards this game that had so much promise, but for me the question was - it is playable enough? Keeping with my recent PS3 love, I choose that version and dove in. 

After enjoying all the conversation options in my recent playthrough of Rise of the Argonauts, I was prepared for it in Alpha Protocol and was not disappointed. It really is deep and complex with options to be a nice romantic bond type or a total douchenozzle. I choose the cold professional but helpful agent. I just did my job and took some weird satisfaction in shooting down all the characters that were clearly hitting on me. "Uh, thanks for the intel, and no I am not interested in a romantic subplot with you" seemed to happen a lot.

The plot is pretty standard - agent gets burned and goes underground to uncover the plot. I loved that the villains are basically flimsy corporate caricatures and the company is basically Halliburton, and that there were little parts of the game where the TV is on talking about world events. There are a lot of small touches here and there that add depth. 

So the reviews were right - the story, characters, and conversation choices represent a part of the game that was clearly designed very well, and for multiple playthroughs. The action though, is so poor that most players wouldn't bother. The player plays in third person, and the aiming is sketchy at best, and the stealth is broken. Crouched behind cover, since Gears of War, usually means the player crouched behind an object is sort of stuck to it, and hidden. In this game, you just crouch near it an obstruction and hope for the best. If a single pixel is sticking out, a guard a hundred feet away will see you.

I had fun in my playthrough, and with a few cool boss fights to break the monotony, even the substandard action was bearable. The concept of an espionage RPG is still out there, but this attempt in 2010 called Alpha Protocol was a step in the right direction. Hopefully, someone will take that concept and run with it someday.

Beaten: Wanted Weapons of Fate (PS3)

Videogame adaptations of movies have earned a pretty bad rap, even though some of the earliest known such games were pretty good (see Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back on the Atari VCS).  Goldeneye 007 in the late 1990s was certainly a high standard, and the first time that I can recall a videogame making me immediately want to see the movie. It should be noted that the movie is adapted from a comic book.

I remember when the movie Wanted came out in 2008 and adding it to a list I had of "get around to seeing it eventually" movies. It had the star power of Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy, and Morgan Freeman, but the wife and I never got around to checking it out, even when it appeared on streaming services we had. I had also heard about the tie-in videogame but it was of course also forgotten about.

That is, until my recent hunt for XBox 360 and PS3 hidden gems, as I am coalescing around the idea that that specific console generation was the highpoint of the entire hobby. I picked up the PS3 version for this as my 360 has been getting plenty of attention this year. Reviews had warned me that it was fun but short, and my expectations were prepared.

Wanted: Weapons of Fate is a third person shooter that takes place five minutes after the movie ended. Having not seen the movie yet was not a hinderance as the game caught me up pretty fast on what was going on. The story revolves around a secretive assassin's guild and the main character's quest to understand both his abilities and history. 

The big hook of these assassins is that they can slow things down and curve bullets, and the game delivers on that cool mechanic. It's really fun once the player gets it going and the controls work well. Other than that, it's third person combat with a story that is a great continuation of the movie - which I watched a few days after beating the game. The movie is also really good.

After finishing, part of me wanted Wanted Weapons of Fate to be a little longer, but that's a minor quibble. Over the last few years I've come to value shorter game experiences, so maybe it was the perfect size. If you're a gamer that can appreciate that too, then this game is recommended.

Beaten: Rise of the Argonauts (360)

 Another XBox 360 game that has turned up in my hunt for games on the system I missed is Rise of the Argonauts, an action adventure depicting a story that, while not necessarily based in existing Greek mythology, was nonetheless an interesting and unique take on all of it.

The player is Jason, and he’s after the golden fleece as usual, assembling his crew of Argonauts on his ship the Argos. From there the story diverges as Jason’s crew features a lot of familiar names like Hercules, Achilles, and so forth, with the goal of getting the golden fleece per legend. In this telling though, Jason is really on a quest to resurrect his fiancé, by getting the golden fleece and using it on her corpse. He unravels a conspiracy of evil behind it all and sometimes does some hacking and slashing to get it done. 

