Missed Classic: Dracula Hakushaku (ドラキュラ伯爵) - Lost (And Final Rating)

Written by Morpheus Kitami

Just what I've been doing for the past few months, getting chased by the Pope.

It's that time of year again where I play a horror game based off a movie and wonder why someone took something infamously horrific and turned it into something that is not. Well, kind of, since we've come back to Count Dracula, which so far has been far more horrific than any adaptation of Dracula I've ever heard of. Hopefully this time, we can put the good count to rest.

To recap since you've probably forgotten, Dracula has risen from the dead and has been spending time wandering around and remembering the old horrible things he's done in the past. Which is basically every sort of thing you'd hear on a black metal album except someone screaming Slayer while not wearing pants. More specifically, he saved a woman from being sacrificed for some reason. The woman is named Sistine, which is an odd name to have, because it means pertaining to Pope Sixtus. She apparently foresaw something which I glossed over, and Dracula is talking about a mysterious man he keeps seeing in his memories.

Incidentally, this time around I'm using automatic translations of the text, simply because I haven't got the motivation to translate massive amounts of what's probably the Japanese equivalent of Middle English. Yes, this is a terrible violation of all good principles, loses considerable nuance, but I don't think that's much of a loss at this point.

Missed Classic: Dracula Hakushaku (ドラキュラ伯爵) - Flashback, Heart Attack

 Written by Morpheus Kitami

One person watching another person in the darkness, we need a lot of words for this one.

Welcome back to Dracula. It's been far too long. To bring everyone back up to speed, last time Dracula had just drained the blood of the maid of another paramour of his called Franceska. We start with him staring at her alone, in a gazebo in the forest. She's not yet aware of him.

How's she doing? She's gotten past her fear, but she looks like she's about to break out crying. This amuses Dracula, in such a way that he could laugh. How's Dracula doing? Sucking that girl's blood has made him more...vital. Well...I wasn't missing that. Now I can talk to her. Dracula introduces himself and apologizes (ha) for making her wait. She already wants to get out of here. He asks if she's here on her lonesome. She mentions her maid, but wonders where she went to. He wonders if she'll return. After a little more talk, he says they should go to the palace, because she must be cold out here.

Missed Classic: Dracula Hakushaku (ドラキュラ伯爵) - Predator and Prey

Written by Morpheus Kitami

Horror of Dracula seems to be the vague vibe that this game is trying to get across, where Dracula is clearly a charming figure yet no less an obvious predator.

Over the years vampires have been depicted many ways, sometimes straight-forwardly, like a monster, a predator or a demon, or sometimes metaphorically, like for disease or oil. Count Dracula, the name of this game in English which I would title it if I had the guts, depicts Dracula firmly as a predator. A charming predator who insists upon himself. His victims have little chance of escaping once they're within his spell.

But as I've played more of this game, I'm not so sure that this game came across this theme entirely intentionally. Dracula is only unique in being a vampire, predators like him roam the world, seeking women to hurt themselves. We've seen that with Jack the Ripper, but soon we'll see that these are not isolated characters in an otherwise hopeful world. I said that Dracula was darker than I expected in the first entry, and it's gotten darker still. So, be warned.

Missed Classic 137: Dracula Hakushaku (ドラキュラ伯爵) - Introduction

 Written by Morpheus Kitami

When paying for games for 1994 was well and truly done and I got started on finalizing the year, I then went over the games I was on for the year, and my heart kind of sank when I spotted what my first three games were this year:

1. Necronomicon
2. Desire
3. Policenauts

Ah, nuts. It's not that I don't necessarily like playing Japanese games, but I am aware of my limitations and how draining it can be. I'm also not really that much on the train to playing Desire and Policenauts, which I view more as obligations rather than things I'm genuinely interested in even if I will give them a fair shake. I'll explain why when I get to those, but Necronomicon is definitely a game that's been on my radar since learning Japanese, since I like me some HP Lovecraft. And yes, I know that if you look at what I'm currently on, there are only three games that aren't Japanese, but it's only these three that are the sort of Japanese titles that feel like they're not quite adventure games that can feel draining. So, let's get into the first of basically nine such games I'll be covering.

