Lagoon

"This game was someone's idea of a joke."

There are three types of games in this world: good games, not-so-great games, and games that are so bad that you must let the world know about their existence. Lagoon is a perfect example of the latter category. This is one of those games that makes you reexamine every other game you have ever played and count the ways that they are NOT like Lagoon, making them better games in the process. But before I start to ramble, let me get on to the actual review:

Graphics: 6/10
The graphics are not bad for an SNES title released in 1991. A good amount of detail is noticeable in the sprites of people, houses, or just about anything else. Unfortunately the game has a tendency to reuse a lot of these sprites, making them not so great the second time around.

Sound: 5/10
The sound is a mixed bag. Actual sound effects are pretty unimpressive; some of them you'd swear came from a NES game. The music is a different story. Some tunes are pretty catchy and seem to fit the situation, whether it's roaming through a field full of monsters, or walking around in a peaceful village. Other tunes are very repetitive and get old very quickly, namely the music of the first dungeon, which reappears at least a few times.

Story: 3/10
It's as generic as you can get. This whole game just screams "generic", but the plot is especially stale. The land of Lakeland (yes, that's actually it's name) was once peaceful and prosperous. Recently, the waters of Lakeland have become muddy, and many people are getting sick/dead as a result. As NASIR, the Champion of the Light, you have a duty to find out what is behind the muddy water. The plot gets a few pity points because it at least attempts to have some character development on NASIR's part.

Gameplay: 1/10
Oh my god...... where do I begin?

Let's start with the biggest problem: your laughable excuse for a sword. As soon as you get your first sword and rush into the first dungeon to slay all the baddies with it, you notice that your sword CANNOT HIT ANYTHING. A normal person's arm is longer than what the game expects you to believe is NASIR's sword. So now you're thinking, "Well it's only the first sword. Later swords will be longer, right?" Wrong. The crappiness of your sword is one of the main contributors to the almost impossible difficulty of this game, which will be detailed later.

You get various magic spells too over the course of the game. The first few spells you learn are actually very useful because they allow you to attack things from far away. Unfortunately, many enemies are immune to magic, and later on the spells do pitiful damage, forcing you to rely on your sword.

Lagoon is also the only SNES game I've ever played that has a problem with the CAMERA. I'm surprised no one else has mentioned this in their review. NASIR has to be practically at the edge of the screen before the screen follows him. This leads to problems such as you walking into pits without even seeing them. Even navigating a town manages to be annoying because you can't even see what's in front of you.

Now back to the difficulty of this game. This game is extremely hard. Despite the enemies' terrible AI, which consists of "walk toward player" and "walk around in circles when player isn't near", you will find yourself getting killed by even simple enemies over and over again. Normally enemies bounce off your shield if you're facing them, but if you try to attack and they run into you first, then YOU get hurt instead, and bounce backwards far enough that your sword has no chance of hitting them.

The game also expects you to fight your way through several bosses with just your sword (magic is not allowed in boss fights, of course). The way to beat every single boss is as follows: find the one spot where you can hit the boss without him hitting you (which is generally extremely small), maneuver your way to that spot (which is made more frustrating by fast-moving bosses), and mash B until he dies, hoping you don't die first. I wish I were lying about this. So don't be ashamed if you die 100+ times on the first boss, because you're not the only one, I guarantee you.

Finally, the various dungeons in the game have the worst level design ever. All of them are long, confusing mazes where each passage looks exactly the same. Navigating the various mazes, coupled with sometimes repetitive music and stupidly hard enemies, will make you want to kill something (in real life).

Buy or Rent?
No.

Final Recommendation
I played this game all the way through, just so I could warn people about how crappy it is. If you ever see a copy of this game lying in the local bargain bin and think to yourself "Hmm, is this game really as bad as SupremeJoe said it was?", don't be tempted to buy the game and find out for yourself. If this review has prevented even one person from buying this game, then it was well worth it.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 02/15/06