Game 396: Lagoon (1990)

I'm not sure the developers have a strong handle on what a "lagoon" is.

    

Lagoon

United States

Zoom, Inc. (developer); Kotobuki System Co. (Japanese publisher); Kemco (U.S. publisher)

Released 1990 for Sharp X68000; 1991 for SNES

Date Started: 13 January 2021
Date Ended: 18 January 2021

Total Hours: 9
Difficulty: Hard (4/5) 

Final Rating: 24
Ranking at Time of Posting: 169/404 (42%)

       

I decided it was time to check in with the console world. I have played at least one game on almost all the consoles that offered RPGs during the period I've covered on the PC, with the exception of the SNES (Super Nintendo Entertainment System), released in Japan in 1990 and in North America in 1991. That year saw seven RPGs: Drakkhen, Dungeon Master, Final Fantasy IV (II in the western release), Gdleen, Super Ninja Boy, Ys III: Wanderers from Ys, and Lagoon. I've already played versions of Drakkhen and Dungeon Master; to play Final Fantasy IV and Ys III would be skipping entries; Gdleen never had an English translation; and Super Ninja Boy didn't sound like it was going to challenge my prejudice that console games of the era are too childish. I thus decided to give the audition to Lagoon even though its SNES version was a port from the Sharp X68000. I think Gdleen was the first RPG designed natively for the SNES.

    

Lagoon ultimately wasn't a good game, but it was the perfect game to play alongside The Secrets of Bharas. As I'll be discussing in my final Bharas entry, the number of combats required in that game require a patience that I can't believe anyone had in 1991. I got through it by letting the computer fight the battles while I did other things, like play a few minutes of Lagoon. I spent several days just switching between the two. The moment a battle began in Bharas, I popped over to Lagoon. When I needed to rest and restore my hit points or magic points in Lagoon, it was back to Bharas. 

        

I fight an enemy in melee combat. Notice how you can barely see my sword.

        

It thus fit well, but I wouldn't say it was an enjoyable experience. Last year, Final Fantasy showed me that era consoles (and developers for them) were capable of more than I'd always believed. That doesn't mean developers always rose to the occasion. Lagoon is the sort of puerile, linear, simplistic (in all but difficulty) RPG that gives JRPGs and console RPGs a bad name.

   

Let me start with some positives. The console looks nice. The difference between its display and the NES is as stark as the jump from EGA to SVGA on the PC. Animation is smooth, 3D more convincing. You can see expressions on the characters' faces. The level of detail on the monsters is particularly impressive. We no longer have simple textures in dungeons but handcrafted decor. (We're still not at the point that we see, for instance, realistic amounts of furniture, but one step at a time.) Spell animations are cool. Until they become truly immersive, graphics don't do a lot for my enjoyment of a game, but I don't want you to think I didn't notice them. I should also say that it sounds nice, too, except that I couldn't find any way to turn the music off independent of the sound effects, so I just muted the whole thing.

      

Finely-detailed statuary is possible with the SNES graphics.

       

Even my compliments about the graphics come with a few negatives. I'm not a fan of the perspective, which is axonometric but rotated only on the axial and not on the lateral (i.e., you see the fronts and roofs of buildings but not the sides). There's my usual complaint about all the characters, even old men, looking like little children. Overall, though, I was impressed.

    

Second, we should note that the SNES came with a more advanced controller. Instead of two buttons, we now have four (and I didn't realize until now that the SNES introduced the convention of labeling them ABXY). There are also two bumpers on the front of the controller. The more controls, the more stuff you can put in the game without requiring the player to awkwardly go into a menu. The writers of Lagoon rose to the occasion by having SPACE and SELECT do the same things and not using the left bumper at all--but at least they were able to map "Jump," "Attack," "Cast Spell," and "Use Item" to separate controls. On the NES, one or two of these would have had to go.

   

My third compliment is for the variety of special attacks and defenses exhibited by the bosses during their battles. This is par-for-the-course with JRPGs, but it's still nice to see after coming off a couple of games that mostly rejected the concept of "bosses" entirely.

