Board 8 > Iceman's 30 for 30: Thirty Games, Characters, and Moments for my 30th Birthday

(+) Yeah! (+)

300 hours might get you halfway through the series

Maybe

yeah but the first trilogy tells something of a complete story right?

It does

I guess you could just play Sky and be done

Frankly, just the first two Sky games tell a complete story. I love 3rd and definitely recommend it, but it's something of a combination of being largely self-contained and setting the stage for future games. There aren't really any big story threads that will feel incomplete if you stop after SC.

So in other words, you only really need 80-100 hours to invest!

Leonhart4 posted...

I literally forget he even exists most of the time

He's probably gotten the most "oh yeah that guy" reactions out of me from any game I've played when he gets brought up here or even in the series after FC

Yeah, that feels wild in my mind. To me, he's the antagonist that got this whole thing rolling and then became one of the cooler supporting characters in the whole cast. Seems like an important place in series lore.

Game #19 Hint: The first release from an indie studio that's been in the news lately.

NBIceman posted...

indie studio that's been in the news lately.

If for good reasons: Hollow Knight

If for bad reasons: Subnautica

Edit: Apparently Subnautica was not actually their first release anyway but whatever I'm just keeping the post

Even more recent than that!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/8/890a38cc.jpg

Game #19 - Bastion

Despite the fact that it was one of the very first games I identified as being musts for this project, I think Im guilty of underrating and underestimating Bastion sometimes.

First and foremost, my reverence for this game comes from its introducing me to the wide and wonderful world of indie games. This was another GFAQs success story for me, something that had received such praise on the forums I frequented since its release that it was an easy choice for a new grand adventure. It was my first exposure to a real independent developer, as I was somewhat embarrassingly still of the mindset that Triple-A games were the only way to go for me. They had become a comfort zone that was difficult to break out of, and innovation was something of a scary word. Indie titles had been gaining popularity already pre-Bastion and exploded in the years following it, but they looked a little too weird, too far outside of the small box of what I considered video games to be, and I was too intimidated to challenge myself to step outside of it. Not for nothing, but those were my teen years. It was the most UNcomfortable time of my life by far, and I had to maintain those comfort zones where I could in order to preserve even the tiniest shred of my sanity and happiness. Eventually, though, the hype got to the point that it was impossible for me to ignore forever, and in 2015, I took the plunge. I was finally ready for something different.

Or so I thought, anyway. I probably wasnt ready for my taste in and opinions on the medium to change forever, but Im not being at all hyperbolic in saying thats what Bastion did. There are other games on this list, along with a few other favorites, that I likely never wouldve played without its influence, and still more games that its led me to reexamine with fresh eyes and a new mentality that I love even more than I already did. It was transformative.

In remembering its larger impact, though, I feel like I have a bit of a tendency to forget that this is a really, really great game in its own right. Its peaks are so unbelievably high that they overshadow everything else in my memory, but then Ill watch part of a playthrough or read a retrospective or, hell, just listen to a few songs from the OST and be reminded that those peaks exist because that everything else creates an amazing foundation. Take the visuals. Jen Zees hand painting is gorgeous enough without context, but with the added understanding that it was meant to be a representation that there is still beauty to be found in a broken and ruined world, it becomes a different kind of meaningful. It makes Bastion much closer to a Wind Waker post-apocalypse than a Resonance of Fate version, motivating players to restore the world for the sake of the world itself as much as for the sake of the characters living in it. All other components - the OST that crosses frontier twang with industrial funk and often sounds like it came straight out of Firefly, the initial story setup of battling monsters and restoring the Bastion later giving way to a deeply personal struggle between two peoples, the legendary gravel of Logan Cunninghams voice narrating the story through Rucks - build on that and flow into each other with a level of chemistry and cohesion that is almost unmatched across the entire rest of the medium. I wouldnt exactly call this game an exercise in minimalism, but it definitely manages to accomplish a hell of a lot with a little, especially at first. Precious few characters, a short runtime, straightforward gameplay And thats all luring you into a false sense of clarity. Bastion presents its plot with incredibly deceptive simplicity for quite a while. You join the Kid at what seems to be the very beginning of the tale, as he wakes to find his home ravaged by the so-called Calamity. Based on everything you do from that point forward, youre given little to no reason to believe that this is anything other than a story of desperate survival, man versus nature, which makes for a huge shock later when it suddenly becomes man versus man.

I dont have a ton to say about the actual button-pressing side of this game, because I dont consider it too important to my choice to include it here, but one aspect I did particularly enjoy (in a strong love/hate sort of way) was the Proving Grounds challenge levels. Love because they were a ton of fun as bite-sized extras that could expose you to the finer points of weapons you already enjoyed or show off that the others were also pretty awesome, hate because they frequently threw into sharp relief that my skills were a bit lacking. I didnt often engage with this sort of optional challenge content in games at the time, but Bastion encouraged it in all the right ways. On top of everything else, that was a small bit of lasting influence as well; I love that sort of thing nowadays, and I believe it was probably the strongest indicator in the game of what was to come for this developer. Supergiant has become one of the safest bets in the entire video game world. Even Pyre, a game that I didnt personally enjoy all that much, is one that I recognize does what its trying to do extremely well, and I see why others love it. Everything else theyve put out has been nothing short of excellent, and it started, unsurprisingly, with Bastion, a game far too subversive and far too complete to have been made by one-hit wonders. Its very cool to look back now on the things theyd consistently reuse in later titles that got their start here - diverse weapon choices with heavily varied combat mechanics, isometric views, bittersweet narratives, broadly customizable power-ups, all that good stuff. I will play everything they develop with no questions asked until they give me a consistent reason not to do so, and I cant say that about any other company.

Thats enough of the high-level overview, though. Its time to get to those peaks I mentioned earlier, because theyre the real reason Bastion hit me so hard my first time through.

The Moment: Mother, Im Here
Something I find interesting about the Bastion story is that, despite its strongest emotional beats coming from two instances of player choices, both of which provide two options that each have merit in some way or another, theres a strong sense that the game thinks both have a right answer. The one that ends the game, for example, lets you make the decision between A) rewinding time itself to a point prior to the Calamity, but with no one having memories of what came after, and B) sailing off into the future and accepting that whats done is done, rebuilding however possible. Option A is one of blind and/or blind faith, as youre given no reason in- or out-of-universe to believe that anything could ever go differently. Option B is much more in keeping with the games real theme of moving on and letting go of tragedy, as everything bad that happened in this story happened because someone failed to do so. Theres an obvious finger on the scale here.

Then youve got the choice that precedes that one by just a few minutes.

Leaving Zulf behind after the attack by his kinsmen triggers one last big fight, a fairly pedestrian action sequence that feels like a suitable enough conclusion but isnt materially too different from anything else youve done all game. Aiding him, on the other hand, leads to this:

https://youtu.be/9JvNhc13oKI?si=KSe-ssgdDh7hEcbh

Is there any doubt which option the game *wants* you to pick?

I didnt know this medium could do this. This was THE moment that things started to change for me, when I stopped thinking of these as only games and understood they were art. It was far from my first encounter with something emotionally charged in games, of course, but it was the first encounter that pulled it off like this, with so much communicated wordlessly.

You cant fight back. You just trudge slowly forward, watching your health evaporate, but you dont even know exactly how much you have left. All you can do is drink health potions - moreover, you have to. You feel the horror and hopelessness of the situation youve created. This is the consequence of your kindness, and as its happening, youre trying to determine how it might end. Personally, my gaming experience led me to believe the Kid wasnt really going to die, but the doubt was there, especially when you factor in that youre being accompanied by the haunting lyrics of Zulf accepting his impending death. I knew this wasnt like the games I was accustomed to.

