Septem’s a lone knight with an enormous drawback: Venice’s thuggish zealots assume he is an evil heretic, and his new bff, Nicole—an amusingly/terrifyingly naive servant of Devil who does not see the issue with killing anybody and everybody who tries to select a struggle with them—kinda makes it laborious to argue he is not the satan’s primary fan. It is from the primary sport to model me as an enemy of the state, however I am struggling to consider one which pits me towards the heavens themselves earlier than I’ve left the primary city.
Most RPGs can solely dream of getting a gap as attention-grabbing as that, or declare to take their hero on a journey that spans half as many fantasy-themed reimaginings of real-world cultures as Xuan-Yuan Sword: Mists Past the Mountains ultimately does.
However this specific re-release of Softstar’s 1999 RPG does one thing much more particular than that: it makes a beforehand inaccessible piece of gaming historical past accessible for English-speaking avid gamers for the very first time. Xuan-Yuan Sword has lengthy been a central pillar of Chinese language language gaming, from its beginnings on floppy disks proper via to the spectacular motion RPGs of the 2020s. But even in a sequence as extremely considered this Mists Past the Mountains will get further love, in a lot the identical means that we would fondly consider Ultimate Fantasy 6 as a standout retro second in Squaresoft’s historical past. It is that particular, a sport that altered without end what I believed a listing of important RPGs ought to comprise—and the place they might come from.
So it is a disgrace this contemporary PC port is nearer in spirit to the delisted and hideous Ultimate Fantasy 6 “HD” than the wonderful Pixel Remaster, leaving us with a sport that’s neither an correct illustration of the unique Xuan-Yuan Sword nor an intensive improve.
No matter language you select to play in, this new launch relies on the present (and untranslated) cellular remaster—the conspicuously thumb-sized icons in battle as an alternative of the unique’s textual content menu give it away. I am certain this strategy is sensible (and cost-efficient) for the developer, however paying good cash for a PC port of a cellular port of a PC sport feels a bit like being requested to take pleasure in half-chewed meals.
I want that was the worst factor I may say about it, nevertheless it seems that is simply the place the ugliness begins. Like many RPGs it is the story that finally makes Mists Past the Mountains worthwhile, and but—once more, as additionally occurred with Softstar’s English mangling of Sword and Fairy 7—the interpretation created for this epic story can solely be described as appalling.
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It is all technically appropriate, simply suffering from phrases no human would ever say. Like, and I quote: “to be executed by fireplace sentence in public”
C’mon—”burnt on the stake” is proper there.
One achievement’s description reads “The decision of 1 Specie in Creature Catalogue reaches 100.” I truthfully do not know what meaning, despite the fact that I’ve apparently completed it.
These points run so deep the incongruously excessive decision English font regularly accommodates the form of fundamental presentation points most of us thought we might left behind many years in the past. Nearly each sentence is peppered with seemingly
random new line
s and/or,
uneven textual content justification
And that is when it remembers to remain throughout the dialogue field within the first place.
I’d have actually favored the editor to select both ellipses”…” or interpuncts “···” after which stick to one in all them, as an alternative of switching backwards and forwards a number of instances in the identical sentence. A narrative that thrives on heightened depictions of real-world cultures and religions wanted to be handled with extra care. The sport opens with xenophobic Christians making an attempt to burn foreigners alive and an enormous dollop of rival nobles pulling political strings within the background—this isn’t the time or place for a hero that claims “Dude”. This sport deserves higher. Heck, any sport deserves higher.
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The excellent news is powering via these unforced errors is way simpler than it will have been within the authentic Chinese language model from 1999, which I’ve owned and beloved for years. This new port of Mists Past the Mountains has been rebalanced with the impatient in thoughts. Fight is usually a lot simpler, Septem begins with much more cash, and it is now attainable to place the sport down anyplace you want due to a free save. The previous dungeon save factors have been changed into free full restore stations. On the floor these sound like useful changes for the trendy period, however in fact they and plenty of different seemingly small alterations strip the sport of a lot of its interactive pleasure. Fight is now principally brainlessly autobattled via, and there is no longer any actual reward for exploring a dungeon: what good is a brand new sword or one other therapeutic merchandise once I can already simply kill every thing in sight?
Why hassle experimenting with the sport’s Shin Megami Tensei-ish monster capturing/fusing/equipping mechanic once I can blow virtually every thing away in a single hit?
The graphics used throughout these now-forgettable encounters and dungeon crawls are messy. The sphere of view has been expanded to fill trendy widescreen shows, and meaning battle scenes have had their artwork shifted round barely after which tiled horizontally to compensate. Some key occasions present an empty void on both facet as a result of they have been constructed with 4:3 screens in thoughts. There’s now a persistent fuzz on the impressively animated pixel artwork, and a few particular results are usually not as clean as they initially have been: a waterfall now has apparent sharp tiled edges to its animated foamy finish, whereas the unique sport—launched 24 years in the past—regarded seamless in its pure atmosphere.
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Elsewhere the swap between a poorly-upscaled cutscene and the sport itself could depart the motion working in a smaller a part of the display screen, and solely repair itself when the characters transfer to a brand new space. There’s at all times one thing that spoils a wonderful characteristic or good concept that was completely nice the primary time round.
The Xuan-Yuan Sword sequence, like so many different Chinese language language RPGs, greater than deserve a seat—no, a throne—on the desk of our collective gaming consciousness. They’re finely crafted experiences adequate to carry their very own towards anybody’s favorite Japanese RPGs, full of characters followers nonetheless love seeing in TV diversifications or shopping for in costly statue kind in Taiwan and China. So it breaks my coronary heart to see this sport handled so badly, understanding that that is going to be the primary and doubtless the final impression many English talking individuals have of the sport. It is like listening to a good friend has lastly obtained round to watching Star Wars, solely to understand they’ve seen the non-widescreen particular editions. On VHS.
In Chinese language that is at greatest a handy, though mediocre, trendy re-release. In English this can be a golden alternative totally squandered.