        

Combat with an early boss. I'm nearly dead.

    

The number one negative of Lagoon is something shared by dozens of games like it: it's far, far too linear. You're on a rail through the entire game; you don't even get to create your character. You move from one place to another when the game is ready, not you, and you can't even backtrack. Even your inventory progression is purely on the game's schedule. Everyone playing this game begins with the same character, everyone ends with the same character, everyone does basically the same stuff in between. Yuck. When I see a screenshot from my time with an RPG, I want to be able to tell that it was my game, not something I could have clipped from literally anyone's YouTube video.

       

Combat is also a bit of a nightmare, at least for me. I don't mind some action in my combat, particularly on a console, but this one picks the worst elements of the Ys system (running headlong into enemies) and the Zelda system (having to bob and dodge around a bunch of constantly-moving enemies) and mashes them together. Throughout the game, you have melee weapons of extremely short range. You have to swing your weapon at just the right time; if you swing too soon or too late and collide with enemies, you take damage and go flying backwards as if they were made of rubber. Your character has to be aligned just the right way against the enemy--a pixel to the left or right makes all the difference--or your swing always misses. It's a god-send when you get spells that can be cast at range, although magic replenishes slowly and enemies have a variety of immunities. 

         

Tossing a "Wind-something" spell at a pig with a pick-axe.

      

The backstory and plot are at best adequate. Even the twist has been done a hundred times. The peaceful country of Lakeland is lately menaced by an evil spirit. You are 14-year-old Nasir, given by the gods to the sage Mathias to raise as a Champion of Light. You were supposed to be raised alongside a brother who was the epitome of Darkness, the idea being that under Mathias, the two forces would be brought into balance. But the evil wizard Zerah snatched the other child before Mathias could adopt him.

       

ZERAH. ZERAH! No time is a good time for goodbye!

        

As the game begins, Matthias sends you off on a quest to find out why the water in Lakeland has gone muddy. The quest begins in the town of Atland, a typical JRPG town with little NPCs that offer one line of dialogue and a couple of shops.

      

The "he-he-he" part is a bit creepy.

       

Within a few minutes, I was already a bit annoyed by the game, because it was clear that it wants things to occur in an exact order. These, for instance, are the steps to the quest in Atland:

         

• Go to the Mayor's house and learn that he recently went to the House of Worship. [Whoa, Nintendo! Getting a little religious there, aren't you?]

• Go to the House of Worship and talk to the Mayor. A townsman rushes in with the news that someone has been hurt in a cave.

• You automatically go with the Mayor to the cave. An injured townsman lies outside and insists that "Giles" is still in there with demons.

• Talk to the Mayor. He tells you to return to town and tell the High Cleric about it.

• Return to the House of Worship and talk to the High Cleric. For some reason, he wants to go to the Mayor's house to discuss things.

• Go back to the Mayor's House. He asks you to go save Giles and gives you 300 gold. (He specifically says "put these on immediately" before giving you the gold; presumably in some original draft, he gave the character actual equipment.)

• Go buy weapons and armor. The 300 gold is just enough to buy the starting set: a short sword, an iron shield, and "bandit armor." Incidentally, you can't do this at the store labeled "Weapon Shop," which mysteriously isn't open, and when it is open, sells potions. You have to go to the "Armor Shop," which sells both weapons and armor.

       

It was a long time before I could afford the "shiny ball." By then, there were no more stores.

        

• Enter the cave and explore until you find a healing potion. Don't drink it!

• Explore until you find Giles. He's wounded. Feed him the healing potion, then lead him back to town. He's slow.

• Go to the Faith Healer in town, who will give you a key to unlock a locked door in the caves. Behind it is the demon Samson, which the Healer and Matthias locked there a couple of decades ago.

• Return, unlock the door, defeat Samson.

• Exit the cave on the other side of Samson. It collapses behind you, and you're in Elfland.

    

Samson, the game's first boss.

