EDIT: At one time I had halted these write-ups to continue the series as a video LP, but that project is no more. Therefore, this post has been returned to "official" status, and information within has been edited in keeping with that. The tables which were originally at the bottom have been removed, except the one showing play time for each version.
[NOTE: In this series, and all similar series hereafter, I will refer to Japanese terms using both kana/kanji and the modified Hepburn romanization system. This is for people who cannot read Japanese (the majority of readers, I expect)—it
pretty much looks how it sounds. However, it can be a bit tricky with names and English loan words, because although it indicates how the Japanese pronounce the word, it usually is quite different from the way one would pronounce the original word. For example, スライム is romanized as [suraimu], but it is actually the English word "Slime." Thanks for reading!]
Welcome, Readers! Here we are at the beginning of my seven-fold journey through Alefgard, so let's get started!
First off, the poll to determine our Hero's name.... Well, to begin with I had run a poll to decide the style of name I should use. There was a tie, I broke it with a vote for "Germanic," and Matheus Schweitzer was born. However, since that time I have twice renamed my hero; once for my video LP series when I decided to name the hero "live" and ended up with Pex, and again when I reverted to blogging, at which time I believe I decided to abandon the poll results and go with an English name (I think). What I ended up with this last time was Egbert. Now, among the North American releases, only the NES version of the game has enough character space reserved for such an excessively long name, so on the GBC I shortened it to Bert. By the same token, a proper transliteration into Japanese would require five characters (or seven in the early releases, since the voicing markings were separate from the kana on the input screen), so I had to improvise. The name I used on the Famicom and MSX was は゛あと [bāto], and on the Super Famicom and Game Boy Color エグバト [egubato].
So how does one play seven versions of a game at the same time? Well, the way
I do it is by breaking the game down into short tasks and doing that same thing on each, one after the other! In this first episode, my tasks are few and simple:
- Speak with all the inhabitants of Tantegel Castle.
- Speak with all the inhabitants of Brecconary.
- Buy a Club and a Dragon's Scale.
- Fight monsters and save Gold to buy Leather Armor.
- ...I suppose I should mention that I actually do intend to buy it after saving up for it, hehe.
But before I get into that, I think this is a good time to look at some aspects of the game that can be compared almost in full from the outset; that is, graphics and sound.
Graphics
Let's look at the four earliest releases, shall we? At the outset, the most striking difference between them (besides three being in Japanese and the other in English) is that the North American release has much better-animated sprites. For instance, each has four facings, rather than just one, and in a shocking break from the tile-based graphics conventions of the day, the left and right facings are not mere reflections of each other! When a guard faces left we see his shield, and when he faces right we see his spear. By contrast, the Japanese releases have only one facing for each sprite, a choice which actually has a negative effect on gameplay in the form of extra button presses. An extra step is required for talking to NPCs—namely, after choosing to talk you must choose which direction you want to speak in. This must be done every time you want to talk
for the entire game. A much smaller graphical enhancement for the North American release was a coastline tileset which accents the places where the ocean meets the continent.
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| Forward, march! | A little bit more direction | |
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| 256 × 192 = widescreen format? |
Another major difference is scrolling. It may not seem so now, but the Famicom was actually quite revolutionary when it first appeared, simply because of its background scrolling capabilities. A lot of other machines didn't have that—and the MSX was one of them. Movement is animated with an
aggressively choppy one-tile-at-a-time shift, first the background and then the sprites. It can be quite hard on the eyes, and on the thumbs too when trying to catch an NPC that keeps warping one tile away from you.
Lastly, the color depth is different on each machine. The NES/Famicom has a 54-color palette and uses 4 colors for each sprite (including transparent), but the MSX only has a 16-color palette and for some reason only three colors are used in the character sprites (although there are background tiles with four or even five colors used). However, the MSX2 has a 256-color palette and puts it to excellent use by adding a fifth color to monster sprites. In my own opinion, if the MSX2 cartridge had benefited from the character sprite upgrades of the NES version, it would be the best looking version of the game period, even better than the Super Famicom.
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| Phantom equipment! | Forest for the trees | |
And speaking of the Super Famicom! My, that's pretty, isn't it? The 16-bit graphics and increased capabilities of the machine really make this version easy on the eyes. Sprites and monster art were redrawn and are much improved from their 8-bit counterparts (although as I said, I have a soft spot for the old design and MSX2 colors). The concept of backgrounds for the battle scenes was expanded to include different scenes for different terrains, instead of just one stock scene as on the NES/Famicom and MSX. Another improvement, this one in the text, is that an alphabet of basic kanji was added, which goes a long way toward making the dialogue easier to read. Strangely, the Hero's sprite, which does not carry a sword or shield before buying one in any other version, here begins the game appearing to carry them both before having acquired either!