And then, just as youve hit your limit, the attacks subside. The Ura collectively begin to merely watch you, and then they even go so far as to strike down one of their own for breaking the newfound peace. I surprised myself somewhat with my instant understanding that this was a show of sheer, awed respect, an acknowledgement that the Kid isnt like the Caelondians theyre used to. Its powerful. These people, the Kids enemies, are so overcome by his actions in risking (or, really, sacrificing) his life for a man who just betrayed him and brought ruin anew to his doorstep that they allow you both to pass, despite having been determined to kill the both of them not two minutes prior.

What sticks with me most about this moment (and Bastions entire climax) is that the Ura are, in some ways, justified in their wrath. Zulf included. The Caelondian people were ruled by their fear and hubris, and it consumed them until they allowed it to also consume everything else. Their desire for vengeance is justified and understandable, and yet, theyre able to move past it, at least temporarily, after the Kid shows them its possible.

I sung the praises of the Trails seriess brand of optimistic fantasy in its writeup just a few days ago, so while I dont want to be too repetitive in my talking points, I would be remiss not to mention this idea of the power of one as another trope that I quite appreciate. Its something that I honestly believe people overestimate in the real world (though of course there are instances you could point to) but I love to see it happen in fiction that the actions of one brave person start the process of turning around an entire system of belief. One idea that is hard to argue against in our actual lives, though, is that revenge is an endless cycle until somebody has the courage to decide its not. When the player makes the choice to have the Kid save Zulf, theyre left to make up their own mind in regards to what motivates the decision, and likely its a simple matter of projecting your own feelings onto your protagonist. Maybe its pity, maybe you dont even know exactly why.

As a silent avatar, the Kid wont explain. But it certainly seems that the intent is to interpret it as forgiveness. And that forgiveness, having not been exhibited by anyone else in this world for who knows how long, begets more forgiveness. Its not a magical, universal fix-it, as illustrated by the one Ura who continues to fire on the defenseless duo, but it makes a difference.

I said in the main writeup that Bastion is heavily concerned with connecting its players to the restoration of nature, physical things, the actual ground under the characters feet. The Kids last real restorative effort, however, IS a character-focused one (though, as I mentioned way back with Pokemon GSC, nature and humanity arent mutually exclusive). His selflessness begins to heal the hearts of those around him so that they may grow to appreciate whatever remnants of their universe that can be salvaged instead of simply losing it again to another war.

If I had never played Bastion, I assume there would have been another moment in another game that did for me what this moment did. I can even recognize now, with hindsight, that this one maybe leans a bit to the heavy-handed side. Even so, it came at the right time to be the awakening I needed, so in the end, Kid had a hand in creating three worlds: two of his own in the physical and figurative sense, and a new one for me full of games that meant much more than they used to.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/4/4ec7b55e.jpg

The Character: Rucks
We could always see the stars. We just never could reach em, no matter how high we built.

Its an incredible testament that Bastion includes a grand total of four named characters (well, three and a half by that description), and theyre all legitimate candidates to be the selection for this part of the writeup. Theyre complex, theyre flawed, and theyre all crucial to the plot and themes.

But from literally the first couple of seconds, Rucks steals the show. His voice and vernacular are incredibly comforting, evoking the feeling of an old wise man telling cozy campfire tales of courageous heroes and magnificent deeds, a modern minstrel thats liable to pull out a guitar at any moment and just start strumming Which he does, on his bonus song. Theres a reassurance to it all, a stability among all the chaos of the fractured universe among you, and the fact that hes your only visible ally for the majority of the game doesnt hurt.

Just one problem. Turns out that a lot of what he's telling you is wrong.

Ruckss specific style of narration (along with his unconscious biases) accomplishes a few, semi-related things. First, it allows the player a limited degree of participation in (and therefore control over) the narrative. If you spend a little time smashing random objects after obtaining the hammer, he'll say that Kid just rages for a while. This is a huge deal to someone like me who believes smaller choices of this kind (i.e. those that don't come from a menu or lead to a route split or something) are far more important than they get credit for in terms of the artistic value of the medium. A player who does this smashing might come to think of the Kid in a completely different way than someone who doesn't. That necessarily has an effect on the story. Also, it could be argued that these little tidbits are easing you into the idea of your decisions having consequences, such that those later ones that ARE more impactful have a bit of extra gravity to them.

I also find it interesting that Rucks tells this story in the present tense, despite the reveal later that it's actually a tale he's telling to Zia while the Kid has gone to confront the Ura. It's indicative of the man's strange views on time. He does not view the past as immutable or definitive, as demonstrated further by his later inclination to reset the timeline and hope things turn out differently on the second go-round. This retroactively turns him into a bizarre type of unreliable narrator; not one whose account of events is questionable, exactly, but one whose counsel cant be taken as gospel regardless of how optimistic and well-meaning it might be.

These above details all add a significant amount of tension to the climactic battle at the Tazal Terminals. The realization that everything thats happened so far over the course of the game has, well, already happened in-universe induces a sudden feeling of dread. It makes your other feats up to that point feel deterministic, like it was a flashback that came to pass regardless of your input, or else Rucks wouldnt have had a story to tell. Now, as you head off to find Zulf, his narration changes. He just starts musing to Zia about what he expects to happen, because he no longer knows. Your success is not guaranteed. Anything can transpire. And in addition to that feeling of uncertainty, its a genius justification for why those big choices do suddenly pop up only at the end, because its the only part of the narrative that hasnt occurred yet.

Some of those aforementioned Rucks musings during that final chapter are fascinating enough in their own right, especially when juxtaposed with whats actually going on at the time. He fully expects the Kid to take Zulf down for good, for example, which he ironically says during the carrying sequence. Its a reminder that, despite him being a nice guy who feels so terribly guilty for his part in the Calamity that it drives his obsession with using the Bastion to undo it all, he ultimately has the same struggles with forgiveness that everyone else in the story does. Otherwise, hed never have played that part in the first place. It doesnt really register that the Kid may be far more capable of moving on than the rest of them have been.

I originally thought to accompany Bastions entry in the project with a ranking of my favorite video game narrators, only to quickly realize that I dont actually have more than one or two others. There arent a ton of other games that have one in the first place, and the ones that do certainly dont use them NEARLY as effectively as Rucks is used. He would already be one of the most memorable pieces of the game just by virtue of his voice and manner of commentary being so damn cool, but he also manages to be a deep and compelling character as an individual as well, one who potentially doesnt even understand whats happening around him nearly as well as his role would suggest, and the extent to which his contributions subtly strengthen the drama of Bastions last act is frankly astounding. What Supergiant achieved with him is no small task. The reason there are so few narrators of this kind in video games, I suspect, is that theyre very difficult to get right. Stories in this medium are driven by unpredictable players, and its not easy to hit a sweet spot for this particular device to enhance that sense of influence rather than taking away from it.

But Ive pontificated enough, and this writeup is already plenty long. Bastion is another one of those games that always seems to have something new to teach me, no matter how much Ive thought about it before, and I increasingly believe that Rucks is the main catalyst for that feeling. Theres something weighty to almost every line he speaks, and while his natural gravitas is obviously part of that, hes also got more to say about the overall message than he even thinks. Pound for pound, line by line, I cant think of many characters who accomplish more for their game than he does.