The game unfolds in a linear fashion, with Jason and his crew of Argonauts expanding at each port. At one point the player has a choice of which part of the quest to take on next but after those sections of the game are completed, it’s linear again. 

While it appears this game is just another hack-and-slash, there really is not the same proportion of action to conversation as in other games. Conversations with people one meets and members of the crew are absolutely essential to getting through the game. In a unique twist, conversational choices align with various Greek gods, where Ares might prefer the confrontational approach, Apollo might prefer a more compassionate choice.

Greek mythology is ingrained not only in these conversations and their choices, but in an absolutely unique quest and challenge menu that consists of constellations that, with the completion of a quest or a challenge, add stars to show it. Upgrades to abilites take place in another menu where the various gods grant powers based on the player's actions and conversation choices. In addition to combat and conversation, stopping and praying to those attention-starved gods here and there also adds up. 

The combat is nothing noteworthy but there are a few decent boss fights along the way. No, this game is more about conversation and getting steeped in the mythology as a unique story unfolds, and that part of the game shines. I'd definitely classify this game as an XBox 360 hidden gem and recommend it to any player nostalgic for those simpler times.

Beaten: Ultima Runes of Virtue (Game Boy)

 Talk about a pleasant surprise. At some point in the past I picked up a loose cartridge of Ultima Runes of Virtue for the Game Boy, knowing that it would not be a full Ultima-style RPG, and tried it out. It seemed at first to be more of a dungeon puzzle game than even an action adventure and I didn’t fiddle with it much.

Then I plugged it into my new Analog Pocket and really dug in. Having beaten it after a few weeks of portable fun, I can gladly say that this game stands shoulder to shoulder with Final Fantasy Legend, The Legend of Zelda Link’s Awakening, and Final Fantasy Adventure as must-play Game Boy RPGs and action RPGs. 

So yeah, puzzles. It is a masterpiece of a dungeon puzzle game, with lots of monster combat thrown in. By that I mean, stepping on a floor plate might remove a wall and unleash a horde of spiders. That’s just one example though and fails to describe the gloriously crazy variety of such puzzles and traps.

Once again, playing this on an Analogue Pocket allowed me to save anywhere, eliminating the frustration of multiple repetitive dungeon runs. No, only my own lack of thoroughness and attention to detail resulted in multiple repetitive dungeon runs. None of these puzzles are insanely hard, and if I remember correctly, most can be solved within the same dungeon, with the items you should have, through trial and error and observation.

The game takes place in a standard, classic Ultima top down world. The player starts on a single continent with a few castles, shops, and dungeons, and opens up other sections of the world as the game progresses. Boats act as ferries to get to and from these landmasses, with the final continent only reachable through a dungeon at first, but a ferry opens up once the player has made it through so the dungeon trip does not have to be repeated.

With such complex and clever puzzles in the dungeons, the designers had to come up with a way to get players unstuck if they did the wrong thing. It is possible to get stuck in a lot of situations, so there is an item in the player's backpack to instantly teleport them out of the dungeon and back to Lord British's throne room for a quick healing and reset. It's an ugly solution that forces a complete dungeon restart, but with the Analog Pocket and its save states, I did not need to utilize it often.

There is not much in the way of NPC conversation and interaction, but the player does level up attributes and equipment to a basic degree. And it bears repeating that the player must explore every tile of every dungeon to avoid missing important items. While the goal of each of the eight dungeons is to recover a rune, there are also important items hidden that will be required for the player to advance.

In this sense, the game requires some level of backtracking if the player is not paying attention (like me), and some level of grinding to save up money for some of the more expensive purchases available in shops. Fortunately, it was easy to find places to quickly grind gold, and even some of the more useful items.

It's always a good feeling when a game gives you more than you were expecting. I was expecting a half-assed dungeon crawler that was just cashing in on the Ultima name. Instead, this is exactly what one would hope for in a portable adventure and it was a joy to explore and solve over a few weeks. I guess I had better start looking for the sequels to Ultima Runes of Virtue for more pleasant surprises.