Developer: Fun Project Publisher: Victor Interactive Release: 03/24/89 Genre: Action RPG
Action RPGs were few and far between on the Turbo Grafx-16, both in the US and Japan. At least this applies to the Hucard format. Most of the best and most well-known games in the genre found their home on the CD add-on. But there were some interesting card games out there. If Neutopia takes, *ahem*, “inspiration” from the Legend of Zelda Shiryō Sensen War of the Dead is clearly patterned after Zelda II. Like that game it is interesting, both story and gameplay wise. But also like Zelda II War of the Dead has crippling flaws that will turn away many potential fans.
The town of Chaney Hill has been cut off from the rest of the world. Monsters have infested the town but no one knows where they are coming from. When the town went silent investigative forces including the police, armed forces, and the government were sent to investigate. But none returned. Even Chaney Hill’s own special force, S-Swat was unable to fight back the monsters. Rookie S-Swat member Lila arrives to the town late and must now rescue as many survivors possible while also uncovering what is going on in the city.
War of the Dead originally released for the MSX in 1987 with ports to the PC-88 and PC Engine following two years later. Each successive version of the game adds and removes many elements of the game, some for the better and some for the worse. On the Turbo Grafx War of the Dead is almost a remake that uses the same story and framework but reworks the gameplay significantly. For a long time War of the Dead was impenetrable to non-native speakers as it is story heavy with triggers that are not readily apparent. The fan translation makes the game accessible finally. The question now is the game worth the wait?
Mechanically this version of War of the Dead is the most distinct. The game takes after Zelda II in many ways. Like that game you explore the overworld with occasional random battles. These are on a small battleground based on location against random enemies. Like Nintendo’s classic you can exit by walking off the left or right of the screen. The game has a leveling system but experience comes from blue orbs dropped by enemies. This means not every enemy drops experience; some drop health orbs, psi, or ammunition. Normally this would make grinding tedious. But once you know which enemies drop exp orbs it is simple. Weapons now use ammunition with all guns sharing from a common pool of bullets. They use varying amounts which means you need to grind bullets frequently which sucks. There is no day/night cycle and you no longer need to sleep to recharge health.
War of the Dead has a large cast which is the main thrust of the game. You must find the surviving townspeople to bring them back to the Church for safety. As you progress the story unfolds slowly and you learn what really happened in Chaney Hill. However you cannot simply choose any random location to find someone. The game works on triggers; you need to speak to specific people to trigger the next event. Even if you stumble across someone unless their flag has been triggered the game will not progress. This makes War of the Dead linear despite the freedom to explore the entire world early. They try their best to guide you but it falls short frequently. You frequently have to return to the Church to speak to everyone multiple times or visit an entirely different location that is not specified. This is the game’s major flaw.
War of the Dead is not difficult so much as it is tedious. The way the game calculates random battles is different from the norm. Rather than initiating combat after a set number of steps the game instead randomly rolls a number every second to determine when or how many battles will occur. Sometimes it means you can travel for minutes at a time with no combat. Other times battles will occur frequently and even repeatedly. I have had as many as three encounters happen consecutively without touching the controller. I noticed battles occur less when on the overworld map. But once you enter a location it is a coin toss as to how annoying the game will be. Combat would not be so bad if there were more enemies. Unfortunately this version has twelve versus thirty eight in the other versions. The repetition is noticeable after an hour.
This is the game’s other critical failing. At first it is not much of a hassle as early “dungeons” are short. But by the midpoint you explore massive areas like the ruins and castle multiple times. You will venture deep in to the ruins no less than six times for the most asinine reasons that could have been truncated. The repetitive trudging back and forth becomes excessively bad as the game is terrible at guiding the player. You need to speak to specific people to trigger the next event but it is not always obvious. Sometimes the trigger did not activate on the first try in my case. Combined with the at times atrocious encounter rate the game grows stale fast. To its credit it is easy to leave combat without damage. But they could and should have managed these aspects of the game better as they are critical.
In Closing
I have mixed feelings regarding War of the Dead. For every one element I like there is another that I cannot stand. I like the premise and its Zelda 2 style gameplay. But the repetition of shuffling back and forth between the same locations gets to be too much. Better pacing would do wonders for this game. As it is this one is a hard sell. Whatever fun there is to be had evaporates long before the conclusion unfortunately.