         

You can't do any of this out-of-order. You can't, for instance, use your starting 100 gold to buy the short sword, enter the cave, and kill a few monsters before getting the quest. You can't go directly to the House of Worship to find the Mayor. You have to talk to him after the initial cave expedition (even though it serves no purpose) because until you do, he doesn't return to town. 

    

Throughout the game, the same basic pattern repeated at a town of elves, a town of hobbits, and a town of gnomes:

 

1. Arrive at town and hear about their problem.

2. March off to the neighboring dungeon and solve the problem, but encounter a locked door.

3. Return to town to get rewarded for solving their problem, and then get the key to that door.

4. Return to the dungeon and fight a boss fight.

5. Get automatically kicked to the next region.

             

And if you had a Redundancy Department, you would have a Redundancy Department.

          

The design requires a lot of backtracking, not only in the need to visit each dungeon at least a couple of times, but also in the need to explore each dungeon level multiple times because within the dungeon, you often have to do things in a particular order. I got stuck for almost an hour in Philips Castle because I didn't notice that killing the boss opened a door somewhere else in the castle. You also want to make sure to find every chest because you won't be able to return if you miss something.

   

The only real choice you have during this process is how much to grind. Here, again, the game is a bit infuriating. First, regular enemies mostly care less about you. They wander around their areas and if you get to close to them, sure, they'll attack, but it's very simple to evade them. (The ones that fire projectiles just fire them randomly, not at you in particular.) To grind, you have to go out of your way to chase them down. Second, bosses are so hard that you really need to grind as much as you're willing before you face them--but on the other side of those bosses are new areas with enemies that offer double the experience points of the ones you're facing now. To make the game go faster, you want to speed up to the next area, but that might mean fighting the boss about 20 times before you get it right.

          

These are the best foes for grinding. Unfortunately, they're immune to the spell I just cast.

       

Twenty might even be an underestimate for players who have grinded. Then again, I'm not great at action combat. This fact was shoved into my face repeatedly by the game's boss combats. Each boss has a new and infuriating set of attacks and defenses to learn through repeated trial and failure. To wit:

   

• Samson: Frequently jumps at the player. When he lands, he causes a tremor that freezes you long enough for him to clobber you. You have to jump at just the right time to avoid him.

• Natelu: A two-headed gryphon spews fireballs.  

• Eardon: A giant rock that spews smaller rocks and is only vulnerable from the front.

• Duma: A helmet with two hands. Every time the helmet opens, it shoots fireballs, but the boss is only vulnerable when the helmet is open. Meanwhile, his hands periodically clap in the center of the screen, crushing you if you're standing there. 

         

This message came up a lot.

         

• Thimale: A giant eye in a large opaque globe that rolls back and forth along the floor. Meanwhile, six small domes with one-eyed spiders line the sides of the room and shoot ice crystals. You have to destroy all six of the domes first, which makes Thimale's globe transparent and makes Thimale vulnerable.

       

None of this makes much sense.

        

• Ella: A woman who shoots fireballs in all directions and randomly teleports around the room. The more health she loses, the faster she teleports. 

• Battler: A mage who attacks with two very weird creatures who shoot eyeballs and cannot be damaged. Battler, meanwhile, randomly teleports around the room, going faster as he loses more health.

• Demon: Starts off as a blob that shoots fireballs in all directions. After you damage him, he turns into a flying demon with a whip for a right hand who can leap at you.

         

The demon with his whip-arm.

        

• Zerah: A warlock that turns into a giant troll that, like most enemies, shoots fireballs in all directions.

• Thor: Warrior who attacks surrounded by a ring of whirling objects that shove you away every time they hit you. He then turns into a giant bird that dances around the room shooting missiles.

• Demon again: Attacks in his demon form, red this time.

    

The last four have to be fought in a row, with no opportunity to save. In none of the boss fights can you use magic, and in none of them do your hit points recharge, even slowly, the way they do in most of the world.

        

It wasn't my favorite Stephen King book.