One day I'll give Bastion another try

looking at my steam library, i played bastion back in 2013. i didn't get far enough to form an attachment.

once i unlocked the ability to get bonus XP by temporarily turning on the hard mode constellations i stopped to think about whether i wanted to use them, and then... never picked it back up

i wasn't yet savvy enough to realize just going through without them would've been perfectly fine, but in my mind it felt like a decision between a bustingly challenging early game or a bustingly challenging late game, which is a silly choice to make on a first playthrough

Por and rd are some games I wish I played more but the games being on console and being soooooo slow to actually play get in the way of that for me. But they are undoubtedly near the top of the series for everything you mentioned.

Oh ya go my peg knights

Ok I just reached the last sentence of the Lethe writeup and I must object

Ike and Soren is actually the greatest pairing in all of Fire Emblem

Leonhart4 posted...

One day I'll give Bastion another try

Again I marvel at how I'm apparently really good at choosing games for this list that you've either always intended to play eventually or tried before and want to come back to.

banananor posted...

looking at my steam library, i played bastion back in 2013. i didn't get far enough to form an attachment.

once i unlocked the ability to get bonus XP by temporarily turning on the hard mode constellations i stopped to think about whether i wanted to use them, and then... never picked it back up

i wasn't yet savvy enough to realize just going through without them would've been perfectly fine, but in my mind it felt like a decision between a bustingly challenging early game or a bustingly challenging late game, which is a silly choice to make on a first playthrough

I never would've expected this to be a sticking point to anyone, but now that you've said it, I also do kind of get it somehow? I remember not being too sure what I wanted to do with those at first, either, but considering I hadn't developed a ton of gamer confidence yet, I think I eventually decided I was too much of a coward to make things harder on myself like that.

kateee posted...

Por and rd are some games I wish I played more but the games being on console and being soooooo slow to actually play get in the way of that for me. But they are undoubtedly near the top of the series for everything you mentioned.

The slowness never BOTHERED me, per se, but it's definitely a noticeable enough improvement to be able to speed everything up that I'll only ever play it via emulator again. That and it makes the Black Knight duel simply terrible instead of one of the worst things ever in FE.

kateee posted...

Ok I just reached the last sentence of the Lethe writeup and I must object

Ike and Soren is actually the greatest pairing in all of Fire Emblem

Hey, now, regardless of your thoughts on Ike, I must object here too. Felix and Annette is the cutest FE pairing ever.

Aaaand anyway, after all of that catch-up, we've arrived at the end of another month. Yikes.

Game #20 Hint: A JRPG by JRPG royalty that begins with falling rain... Even though it begins in a cave.

JRPG royalty + Operation Rainfall, so, The Last Story?

Heck yeah Felix/Annette is fantastic

Hbthebattle posted...

JRPG royalty + Operation Rainfall, so, The Last Story?

Well done!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/c/ca8c16a0.jpg

Game #20 - The Last Story

Operation Rainfalls middle child. The second of the three to be released stateside, it was also something of a midpoint in terms of scope and concept. Xenoblade was a massive adventure in an expansive sci-fi universe with a creative, MMO-styled approach to combat, and Pandora an intimate character study that bent genres into a poignant allegory. The Last Story is, at least comparatively, a normal JRPG, following a mercenary outfit on a small-scale mission that eventually grows into something more, using as its foundation a fairly straightforward action battle system and a group of main characters in recognizable archetypes. Regrettably, that leads to the third middle child designation in regards to its reception and legacy. It reviewed and sold well, notably better than the chronically misunderstood Pandora, but its relative lack of ambition and grandiosity compared to big-brother XC put something of a cap on its ceiling in the eyes of players, leaving it forever destined to take its place in the larger world of gaming as the subject of retrospective YouTube hidden gem videos and their thumbnails of content creators (barf) scratching their chins with appropriately contemplative looks on their faces.

And its a shame. I feel its necessary to backdrop a writeup of this game with comparisons to the other Rainfall products, but I hate it, because without that inextricable link, I think TLS would have gotten significantly more of the credit that I feel it deserves.

To my great regret, Ive never had the opportunity to play in a tabletop RPG campaign. Its one of the few nerdy pastimes thats eluded me; though Ive had multiple groups of friends that have formed parties, Ive always been in the wrong place at the wrong time for them, and the best Ive been able to do is join for a couple of one-shots here and there. The Last Story is largely what I imagine that sort of long campaign to feel like, though. A simple but engaging story, full of mystery and warfare and heroism and betrayals, told through a collection of impressively colorful characters who are just as likely to descend into drunken benders or other assorted nonsense as they are to accomplish something meaningful at any given time. An adventure where the trees are more important than the forest and the aura is more important than the minute-to-minute happenings.

If it wasnt obvious from the fact that the title was basically fed through a thesaurus, youll find a fair few Final Fantasy fingerprints here. Hironobu Sakaguchi himself was the writer and director, and the legendary Nobuo Uematsu headed up the music to create what I believe is one of the more underrated OSTs out there - it doesnt boast a huge number of tracks, but the hit rate is impressively high (in fact, my wife and I used a cover of Toberu Mono as mine and the wedding partys walk-in song when we got married.) That said, as far as the narrative goes, the true inspiration seems to have come from fairy tales. Its a fable of romance first and foremost, as Zael, one of the aforementioned sellswords with the lifelong dream of becoming a knight, falls in mutual love with a princess named Calista after a chance encounter in which she attempts to escape an arranged marriage with her cruel betrothed. Along the way, he gains a mysterious power from an otherworldly entity within the games island setting, gets entangled in a war, and still finds time to balance his mercenary odd jobs. Sounds closer to being the first story than the last one, doesnt it? If youre the kind of person who values originality in your fiction - and dont get me wrong, Im among your number more often than not - you wont find much to wow you here. Somehow, though, it never seems to matter. Its earnest and beautiful, and its told through one of the most enjoyable casts of characters ever assembled in a video game. You have almost your whole crew of party members right at the beginning, and while they all have their little arcs later, they feel perfectly complete from the jump, with familiar archetypes and recognizable roles, not to mention off-the-charts chemistry. Antagonists bring an appreciable level of depth even when a majority of them get relatively little time on screen, and later supporting characters are similarly well crafted and frequently subvert some expectations. Zaels biggest rival in knighthood, for example, looks like he was built with the JRPG Villain Starter Pack but proves himself to be one of TLSs most heroic characters, and the evil-looking general that acts as their mentor is actually quite a chill guy who, if anything, has too many good intentions for his own good. And, because the game largely takes place in one city on a small island, youll even get to know a few of the shopkeeps etc. pretty well, too.

(cont'd in next post)

(cont'd)

One area in which the game did attempt a little innovation was in the gameplay. Though an Action RPG at its heart, it feels like a prototype of the sort of battle system used by the FF7 Remake almost a decade later. Zael wields a sword and does most of his damage by swinging it at stuff, but its far from a braindead button masher. There are stealth elements that surprisingly dont suck, allowing sniping of enemies from afar with a crossbow. There are short bursts of first-person views that allow you to pick up ambushes and so forth before they happen, giving you an advantage at battle starts (and being adorably tinkered with in the ending when Calista playfully covers his eyes from behind). There are tactical elements - allies are controlled by the AI, but you can issue specific commands to them from a short list of unique abilities, which sometimes include destroying parts of the environment to, for example, create chokepoints or drop giant stone bridges on enemies. Magic takes time to cast, but hits hard and leaves behind areas on the ground that give bonuses while fighting within them or can be dispersed for other, wider benefits. Finally, Zael gets special access to an ability called Gathering, which draws aggro and can revive party members whove been downed. Its not a battle system Id go so far as to prop up among the titans of the genre, but fights have a good flow to them with the tools you have at your disposal, and they never get boring. TLS also included, of all things, an online team deathmatch mode in which you could choose your favorite characters (some villains included!) and drop into the arena for some good ol PvP slugfests. It wasnt exactly the peak of video game multiplayer experiences, admittedly, but it was a hell of a unique inclusion and actually fairly robust for what it was. It captured the feeling of combat in the rest of the game pretty well, and it was cool to get to play as someone other than Zael. I only ever dabbled in it a bit - my anxiety was much too high to do much online gaming in those days - but I adored it for its novelty all the same, and it remains a memorable aspect.

