Mystic Ark: Maboroshi Gekijou playthrough pt. 1
OK, here's the deal: Chrono Cross will not stop sucking, and Maren's gonna be a long-term project. So we're starting something new today: another Mystic Ark game.
For once in this crazy non-series, we're dealing with a direct sequel: Mystic Ark: Maboroshi Gekijou (Mystic Ark: Theatre of Illusions) is indeed a direct continuation of the SFAM Mystic Ark. (So - ALERT I'm gonna be spoiling that game (and probably The 7th Saga, eventually) in these posts, just a heads up.)
Illustrator Akihiro Yamada put out a whole artbook for this game, and the title puts his involvement front & center. His is the first credit shown after the studio & publisher logos.
The game relies heavily on mixing flat 2-D hand-drawn art (the background) and 3-D polygons (the suited figure in the foreground).
At the end of Mystic Ark (again: spoilers), the protagonist is reborn as an infant in another world that's heavily implied to be our own, and it's suggested that Remeer/Felys is a past incarnation of the player. The sequel takes a different tack: it has the protagonists reincarnated in a city in a storybook version of Western Europe, and Maboroshi Gekijou is catching up with them as children. I'm speaking in the plural because even though you select only one for your player character, both Remeer & Felys are somehow present here; you can see them interacting in the prologue. That doesn't really work; Remeer & Felys were an either/or deal in the first Mystic Ark.
Anyhow: above is your character select screen. It's quite pretty, with sunset coloring & autumn leaves blowing in the wind.
As always, we'll be going with Remeer. (Sorry, Felys; I caught you at a bad angle there.)
Actually, while the katakana match up, his name's not "Remeer." The characters are supposed to have "real world" names that are slight variations on their original SFAM Mystic Ark monikers; Felys, for example, is now "Alice." Googling brings up that "Remiiru" is an alternate rendering of the name "Remy," in one of Japanese's weird ways of approximating French pronunciation. Now, I've read that reborn Remeer is supposed to be of Irish descent (with Felys/Alice being of Dutch blood), and "Remy" is a French name. That's the closest I'm getting to a real-world name for "Remiiru," though, so "Remy" it is.
The text crawl moves by extremely quickly, but the gist is that Remy & Alice's little seaside town is about to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of its founding, and a magic show (it kind of looks like more of a circus) has come to town to help with the festivities. (The townspeople freak out that there's no theatre in town to hold the show - guys, it's a circus; they put up tents - but a lone representative from the circus, whom we will be meeting shortly, insists that there's gonna be a show anyhow.)
On the evening of the festival, however, all of the townspeople disappear - except for our hero. Time to check the local toy shop for new figurines!
No, actually. The first thing we need to do is check in with:
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
The Return to Oz refugee up top is named Mr. Silverfingertips (yes, it's all one word), and he's the leader of the circus troupe. He's spirited us to his personal theater to save the townsfolk. Ominously, he doesn't mention what's happened to them, but he does claim to know how to rescue them: we have to find the eight pieces of the Triforce hidden throughout Hyrule.
"They are the seven powers behind my show...they will appear as Arks."
"Find and retrieve the seven Arks and return the people their hearts & souls - that should deliver them from their fate."
Oh, wait. No. I mean the seven Arks. We have to find the seven Arks and unleash Gorsia so he can kill Saro. Wait...
Also, Mr. Silverfingertips is the mascot of the game. We're going to be seeing much, much more of him. Regrettably.
But first: SFT has to explain to us...TANK CONTROLS. Yes, we're going to be tank-controlling our character. This game is a big departure from Produce's first few titles in many aspects.
Maboroshi Gekijou has an unusual spin on tank controls: Remy can't just go any which way but instead snaps to each of the cardinal eight directions (well, the cardinal four + NE, NW - you know) as you rotate him. This is meant to help position him for puzzles but instead means that he moves in a stuttery, jittery fashion. I'd prefer the smooth positioning of a Harry Mason or Jill Valentine.
Oh, and there's combat. I mean real-time combat on the map, not turn-based fade-to-combat-scene-from-the-overworld RPG combat. Square equals a weak but quick punch; up + square gives a strong, slow punch. Square plus any other directional equals a kick for low enemies. I gotta say that I'm not confident these controls are built for a satisfying combat experience.
And, oh, man; Remeer makes this scrunchy noise whenever he walks or turns. He makes a racket whenever he moves. 7th Saga Lux has got nothing on him.
Mystic Ark's goddess save statue makes a cameo in the tutorial.
"Well, then - I pray you that are able to enjoy our show to its very end!"
Reassuring.
Eventually, SFT beats feet, and Remy poses for his David Lynch moment.
