Do you ever see a game that makes you balk in amusement, the sort of game that just looks like it's So Bad it's Good at best but probably just so Bad it's Bad? But then you look at it more and more, and you realize that even though it's obviously not some Quadruple-A+ production, it's still lovingly crafted by a person who put in tons of honest effort and the points that look bad actually wind up working in its favour?
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| Yeah, this is that sort of game. |
By all means a game about a living triangle, a gorilla with a bow on her head, a magical swamp crocodile and an onion wearing a manatee costume wearing a battle suit fighting against an oppressive invader whose army is made of vegetables should be a game that doesn't take itself seriously and is probably just some 10-year old's first step into the world of game-making.
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| I'm not kidding. |
But then what if that person actually has actual talent and honestly believes in this concept? What if it's not the millionth game that's trying to be all wacky and weird and self-aware, but actually plays it plot seriously, while still having the usual goofiness you'd expect from pretty much any RPG that's not completely pretentious? Then you get something like this, and I love it, but it feels like few others do because honestly why would anyone think this is good at a glance? And that's awful!
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| We should all try to be as enthusiastic as Stuart. |
So what makes this game actually good? What makes it enjoyable aside from some kind of novelty factor? Honestly, the game just seems very solid to me. As far as RPGs go, this one actually just seems like it has a lot of design sensibilities that just resonate with me. Your player characters all start with an easily defined role, for example.
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| Our heroes, everyone! |
As you can see, every character has a very small skillpool. In most RPGs you amass a ton of skills, but you end up not using a lot of them. But in this game pretty much every skill is useful. And the reason for that is because the game is designed around these characters! Bosses all have complex and unique patterns which you must adapt to, and often the bosses in turn react to what moves you choose. This means that every character has their place, they all feel useful and they all serve a role, but it's not like you can just spam the same action over thoughtlessly to win, you can't just have your healer spam party-wide heals like most RPGs because you only get to heal one person at a time, so you need to think who needs healing more, or whether you want to raise Mr Triangle's or maybe Marvin's attack instead?
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| Louis, the wannabe tutorial guy. |
Even the first boss battle against an Evil Farmer and his Manic Wheat Monster is rather complex, and it only gets more complex as you keep playing. You can't hurt either foe, but like the duck here says, you need to steal from the Farmer in order to get the item needed to turn the Wheat Monster vulnerable. As soon as you get that item, though, the Farmer Poisons you in return and when you use the item he flees as the Wheat Monster goes insane.
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| Mr/ Triangle and Jojo are in a tight spot now! |
Then you need to choose quickly between healing Poison or between healing HP, and you can't win by just spamming healing and attacking because then you get overwhelmed! The boss uses both regular attacks and inflicts more of the nasty poison, so each turn you need to consider whether Jojo heals HP or status, and whether Mr. Triangle should use an item. Yes. use an item. This game is one of the rare RPGs that actually encourages you to use items liberally!
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| Banana Peel Smoothies? Banana Peel Rehab?? |
Every time you heal, you actually get an item called Banana Peel, which can be used to create more healing items! There's the basic 30 HP Potion, "Smoothie" in this game, the item that heals your party out of combat which is called "Party Drinks", but interestingly enough, one of the items you can make is a Phoenix Down-like item that heals 50 HP and cures being KOed and is called "Rehab" for some reason?? Because the game is so merciful in giving you items and ways to keep yourself alive while facing opponents, it also means they can get away with upping the stakes in combat and making enemies powerful enough that you'll actually want and even need to use many of those items! It adds a whole new layer of depth to the game where most games are content to have items be those things you save only to never really use because you can just have your Healer fully heal everyone in one action on auto-pilot.
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| What an odd cast of characters. |
Of course, and RPG is not just fights, fights and more fights! An RPG needs to have a plot! And despite what the game may sound and look like, Mr. Triangle's plot actually seems like it's your traditional JRPG plot, except the dunce hero is a no-nonsense Triangle, the annoyingly Perky/Shy White Mage is a Gorilla with a speech impediment, the mysterious Black Mage is a cool and collected Swamp Crocodile and of course the final character is the one who has ties with the villain and has to choose between the sides of Good and Evil. I honestly like that there's no humans in the main party for once, or how they are uncommon in general, really.
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| Man this battle was awesome. The bosses are really memorable. |
Meanwhile the distinctly humanoid Mastermind, an alien from another planet, wishes to harvest the planet's vegetables since he can literally grow them into an army, as well as find out what part of the 'red substance' (blood) makes non-vegetables so resistant. Meanwhile, there's a mysterious duo of a masked hero and a slime with a huge nose who'll assist our heroes and try to stop the evil Mastermind's plans from awakening what seems like an even larger evil...
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| Gordon the Gargoyle, Gary's peer and nemesis. |
Obviously there's more going on here than it first seems, and the game has plenty of villains and allies acting independently from the main plot, just like you'd expect any RPG to, really. There's also a healthy dose of little sidequests which vary from bounty-hunting to exploring a Mr. Triangle Superfan's basement to find out his obsession is more disturbing than it first seems. I'd hardly call the plot ground-breaking, but it's not just an incoherent mess either, as much as you'd think a game like this would have such an incoherent plot. I do actually find myself oddly drawn into this plot of shapes and vegetables.
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| Lovely clay models and lovely music?! |
Did I mention the game's soundtrack yet? No? Well I should have! The game has an extensive soundtrack, 62 tracks! The music is really top-notch, and there's a lot of variety in the music, just as the areas you visit are so varied and unique. Honestly, music should speak for itself, so I'll link to some tracks I'm personally very fond of, though I like pretty much the whole OST.
I really love the music. Kudos to Soda Piggy, who made the OST and whose name fits this game all too well.
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| "But Mania, these graphics are terrible!" |
I think by far the biggest hurdle to the game is how crude it looks and... Well, yeah. I can't honestly argue with that, just as I can't argue that the clay models in Laser Lords do not look incredibly goofy or that Deadly Premonition's graphics and animations are not up to par for the console it's on. For me, though, the game's art style adds some sort of campy and almost child-like charm to the game. I suppose you could say it's So Bad It's Good but I don't even want to quality it as Bad, it's not a style that is unappealing to me, and a game can look oh so Good and still have an art style that puts me way off. I'd rather take something like Mr. Triangle's art since at least this manages to be memorable and stand out. Once you start to like a game, it seems like things like the art not being Good stop mattering as you become attached to it in a way that is so much more subjective than objective. Aside from that, the actual ideas and content being portrayed are generally just so bizarre and weird, I just love it! It's certainly more than I could every do with evil vegetables and animate triangles.
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Honestly, I think in the end the biggest reason why I like this game so much is just the whole way the game
feels. There's an inexplicable charm to a bizarre game made in some ancient engine that uses a marketing campaign that uses clay models of the protagonists. It's a sort of game that is mostly someone's personal pet project, and it just shines through for me. It just feels like there's so much heart to the game, and just finding out that something this ridiculous exists and is actually legitimately
enjoyable just gives me a sort of happy tingly feeling. You just can't explain feelings like that, it's the sort of feeling that drew me to games like Laser Lords and Deadly Premonition too, and what made me interested in Goblin Quest.
The sort of feeling that just makes you want to write a blog like this, you know?