Frankly, I adore most everything about this game. It somehow carries a one-of-a-kind feeling despite no singular detail being notably original and despite excelling in few individual aspects. Vibes is another word I try to avoid in discussions of fiction, but The Last Story is undoubtedly a vibes game that invites you into its snug world like warm laundry fresh out of the dryer. Self-contained in its small, central location, with just enough twists and turns and mystery to keep things interesting without trying to do too much at any point, and no hesitance in stepping away from the main narrative for a little while because something else interesting happens to be going on, its just nice. TLS is a nice game. It didnt rewrite the genre or launch a huge franchise, and it probably wont even be remembered by most people. But this Story was still a wonderful one - a tale that was exactly what it wanted to be.

Ill wrap up this main section with the most hilarious voice line in the history of the medium, as some actor milked his opportunity for all it was worth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq0eoq-0_TA

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/5/5bfb3498.jpg

The Character: Lowell
I guess theres nothing for it. Ill have to bite the bullet. You can be my 42nd wife.

One of the main reasons Im not overly bothered by the derivative nature of the plot in this game is that the cast almost never displays any interest in taking either that plot or themselves very seriously unless theyre forced into it. They frequently take delight in poking fun at the more cliche story beats and the parts theyre playing to make them happen, though theyre always careful to maintain the GOOD kind of self-awareness. They never cross the line into getting so aggressively meta that it threatens to break immersion or become mean spirited in the way that more aggressively deconstructive stories often can. It just gives the sense that, yknow, theyve got books about knights and princesses in their world, too, and theyre not immune to being swept up in the appeal.

No one makes better use of that supporting role in the tale than Lowell, the mercenaries resident flirty ice mage. If this was indeed a DnD party, Lowell would be the bard. While not a musician, as far as we know (though he does speak rather poetically and rhythmically sometimes, as in the quote above), hes womanizing, carefree, and a magnet for getting himself into no small amount of humorous pratfalls, but no less capable because of it. As a matter of fact, hes a little older than the rest of the group, and he increasingly shows throughout the game that those few extra years have brought him a seasoning that makes him its most reliable member. Where he appears to be carefree, he may actually just be calm, having the past exploits to have seen it all and the wisdom to understand the importance of keeping a level head. Where he appears to be prone to misfortune, he may actually just be a man who enjoys seeing his companions laugh and doesnt mind being the butt of the joke that triggers it. And where he appears to be a womanizer Well, he is, but that comes with the backstory that all of his prior love interests have died, so hes a bit exhausted by the heartbreak.

I have to shout out the voice work of Derek Riddell here, who along with the majority of the other main characters voices, is a television and theatre performer instead of a voice actor (Im not sure how that casting came about - some of these folks havent worked on any other video games that I can tell - but Id love to know). I imagine I dont have to tell anyone here that thats often not a recipe for success; its not difficult to find traditional actors, especially those with any sort of classical training, who struggle mightily with voice acting. But while pretty much everyone is surprisingly good here, Riddell is pitch perfect, imbuing Lowells dialogue with the exact warmth that it almost always needs to succeed. He nails the comedic moments, too. Theres one late boss fight in which Lowell is suddenly afflicted with a horrible foot cramp after running up a bunch of stairs, and for whatever reason, Riddells delivery of his complaints always makes me crack up.

When I did the Trails character ranking last week, I mentioned in Zins blurb how much I appreciate the grounding presences in JRPG parties - those quiet rocks that fill some small gaps in chemistry by virtue of being pleasantly predictable - and though hes a little more zany at times than some examples, thats still exactly what Lowell is. Hes learned most of his lessons already, and though hes never pushy or preachy about it, hes accepted that his resulting role is to help his comrades do the same. He teases Yorick incessantly as an urging not to take himself so seriously, breaks down Syrennes extreme wariness of men even further than he ever meant to, and becomes a great older brother type for Zael. That last one is, obviously, the most important - its played for laughs early on as Lowell tries and fails to educate the lovestruck boy in matters of the heart, but he also sneaks in some genuinely good advice at times, and as Zaels relationship with Dagran progressively gets more complicated and strained (leading up to him becoming the endgame villain), this one becomes more mature. In fact, its Lowell who receives the honor in the postgame of offering some poignant and nuanced thoughts on Dagran himself, musing that the mercs were maybe a little too content to let him chart their course without ever really putting in the effort to learn what made him tick, but also condemning the betrayal in no uncertain terms and recognizing that it all could have potentially been avoided if the man in question hadnt been so determined to keep all of that rage and bitterness to himself when he had such steadfast friends as allies. Lowell even manages to pull Zael out of his funk a bit in that scene with a few words on the beauty of their newfound peaceful lives, though true to form, he claims he was just echoing what Mirania had said.

This isnt a particularly complex character, and though that doesnt bother me in this instance, I do think the Last Story couldve gotten a bit more out of him. Hes implied to be descended from nobility in some way, and it wouldve been an interesting wrinkle to see that explored more expansively when high society is such a significant piece of this story. When my biggest critique of a party member, however, is that we didnt see enough of them, thats fairly high praise. This game has so much fun with its cast that its most purely likable fellow deserves recognition, and I dont think it would be nearly as charming without him.

The Moment: Stargazers Tower
I often think a good romance might be the toughest thing to write in all of fiction. I could go off on a long tangent or three to theorize why exactly that may be, but Ill resist that urge in favor of pointing the finger at the self-evident, all-encompassing reason that romantic relationships are complicated. Complicated in their formation, complicated in their maintenance, and complicated from an observational perspective in the sense that each one is as unique as a set of fingerprints. Artists attempting to portray love must, for the most part, create something that is not only realistic (an already impossible task considering that the aforementioned breadth of experiences means each single member of the audience will have a different idea of what that entails), but also exciting or at least compelling in some way for the sake of entertainment value. These ideas, to me, are at least somewhat antithetical when your goal is to portray a healthy relationship, because stable romances are generally necessarily dull to view from a distance, and those that are full of enough conflict to be interesting can therefore only be so believable as any kind of long-term possibility.

In contrast to my usual position on the medium, I will admit that video games seem to be lagging a bit behind some other, more widely respected forms of art on this subject. I have an easier time coming up with movie/TV/book romances that I really like, and I think part of the issue is that there is no inherent locus in games that allows for players to feel love in the way theyre able to feel some of the other emotions that Ive talked about in this project - fear, desperation, wonder, etc. Some folks might point to dating sims, but I would hope its fairly evident that thats not really what Im talking about. In other words, without any metatext to employ for advantages, games have to rely only on the base text to build good relationships like any other medium might.

