Neutopia

"Reminds me of some other game..."

The Turbo-Grafx-16. Ask your average gamer what they thought of this system and the response you're likely to get is ''Turbo-wha?'' Indeed, while the Turbo did rather well in Japan, in the United States (My place of residence, if you couldn't figure it out) the system was known primarily for the CD game Ys Book I & II and the horrible ''Johnny Turbo'' ad campaign. The Turbo actually had a decent lifespan of about 5 years, but except for Ys, it spent pretty much all of that time in the shadow of the big-time systems of the day.

Neutopia was actually released fairly early on in the system's life. And indeed, it's one of the gems on the system that never really had its chance to shine. In Neutopia, you play as the elf, Link, in the land of Hyrule. Princess Zelda has been kidnapped by the nefarious piglike creature Ganon, and....no, wait, I'm thinking of some other game that I can't quite place at the moment. Forgive me. I think it was on the NES....

Actually, the protagonist in Neutopia is Jazeta, whom the game refers to as ''Our hero Jazeta'' whenever you grab an item (Yes, I'm serious. I suppose this is to reassure the player that the character they control hasn't suddenly gone evil at any given time.). Your lovely damsel-in-distress is Princess Aurora, and the Scourge of All Men to Come is the evil Dirth. What is Dirth's reason for kidnapping the Princess Named After Light? Well, it seems that eight wise men once sealed up Dirth, and stored the secret to keeping him locked up in Medallions, with one medallion per wise man. Guess what? Princess Aurora is the only one who knows the secret to using these Medallions, so it falls to Jazeta to obtain these Medallions from 8 Labyrinths and/or Crypts (Whichever one the game decides to call the dungeons at any given moment; more on that later), defeat Dirth, and rescue Princess Aurora.

In any event, your quest, particularly on first glance, will conjure up images in your head of that NES game I mentioned earlier. It certainly seems similar from my description, right? Hero has to collect 8 of something, defeat an Evil Meanie(TM), and rescue a Princess...hmm. And granted, a few minutes of time with Neutopia will do nothing to dispel this notion. You go about in an overhead perspective. You bomb suspicious looking walls. You burn down trees, stalactites, and whatever else you come across, trying to find secret entrances. You stab enemies with a sword. Upon beating a Labyrinth/Crypt/Whatever-You-Want-To-Call-It, you gain an extra life container.

Lastly, the translation will remind you of that NES game whose name I can't place. It's not so much that the translation is bad, per se (No ''DODONGO DISLIKES SMOKE'' or ''ONES WHO DOES NOT HAVE TRIFORCE CAN'T GO IN'' here...), but you get the impression that whoever translated the game was rushed at times. For one, the people you converse with like to interchange ''Labyrinth'' and ''Crypt''. This would be fine, except that from what I can tell they're supposed to be two different things. So when they mention one or the other, you have to wonder, are they talking about a dungeon? The last room in the dungeon? What?

It's also worth noting that laziness reigned in either the naming or translating of the best equipment in the game. In a stroke of genius, they're called ''Strongest Sword'', ''Strongest Armor'' and ''Strongest Shield''. Again, I'm being dead serious.

But fear not! Neutopia is not just some lame imitation game. No, it has its own unique charms that make it worth playing, even for veterans of the genre. For one, while most games of this sort give you only one or, at most, two worlds to travel through, Neutopia bestows upon the adventurer a whopping four--Earth, Caves, Seaside, and Sky. You access them one by one for every two dungeons you beat. And these lands are not mere palette swaps of one another either! Each land is unique, with its own challenges and enemies to overcome. In addition, there is a better-than-average-for-the-time selection of weapons and armor in this game--four each of sword, shield and armor.

The penultimate jewel in this game’s crown, however, is the impeccable pacing. It doesn't matter how long you've been playing; the design of finding a better piece of equipment in each dungeon and opening new worlds with every two dungeons you conquer mean you'll want to keep playing. The game draws you in and makes sure you don't stop until you've collected one more item, beaten one more boss, opened up one more world....

Your quest will be aided by the responsive controls. Jazeta walks in four directions with great responsiveness, and the control system is a snap, though it too will remind you of...dammit, what was that game? I think it began with a Z....in any case, button I stabs with your sword, and button II uses whatever special item you happen to be using. Run brings up a menu where you can select the item you'd like to use. This is all well and good, especially given the fact it's an adventure game.

Neutopia's graphics are functional--nothing more, nothing less. While it's obvious the system wasn't restricted to 1X1 ''tile'' sprites like that NES game (Still not remembering the name, by the way), at the same time, there's nothing here to blow your mind and make you bug out your eyes when you feast them upon the visuals for the first time. And yet, there's also nothing here to give you eye strain as you try desperately to figure out what it could be; everything is as well-defined as it needs to be.

Likewise, the aural portion of Neutopia does the job. The music doesn't have the same memorable quality as some other adventure games, but then there's nothing so bad it'll haunt you in your dreams either. The sound effects are pretty much the same, except for a few that don't fit at all; the sound of Jazeta's sword stabbing is a nice crystalline effect (Which actually sounds better than I'm describing it), and the taking damage effect is a weird ''bloobing!''

Despite the cosmetic shortfalls, Neutopia is a great adventure game. If you liked that wildly popular NES game, you'll love this harder-to-find Turbo-Grafx one; the game's variety (For the time) of worlds and method of upgrading your equipment draw you in and keep you playing until you've partaken of the entire experience. And then you might even play it again for kicks. Grab this one any way you can.

...ZELDA! That's what it was....

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 09/07/02, Updated 09/07/02