Let's Talk OHR - Fantasy Under A Blue Moon X

I'll be honest; the lack of discussion regarding OHRRPGCE games these days is pretty sad. In hopes of creating some dialogue specifically about OHRRPGCE games, I've started this thread (which will hopefully blossom into similar threads in the future).

In a similar format to Spoon's "weekly game talk" of the past (and Camdog's book club before that), a game will be selected in which we can discuss for a time. I realize that a week like before may be too short for some people, so we can just continue the discussion for as long as needed and simply move on to the next topic once this one "dies".

If this becomes successful, I may copy our discussion onto the Hamster Wheel as to have them archived and viewable on another site as well. If people have problems with that, I'll probably just copy my own dialogue instead of the entire thing.

First up is Fantasy Under A Blue Moon X (Version 4, specifically)



Downloads

Version 1.1
Version 3
Version 4

FUABMX, while being an old title, should be pretty well known to most people in the community. Author White Owl released several versions of this game, and in the old days it caught quite a lot of attention due to its amazing graphics for the time. While not as impressive as back then, some of the graphics still hold up to this day. I personally have always been impressed by his battle backdrops, and they still rank among the best in OHR history.



Despite appearing in most OHRRPGCE Top # polls, I question why we hold it in such high regard. Don't get me wrong, I was a FUABMX fan boy back in the day. However, I decided to go back and play through version 4 recently in hopes of writing a review on it. Unfortunately, I don't think I will be able to finish it this time.

Perhaps my tastes have changed, or maybe it simply wasn't as I remember, but I cannot make myself play the game any more.

For starters, the college-like humor (particularly from Kain) in the early parts of the game get pretty old quick. There's only so many times you can joke about a certain topic before it gets annoying.



Outside of that, I didn't find the combat near as engaging as I once thought it was. Special abilities, at least in the early part of the game, aren't worth the magic points they cost to use, which makes you end up spamming the basic attack through your 3-5 minute fights. Early bosses are the same way, outside of you having to heal basically every turn. To me, there simply isn't enough strategy involved to keep me interested given the length of fights.

Saying that FUABMX is grindy is a bit of an understatement, as you will be doing hours of it in order to progress.



This may be one of the last times I play the game, simply because it isn't fun to me any more. Removing my rose tinted glasses for a minute made me realize that perhaps I adored this game before because there weren't many titles with decent graphics in the old days. I can see the appeal to those that like an old school combat grind, but other than that I can't think of any other reason to recommend it.

What do you remember about this game? What was your favorite version? Would you recommend it to others?

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Cornbread Chemist

Don't think I ever actually played this one, though I know I've heard the name before.

The graphics are an odd mix of really nice and "ehh..." to me. I like the big mammoth and the cave battle-backdrop, and the towns on the world map look really good too, and the patches of lighter yellow-green grass are nice also... but the walkabouts/heroes are oddly chunky (it works a bit better with the battle graphics vs. the walkabouts) and the land/water is a little awkward in places (that narrow strip of "beach/grass/beach" between the two waterfalls on the map screenshot you posted is a good example of that. It doesn't look like the waterfalls should work like that, and the beach/grass/beach again transition on such a narrow strip of land looks really odd too.)

Literal hours of grinding just to get through the game doesn't sound fun at all.

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FYS:AHS -- Swapping out some step-on NPCs for zones + each step script
Puckamon -- Not until the reserve party is expanded.[/size]

I'm with you on the graphics. There are definitely some strong points but there's an equal amount of meh in there as well. I do think I remember seeing them as great in the past because games with decent graphics back in the day were just few and far between.

The grinding would be tolerable to me if there was more strategy, or the fights were just shorter altogether, or both. As it stands you auto attack for a few minutes each fight, which isn't particularly my idea of fun.

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Cornbread Chemist

I remember that one of the versions of FUABMX relied on a level-up bug for proper stat progression, and after the bug was fixed it became unbeatable even with copious grinding-- but I don't think it was version 4?

I remember being most impressed by the enemy sprites.

I also seem to vaguely remember the existence of a V5 that probably never saw the light of day. While Owl's tendency to start over from scratch was dismaying

FUABMX was legendary for its good graphics back in its day, and while it's not exactly ugly, it's nothing we'd praise nowadays (except that mammoth, which is legit great). It's probably the best example of how community standards have changed over the years.

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Mega Tact v1.1
Super Penguin Chef
Wizard Blocks

I remember OOIA poking around awhile back for the 4.5 version. Not sure if they ever got a hold of that or not though.



This, for sure, though I suppose it is good that the standards have been raised as much as they have.