          

One of the more annoying coinages in modern gaming lingo is the ubiquitous "get gud." What makes it particularly infuriating is that its usage is usually 100% accurate. I don't know how many times I've found myself Googling things like "how the $#@#& are you EVER supposed to beat the giant snake in Assassin's Creed Origins?" and finding message boards that basically say, "Shrug--get gud." And then in the process of dying 20 times and nearly throwing my controller through the television screen, I slowly start to figure out the snake's pattern, his weak points, and how to beat him. In other words, I "get gud." That's what happened here. The first time I faced each boss, I balked at the idea that it was even possible to defeat him. The tenth time, I came close. (On a few occasions, I watched a YouTube video at some point just to prove to myself that it was possible.) The fifteenth time, I succeeded. That said, I confess that I didn't always have this patience, and there were times I used save states to scum my way through a few of the fights. While I'm confessing, there were also times I used the emulator's "turbo" key to speed up spell point regeneration so I could grind faster.

         

The plot is not even really worth recounting. I just played it, and I don't remember where half the bosses came from or what their role is. You hear about a missing princess, Felicia, early in the game, but it's not clear what land she's the princess of or why she was kidnapped. At one point, you briefly have an NPC companion named Thor who asks you to do a couple things for him. He's with you for about 15 minutes, and later the game acts like you had this epic experience and truly bonded and became best friends or something. This is supposed to strengthen the impact of the "twist," which is that Thor is really the Child of Darkness, having been raised by Zerah. He doesn't want to fight you because of your friendship, but Zerah forces him to; you kill him and get his amulet, which somehow captures his soul, so he's with you forever. We saw the same trope in Knights of Xentar, and I'm sure it appears elsewhere.

          

You don't "know" him; you hung out with him for half of an afternoon.

     

Suffice to say that Nasir chases leads through a variety of cities and castles, finding weapon, shield, armor, rings, and spell upgrades along the way. Spells are a combination of crystal and staff. Each crystal--fire, ice, air, and earth--does a different thing when combined with one of four staves. There's always a single-enemy spell, a radius blast spell, an area-effect spell, and a massive area-effect spell. Rings, which I didn't explore as much as I should (I never found a "Curing" ring, which I guess is considered pretty important) improve your attack and defense but constantly drain your magic while you wear them.

          

Reforging the Moon Blade.

Freeing the princess.

       

After the Thor twist is revealed, you reach the top of a mountain where Mathias and Zerah have a comical battle and Mathias is killed. With his last breath, he blows you into the clouds so you can find Lagoon Castle. The castle is enormous. During your explorations, you must reforge the Moon Sword (the best weapon in the game) and free Princess Felicia from a mirror by using a statue. The mechanism for this is unclear. Felicia tells you how to get to an underground "secret place," where you re-encounter Zerah and Thor and the final battles happen. Afterwards, Nasir walks away with the Thor-pendant . . .

    

Mathias gives me a final gift.

I can't remember who was saying this.

           

. . . the castle carefully falls back to the ground and Princess Felicia starts snogging Nasir.

      

Where is there to go in life if you've already saved the world at 14?

      

The game is more interesting for its unintentionally funny moments, and I'm indebted to this speed run for highlighting some of them. They include:

• The inciting event is supposed to be muddy water, but none of the visible water in the game ever appears muddy.

• In at least two towns, there are shops labeled "Weapons" and "Armor." In both towns, one of the two shops sells both weapons and armor, and the other shop is either closed or sells nothing.

• The Mayor of Atland says, "Please, put these on and get ready to go!" as he gives you gold pieces.

• Later, an NPC says, "Take this book!" and gives you a staff.

• Thor gives you a mirror so powerful it can "smash rocks to pieces." No mechanism for this is ever offered.

• The backstory of Castle Philips makes no sense--something to do with the castle (not the people in it, but explicitly the castle) going to sleep every thousand years when the sun hits it. I don't know if the sun only hits it every thousand years or what. It doesn't sound like much of a curse.

        

And how is that different from when the castle is "awake"?

         

• The bad guys' evil plan is somehow to steal an entire castle (Lagoon Castle) by lifting it into the clouds on a plume of water.

