Fairytale World continues, as our heroes meet...Cinderella?
Originally posted over 2013-2014, now remastered for 2025
The Fairytale World consists of one main town surrounded by a massive forest. The forest is divided into various sub-areas, and they're a bit of a chore to negotiate. See the vine hanging down from the treetops? No? Me neither. Well, Remeer has to climb that vine to proceed. This happens a lot in this world, situations where you need to click on near-invisible things to move forward.
A cave follows. At the end lurks The Big Bad Wolf.
This is gonna be a SLOBBERKNOCKER!
...huh. He's pretty weird-ass. Doesn't even look like a wolf.
After a disappointingly easy fight, he becomes The Big Good Wolf.
His freed prisoners reveal something troubling, however. It seems that right before the Wolf showed up, someone ELSE was after them. Seems Darkness is still on the rampage. Haven't seen much of a rampage, though, so it's hard to take this seriously. And why would Darkness be cowed by The Big Bad Wolf arriving? Is the BBW just that much of an alpha dog?
The King gives Remeer one of the best armors in the game. Matter of fact, this may well be the best. Don't think Remeer ever needs to replace it.
The Wolf threat may be quelled, but now the kingdom is being terrorized by a goblin, and are begging for Remeer to save them again. Seriously, maybe they should invest in a militia or something.
Side Note: The spirit of the Water Ark is... a little bit sexy.
Hoofing through the woods on the other side of town. There are a LOT of hidden passages here, and it's a bit irritating to get through. One super-noteworthy thing here...
...is this thing. It's the strongest weapon in the game, hidden behind one of the passages. It turns Kamiwoo into a total beast, eclipsing Reeshine as the best physical attacker. I think. Reeshine might still win if you factor in special moves.
Look at that massive attack increase. 40 to 120. Kamiwoo's regular attacks are now even better than Remeer's, making him a mainstay in the party.
Our heroes find the "goblin"... and it's actually a lion. A fairly harmless lion.
A... cowardly lion? Egad!
He's on his way to see a wizard who can grant wishes, hoping he can get some courage. The wizard in question? That's right, it's Oz.
HANSEL.
"That Hansel is so hot right now!"
The King sent us on a wild goose chase. To be fair, the King is totally blitzed on cocaine.
Off to Oz Tower. The Great and Powerful Oz can surely help the Cowardly Lion with his issues.
This requires boating through the dark, eerie waterways of Fairytale World.
The Tower of Oz. This is a fairly lengthy dungeon.
It consists mainly of these spiral rooms that go on and on.
At the top, it seems the Cowardly Lion didn't get his wish. I don't know, I think he's pretty damn courageous for even trying to get here.
Seems that Oz has lost his powers, thanks to that bastardly Darkness. We've really got to do something about this guy.
At this point, we find out that Darkness is lurking in the waterfall south of town. But there's a RANDOM GUY blocking the way, and since this isn't Fallout 3 or anything with actual player choice, I can't just choose to throw the guy into a nearby river and walk past him. Instead I have to do an hourlong fetch quest to get an invisibility cloak so that I can creep past the random guy.
What
The
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
Whoa, it's the Three Little Pigs. They've got a bachelor pad here, right next door to...
...their old bachelor pad, which we can only presume got blown away by The Big Bad Wolf.
Gotta say, I'm really enjoying all of the references in this game. I'd like the game a LOT in general if the flow weren't constantly interrupted by fetch quests that exist only to artificially make the game longer. It's a mediocre 30 hour game, but it could have easily been a really good 15 hour game.
Cinderella also needs help. The noble Remeer is the Sam Beckett of the Mystic Ark world.
Pokey from Earthbound makes a cameo appearance as the kingdom tailor. He's smarmy as hell.
After getting a dress for Cinderella, she demands shoes. You got it.
So... a quick trip to an item shop should solve this one.
...nope, it turns out that the only way to get lady-slippers is another hourlong fetch quest. Remeer must trek to a distant tree that "grows shoes". I wonder if this is also from a fable.
However, the tree will only grow shoes if you feed it glass. Since this is Mystic Ark, you can't just get glass anywhere. You have to go allllll the way back to World 5 and climb the previously-unused tower dungeon in one of the towns.
After a long, tedious tower, our hero gets a ball of glass. Ooooookay.
Bring that to the tree, and it gives up the slippers.
Protip: This size is actually the wrong one. Cinderella's size is 7. I had to trek back and forth to town until I found the right size.
A Christmas present for Cinderella. They really accentuate her calf muscles.
The ball commences, and Cinderella dances with the prince.
...until Darkness appears and EATS EVERYONE'S SOULS while Disturbed plays.
Now Remeer has to go around mopping up all of the hearts left behind by the figurine rampage. Good to see Darkness finally -do something-.
An oddly invisible beanstalk leads to...
...a floating land that consists of one screen with a figurine on it. Not sure what this goose has to do with anything, but Remeer restores it regardless.
Several other figurines have popped up in the shrine, which was previously figurine-free. This reminds me of Metroid 2, when the Metroid counter - ticking down for the whole game - suddenly went from 01 to 09 at the end.
Little Red Riding Hood is restored... and a valley girl.
Does this look familiar? It's Oz's Tower, and it should look familiar because I was just here. Have to climb it again to waste time to see Oz at the top and advance the story.
With the various figurines restored, Cinderella helped, several dungeons trekked through and re-trekked through, and the fetching done with, Remeer finally gets the Invisibility Cloak. Now he can walk past the random guy in the woods! Hoo rah!
Can you see him? Nope. He's just like Bilbo.
"Dillll-do Baggins!"
That's it for now, but tune in tomorrow as I finish the game.
I can only take so much backtracking, fetch-questing, doing the same dungeon over again, and jumping through hoops to appease some random NPC.
I found the vine after you pointed it out, but seriously, that's bad design. Especially considering how small the TVs we played these games on were back then.
ReplyDelete"I'll drop the 'Bad' from my name and be a good Wolf from now on."
This sounds like something Snoop would say.
First time I've ever heard 'a bit sexy'.
So you have to find the hidden passages by pushing against every block of the forest? This is..something. I guess it's more like wandering through a real forest than anything else.
40 to 120?! WOW.
Too bad you can't name the king Rob Ford.
Secret of Evermore, one of the most famous early games to give a truly dark medieval feeling.
I wonder if we can get a Mystic Arc Director's Cut.
These quests are more fun than World 1 (which this is starting to resemble in length) because we know everyone involved and are invested in the results.
F'ing Darkness, running around to mess up your flow. Well, at least he said he would at the beginning.
LOL @ the random goose.
Goblins aren't Lions!
ReplyDelete...and neither are Snoops for that matter.