This scene at Stargazers Tower, marking the end of Zaels first night with Calista, walks some tightropes that go a long way toward building the foundation that allows their subsequent relationship to work. With this games fairy tale inspirations, its unsurprising that their meeting has some trappings of love at first sight, but its executed with some amount of restraint. There is immediate attraction and chemistry, but the two are clear-eyed about the implications of their respective circumstances, and neither has the kind of impulsiveness that has them ready to make lifelong vows at the drop of a hat. Calista asks Zael at one point if he would run away with her, and after he is understandably taken aback, she assures him it was just a joke. They had already established a flirty sort of rapport, and it flows very naturally as they implicitly acknowledge their mutual interest but dont instantly regard it as an answer to their dreams and prayers.

More importantly, this scene expertly introduces a critical gulf between the two that stems from their prior lives, setting up the conflict they must eventually overcome, then provides a subtle blueprint for how that may be accomplished. Calista asks Zael what his dream is, and while he expects her to laugh at it, shes completely baffled instead. Though she doesnt say it explicitly, theres a clear sense that knights represent something quite different to her than they do to Zael. To her, theyre a component of imprisonment. They line every room and corridor of the castle in which she feels trapped, and indeed shes spent the better part of this particular night trying to avoid their attempts to take her back there. They arent the cause of her troubles, but theyre an ever-present symptom. Similarly, Zael, having had precious little to call his own in a life severely lacking in people that care one whit about what happens to him, is puzzled by her expression of feeling trapped in her situation - a justifiable response, given that he doesnt know all the details - until she rather cuttingly challenges him with the question of how he would feel if he couldnt even go outside. But theres no indignance or argumentation on either side; they each demonstrate the maturity to comprehend the others position. So, in this short period of time, The Last Story has managed to sell this budding relationship as one that feels believable, likable, and complete. We see that these two characters might encounter difficulties in truly understanding each other at times due to the events that have shaped them into who they are (which is obviously as real as it gets), but also that they possess enough ability to communicate that those difficulties need not be destructive.

The rest of the scene is adorable for less esoteric and pretentious reasons. Calista speaks about her parents and hums Toberu Mono with some nice cinematography as a backdrop. The pair actually stargaze through Zaels lenses and point out their favorite stars. Conversation moves from topic to topic with the familiar combo of awkwardness and smoothness that frequently shows between two people who have an innate rapport but are still just beginning to learn about one another. It genuinely plays like a good first date. And it ends with this final narrated line as Calista bids a fond farewell and takes her leave:

Zael stood and watched as she walked away, and he suddenly felt cold and alone, like a wonderful dream had come to an end.

A bit on the nose? Sure. But many of us are familiar with that sensation of spending time with someone new that makes our heart beat a bit faster and then eventually being left with the question of whether well ever see them again. Its therefore effective in getting you invested in their later, inevitable reunion.

True to my form, this is a lot of words to say that this scene does a good job of establishing a good romance, but thats sort of underselling it. It was a scene that had to be well executed to establish a romance that had to work in order for the game to succeed in its narrative, and it does a lot with relatively little to accomplish that. Many of the video game romances I *do* champion, particularly those in JRPGs, develop more gradually, as its not uncommon for these quicker loves to feel somewhat forced even though plenty of real-world relationships begin just as rapidly. In avoiding that landmine with such deftness, I think this scene deserves a ton of credit. Bravo.

Dante and mvc3 literally changed my life that day shortly after release where a friend and I played first to 50 or something

The instant rematch was so good. Even the latest ports of MvC2 STILL dont have this

And Dante was at least top tier enough that they hit him with the nerf bat hard enough for ultimate. Good night sweet prince

If I'm reading right, the entry was specifically for Vanilla and not Ultimate?

kateee posted...

Dante and mvc3 literally changed my life that day shortly after release where a friend and I played first to 50 or something

The instant rematch was so good. Even the latest ports of MvC2 STILL dont have this

And Dante was at least top tier enough that they hit him with the nerf bat hard enough for ultimate. Good night sweet prince

If I'm reading right, the entry was specifically for Vanilla and not Ultimate?

It was technically for both, but I did play much more of Vanilla so that's where the majority of my memories come from. And yeah, I never even realize how vital instant rematches are until I play a fighting game without them.

Game #21 Hint: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull would've been cooler if Indy had a daughter instead of a son, and they had to kill the aliens.

I definitely remember seeing your username around when we had fighting game topics regularly years ago but I dont think I've ever played anything with you(?)

If you were on xbox or pc mostly that makes sense but I feel like ive at least played once in whatever fighting game with most of the people who were around then on playstation

Unless I'm severely misremembering

I'm pretty sure I've never played any video game at all with anyone from Board 8. My anxiety is such that I have to psyche myself up just to play online against strangers, let alone against anyone I even vaguely know from the internet.

I would definitely like to, though. Maybe for the first half of next year or so when I have some actual time on my hands to dedicate to fighting games again.

The only game I've ever really dedicated a lot of time to online play with was Street Fighter IV, and I played a few B8ers during that time.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/e/ee357b17.jpg

Game #21: La-Mulana and La-Mulana 2

If a wizard came to me tomorrow and offered to erase my memory of a single video game so that I could experience it for the first time again, I would only be considering three games. One is my favorite game of all time. The other two are the La-Mulana games, and honestly, theyre the front runners. Ive spent years struggling to articulate exactly what I love about these monstrosities, and I think Ive finally settled on this: in spite of being games that run on obfuscation, misdirection, and riddles that border on nonsense, the two La-Mulana titles have a clarity of purpose beyond anything else Ive ever found in video games. Even that answer isnt a complete one, but I think its as close as Im gonna get.

See, back in the early 2000s, director Takumi Naramura had a complaint. Video games had gotten too easy. Back in his day, developers and their games put all their energy into trying to kill you, and he liked it that way. If no one else was going to make those kinds of titles anymore, he was just going to have to do it himself, taking the bulk of his inspiration from Konamis MSX offerings like Maze of Galious. Thus, a few years later, we got the Japan-only Microsoft Windows version of La-Mulana, which was then remade in the early 2010s as the 16-bit masterpiece that led to this writeup. And it doesnt take long to discover that Naramura took his job seriously. He was going to kill you and have fun doing it, and I dont just mean in the game. His goal was to kill your very soul.

For those unfamiliar, La-Mulana puts you into the shoes (and the fedora) of obvious Indiana Jones expy Lemeza Kosugi, the sequel doing the same with his sort-of-daughter Lumisa. In a nutshell, you spend the first game exploring the eponymous ruins and the second exploring Eg-Lana, a darker and more sinister set of ruins hidden even deeper inside the original ones. This is, roughly, 193646x more difficult than it sounds. These titles are recognizably metroidvanias, but their real claim to fame comes from their puzzles. Theyre difficult to describe if you havent experienced them yourself, but theyre endlessly creative, amazingly intricate, and totally demented? Psychotic? Inscrutable? Maybe all of the above. Constantly messing with your understanding of how the game (or even video games in general) work, demanding you to think outside of the box, requiring the creative use of every tool in your item bag, and forcing you to question your sanity. Its a rare player that can finish these games without any kind of hint, and Im comfortable saying that 99.9% of the ones that do came upon multiple solutions by complete accident without even realizing what they were doing. This duology exhibits such a flagrant disregard for the conventions of typical game design that one would almost expect them to be universally reviled. Clunky mechanics for movement and combat, frustrating enemies placed in the most obnoxious positions possible, cheap instant-death traps, even a relative lack of in-game info on how some things operate at all. It's possible, even likely, to play through a large portion of LM1 (theoretically right up until the end) without the item that allows you to fast travel - I've seen playthroughs that have done it - which ramps up the maddening task of navigating the ruins exponentially. Theres no hand-holding here. Its closer to being guided into traffic while blindfolded. And yet, La-Mulana has a wholly unique aura that has made it something much closer to a cult hit instead.

