Virtual Hydlide for Sega Saturn Review

[ReddMcKnight]

Ah, Hydlide. For the NES, it was okay, but that music...geez. For the PC, it was awesome, and you could change the music. Now, for the Saturn...Three words come to mind. "What...The...Hell"? Yes, Virtual Hydlide for the Saturn has got to be the worst Saturn game I have ever played. Being such a huge fan of the original, when I read about this Remake, I was excited. So, I burned a copy and popped it into my Saturn using the swap trick, and boy, was I glad that I burned it instead of buying it. This game is absolutely terrible. Here's why:

The Gameplay: The Gameplay is that of an Action RPG. You walk around (really slowly), killing monsters and looking for treasure. The problem is, the action is about 5-10 Frames Per Second. When you attack monsters, you have to be directly in front of them, and in this game, getting in front of them can be lethal. By the time you finally do, you may be dead.

The Graphics: The graphics in this game are simply awful. Now, you won't usually hear me complain about graphics, but for this game, I'll make an exception. Just take a look at this:

See that? They're so awful, there are times when you can't even tell what's going on. This game is NOT pretty to look at.

The Music: The music is bland and unoriginal. It's so bland, I can't even describe it. Sorry everyone.

The Interesting Part: Perhaps the only interesting thing in this game is the fact that everytime you play, it generates a random game world for you to explore.

The Final Result: Words can't do this game justice. It's freaking awful. I really wish it had been better, because the version for PC is so much fun. Do yourself a favor, and avoid this game. I am not kidding. You've been warned.

Score: 1.5/10

[d123456]

Thanks for the warning.

[spiritplx]

I just recently played through this game. The game feels very unfinished. The only challenge to this game is having the will to actually complete it.

As for the navigation around enemies issue, I took advantage of positioning my character in the map screen, so that I could essentially instantly turn around and run away from enemies. The long range weapons in this game prove to be way too powerful, and made most of the boss fights extremely easy (just slightly time consuming).

The only boss I had trouble with is the mage towards the end, who keeps summoning skeletons and healing himself. That was annoying, to say the least. I used a slight exploit to take care of that fight.

One thing I didn't even realize until about the end of the game is that if you stand still, you regain hit points. I only knew of the bodies of water to regain your HP. So I guess I was playing on "super hard" mode... and it was still easy. I played it on hard mode, which means you can't see your destinations, but once you have revealed them on the map, you are still pointed to where to go next. The world map is small, and take only about 30 minutes to reveal the entire thing, so basically hard mode adds 30 minutes to your game play (I guess it further increases the willpower needed to get through this game).

What I liked about this game:
-the awesome opening video (youtube it)
-the game was short (~12 hours on hard mode, and I wasted a lot of time searching every last bit of every map) so the punishment didn't last too long.

The Genesis version, Super Hydlide, was way better than this game (played that one a couple of years ago). It did some things right, but lots of stuff wrong as well. The final boss fight of the Genesis game still has me laughing with how ridiculous it is.

You mentioned a PC version. Which version came out on PC?

[TEKTORO]

You guys are right this was one of my first saturn games since i reowned the system for a few months now.So what you guys are saying is very true about this game.It looks really bad,plays really bad and has no reason to be played so you have been warned.

[ReddMcKnight]

You mentioned a PC version. Which version came out on PC?

It was a remake of the original NES Version.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

Virtual Hydlide isn't good?! HOW CAN THIS BE???

[Despatche]

I feel the need to bump this thread and explain Hydlide as a series, because it's horribly misunderstood in every way.

The first Hydlide is not the late-NES game that a certain idiotic publisher made it out to be. It is much much older, predating games like Zelda and Ys by years and inspiring them, right after the original Dragon Slayer and The Tower of Druaga. All three games were released in 1984 and are rightfully regarded as classics in Japan, although The Tower of Druaga is a very different kind of game. The NES remake of Hydlide was originally released in 1986, not 1989, and never competed with anything.

It's an absolute shame that most of the planet is going to forever take this poor game completely out of context, which will also prevent them from ever being able to play the game with an open mind. Most people who claim to try are also people who are obsessed with this "aging" thing that already prevents them from playing anything that isn't protected by that "nostalgia". Dragon Slayer will never have this problem, because it happens to be Japan-only. Bizarrely, The Tower of Druaga has this problem, as it is routinely bashed ever since the Namco Museum release. It's another game taken completely out of context, but this context is a lot harder to deal with.

The series also had sequels well before Virtual Hydlide, which so many people do not know about. Hydlide II came out in 1985, still well before Zelda and Ys, and is absolutely nuts. The first game was a short Ys-like adventure. II is still like Ys, but it's much bigger and has a large number of strange gameplay systems. Only the equally-obscure Xanadu (the second Dragon Slayer game) can really compare to it, as it uses some of the same systems.

Then you have Hydlide 3 in 1987, a game that seems to resemble a more stereotypical action RPG. It scales down some of the crazier systems in II and overall refines the concept. Oh, and it still predates so many action RPGs, and is still a much bigger game. Only later games like Ys (1988) and Sorcerian (another sequel to Dragon Slayer, released a week after Hydlide 3) really compare to it.

Hydlide 3 was actually released outside of Japan, as Super Hydlide for the Mega Drive. So many people still don't know about it; those that do unfavorably compare it to games released later (the localization was released before ALttP and really only has the MS version of Ys, the original Zelda, and miscellaneous low-profile RPGs noone ever played to compare to), because they're a bunch of idiots who are forcing the game to stay tied to the eternal Hydlide localization meme.

Virtual Hydlide is... different. Bizarrely, it's an arcade-styled game that calls itself a remake of the very first game. Its arcade focus would make it a very interesting game, and it does a number of things right. Thing is, it also does a number of things horribly wrong, even in its correct context. They tried too hard and weren't able to get much done. I want to blame Mortal Kombat for this, but I fear that the digitized visuals kickstarted the entire project to begin with, just like with Donkey Kong Country.

Also, it has a pretty varied soundtrack that ranges from Koichi Sugiyama-styled music to tough FM rock (one of the few games to actually use the Saturn's FM). "Bland" and "unoriginal" are not terms I would use to describe this strange soundtrack.

[noiseredux]

kind of glad this thread got bumped. I don't know - that screen shot is kind of cool looking in my opinion.

[TEKTORO]

That's a still shot noise, once in motion your like omg what is everything. I love bad games but couldn't put enough effort to get anywhere. Certainly intriguing from a glance.