Got to give the dude one thing though, he was determined to improve his graphics each time he updated to a new version. He definitely succeeded that, especially if you go back and look at V1.1 today. World of a difference.

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Cornbread Chemist

I downloaded it once, I think, back in 2005 or so but I either never played it or played only a few minutes and then deleted it after I got bored.

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Remeber: God made you special and he loves you very much. Bye!

I remember playing this a few times in the day, but I don't feel like I ever got far in it. I do remember that there was this great glitch where if you equipped/unequipped your armor just right you'd start buggin your stats and you could just hold down enter to gain enormous power. I never minded the humor either, there's this one joke about Madonna doing nude photos that's still relevant to this day.

One reason I think the game is so revered, looking at the screenshot, is all the trees and bushes and cities. Remember this was the dark ages before the Mark and Clone tools, before we had access to multiple tilesets, when the only layer to play with was the overhead layer. Everything on your map had to fit into an exact 320x200 set, and if you wanted to have your trees on grass AND on dirt that was extra tiles.

Those walkabouts are the epitome of OHR Walkabouts to me. All the dudes now try to make 'em sexy and svelte, but he was okay to let 'em be big ol' fatheads with Michelin man arms. Those were probably the biggest influence to my walkabouts for a long time, until Flamer did fantastic work on Mormon Mission and I started ripping him off instead.

Been a long time since I played it, but isn't the first part of the game mostly walking around a military "campus" talking to a bunch of goofballs? A lot like Motrya, come to think of it. Maybe OHRers have always liked that kind of thing.

I load up this game nowadays and I'm still goddamn impressed by the graphics. Yes they're kind of pillowshady but they're so detailed and colorful. And BIG.

The heterobronormative-meets-weeaboo dialogue is a bit too much for me to handle these days, though. It's really kind of nauseating and makes me abandon any hopes of getting into the characters or storyline (I forget if it's any good or not). I do remember it being terribly grindy and the pacing being kind of bad from when I played it in the early 00s. Still, fond memories though. One of the most exciting game projects to be produced in the first 5 years of the OHRRPGCE, to be certain.

Also, does Warriors of Conway still exist? Or has it been cast to the abyss of Web 1.0 along with Get Netscape buttons, embedded MIDI and Xoom?

EDIT:
Wait, damn it. I was thinking of some other game I can't remember the name of and I can't remember if it was even by White Owl. It was old though, like 1998 era.

Wasn't this the one where the author said the game was so hard even he hadn't beaten it?

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Super Walrus Land: Mouth Words Edition

http://www.castleparadox.com/archive/operationohr/gamelist-display.php?username=The%2520Warriors%2520of%2520Conway

is the best I can find. If I remember right, the dude showed up out of nowhere on CastleParadox about 3 to 10 years ago and apparently had been having a lot of problems. Said he was still working on stuff but then vanished back into nothing.

Yeah that isn't it, it was something a lot more primitive looking. Did White Owl release any other games besides FUABMX?

Yep, though the dialogue is more in tune to a high school rather than a supposedly bad-hiney military academy.



You sure it wasn't v1.1? That was pre-2000s for sure.

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Cornbread Chemist

FUABMX v1.1 is from early 1998; it has the distinction of being the third oldest OHR .rpg still around (that I've managed to find), after a Wandering Hamster demo and Heart of Riva Lite. You can't play it with the latest engine version; there are too many things broken.

I asked Rya, since he's the expert on FUAMBX. He told me each version of FUAMBX was a complete remake, with entirely new graphics (except walkabouts?), and changes in graphical style and plot. V4 isn't necessarily the best in all regards. None were complete.

He said FUAMBX v3 was the very hard version, and he had to exploit a chest giving out infinite healing potions and do an unbelievable amount of grinding to beat it.

I remember that White Owl posted screenshots (of battle backdrops I think) of FUABMX v5 on Zantetsuken shortly before those forums were removed. His backdrops (even back in v1.1 I see) got a big boost from his signature tiled-perspective style, which I don't think anyone else emulated for a long time.

I only ever tried FUABMX v4. I think I managed to grind my way though the first dungeon, a basement with rats, and part way into the caves before giving up. I'm just not keen on fighting lots of battles.

Sure, the walkabouts and some of the tiles now look bad or rushed, but I still think that the overall mixture of bad and good adds up to a nice looking game. Some more screenshots of V4:






This battle is my most prominent memory of the game. If you talk to the wrong NPC in the bar in the first town you get into a fight you're many levels away from being able to survive. I thought it was unfair at the time, but I guess it's unlikely that you'd lose significant progress.


And here's some screenshots of V3 including some parallel parts: