1. Chrono Trigger (SNES)
2. Gyromite (NES)
3. Lucy -The Eternity She Wished For- (Steam)
4. Ys III: Wanderers from Ys (Famicom)
5. Radical Dreamers (SNES)
6. Video Games 1 (TI-99/4A)
7. Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken (Famicom)
8. Exile (TurboGrafx CD)First, some notes on nomenclature here.
There's an old ARPG trilogy known as the "
XZR series" developed by Telenet Japan. The first installment sadly only appeared on Japanese computers. The second game,
XZR II, was also released on Japanese computers, but was then ported to the Genesis and TurboGrafx CD. These console ports are known as
Exile, for whatever reason. The third and final game,
Exile: Wicked Phenomenon (no "
XZR" in the title) is a console exclusive, only appearing on the TurboGrafx CD. Got all that? I had played the Genesis port of
Exile years ago and absolutely adored it. As such, I decided it was high time to check out this additional variation. Having talked about this game extensively in the past I'll keep things brief here.
First and foremost, the story of
Exile is weird as hell. You play as Sadler who's some sort of Syrian Assassin. Explaining this entire plot is impossible, as a lot was changed during localization and it's hard to tell how much was coherent in the first place. Just know that
Exile is a strange tale involving various real-life locales, religious belief systems, and time periods. Want to visit Stonehenge, converse with Buddhist monks and Crusaders, stroll through the Garden of Eden, travel back to the 6th century, and stumble upon Pythagoras chillin' by a triangular lake? Play
Exile. As a religious person, and someone very interested in history and religious studies, I welcome these elements and wish there were more games that took a similar plunge (for a great modern example, check out
Muramasa).
Gameplay-wise, I'd liken this to
Ys III. There are three primary "modes" of play. The map screen looks just like the one found in
Ys III, but
Exile is even more linear. Backtracking is generally not allowed, and at any given time Sadler is restricted to traveling back and forth between one specific town and dungeon until certain objectives have been completed. Then the next town/dungeon combo will present itself. Towns present their own viewpoint, as they are top-down. It's within these towns that Sadler meets his other party members. What's unique about
Exile is the Sadler's posse is just along for the ride. These characters are essential to the story, but have no role in combat and always find a convenient excuse to not enter dungeons.
Dungeons are where the action takes place and the game flips to side-view. Sadler's quite nimble, and the controls here are very smooth. A sword is used primarily, and cranking up the Turbo button will cause Sadler to slash furiously. There's also magic (fire, ice, heal) but it's entirely superfluous outside of a few late-game boss fights.
Dungeons themselves are a bit odd, as they are either super straightforward or annoying convoluted. Thankfully, even within the depths of labyrinths,
Exile is never particularly difficult. In fact, it's downright easy, which clashes heavily with the subject matter. Sadler is quite overpowered, and bosses are typically just souped-up regular enemies with poor AI. It's also extraordinarily easy to power-level, as certain enemies will respawn on the screen quickly.
Graphics are a bit of a mixed bag. The towns are pretty muddied, and NPCs lack definition. There are some great character portraits, however, when Sadler and essential NPCs converse. The art really shines in the dungeons, which all look distinct with some very memorable backgrounds. There are some nice little touches too, which are easy to miss upon first glance: for instance, if you look through the entrance door to any dungeon you'll actually see a unique graphical representation of what the outside looks like. The enemy selection in
Exile is excellent, these aren't just random beasts but creatures that accurately represent their given location and theme. The soundtrack is decent enough. Everything sounds appropriate but I don't have much desire to listen to it when I'm not actually playing the game.
Now, this is a Working Designs game. Oh boy. Well, as noted it appears that the difficulty wasn't severely tampered with which is good. The translation is solid, though there are a few shitty jokes that are at odds with the game's overall subject matter. The boss that makes a random
Cosmic Fantasy reference is pure cringe. Being an advanced CD-ROM game there's also voice-acting. It sucks.
So, is this any better than the much more common Genesis port? Eh, I could go either way. Being a more "family-friendly" system and lacking the Working Designs influence, the Genesis port lacks the flowery dialogue. On the flip-side, it comes across as more mysterious and esoteric that way, which suits the game well. The enhanced audio and visual elements of the CD-ROM format don't differentiate it from the cartridge version as much as one might think. And while the TGCD port has cutscenes they are what you'd expect: cheesy and dated. I actually think the Genesis has a much stronger intro. Instead of some cornball "scary deep voice" guy giving a dramatic reading there's instead a text scroll accompanied by creepy music. It just works so much better. Overall: this is a draw. Unless you're obsessed with ARPGs only one version of the game is necessary and the cheaper and more common Genesis one will do just fine.
I admittedly haven't articulated it very well in my dry summary above, but I
love Exile. This is a truly a game that's more than the sum of it's parts. Many other RPGs have done certain
things better (combat, navigation, whatever) but none have this tremendous Gnostic atmosphere. Highly recommended.
