The title says Dark Half but first I must share my joy over finally beating
Harvest Moon!
Yes, Harvest Moon is finally over, the SNES version no less.
My biggest mistake was to play more than one entry in the series but since
many say that the SNES version is the best one I had to play it.
For me this seems to be one of the cases where the game lives on nostalgia,
I believe that the Playstation game Back to Nature is better and improved in
every way even if that too has the same problems. The main problem is of
course the length of the games, it doesn’t have a clock but my guess is
around 70-100 hours which makes it the longest SNES game I have played!
Using a guide and plan ahead would really save a lot of time, not aiming
to get the best “score” would also help a lot, hehe.
The goal is to live on the farm and make it a good one in 300 days,
I had basically done everything necessary in the first 200 days so
then it was just a matter of waiting and keeping the cows happy for the
last 100 days, a real chore and far from a good game to repeat
the same thing 100 times…
Oh well, it is finally over and the game called me a Master Farmer!
I will not return to the series.
More SNES, Dark Half was one of the very first games that I bought to the
collection and ever since then I knew it was an interesting game. Now, nine
years later, there is finally a complete translation of the game thanks to
dedicated fans! Like most games that are released late in the console’s life
Dark Half has some really impressive graphic, I usually prefer the more
classic RPG style but sometimes an isometric view works better and this
is one of those times, good choice Enix!
The interesting part of the game is of course the fact that you both play
as the “good” and “evil” party, a concept I really like in games
(Breath of Fire 4, mmmm). You play one chapter good, one chapter evil,
alternating the entire game, both of them have a soul meter that you need to
keep up, if it hits zero it is game over and this is a quite stressful part
of the game sometimes. As the good party it is quite an ordinary RPG,
you get equipments and some party members, no levels or skills tough,
all magic is used via items and stats are also increased with items.
The soul meter is filled by defeating enemies or paying money at the church
and depleted by walking around outside towns, as the good team it is never
a big problem luckily. The evil team on the other hand need soul energy for
everything, all attacks use energy and also walking around and
solving some puzzles!
There is only one party member in the evil team and no equipments, instead
you can recruit monsters and learn skills from them, it is vital to learn
heal early, be warned! I usually don’t like to recruit monsters but it works
good and you change them for better ones constantly, no breeding or complex
systems etc. To gain soul energy you can defeat enemies OR take the souls of
ALL the NPCs of the game! That is the most interesting part, walking into a
village and just murder everyone, when you return to the village as the
good party next chapter, everyone remains dead and of course you can’t
speak with them anymore. I absolutely love that part!
Sadly some of the dungeons feel a bit messy and I recommend
save states/ a guide, it’s just to easy to waste all your soul energy
trying to solve a puzzle or walking in circles. Overall a solid game,
not a spectacular story or the masterpiece music from Terranigma,
but definetly a game that deserved to be played, and now in english!
No clock in this game either but it felt like a standard
SNES RPG, around 15-20 hours.
xenosagacollector.com 