๐ง Written: March 27th-April 4th, 2021 ๐ง
Originally reviewed on: September 18th, 2020
I scored it: a 6.0 out of 10, okay
Do I agree with the score I gave? Yes and no, but I stand by a lot of what I said
Oh, Young Merlin, whatever happened to you during development? It is certainly an interesting game with a promising conceit behind it (taking control of a younger incarnation of Merlin), and has all the makings of a good or even a great action-adventure game on the SNES... sadly the way the gameplay is handled hampers any chances of living up to that lofty premise. And really, that is a shame because there was so much going for it.
Left: Surrounded by hogs | Right: "C'mon here and fight! Get' im!", is what I think it said
Apparently it started off as an attempt to make an SNES conversion of Westwood Studios' beloved PC-based point-and-click graphic adventure Fables & Fiends: Book One - The Legend of Kyrandia, but I haven't seen any further elaboration or screenshots to confirm this which I take means they changed it to the game it would become fairly early on. I'm not sure whether the publisher Virgin Interactive steered Westwood wrong and dissuaded them because aside from Nintendo's Mario Paint the mouse-controlled Nintendo 16-bit games weren't really making a profit in the West or if the people at Westwood themselves completely and totally second-guessed themselves along the way; and I haven't seen any behind the scenes or retrospective interviews regarding this game so all one can do is speculate... and even then we might not know what truly happened.
Left: Sterm telling his daughter, "Melody, there's a thieving creeper hiding behind that ridiculously small tree" | Right: Hedge monsters galore
To be fair there is a lot to like and appreciate about this action-adventure game, it's just unfortunate that none of it does enough to justify the unsatisfying quality as a whole. There is an unmistakable American aesthetic when it comes to its imaginative visual design and endearingly cartoony and expressively over-the-top character design and animation, the variety of its settings (like the lush green valley, the hedge maze in Pinedale, or the flower-riddled location in the rainbow) are engrossing, it's got a Frank Klepacki soundtrack that is equal parts enthralling and atmospheric and bouncy complete with an endearing sense of sound design, and it's replete with fun and creative situations and scenarios:
Left: Refilling a bottle with the healing water | Right: Meeting up with a mermaid
like how there is this one moment early on where a Meanie hashes a line on the log bridge provoking Merlin to cross, in the mines you can crawl through a hole to either get transported to a different portion of the place or get eaten up by a creature, underwater you must maintain your breath gauge by having a mermaid breathe air onto you and avoid losing it by getting spun around by a catfish being chased by a dogfish or a literal hammer shark hammering Merlin in the head, I like the puzzles that are heavily influenced by Thinking Rabbit's Sลkoban franchise, and I like that the colored gems form up a rainbow with each one you throw in the pond.
Left: Casolari's audible "GASP" gets me every time, it's endearing ๐ | Right: Pushing
Presentation-wise it's unique and boasting with vibrant color, and aside from the "Meanwhile..." transitions Young Merlin doesn't have any words of dialogue in it at all which is an admirable and refreshing way of progressing the story for this genre on pure visual and minimalistic interactions with the NPCs, and I appreciate the largely forgiving continue system which in a better game would've given it a pick up and play flavor. Unfortunately it is beset by problems starting with the gameplay as the default star weapon requires you to be close within range of the enemies and bosses so that you actually damage them, and with the secondary weapons any time you use them you must wait until they recharge which might take a few seconds (even if it's in a situation where you have to continuously move around and maneuver away from enemies and bosses),
Left: That's a fun and charming visual right there | Right: The dreaded rail boarding sequence
as well-laid out the area designs are for the most part they are very small and short in design which is keenly felt anytime you revisit them as there's good chunk of going back and forth after procuring a vital item or a rainbow gem which makes the game feel a bit redundant whenever that's the case, the penultimate boss (with the slime monster in the narrow corridor) is swear-worthy levels of annoying and obnoxiously handled, and speaking of obnoxious handling: those damn rail board sequences are something else--on paper they sound fun and creative,
Left: Using a mirrored decoy to distract the winged eyeballs so you can attack them with ease | Right: Inflating upwards
but in practice they feel so overlong as you have to make the correct turns and tilt away from the broken side of the rail with exact precision and timing lest you wish to start from the beginning (that they're backed up by such a bouncy theme makes them even more annoying) and the final sequence is a boss rehash interconnected by this. Some moments I genuinely felt as if the designers were taking the active piss with what is arguably the worst aspect of Young Merlin; I'll just settle for the briefer non-convoluted rail board sequences from Argonaut Software's Croc 2/Croc Adventure, thanks.
I lament, but at least it's not the secondhand embarrassment that is the "Special Presentation" ending of Spot Goes to Hollywood 32-bit edition done by Westwood's sister company Burst Studios
But the final nail in the coffin for me is two-fold: the way things wrap up in the end feel highly unsatisfying, after the Shadow King's been defeated Merlin celebrates his victory and gets knocked out cold and when we quickly fade back in he's lying in front of his cabin. What... what happened in-between? Did the NPCs Merlin rescue drag him back after the fact and simply call it a day?? Talk about unceremonious, this just feels anticlimactic and honestly makes the proceedings feel highly disingenuous. What did I even play it for at this point? ... Was this game a joke this whole time? But the most disheartening thing is if you collected all thirteen heart slots it's revealed that this game amounted to nothing more than a contest title (all while staring at Merlin's cabin as he chases a Meanie offscreen trying to reclaim Melody's pendant he dropped), because who looks at an action-adventure and thinks, "Hey, I wonder if there's some sort of contest regarding this game"?
