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Reader review by overdrive
June 16, 2004 So, how would you react if you were confronted by the events that transpire in Square Super Famicom role-playing game Rudra No Hihou? Let’s just say that you’re sitting at home, a cold beer in front of you and the big game on the tube. Just an ordinary day in an ordinary life....a life about to be changed forever. Things quickly spiral downward as you learn the horrible news that our fair planet will be altered permanently, as humanity will be destroyed in order to pave the way for a new dominant race to take over. Only you and a motley assortment of strangers can save the world....and you only have 15 days to do so.Not the most enviable of scenarios for the average everyday couch potato, is it? Fortunately the heroes of Rudra No Hihou are made of much stouter stuff than you -- all you have to do is guide them as they endeavor to overcome beings beyond their comprehension in a last desperate chance to save mankind.
Regardless of how you look at things, that is not an easy task -- and Rudra No Hihou is not an easy game. Regardless of how much you level up or how great your equipment is -- you will risk death at every corner as powerful and cunning foes unleash a seemingly unending assortment of brutally powerful attacks. The often-overlooked concept of elemental defense becomes ABSOLUTELY crucial to victory, as boss after boss proves quite proficient at whittling your hit point total down to zero without even breaking a sweat.
No, this is not an easy game (and the story can be nearly impossible to follow at times), but it is rewarding. Beautiful in appearance and sound (think Final Fantasy 3/6, but better), this game is one of the rare RPGs that a skilled player can truly feel a sense of accomplishment over conquering.
From the beginning, you’ll realize that Square has plenty in store for those willing to shoulder the burden of saving the world. You have three separate characters to control through the 15 days leading to the planned destruction of humanity. Choose to initially take control of Sion the soldier, Surlent the scholar or Riza, the girl destined to cure the world of the ravages of pollution.
With the option to switch between characters nearly at will -- by saving and resetting the game and simply picking a new character -- you’ll be able to watch Sion, Surlent and Riza find party members to shoulder the load in battle, occasionally interact with each other and meet loads of friendly and hostile characters in locales ranging from the hellish Netherworld to the heavenly Sky Islands. The way in which your three separate characters interact with these people and monsters adds a certain layer of depth to this game that's not present in many RPGs. After suffering a humiliating defeat to Riza, one particularly cunning villain resurfaces in a completely different part of the world to become a major thorn in Surlent’s side for a number of days. A powerful being that assists Surlent on multiple occasions proves to be Sion’s most deadly foe. A pair of thieves that constantly pop up to annoy all three characters prove to be crucial to your hopes of victory.
Even more innovative and intriguing is this game’s magic system. Instead of gaining new spells (mantras) by leveling up or spending cash at the local magic shop, you must figure them out by talking to the right people (or opening the correct chests) and then inputting the nonsensical words given to you into the “Enscribe” screen. Adding the proper prefixes (or suffixes) to your spell name may make it more powerful (and more costly to cast). While only a certain number of mantras, prefixes and suffixes will be given to you through the course of gameplay, the possibilities are still endless, as you can input any combination of letters to potentially make a mantra -- making this game’s magic system far deeper than virtually every other game out there. You don’t need to experiment to win, but you can find some great mantras you wouldn’t get any other way by dedicating a little (or lot) of your time to making your own spells.
And take my word on it -- obtaining the proper mantras and using them at the right time is a necessity in this game. Having the right equipment to take on bosses is even more necessary. Most pieces of armor give you resistance to one of this game’s six elements -- however, by gaining resistance to one element, you’ll become very vulnerable to the opposite element. For example, if Sion equips a Moon Ring, Dark attacks will have very little impact on him.....but if an enemy blasts him with a good Light attack, you’ll be scrambling to either heal or resurrect the unfortunate chap before the next attack comes his way. Throughout the entire game, but especially toward the end, making sure you aren’t weak to the element (or elements) used by each boss is crucial to even having a chance of winning.
Fortunately, understanding the game’s overly-convoluted plot isn’t so crucial. You’ll find yourself facing divine representations of each of the game’s five races (known as Rudras), as well as many lesser enemies from those races and a quartet of godlike beings referred to as “The Greats” (Square’s version of Lufia’s Sinistrals, these beings haughtily survey all you do, only deigning to enter the fray when you dare to step in their path) and wondering exactly why all these eclectic beings are so determined to throw themselves into confrontation with you -- especially when many seem to bear no actual malice toward you, but are more intent on “testing” you for future trials.
Luckily for you, when the game’s awkward attempts to explain the story start to give you a headache, you can just lean back and enjoy the beautiful graphics and music Rudra no Hihou has to offer. As said before, battle scenes look very similar to Final Fantasy 3/6 with one major improvement -- animation. Enemies and characters all move fluidly and (in most cases) look damn good in doing so. Bosses are large and detailed -- ranging from oddities such as an enormous two-headed bird to more ordinary RPG foes such as the dastardly giant Surt. Also helping to set the mood is this game’s excellent music, which is as good as it gets on the Super Famicom. From epic battle tunes to ominous dungeon dirges and cheerful town melodies, Rudra No Hihou delivers a wonderful array of 16-bit melodies that never once encouraged me to mute the sound.
And with this game, those aesthetic touches can make all the difference, as there are a number of minor, nagging flaws that would be quite damaging if not for the sheer beauty presented by the world of Rudra. A lot of this game’s appeal is the “15 days to Doomsday” threat. Only having a limited amount of time to save your planet SHOULD give one a sense of urgency, right? Sadly, Rudra completely fails in this aspect, as the game’s “days” are determined by objectives, rather than actual units of time. You can spend hours building up levels and waste an infinite number of “nights” at the local inn, but no time will actually pass in the game until you've accomplished whatever objectives necessary for the game’s clock to tick off another day.
Speaking of leveling up, it’s way too easy to boost characters in this game. As I said before, due to the brutality of enemy elemental attacks in Rudra, you’ll need some degree of strategy no matter what -- but, with a little time, you can definitely give your heroes a much greater margin of error. Located in nearly all of the game’s caves, dungeons, towers, etc. is a jar that can be used an infinite number of times to fully restore your life and magic. All one needs to do is find this jar and run circles around it, fighting a constant series of random battles for as long as it takes to add a few levels onto each member of your party. After a few hours of play, I started to find many dungeons to be a tedious exercise in power-leveling followed by a brutally difficult boss encounter.
Still, while Rudra’s ambitious concept wasn’t carried out to perfection, this game deserves consideration as one of the better 16-bit role-players. Not only is it beautiful to both the eyes and ears, but will give you quite the challenge as you immerse yourself in the deep magic system, separate storylines and diverse world. Rudra No Hihou is not a perfect game, but it’s good enough to make one wonder why Square and/or Nintendo decided to not release it in America -- especially since all they’d have to do is throw the Final Fantasy name on somehow (like they were fond of doing with their early GameBoy releases) to make it a hit.
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