Plumbing the dank depths of Game Boy
Inevitably, the worst garbage to plague the NES made its way to the console's portable pal.
Wow, there's nothing like perspective.
When I first began reviewing Lost Sphear a couple of weeks ago, my initial impression was that it seemed to be a fairly rote and mundane take on the role-playing genre. But you know, a few hours in I had to take a break to capture footage for this episode, and at that point I realized: No, it could have been so much worse. It could have been SD Gundam Gaiden: Lacroan Heroes.
If Lost Sphear proved to be a somewhat over-designed take on Chrono Trigger, Lacroan Heroes is infinitely worse. It's an under-designed, unambitious, poorly balanced Dragon Quest wannabe. One that takes the idea of living Gundam armors wandering through medieval Europe, completing quests and tasks for the princess, and does absolutely nothing with it. The impetus behind this game's creation should be no mystery: Bandai (and Gundam animators Sunrise) wanted to expand their toy line, and what better way than by riding on the coattails of the hottest video game of the era? A few years later, a game like this would take the form of a fighting game; here, though, Japan was finally emerging from its Dragon Quest hangover. So that's what kids were stuck with.
For reference, Lacroan Heroes arrived the same year as Dragon Quest IV. Yet this game makes the much older Dragon Quest II look like a polished gem. What a disgrace.
This also marks the second week in a row in which we've witnessed Human Entertainment shoveling bad licensed software for Bandai. I swear, though, Human was better than this. Hopefully we'll have a chance to see what the company was really like before too long.