Image cropped from Young Merlin manual scan on the SNES RPG Gaming Weebly website
Because I didn't physically own the manual as I got the game with the dust protector at the bottom of the cart I had to look up the scan of it online to look into the details of the competition, and the third prize consisted of a Young Merlin t-shirt which was promised to a hundred people. Out of curiosity I decided to check on Google to see if Young Merlin t-shirts were genuinely real, but some of the search results were the PAL SNES cover art and one shirt with a manji symbol in the hateful context (๐ฌ๐ฌ๐ฌ), which is when I was like, "Uh uh, not worth it, nope!", so I gave up seeing if those shirts did exist.
Left image cropped from Young Merlin manual scan on the SNES RPG Gaming Weebly website; wait, are both edges of Merlin's manacles part of his skin?? ๐ฌ EEEEEWWWW!!!! ๐
And since I've shown an image from the manual, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about Merlin's character design in the manual contrasting with his in-game design. I mean, the overall character outline is there, it just doesn't feel like he belongs in the same game aesthetically. There's a chance he might still be a teenager with his build, he just looks a lot older and less goofy than his in-game appearance plus he looks like he jumped out of an old animated show from the likes of Hanna-Barbera or Filmation.
Left: Seriously, Nimuรซ, you should really get your eyes checked, they look like they're squinting uncomfortably | Right: Oh no, Merlin's casting the SNOVID-21 spell, somebody stop him! ๐ฑ
It just... I don't think Westwood cared about making a quality game here, and they seemed like a decent company as I've seen footage of their first two The Legend of Kyrandia games and those seem like they are fun games (or at least, the dialogue sounds fun). As a marriage of action-adventure and point-and-click Young Merlin just did not work out, and one of the biggest misfortunes is that it peaks at its earliest and never lives up to those early moments for the remainder of it. Say what you will about Tonkin House's Nintendo 16-bit port of Nihon Falcom's Ys III: Wanderers from Ys or the Nintendo 16-bit Kotobuki conversions of Infogrames' Drakkhen and Zoom's Lagoon, at least in terms of enjoyment value they are more or less consistent throughout which is more than I can say for this game--plus none of those games made you feel like you wasted your time as they ended on a reasonably satisfying note.
Left: Confronting the red dragon Cinder | Right: Tilting to make a left turn
On the subject of Nintendo 16-bit adventure games completely devoid of dialogue and yet manage to progress the story through visual, a game I was recommended shortly after I got Young Merlin was K.K. DCE's Ikari no Yลsai (actually MotherKojiro recommended Operation Logic Bomb, but I went with the Super Famiversion because I'm picky about which version I play if it's a Nintendo 16-bit game plus the Western title structure made no sense to me) which is more enjoyable and entertaining to play if not more challenging as a mixture of action-adventure and top-down run'n gun action, which is funny because I had actually been curious about that title for some time but the moment I learn its story is progressed with no dialogue I knew I just had to go for it (plus I like Jaleco content nine times out of ten, thanks for suggesting it, MK), but that's neither here nor there. As point-and-click titles go I find more joy playing Revolution Software's Broken Sword series, Perfect Entertainment's two Discworld games (for the most part) based on the late Terry Pratchett's book franchise, and The Illusion Gaming Company's short but endearingly underrated Monty Python-flavored Blazing Dragons.
Left: The slime monster redux battle is the worst | Right: Fighting against the Shadow King's true form
It does pain me to be hard on Young Merlin because the truth is Westwood almost had something here, but something happened which caused the quality to derail itself. It's charming to a point, it's likable to a point, it's creatively feasible to a point, it's engaging to a point, and it could work as a guilty pleasure... up to a point, but the fact that it's the smallest and shortest console-based action-adventure game of the '90s is still incredibly hard to believe. I'm not saying it should take itself seriously, but a more meaningful ending that is not the equivalent of the developer giving up altogether (despite there not being much in the way of plot) would've been much more appreciated. It's not a bad or unplayable game (there are far worse out there), it's harmlessly okay but in the end it just never delivered on its premise which makes it underwhelming. Young Merlin is a curious mess with squandered potential. ๐d(^-^)bTO EACH THEIR OWNd(^-^)b
● My "I Want to Talk Some More of" series (which I should probably consider a new title for, but whatever) is meant to serve as an another (non-review based) opportunity to thoroughly cover a game I talked about in the past as I secretly feel a twinge of regret any time I finish a review because it feels like the only time I talk about a game in detail is when I review it and once finished that time's up and I move on to the next game. ๐ I shouldn't have to have an excuse to continue talking about a game some more, but some games I feel I have more to say about them. "I Want to Talk Some More of" is not a CliffNotes version of a review or a review (it's not a review unless the title post has the word "review" in it) but a chance to cover it once more (albeit not as long). I'll still do reviews which take time to do, but I figure once in awhile I'll throw in an "I Want to Talk Some More of" post.
● This marks as the final StarBlog post before I turn thirty on April 5th, 2021.
Thank you for reading, please leave a comment and let me know what you think (neither spam nor NSFW allowed); hope you have a great day, be a nice human, keep yourself protected during this pandemic, and take care!