         

That's something you don't see every day.

       

• There's a map where you have to jump from cloud to cloud, being extra careful not to fall of the edges, or you'll die. But to get to the final area, you have to unintuitively jump from one of the clouds to the land, which seems like it would be the same thing as falling off.

        

This feels like a trick.

      

Beyond that, there are a few things that are just annoying:

      

• There are quite a few jumping puzzles. Falling during these puzzles is usually instant death. It's easy to forget a gap in a bridge is there.

     

Jumping a fiery crevasse in a hall full of them. You have to pass through here like three times.

        

• In towns, some buildings have open doors, some have closed doors. Neither tells you anything about whether you can access the building. You have to try them all.

• Early in the game, there are a couple of escort missions, and the NPCs in this game are slow.

     

Mostly, this type of game makes me feel like I've just watched an incomprehensible 9-hour cartoon in which I occasionally had to move a stick.

     

In a GIMLET, I give it:

   

• 1 point for the game world. It just assembles tropes, and with no depth.

• 2 points for character creation and development. At least development is relatively rapid (about 1 level every 15 minutes) and makes you feel more powerful.

        

No matter what they do during the game, everyone ends at the same cap.

       

• 3 points for NPC interaction. NPCs flesh out the world a little and at least their dialogue changes as the plot points continue.

      

That doesn't mean they always had a lot to say.

      

• 3 points for encounters and foes, getting most of these points for the variety of the boss combats.

• 2 points for magic and combat. Swinging my tiny sword while I try to find the perfect pixel doesn't feel tactical or epic.

• 2 points for equipment. You have a basic set with about 4 upgrades of each item at fixed intervals. There are some items like potions that are so rare that I was always loathe to use them.

      

My final equipment selection. I missed some along the way.

      

• 2 points for the economy. The game completely drops the idea of buying things about halfway through. You continue to collect gold, but for no reason, as there are no more stores.

• 2 points for a main quest with no choices, no side quests.

• 4 points for graphics, sound, and interface. I gave praise to the graphics and interface, but I can't countenance a game where you can't turn off the music.

• 3 points for gameplay. I offer it for a good challenge at a reasonable length, but there's nothing nonlinear or replayable about this one.

      

That gives us a final score of 24, far below what I know even consoles of the era are capable of. It feels like these dime-a-dozen linear games with trite plots are the JRPG console equivalent of Ultima clones. A trend is starting to emerge: if a JRPG is a single-character game with roots in Dragon Quest, I find it boring, simplistic, and grindy; if it's a multi-character game that takes inspiration from Wizardry, I find it at least interesting. We'll see how long that division lasts.

    

As I was preparing this entry, commenter Nleseul, who has done a fair amount of translating from Japanese, told me about some significant differences between the western release of Lagoon and the original Sharp X68000 version. A playthrough with his English patch is available on YouTube as well. It does seem to fix some of the problems. The mislabeled "Weapon" store is actually a "General Store": the Mayor's dialogue indicates he's giving the hero ("Nassel" in the translation) money for equipment rather than equipment. I assume most of the rest of the howlers were fixed as well. The main plot still seems to be roughly the same, however. The plot is slightly more complex, gives a little more pathos to Thor, offers more substantive clues about the Moon Sword, and explains how Felicia's kidnapping is able to move the castle. I still wouldn't call it very good.

   

There is a significant difference in mechanics, however: instead of swinging away with his sword with the "B" button, the player simply runs into enemies as in Ys. Adding a "swinging" mechanics for the NES version was done a bit clumsily; as Nleseul points out, "they didn't change any of the sprite graphics, so the sword feels tiny and useless."

   

This appears to be Zoom's only attempt at an RPG. I can't find any evidence that North America took notice of it in 1991. Modern reviews are mostly negative (I'm particularly fond of this Honest Gamers one), but there are a few mysteriously glowing ones out there.

         

I know a lot of you are already at the keyboard, prepared to tell me what SNES game I should have played. Rest assured this won't be the only one I ever try. For now, though, let's get back to finishing PC games for 1992.