Last week, we took a look at Far East of Eden Zero, a fan translated game that stood absolutely no chance of ever being localized for Western markets based on its themes and story. But what about its gameplay?
I think before I get into the details of the combat and other systems, I need to talk about something I glossd over last week; the graphics. FEOEZ very well could be the single best looking game on the SNES (or I guess the Super Famicon), and that's not an exaggeration. These are some of the best 2D sprites I've ever seen and it was legitimately shocking how much detail they were able to get into some of these assets. If you told me this was an early 5th generation game, I probably would have believed you. The story is largely told through cutscenes, which feature some incredible images that have a surprsing amount of movement to them. Overall, the game looks great and it sounds ok too, that was definitely one of the bigger positives here. I will say some of the gameplay decisions actually negatively impacted the sound, but we will get to that later.
As for the actual gameplay here though? Eh, it's solid but unspectacular. I have to give credit where it's due, there were some really ambitious gameplay elements here that were unheard of at the time and nothing is actively bad. But a lot of the more traitional elements fit into the good-not-great category that most of the average to above average games of the era typically find themselves in. That started with the combat system, which was solid, if a bit uninspired. FEOEZ features turn-based combat from an over-the-shoulder perspective, sort of like Earthbound or Phantasy Star. You have a party of three, who have the option to attack, use items, use skills or use scrolls. The scrolls are more like magic, while the skills are more personalized to the characters and can be physical or magic. If you've played a 4th generation RPG, you will be right at home here. Enemies have pretty strong A.I. and have a good variety of attacks, but they aren't unfair in any way. It's a good, solid combat system that works well. It did get a little bit dull at times, but it eventually pulls out of any tailspins it goes into. The combat here is fairly standard for the genre, but in a good way, if that makes sense. I've talked a little bit about genre baselines before, and this might be the difinitive example of one for turn based RPG combat.
For better or worse, FEOEZ tried a lot of things that were incredibly ahead of their time. Chief among those was the internal clock, something modern gamers take for granted but was absolutely revolutionary back then. Certain shops will be open at certain times and each nation will have festivals on certain days throughout the year. And this isn't an in game clock either. The time it is in real life is the time it is in the game, or at least what time you tell the game it is. And you can't change the setting once you start either. That sounds like a really cool idea in theory, and it kind of is. But the problem is that if you only play at certain times, you will literally lock yourself out of certain events or items. To see everything the game has to offer, you would have to literally play every single day. I do have to give them credit for trying and for they system actually working, but they probably went a little too hard. I do like how certain smaller events are tied to this clock though.
While there were some positives and negatives to the clock, there was one fatal flaw that really kept the game from ascending to the level of some of the greats. The exploration here is probably the weakest part of the game, which is unfortunate. For one, the various nations you explore are entirely too big and open for the amount of locations they hold. There were the occasional items scattered about, but they were almost never worth going as far out of the way for as they require. There is just so much open, essentially dead, space that seems like it exists just to keep you getting lost. This, on its face, wouldn't really be a major issue. If anything, I would rather have too much to explore than too little, but FEOEZ's one critical flaw makes that not the case here.
And what is that critical flaw? That would be the encounter rate. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, the encounter rate in FEOEZ is absolutely, positively, unacceptably INSANE. I have never played an RPG with an encounter rate this brutal, it's completely ridiculous beyond anything I've ever seen. Look, I totally understand that RPGs from the 80's and 90's are known for high encounter rates. But I want to make clear, I've been playing these games for more than 30 years. I'm not coming at this from a perspective of someone who's first RPG was Persona 4 or even Final Fantasy VII. I've played tons of RPGs that are known for their crazy encounter rate and this beats them all handily. Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne? Don't make me laugh. Breath of Fire II? I will die on the hill that the encounter rate isn't even actually bad outside the final dungeon. FEOEZ puts them all to shame. Remember back when I said the gameplay impacted the sound? Yeah, that's because I very rarely got to hear more than a few notes before I ended up in a fight again. To be fair, the encounter rate does drop signifigcantly once you defeat the general guarding that respective kingdom. But by that point, there's no reason to stick around and you just end up moving on to the next area with the same brutal encouter rate.
Despite some of the questionable choices in mechanics, the core of the gameplay is solid. I really do like the different ways of acquiring skills, it was fun to track down the hermits and it felt like you really earned what you got. The game gives you a real reason to use your various skills and abilites, which was nice. I also like the scroll combining too, it really opens up a lot of attack options. But I think the best part of the gameplay here are the dungeon and town design. All but a few of the dungeons are well laid out and incentivize you for exploring while also giving you a path of least resistance if you want to just get in and get out. There are some puzzles here, but nothing completely obtuse and unfair. If it weren't for the encounter rate, I would say dungeon exploration here is outstanding, but that flaw makes it merely very good. The towns are also really cool, they all have interesting themes with plenty to do. There are a lot of mini games and sidequests that feel like a good use of your time but also not required to actually have a chance. There's a lot of problems here, but there's also a lot of good and it was very clear that the folks that designed this game knew what they were doing.
So, where does that leave FEOEZ? It has great graphics and some good, solid 4th gen RPG elements coupled with some truly ambitious mechanics that were far ahead of their time. However, sometimes expiriments don't work as intended and that was certainly the case here. That can be forgivien, even the misses don't ruin the minute to minute gameplay. However, the insane encounter rate and comparitively empty world map prevent it from truly earning its place among the genre's elite. The incredibly uncomfortable story elements don't help, though I understand that would likely not have ever made it into an officially translated western version of this game. Far East of Eden Zero was definitely a solid game that was absolutely worth playing. I would even say it was worth the trouble of digging up the patch. But I don't think it quite matched up with some of the truly elite RPGs of the era. A nice little diversion, but not a game changer by any means.