It comes down, I think, to presentation. Many video games are ultimately on the side of the player, or at least want to give that impression, so when you encounter something in them that comes off as unfair or otherwise hostile to you, it feels bad. It feels like a failing within the game, something that shouldnt be like it is, and it prompts a negative emotion. Conversely, when goofy stuff happens to you in LM, you end up with a feeling of being in on a clever joke. You get the sense that Naramura, as a player of games, legitimately has fun going through the same sort of trials and tribulations that he designed his own titles around. It's easy to picture him cackling at a trapdoor that drops directly into lava in some old game that he used to love, especially when he forgets about it and it gets him a second or third time.

In other words, the La-Mulana games are those rare examples that give all appearances of being firmly NOT on the player's side, when in fact, that couldn't be further from the truth As long as you're a certain type of player. Its impossible not to feel like youve earned every tiny bit of progress in these games, and also that every tiny bit of progress is something significant. Thats what they really want. They never take themselves too seriously, and they therefore encourage players to do the same. No matter how aggravating they get, they ALWAYS give you the sense that theyre laughing with you instead of at you. All those stupid death traps? They *know* theyre stupid. Several of them are even tied to achievements so that, when they catch you, youll get an instantaneous reminder that youre playing a game and are supposed to be having fun. This is where I come back to my initial thesis statement on their clarity of purpose. Theyre appealing to a singular kind of gamer, one who is strongly motivated by accomplishment and doesnt mind being trolled, bamboozled, and stymied at every opportunity on the way there. One wholl lie in bed every night thinking of new, progressively weirder potential puzzle solutions and then get up to actually try them after a half hour of tossing and turning afterwards. I didnt even realize I was that kind of gamer until I discovered LM. To be clear, I dont begrudge anyone whos tried one of these games and bounced off of it, nor anyone who reads a description like the one Ive been giving and already knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that theyd hate it. Naramura inarguably had a specific target audience in mind here, and he played to us beautifully without caring one iota what everyone else would think. I wish desperately that we could have more games like that.

(cont'd in next post)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/b/beac7f96.jpg

(cont'd)

There are a couple of reasons I included both games for this list instead of just one. Firstly, I do believe they each enhance the other. LM2 preys on players having prior knowledge of LM1s death traps and puzzle solutions to create even more ways to screw with them, but it also hits some surprising emotional peaks with regard to moments of closure for the lore, plus one other that elicited such a strong reaction from me that Im giving it its own segment shortly. Ill be honest, though: the bigger reason is that I can never decide for certain which one I like better. The sequel has some advantages on things that I believe are almost objective - quality of life improvements, broad game feel, etc. - but the first probably packs in a bit more personality with slightly more memorable puzzles and an enduring sense of Ive never seen anything quite like this before. Plus, admittedly, there are a few things in 2 that are pretty direct retreads of 1, and while there are not-silly storyline reasons for that, its still a fair mark against. Ultimately, Ive warred with myself far too long over the decision, and Ive come to think of them more as one giant entity.

And holy hell, I havent even talked about the music yet. Not since Sonic Adventure 2 has the soundtrack for any of these games merited more than a brief mention in this project, but its necessary here because these are my two favorite video game OSTs ever, full stop. Its my probably controversial opinion that music in most games is not a critical component of the experience. There are obviously many games that are improved by the quality of their soundtrack, and in particular, the right music for the right moment can turn something good into something unforgettable, but in totality, I dont believe it makes a material difference MOST of the time. La-Mulana is an uncommon exception. The music is *so good* and so varied that it makes a meaningful contribution to how much you enjoy yourself on a minute-to-minute basis as youre otherwise stumbling around and fighting various degrees of encroaching insanity (though, granted, there are a couple tracks in more confusing zones that are obviously intended to drive you even more bonkers as you listen to them on loop endlessly, which is its own kind of awesome). Its a huge contribution to the overall good vibes piece of the experience and I cant overstate how much easier it wouldve been for me to descend into the bad kind of frustration while playing if I wasnt constantly tapping my foot and humming instead. Even if youre one of those people who knows they wouldnt enjoy playing LM, youve gotta at least check out the soundtracks. Just like with the games themselves, I have a tough time picking a favorite between the two, though I do hold a lot of appreciation for how the sequels general mood is much darker and heavier to fit with the tone of Eg-Lana. More than once, theyve been heavily featured in my Spotify Wrapped stats, and I cant say that for any other video game OSTs.

Anyway, this writeup is running crazy long, so even though I still feel quite tempted to spend some time talking about how even the lore and worldbuilding are surprisingly excellent, Im gonna cut it off here with a TL;DR. I despise the La-Mulana titles. Theyve brought me untold amounts of frustration, made me question whether I possess even an ounce of intelligence, and done permanent damage to my psyche. If Naramura ever announces a third one, I will be donating at least a couple hundred dollars to the Kickstarter so that I can do it all again. These games are and will forever be some of the most memorable and enjoyable experiences Ive ever had in this hobby.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/6/68eb72e4.jpg

The Character: Mulbruk
I, too, am one of the 7th Children. Except I'm, like, much more young and hip so I bounced from those ruins and have been traveling the world lately.

There are two main NPCs in these games. One of them is Xelpud, the Elder of the village in which the La-Mulana ruins are located. Like almost everything else to do with LM, hes a subversion of expectations, far from the wise dispenser of important knowledge that characters like him usually adopt as a role. Hes an annoying, selfish good-for-nothing whose instances of actually being helpful are greatly outnumbered by the occasions in which hes lazily playing video games in his tent or outright hindering your adventure by calling you back to the village because hes lonely or to show you the new rug he made. Im not even making that rug thing up - it always seems to come at a point where players are totally lost and grasping wildly for any thread of assistance, and its always hilarious to see them almost break in exasperation. Anyway, fantastic character and I love him.

The other main NPC is Mulbruk, and shes even better.

Mulbruk is a sage (of sorts) who makes her home in a specific spot in La-Mulana. Lemeza awakens her from a thousands-of-years-long nap, and she quickly becomes the most consistent ally he has in his quest. Though still not exactly a Mario Odyssey Talkatoo that will give unlimited hints and point you in the right direction no matter what youre trying to accomplish at a given time, she does provide genuinely useful information on a handful of occasions and even has a crucial progression item in her possession at one point. I love how this is handled as much as anything. Mulbruk knows an impressive amount in terms of both lore and puzzle stuff, but shes a little bit kooky to begin with and, more importantly, shes very drowsy, prone to forgetting bits of info in her groggy state or just falling back asleep as soon as you leave. This provides a lore-appropriate reason for why this guide who *should* be a fountain of knowledge is only useful up to a certain point, and also serves to make her generally endearing. That crucial item I mentioned? She only remembers she has it if you go and talk to her after being forced to run away from the miniboss whose defeat requires it. Its the sort of thing that should be infuriating, but in true La-Mulana fashion, shes just too lovable to provoke real anger.

The sequel sees her swapping out her traditional robes for some fashionable modern wear and becoming a cheeseburger-loving adventurer after escaping her former home due to the events of the first game, though she does return and make her way to Eg-Lana once the Kosugi clan gets involved again. She greets Lumisa in an early zone and introduces herself as a master explorer ready to help out with whatever might be needed, boasting about her impressive agility only to promptly jump and hit her head on a low ceiling and fall asleep for a while. She later takes up residence in a small tent deeper inside, where she more or less reprises her original role as the snoozy and slightly bizarre assistant, with the added benefit that she offers to check out new areas as you find them.

