Landstalker is diagonal-only isometric action-RPG. Or action-adventure, I get confused by these genre definition. It was developed by Climax Entertainment (don't mistake it for other Climax names companies) and published by Sega. And yea, Climax were also created to help with the first two Shining games, so there is some Shining infulence in this game. No, not part of franchise. It was released in 1992 in Japan and in 1993 it got to the West. 4 save slots. 16 whole Megabit ROM.
Fun fact: US and French versions of the game actually had ending tweaked to make it more like happy ending. Though I still prefer the original "oh well" one.
The game that you have here is nothing more than emulation of Sega Genesis version. Includes US, European English, French and German versions! Those non-US version play 16% slower while having music fixed to play at full speed. Because that's just how developers back then optimized to PAL 50hz.
Now, technical part about Sega's emulation here:
The Sega Classic games that you purchase on Steam count as DLCs for "Sega Mega Drive & Genesis Classics" game that should appear in your library.
It has Bedroom HUB which is the one with many features yet lags for many and Simply Launcher which lacks Workshop and Online but at least it works just fine for everybody.
However, Simple Launcher has it's fair share of glitches as well. It can crash. And it does the second time you go to main menu, so always quit after saving there so it doesn't crash when you want to save next time!
Emulation itself, mostly sound, isn't that good but it does it's job. Also, yes, emulator supports quick saves.
As alternative, you can use external emulator to run games that you purchased. Sega kindly placed in all games that you purchased in "uncompressed ROMs" folder that program itself doesn't use, just change file extension to ".bin" or so. The file for this one being "LandStalker_USA.SGD". Yep, only US version there!
I also demand you to read digital manual of this game first. You can find it here on store page or go to "manuals" folder of game root and open "01 LS_PC_MG_EFIGS_US_v6.pdf".
Albeit you may want to take a peek at original US manual around to find out what each ring does. Or look up at Internet FAQs if you aren't vanilla player.
And yep, this game includes saving. In-game saving, not emulator one. Bedroom HUB works fine but Simple Launcher one is buggy:
You have to remember, you have to close emulator in proper way, otherwise it will not have them actually saved in files. That means that you have to avoid crashing it or closing in different way.
Even more, if you load emulator-side saves, the emulator will not see in-game saves and will not be able to do in-game saves either. Even if it makes look as if it does.
Plot of the game is that you are treasure hunting 88-old elf named Nigel and you have run into wood nymph Friday who sticks around with you and will revive you with EkeEke (heals half of health) if you have any in inventory. That and knows whereabouts of treasures of King Nole.
And so you are off to adventure, as you explore the island freely. I mean, linear progression but may include some backtracking. But not too much. Fighting. Exploring mazes. Platforming. Solving puzzles. Good action-RPG fun.
And all of it being done in diagonal only isometric view which means that you better be controlling the game with D-Pad rather than keyboard. With the game apparently using Diamond-shaped Dimension System 520 engine or something else that they mentioned in promo material. Sounds like a buzzword. Plus, I am not exactly happy over having a black bar at the bottom of the screen. Heh, I am pretty sure that diagonal-only also helped to save some space on cartidge, since you have to draw characters only for 2 sides, toward and away from camera. Then mirror them.
Protip: Top-right direction is considered north.
And guess what.
Heavy isometric platforming!
Yep, the game relies on it a lot, it's one of the big parts of the game. It's pretty fancy. Sadly, the depth perception is a big problem there. Since it's all 2D rendered with no scaling or such, you can't exactly tell away if the platform is going up or going away from camera while staying on same height, no scaling. But what further seals it is the complete lack of shadow. No shadow for your jumping character, no shadows for platforms.
So whether you will like Landstalker or not depends on whether you just eat it up and try to enjoy platforming anyway or if you just throw hands up and yell out “FAKE DIFICULTY!”. Or attempt to focus on other good parts of games like exploration or puzzles.
Or maybe you are one of the nuttier gamers who sees this as a valid challenge. Then you are in for quite a ride!
Also, there is no experience in this game. You just get gold from monsters and there are very few equipment that is sold in the shop, you find most during your adventures. However, the most valuable thing in the game are Life Stocks that are spread over the game. Each one of those will increase your life by one point. Not only that, but they actually increase your attack power, so you should be searching for them.
Protip: Buy Bell. It will ring everytime you enter the room that has Life Stock in it so you know when you should search behind walls.
And yep, there is much exploration to do in the game. Developers didn't shy away from isometric viewpoint and used it fully to hide stairs and chests. Actually, there is a Greenmaze level, forest that is designed around hidden paths that are hard to see from this viewpoint. It's pretty fun location if you are patient.
Puzzles are also the great part of the game. They are one of the best ones in the Genesis games for sure and have some “aha!” moments as well. There is even a spooky crypt level where you are doing nothing but solving the riddles. Pretty great. Not to mention that they all make some sense and relay on game mechanics, it's not Monkey Island 2 for you.
Mazes play big part of it as well, puzzle rooms, arena rooms. They are generally big and navigating them is a challenge but not to the point that they become unfun.
Protip: Press action button while jumping in order to throw object that you have picked up. It hurts.
Then again, the game has weaker parts to it as well: the fights. You just slash sword. That's about it. Look at enemy at slash at their direction while standing. You will get magic sword that charges up, but their magical attack is a bit too weak and takes too long to charge up until the end of a game when you find a ring that triples the charge speed. Then again, when you meet tougher enemies, you may want to attack from angle in order not to get hit. Bosses also are mostly at the end of a game and by the time you get to most of them, you will get sword that does damage to everything on a screen when charged up. And all bosses are a bit too weak.
But hey, at least music of boss fights is pretty cool, albeit almost feels out of style. Music is really good in this game. And so are graphics. Real good for Genesis, albeit nothing impressive. It's also not too fancy that the game gets a bit weak toward the end. As in, final boss aren't strong enough, ending will be too short for many senses. But don't make mistake, the final dungeon itself is good. Unlike many other action-RPGs where it's obvious that devs got too exhausted by the time final dungeon comes, here it's as good as other dungeons and quite big and epic, still intrpducing new puzzles. Mmmm.
Do you know what sucks? The optional challenge from the old man martial artist Fahl who transforms into monsters. I think that he cheats, being able to continue attack animation for a second when defeated instead of getting hitstunned. That, and I once got stuck inside him after he hit me, softlocking me, had to restart from the save.
Overall, if you manage to get past the problems with depth perception, it's actually quite an awesome game overall. Don't miss this out.
