Landstalker’s story goes something like this - Nigel, a skilled treasure hunter and
his newfound, and extremely jealous, fairy companion Friday are on the hunt for the lost
fortune of King Nole.
Competition is fierce, and Nigel and company will repeatedly tangle with bumbling and not-so
bumbling rivals as they search for epic loot throughout the Isle of Mercator.
It’s a refreshingly different storyline that eschews the save the world trope in favor
of madcap adventure.
Despite its unadulterated charm, the game has the unfortunate reputation for being “Sega’s
weird isometric Zelda clone” but aside from featuring an elf with a penchant for wearing
green clothes and obsessively hoarding heart containers – Landstalker doesn’t actually
play like Nintendo’s powerhouse series.
In fact the Isometric action-adventure genre predates the original Zelda by nearly two
years, debuting with the release of Knight Lore on the ZX Spectrum.
A slew of “me-too” knockoffs were developed for various systems before the inevitable
death of the genre in light of actual 3D gaming.
But fact remains that Landstalker plays way more like the SNES dungeon puzzler, Equinox,
with its perspective based platforming than it does A Link to the Past.
Essentially, Landstalker is an action-adventure game with light RPG mechanics.
You travel from town to town, solve the local crises of the day, watch some genuinely amusing
cut scenes, and delve into puzzle-laden dungeons.
Nigel’s HP is increased by gathering “Likestock”, heart shaped containers which must be found
or purchased throughout the game.
Gathering ten containers earns Nigel a full heart which increases hidden attack and defense
ratings.
These scores are also improved by upgrading his equipment – armour, swords, boots, and
rings hidden throughout the game.
Enemies deal varying amount of damage based on your stats, and upon dying Nigel’s lifeless
body flops over and Friday delivers an emergency dose of Eke-Eke, Mercator’s regional healing
specialty.
Run out of healing herbs and the game reloads from your latest save file.
Fortunately you can carry 9 of any renewable item at a time and enemies sporadically drop
refills - rendering “game overs” a very rare occurrence.
But before delving further into the gameplay, let’s examine the interesting history behind
Landstalker’s conception.
Both Shining in the Darkness and the original Shining Force were co-developed by Climax
Entertainment and Sonic Co (aka Sonic!
Software Planning aka Camelot) – who ironically enough never made a single Sonic game BUT
has developed numerous Mario sports titles.
Anyway the third game in the series was to be Shining Rogue, a light-hearted action RPG
which would chronicle the adventures of Max following the defeat of Dark Dragon.
But sadly, creative differences split the collaboration for good.
Sonic Co, a first party developer for Sega naturally retained the Shining license and
Climax was forced to rebrand their brainchild as Landstalker.
This was the point at which the Shining series lost its visual identity, previously Yoshitaka
Tamaki’s unique illustrative style had defined the Shining series in the same way Akira Toriyama’s
had for the Dragon Quest games.
But Sonic Co.’s lose was Climax’s gain, because Landstalker is absolutely gorgeous.
The colors are surprisingly vibrant for a Genesis title, with huge sprites and an immersive
3D universe that closer resembles something you’d expect to see in a Playstation game
than a 16bit title from 1992.
The visuals are more than mere decorative eye candy though, many of Landstalker’s
puzzles rely on optical illusions created by the isometric perspective.
It’s a clever design choice that is very much integral to the gameplay.
The only downside to the perspective is that it’s hard to judge where exactly a platform
is meant to be floating in the air – especially with the absence of shadows.
Often the only sure way to find out is through trial and error.
In fact naysayers often lament the difficulty of the diagonal jumps - however I found the
learning curve to be extremely reasonable.
Beginning dungeons ease you into the mechanics of jumping with the challenge gradually increasing
as the story progresses.
Later dungeons are indeed difficult, and you will backtrack through multiple rooms to reattempt
frustrating jumps.
But the task is never impossible, and the truly rage-inducing feats of inhuman skill
are generally reserved for optional side-quests and unlocking special gear.
I won’t say the game didn’t occasionally reduce me to screaming unintelligible strings
of profanity but you’re expected to earn completionest status and I can’t say that’s
a bad thing.
I genuinely appreciate how each dungeons is distinctive, both visually and objectively.
Some emphasize the game’s hack and slash combat, others might focus mainly on platform
jumping or block puzzles.
One dungeon is nearly devoid of monsters and instead features a series of brain teasers
and riddles.
This sort of gameplay variety keeps Landstalker feeling fresh and rewards the player for sticking
through the tougher objectives.
My one nagging complaint with the game has to be the diagonal controls.
Granted you can’t have an isometric game without diagonals, and for the most part movement
is surprisingly fluid.
But it can be aggravatingly difficult to nudge Nigel in the right direction, something you’ll
need to do frequently when jumping or placing blocks requires any degree of precision.
More often than not, you’ll nudge Nigel right off a platform- an annoying setback
to say the least.
Otherwise Landstalker is solid gaming experience backed by a humorous storyline - easily ranking
amongst the best RPGs the system has to offer.