Awesome! Except that those checks all tend to end in more or less the same way as that first meeting. If shes not getting captured or stuck in some trap, shes abandoning the mission because the place in question is too cold or too creepy, and if you send her somewhere youve already spent a decent bit of time, shell just get offended. Predictably, some of these misadventures are required to open up new paths, but even if they werent, theyre just plain funny besides.

Its hard to explain what I love so much about Mulbruk except to say that, fittingly, she feels like the end result of the very essence of these games being distilled into a single character. She invites the kind of love that you have for a cat who wakes you up every morning by slapping you in the face and meowing for food, then quickly throws it up onto your carpet. By all rights, whatever is sweet or cute about it should theoretically be overwhelmed by all of the obnoxious aspects, but as any good cat owner knows, thats never really the case. Their appeal comes directly from the fact that their penchant for driving you crazy is just a side effect of how freaking fun they are to spend time with. Theres nothing all that special about Mulbruk; both of her shticks have been done before, and LM doesnt have any interest in making her notably deep or three-dimensional. Shes pure entertainment value with the occasional helping hand on the side. She doesnt even really get that much spotlight, all things considered.

Damned if I didnt form quite an attachment to her, though. Id frequently take breaks from arduous puzzles by simply going and seeing what she was up to in her tent, even if I knew I was probably just going to get the same bits of dialogue Id already seen a dozen times; La-Mulana needs those sorts of mental resets. She manages to make herself an integral part of these games through sheer likability and hilarity. They wouldnt be the same without her.

The Moment: Stepping into Spiral Hell
Video games have made me laugh. Video games have made me cry. Video games have made me yell out in jubilation, throw small objects in frustration, and, as you can all tell from everything Ive written, examine and reexamine my entire life philosophy. LM on its own did all of that except for the crying, and LM2 even got reasonably close there!

But as much as never is a dangerous word, Im comfortable using it here to say that I will almost definitely NEVER have another experience in video games quite like the one triggered by my first few seconds in La-Mulana 2s final area.

See, you start getting a hint or two as to Spiral Hells existence long before you even get close to making it there. LM2 includes an in-game encyclopedia which collects info on all of Eg-Lanas inhabitants, split up by the area in which they appear. This includes the enemies - youll get their entry once you defeat them for the first time. At certain amounts of progress, however, those enemies slowly begin to wander between different zones, and because the game is so non-linear, its fairly easy to wind up in situations that give you the bestiary info for foes in zones you havent actually reached yet. In fact, Im almost positive thats guaranteed to happen with this final area, so if youre checking the glossary frequently, youll see its name early (relatively speaking). And, I mean, it just sounds so cool. Its an even more drastic version of all the screens and chests and so forth that have been visible but long out of reach during your time in the ruins, tantalizing you with the promise of something awesome if you could just. Figure out. How to get there. Youll even walk by the entrance plenty of times, but you likely wont even discover the way to REACH it for a long time, and even if you did, it doesnt open until youve defeated all nine Guardian bosses.

The longer I stumbled around looking for paths to more progress, the more I built it up in my head, especially as it became clearer and clearer that it was the endgame zone. How would it differ from Eternal Prison, which was already incredibly hell-like? Would it take some cues from the grotesque True Shrine of the Mother? What kind of sick death traps and demented puzzles awaited?

Finally, I made it. I took down Hel, the 9th Guardian, and thereby opened the 9-Soul Gate. I found my way onto the boat in Immortal Battlefield that housed that entrance, and after a deep breath and another moments hesitation, I hit Up on my D-Pad and walked through.

I can tell you exactly how long it took to leave me in a state of slack-jawed dumbfoundedness. Two seconds. Because thats how long it takes for the opening eight notes of Tearless Challenger to play, which I immediately recognized as a callback to Treasure Sealed Off - the theme of the first games Hell Temple and also known as the anthem that has driven many a player to total madness. Thanks in part to that little clue, I also immediately recognized the first room of Spiral Hell as being more or less identical to the first room in Hell Temple.

Again, slack-jawed dumbfoundedness. I just sat there, my mouth hanging open. I closed my eyes for a few seconds, then opened them again. I leaned back in my chair, stared at the wall, let my controller sit limply in my lap, bit my lip, let out a deep sigh. And finally, I got up to go and get a new bottle of water. Spiral Hell. Hell. Hell Temple. How in the world did it not occur to me to see that coming from a mile away? Of freaking course thats what this troll had in store.

The fact that it comes after two long, long games chock full of facepalm-inducing I cant believe I didnt put two and two together there moments is what makes this one so perfect to me. Look, maybe Im just an idiot, and most people did in fact have an inkling that this was what awaited them behind that Gate - namely, their reawakened nightmare coming back for a second round. For this idiot, though, it felt like Eg-Lana was getting its biggest laugh at my expense yet. Not only was it dropping me into a recreated version of one of the most demonic torture chambers ever put into a video game and therefore throwing a giant monkey wrench into the good mood my newfound success and progress had brought me, it was also using that wrench to beat me into catatonia over the realization that I really, REALLY should have known all along that thats what was going to happen.

To be clear, I mean all of this to be flattering. Like with all of those other facepalms that came in these two games, I cant look at this one with anything other than amazed, amused respect. The zone itself is, admittedly, a bit anticlimactic in some ways. Considering the amount of effort it takes to actually get there, not to mention the absurd challenge that was the original Hell Temple, the level of difficulty in Spiral Hell itself could reasonably be seen as a bit of a letdown outside of the expectedly fantastic theme and the overall atmosphere. Even the final boss isnt wildly tough compared to LM1s or even some of the other Guardians. Those initial few seconds of realization, though, hit me in a way that still feels indescribable even after all the words Ive written here to try it.

Though I mentioned in the main writeup that La-Mulana 2 benefits greatly in certain spots from knowledge of the first game, I wouldnt extend that opinion to say that youre losing anything if youre coming in blind most of the time. The referential death traps are still funny even if you never got flattened by the original ones, Sakits story still manages its emotional beats even for those who didnt have the experience of jigsawing pieces of Giant lore together in their Mausoleum, etc. This moment, on the other hand? Its simply impossible to feel its full effect without at least a passing familiarity with Hell Temple. More than anything, thats why I found it impossible to separate these two titles and select just one for this project. The minute or two that saw me sitting open-mouthed and dead-eyed as I marveled at my foolishness and attempted to grasp the enormity of the task that still lay ahead of me while Tearless Challenger taunted me in the background It felt like the culmination of the quintessential La-Mulana experience, something that no other piece of media will ever be able to grant me, because the tone of the whole thing is just far too singular.

Its unfortunate, in a way, this moment being a microcosm of how I feel about these two games. I will forever be chasing these unique highs without any expectation that Ill actually find them again. There aint another Takumi Naramura out there, and he claims hell never make a third entry. Thats why Ive procrastinated on playing through the Tower of Oannes DLC - once thats done, its truly over, in all likelihood. Im trying my best to smile because it happened, though. Better for there to have been one adventure like this than none.

And hey, maybe Ill be wrong. Maybe there will in fact come another day and another game that forces me to just sit in stunned silence for a few minutes and existentially contemplate whether Descartess first principle can still apply to me. If that does happen, Ill be glad to be reminded of this first time. And Ill smile again.