7/10
I think before I get into the details of the combat and other systems, I need to talk about something I glossd over last week; the graphics. FEOEZ very well could be the single best looking game on the SNES (or I guess the Super Famicon), and that's not an exaggeration. These are some of the best 2D sprites I've ever seen and it was legitimately shocking how much detail they were able to get into some of these assets. If you told me this was an early 5th generation game, I probably would have believed you. The story is largely told through cutscenes, which feature some incredible images that have a surprsing amount of movement to them. Overall, the game looks great and it sounds ok too, that was definitely one of the bigger positives here. I will say some of the gameplay decisions actually negatively impacted the sound, but we will get to that later.
As for the actual gameplay here though? Eh, it's solid but unspectacular. I have to give credit where it's due, there were some really ambitious gameplay elements here that were unheard of at the time and nothing is actively bad. But a lot of the more traitional elements fit into the good-not-great category that most of the average to above average games of the era typically find themselves in. That started with the combat system, which was solid, if a bit uninspired. FEOEZ features turn-based combat from an over-the-shoulder perspective, sort of like Earthbound or Phantasy Star. You have a party of three, who have the option to attack, use items, use skills or use scrolls. The scrolls are more like magic, while the skills are more personalized to the characters and can be physical or magic. If you've played a 4th generation RPG, you will be right at home here. Enemies have pretty strong A.I. and have a good variety of attacks, but they aren't unfair in any way. It's a good, solid combat system that works well. It did get a little bit dull at times, but it eventually pulls out of any tailspins it goes into. The combat here is fairly standard for the genre, but in a good way, if that makes sense. I've talked a little bit about genre baselines before, and this might be the difinitive example of one for turn based RPG combat.
For better or worse, FEOEZ tried a lot of things that were incredibly ahead of their time. Chief among those was the internal clock, something modern gamers take for granted but was absolutely revolutionary back then. Certain shops will be open at certain times and each nation will have festivals on certain days throughout the year. And this isn't an in game clock either. The time it is in real life is the time it is in the game, or at least what time you tell the game it is. And you can't change the setting once you start either. That sounds like a really cool idea in theory, and it kind of is. But the problem is that if you only play at certain times, you will literally lock yourself out of certain events or items. To see everything the game has to offer, you would have to literally play every single day. I do have to give them credit for trying and for they system actually working, but they probably went a little too hard. I do like how certain smaller events are tied to this clock though.
While there were some positives and negatives to the clock, there was one fatal flaw that really kept the game from ascending to the level of some of the greats. The exploration here is probably the weakest part of the game, which is unfortunate. For one, the various nations you explore are entirely too big and open for the amount of locations they hold. There were the occasional items scattered about, but they were almost never worth going as far out of the way for as they require. There is just so much open, essentially dead, space that seems like it exists just to keep you getting lost. This, on its face, wouldn't really be a major issue. If anything, I would rather have too much to explore than too little, but FEOEZ's one critical flaw makes that not the case here.
And what is that critical flaw? That would be the encounter rate. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, the encounter rate in FEOEZ is absolutely, positively, unacceptably INSANE. I have never played an RPG with an encounter rate this brutal, it's completely ridiculous beyond anything I've ever seen. Look, I totally understand that RPGs from the 80's and 90's are known for high encounter rates. But I want to make clear, I've been playing these games for more than 30 years. I'm not coming at this from a perspective of someone who's first RPG was Persona 4 or even Final Fantasy VII. I've played tons of RPGs that are known for their crazy encounter rate and this beats them all handily. Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne? Don't make me laugh. Breath of Fire II? I will die on the hill that the encounter rate isn't even actually bad outside the final dungeon. FEOEZ puts them all to shame. Remember back when I said the gameplay impacted the sound? Yeah, that's because I very rarely got to hear more than a few notes before I ended up in a fight again. To be fair, the encounter rate does drop signifigcantly once you defeat the general guarding that respective kingdom. But by that point, there's no reason to stick around and you just end up moving on to the next area with the same brutal encouter rate.
Despite some of the questionable choices in mechanics, the core of the gameplay is solid. I really do like the different ways of acquiring skills, it was fun to track down the hermits and it felt like you really earned what you got. The game gives you a real reason to use your various skills and abilites, which was nice. I also like the scroll combining too, it really opens up a lot of attack options. But I think the best part of the gameplay here are the dungeon and town design. All but a few of the dungeons are well laid out and incentivize you for exploring while also giving you a path of least resistance if you want to just get in and get out. There are some puzzles here, but nothing completely obtuse and unfair. If it weren't for the encounter rate, I would say dungeon exploration here is outstanding, but that flaw makes it merely very good. The towns are also really cool, they all have interesting themes with plenty to do. There are a lot of mini games and sidequests that feel like a good use of your time but also not required to actually have a chance. There's a lot of problems here, but there's also a lot of good and it was very clear that the folks that designed this game knew what they were doing.
So, where does that leave FEOEZ? It has great graphics and some good, solid 4th gen RPG elements coupled with some truly ambitious mechanics that were far ahead of their time. However, sometimes expiriments don't work as intended and that was certainly the case here. That can be forgivien, even the misses don't ruin the minute to minute gameplay. However, the insane encounter rate and comparitively empty world map prevent it from truly earning its place among the genre's elite. The incredibly uncomfortable story elements don't help, though I understand that would likely not have ever made it into an officially translated western version of this game. Far East of Eden Zero was definitely a solid game that was absolutely worth playing. I would even say it was worth the trouble of digging up the patch. But I don't think it quite matched up with some of the truly elite RPGs of the era. A nice little diversion, but not a game changer by any means.
7/10
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