Silverfingertips's theatre serves as Maboroshi Gekijou's hub world like the shrine did for Mystic Ark, being the place where you solve puzzles to access the other realms. The interface is familiar: press the action button on an element of the environment, and you're brought to a cutaway where you're invited to examine the element further or use an item (or, I presume, an Ark later on). In this case, the commands just scroll in from the side of the screen.
"There's a lamp here. ...It looks broken."
Some key items get an illustrated close-up more akin to those from the first Mystic Ark, though.
First puzzle: move these bouquets so the stands match the color of the vases. Ho-hum.
This is some Helen Maxwell-level interior decoration, by the way.
"There's a picture of a puppet on the wall."
I wonder if this picture is the same if you're Felys.
"Picture of a puppet" - interesting choice of words. Accurate, though, I suppose, for a player character.
"There's a deck brush leaning against the pile of boxes here."
There are a few more references to the earlier game. Here's that damn deck brush from Cat Pirate world.
I recall this china cabinet being similar to one from Mystic Ark, but I can't place it. I thought it was from World 6, but a search of the video brings up nothing.
It's another reference, though. Are these Remy's past-life memories resurfacing?
SFT's diary. Nothing interesting inside yet, but the cover... "Jean-Baptiste"? Is that SFT's real name? Is he John the Baptist? Is that why he has a scarecrow head - to replace the one Salome took?
Anyhow, after you explore a few rooms, a huge black dog bursts in (it happened real quick; I didn't have time to screencap it) and breaks down a wall. If you examine the fissure left behind, it takes you to the first world, "Fairy Village."
Remy arrives in a shower of sparkles to be confronted by...these three little gnomes. (Goblins?)
"Don't startle us like that! Everyone's scared of this black dog that's been running wild around here recently!"
The gnomes/goblins inform us that the huge black dog we saw in the theatre has been terrorizing everyone in this world.
I have to say that I'm feeling a little uneasy about the game at this point. We've seen a Fairyland in the last game, and this really isn't comparing. It doesn't control well, and the sound's not good, being mostly loud, choppy piano.
Plank puzzle. You have to build a bridge to cross the stream, but the game will let you put planks only in very arbitrary places. I kept failing at this, and I thought the game just wouldn't let you place planks in areas that didn't have land on the other side (which makes sense, since there'd be nothing supporting that side that way), but I just wasn't hitting the right random spot.
Across the river leads to a giant tree with a face and a rope ladder up its side. I can't do anything, though, because the tree's asleep, and I apparently can't climb the ladder unless he's awake.
Those five orbs on the upper-left, by the way, represent Remy's health - just before meeting the tree, he was in combat with a couple spiders. I don't gain anything from fighting (no XP, no nothing), and judging from those dots, I suppose I can take five hits. It's extremely perfunctory so far, serving only as a very rudimentary vestige of its predecessor's roots half in a genre featuring combat. Maboroshi Gekijou seems to be a full-fledged adventure game.
"I can't get out!!"
"Sorry for startling you. I'm a fairy of courage. I'm not really a pot monster, honest!"
After a bit of travel, we meet a fairy trapped in a jar. (It apparently ate whatever was in the pot and can't get out post-meal.) The fairy claims to want to meet a woman named Wilde Frau, who can turn fairies into Arks. Mmm-kay.
The fairy asks for freedom, and I try kicking the pot. No dice. When I speak again, the fairy clarifies that something to "wash" the pot is needed to get him free. (Er? Maybe to make it slippery and get him out?) Remembering the go-back-to-the-hub-world shenanigans of Mystic Ark, I run back to the theatre for the deck brush. The game no longer recognizes its existence, however. Aargh!
Between-worlds transition, BTW. Also:
You kind of have to squint to make it out the one here - it's directly above the flowers in the center of the screen - but the transfer points from world to world are represented by floating portholes that reflect/distort the surrounding scenery instead of ordinary objects.
After a short quest where I get three stones from the goblins to unlock a nearby cave, I find a box-shoving puzzle and another pot with yet another, unspecified something stuck inside. Yettow, the yellow goblin, is here and claims that I'll need salt to wash the pot (???).
"A water spirit appeared from inside the watering can."
I investigate over in a pile of rubble and find a watering can that I could fill in a convenient nearby stream. When I attempt to take it, though, a Mana-esque water sprite pops out and claims to be using it to rest. So that's out for now.
There's another shovable box on this screen, and the only other notable landmark is a tree smack-dab in the center. As shown, I can shove the box so I can get into what I think would be climbable range for the tree, but Remy won't do anything. (I can't jump, either.)
At this point, every lead in Fairy Village was a dead end, so I went back to the theatre to see if maybe I could steal some salt from one of the dining tables there or something. Nope. So I'm stuck right now, but we'll see how this resolves itself...
.