Time for the first and only music-based ranking on the list! I know very little about music theory or composition despite my days playing the piano, so I don't generally feel very qualified to talk about it, especially on this board that has so many who know a ton about it. But there's no way I could resist doing it for these games.

Top 25 La-Mulana Songs

25. G-U-I-L-D
https://youtu.be/BAMZEN97CwM?si=A1qwNhdRSqTzvyRN
Short and sweet and probably right up there as one of my favorite shop themes of all time. Just has no business being so groovy.

24. M.U.
https://youtu.be/p3jujG3un7Y?si=gYhAqUh95Y9Hi0Nf
With Chamber of Extinction being one of the more mysterious and aggressively ruins-y areas in the first LM, it needed a theme that was kinda weird but also had a sense of discovery.

23. Giants Rage
https://youtu.be/SXfG9s3KJDg?si=MyqHo4s4EtEvf_fr
Does a great job capturing the twisted robot design of this boss without falling into the trap of being kinda boring that some robotic music often does.

22. Previous Adventure
https://youtu.be/6VSvje6v06A?si=5aKhBUURvyS8RQar
Nice and whimsical, so you can recall the fond memories of said previous adventure before you remember how it drove you nuts.

21. Sabbat
https://youtu.be/By2vMGvQ80I?si=GD6rZXmrfEwyc326
In addition to having the best version of the motif that every original game boss theme opens with, this is an incredibly hummable song thats perfect for the satanic witch thing it belongs to.

20. Lumisas Theme
https://youtu.be/t6eTjETLilA?si=DRmcneqKzGTFhT0T
Suitably heroic, and does an impressive job setting up a good portion of the instrumentation that LM2s OST uses most often.

19. Fallin Tower
https://youtu.be/W8VgwuHWdrk?si=VRU33LH4Kf2dPehz
Theme of potentially the most aggravating zone in LM2, especially because I spent hours repeatedly navigating an obnoxious vertical section without realizing I was supposed to have the double-jump for it first. Gotta love the freneticism here.

18. Song of Curry
https://youtu.be/YlqOatOxyx8?si=xlvO1lfmZow7R7rF
Speaking of obnoxious, this is one of those aforementioned songs thats designed to get on your nerves more and more as you bang your head against Chamber of Births progression walls. I love it.

17. Ragnarok
https://youtu.be/TBSztEVU2RA?si=hZvW4XnflReHwnbn
LM2s heavy Norse influence meant that much of the games lore built up to the point where this song started to play as Eg-Lana begins to literally rip apart, and that awesome intro ramps up the hype even more.

16. Forbidden Truth
https://youtu.be/g4uk6uL4eIk?si=nIcaVq34pWKPv7uZ
I enjoy how this theme of Heavens Labyrinth doesnt sound anything like something youd expect for either Heaven or a Labyrinth. Its dissonant and wild.

15. Last Guardian
https://youtu.be/GdHdRrrGTfo?si=cgcg86liGBrrg_Vm
A slightly slower and more pensive take on Sabbat, which works well for LM2s final Guardian coming at the end of Eg-Lanas interpretation of Hell.

14. Death Game
https://youtu.be/SKfIabMh3lM?si=SLQ7BNu7nI4_uzZp
I saw someone say once that the first few seconds of Mega Man stage themes are the most important, and I think that applies to some LM songs as well. The whole track is great, but the intro is just so, so cool - one of the very best Ive ever heard.

13. Shake the Prophecy
https://youtu.be/eQxUBKRWAhw?si=tpcglRudvvLGbS_t
I just really like the main riff.

12. Grand History
https://youtu.be/2htRHZtT32I?si=hngEXqEfefE8FdxJ
Much like Forbidden Truth, this just doesnt feel like it fits a place called Mausoleum of the Giants. Its so damn funky and, because of how early it comes, it does an awesome job setting expectations for all music to come after.

11. Aqua Fish
https://youtu.be/DxJy3bXK7ZA?si=y4IPZBeKxes7fBJV
Based on Aqua Wish, a song from LM1s soundtrack that wasnt actually used in the game, everyone knew that when this one similarly showed up in the sequels OST with no associated area that it was earmarked for Tower of Oannes. And its an even better version of an already great tune.

10. Dance of Midgard
https://youtu.be/oVk8SN1ECeQ?si=XVVppx8Wua-xKQlN
Immortal Battlefield is LM2s biggest area, so you spend a ton of time there, and there is fittingly a lot going on in its theme. Its attention grabbing at the start and stays bombastic throughout.

9. Miss Explorer
https://youtu.be/ukgxWUasxhM?si=T2o_RUdA3GEGD-O5
The first of a few LM2 semi-remixes in the top 10. I dont find the basic melody quite as pleasing in this version, but I appreciate the extra horns, and it feels very adventure-y.

8. Hell Hymnal
https://youtu.be/-LdmR3O27hU?si=miFv43BlKddhAwrm
Dont remember offhand if Ive mentioned it before, but I used to play the piano, and its still my favorite instrument. This song has a beautiful melody for it, too, and manages to match Eternal Prisons sinister insanity perfectly.

7. Death Gene
https://youtu.be/Q77AVg2zS0M?si=v3SIuYcSfwZZynL1
A contender for the Moment in this entry was the one where the true form of the Hall of Malice is awakened, causing the background to fall away and this kickass song to start. Its a good thing I like it so much, because I accidentally trapped myself there in a low-health situation and it took me forever to get out. Another one of my favorite intros ever, by the way.

6. In Yggdrasil
https://youtu.be/KeVzXwVzTwk?si=G5B55RFIJUqWcZfe
The theme of Gate of Guidance (La-Mulanas opening area) had undertones of excitement to it. This theme, to Eg-Lanas opening area, has the same thing on top of a threatening tinge. Its a great way to introduce that the new ruins are really trying to kill you.

5. Interstice of the Dimension
https://youtu.be/RA5BPYNZ2v0?si=Vuy1V1hTu0UfzfVz
Probably the most well-known song from these games, and with good reason. The riffs are incredible, none better than the one that hits at 1:53, and it feels like the precursor to LM2s heavier soundtrack.

4. Sword of Asgard
https://youtu.be/CabvIF6Zwgc?si=-CIMlJjwrzU2rcxf
This stands out as one of the more restrained and quiet area themes in either game, befitting the small Divine Fortress, but its *epic.* I love the little accompanying sword schwings, and its almost definitely the LM song I find myself humming most often.

3. Tearless Challenger
https://youtu.be/WdwWAXUum9k?si=UU_XcFRRR9VympZp
Even setting aside this songs starring role in my traumatic Spiral Hell introduction, its the perfect remix of Treasure Sealed Off for what that area is.

2. Mr. Explorer
https://youtu.be/dfDLE96Jz9Q?si=BPkLK99GWbI7ca9W
The very first song you hear after starting a new game in LM1 makes it tough not to immediately fall in love. The central melody is incredibly fun, and as a first steps of a harrowing but whimsical adventure theme, Id be hard pressed to name any better.

1. Reproduction of Power
https://youtu.be/9G2Hd4MVjOA?si=FHM6KxeoMzEtbNsA
I could not possibly care less that this is so similar to Interstice, played during a boss fight thats so similar to Tiamat. That 10-second breakdown that hits at 2:30 is one of the few pieces of music that reliably gets me to do some headbanging, and the rest is almost as cool.

Hooooly shit that's lefty's avatar

NBIceman posted...

The Character: Mulbruk

This all sounds fantastic but I have no idea how I would react if I was the one actually playing the game

I've only heard these titles in passing