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| Hmm...these flowers weren't here 13 years ago.... |
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As for the Game Boy Color versions, color capabilities are comparable to the NES/Famicom, but increased memory capacity allowed a much greater variety in the tileset so that the world is much more detailed, similar to the Super Famicom. It's quite brightly colored—perhaps a bit too bright, but maybe it's just the amount of purple in the castle making me think that. (The same thing is true of the SF, but there are more color selections available so it doesn't seem so
harshly bright.) But other than the transition to the smaller screen of the portable system, it's still improved over the original in all ways except nostalgia.
Sound
I don't really have a lot to say here. Among the originals the NES/Famicom definitely have the best sound, the MSX's effects being quite a bit more...
bloopy, for lack of a better term. The music, while presented in the same arrangement, is just slightly less pleasing from it, but the menu beeps and battle sounds just don't have the same punch. As for the Super Famicom and GBC, sounds are as good as the NES, but the music is improved. Some songs are expanded to cut down on the repetition of the original, and of course the Super Famicom uses 16-bit sound samples to give the score the orchestral feel that it was meant to have from the beginning. After all, Kōichi Sugiyama
is a classically trained musician!
Gameplay
Right off the bat, it's apparent that there are very few differences in the story; all the major textual differences between localizations are in the names of people, places, and things. To make it easier, I'll generally use the terms from the original NA release, mentioning the other terms when they are vastly different.
On the other hand, it's
also apparent that there are
hüge differences in the gameplay. Many of the stats start at higher point values in the remakes, and a totally new value was added to denote defensive ability (which used to be tied to agility). Experience points and Gold earned from battles were increased, more than doubled in some cases. This makes the remakes progress more quickly on average; in the first four versions I finished my task at Lv. 3, but in the remakes the increased Gold drops allowed me to finish with less Experience at Lv. 2.
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| Anata wa shinimashita—Thou art dead. |
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Other than that, so far they are all basically the same. You are descended from Erdrick, and you must retrieve your ancestor's Ball of Light from the Dragonlord, who has stolen it along with Princess Gwaelin. (But the King never asks you to rescue his daughter? Puzzling...) All the same people give all the same clues, the same items are available at the same prices, and the monsters are just as cute. We hear about Garinham to the north, but since even Slimes are enough to kill you at this point (at least in the earliest versions), it's best not to try following up on that lead just yet! ;-) The remakes include some expanded dialogue to flesh out the story a little bit more, but the only major difference is the GBC's addition of a cinematic intro which depicts the Dragonlord's (or DracoLord's, if you will) taking of the Ball of Light and the Princess.
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| BYOMP? Naw, I gotcha covered! |
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Starting out, the King provides you with 120 GOLD [sic], and I decided that the "best" use of it would be to buy a Club for 60 (most bang for my buck while still under budget) and a Dragon's Scale for 20. That left me with 40—enough for the Clothes, but I opted to go shirtless until I could scrounge up the extra 30 to buy a Leather Armor. It didn't take long, but even fighting Slimes was treacherous, requiring at least one Inn stay to recover my health. After reaching Level 2, venturing a little further from the castle yields occasional encounters with the ferocious Drakee, which gives the same Gold as a Red Slime but with twice the Experience Points, if you're bold enough to risk defeat! Reaching Level 3 makes the ordeal a little less risky with the HEAL spell, and of course with the free MP restoration inside Tantegel (take the first right and follow the path to the old man at the end), you will literally never have to pay to stay at the Inn again!
As stated above, the remakes start the Hero with greater abilities on average; monsters also seem weaker and give greater rewards on top of that. For these reasons, the remakes were total cakewalks so far. The march to Garinham might be not only possible, but a
cinch, even at this early point! Add to this an early free Herb and a Warp Wing just lying around (see screenshots for locations), and you even have insurance against the unlikely event of getting into trouble!
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| Eureka! An Herb! | Woot! A Warp Wing! |
Well, I believe that's all for this installment. Later entries might be shorter, because there will be only gameplay to go over. I hope you enjoyed reading, and I'll see you next time!
| My Progress |
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| Version | NES (U) | MSX (J) | MSX2 (J) | NES (J) | SNES (J) | GBC (U) | GBC (J) |
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| Level | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
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| Total Time | 00:19 | 00:19 | 00:12 | 00:16 | 00:11 | 00:16 | 00:15 |
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| Deaths | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
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