Necronomicon is the fourth collaboration between director Hajime Kanasugi and writer Ken'ichi Hirono, so, we'll start with their first collaboration. Not their first games, because there would be fifteen of those and I don't think anyone wants me to go through fifteen at once. And if I do that, I have to justify why I'm not playing games that are prequels to those, and frankly we still haven't played every Sierra game up until this point, so I'm just sticking to these. Because at that point I would be going into basically every single game developer Fairytale made up until 1994 and I don't want to do that just yet.

Side note, no, I don't know anything about them, they are as anonymous as someone posting here without their name filled out. But you don't make five games together without some sort of understanding.

Dracula Hakushaku, or Count Dracula, is according to a copy/pasted description online, Fairytale's own take on Bram Stoker's Dracula. This is the PC-98 box, which has been spread far and wide, no idea who originally uploaded it. Darkforce is mysterious, no idea what that is. The subtitle is "The Blood of Beautiful Girls is Dripping", which is quite creepy. Dunno what's on the right, but The Man Called DRACULA reminds me of a The Man From UNCLE novel about vampires. The game was released in 1992 on PC-98, a Sharp X68000 release soon followed and then the next year there was a FM Towns release. I'll be playing that one.

Missed Classic: The Dark Half - Won and Final Rating

 Written by Morpheus Kitami

Welcome to Miriam's Apartment in scenic New York (MAY NOT ACTUALLY NEW YORK IN THE GAME) where we, who are definitely not George Stark, will investigate Miriam's death. There are a lot of objects I can examine here, but I suspect a flowerbed is the only one I can do anything with. Oh, well, inside we go.

No wonder Miriam got murdered, she lives in Vincent Price's apartment building.

I'm not so sure Stark wasn't doing the world a favor, apparently Miriam really likes green. 10 CAPs for your best explanation of why this room looks like this. The couch, the trashcan and the sign aren't really important, but since we already know that the paper is useful, we'll take it. Inside her apartment we go.

Missed Classic: The Dark Half - I am Definitely Sane

Written by Morpheus Kitami

How are things going in the land of poorly pixelated Timothy Hutton?

Beaumont picking a bad time to start up a X Japan cover band.

Well, whenever I reload a game, I'm not sure if the game is crashing, which is a good sign. Seriously, there's an in-game moment before the sequence starts, which is just confusing as hell. There also seems to be just one long music track, which isn't bad, but it's just one for a significant area, it seems.

I pick up all I can from the shed, which is a rope and a flashlight. The way out from the graveyard is left from the start. We're not doing great with area transitions.

Missed Classic 135: The Dark Half (1992) - Introduction

 Written by Morpheus Kitami

Stolen shamelessly from MOCAGH.

Yeah.

Missed Classic: Daughter of Serpents – WON! (plus alternate paths and Final Rating)

Written by Vetinari

We have left our heroes on the verge of rushing in towards the temple. We take the cultist by surprise, and Cameron tells me to take the scroll from the high priestess and burn it, which I do.

Burn baby burn.

This has a pretty dramatic effect on the priestess, since she immediately turns first into a serpentwoman, and then directly into ashes.

Missed Classic: Daughter of Serpents – Murder in Mesopotamia

Written by Vetinari

“Mesopotamia” means “between two rivers”, and look! Alexandria is between two branches of the Nile, so... okay, I just didn't know what title to choose.

So, last time the god of knowledge gave me a gift, and somehow I don't remember anything at all after that. This strikes me as counter-productive somehow.

Anyway, we were going to examine the warehouse of Elytis Import Export Company, where three months ago a poor sod named Yusuf Al Raschid was found dead and tied to a chair, most probably murdered.

Missed Classic: Daughter of Serpents – Death on the Nile

Written by Vetinari

Alexandria is on the Nile, so the title is technically correct.

Last time we were going to visit Bimbashi Cameron at the police station to check on our leads about the case which brought us here in Egypt. Cameron gives off the vibe of being a very strict and severe man, a classic by-the-book policeman.

This is the one and only pleasantry which he exchanges with me.

In an As You Know moment, Cameron explains the backstory which brought me here, i.e. the fact that a friend of mine was sold shares in a worthless company, and that I have managed to find out that the man behind the fraud is one Constantine Elytis, who runs the Elytis Import Export Company here in Alexandria.

Missed Classic 130 - Daughter of Serpents (1992) - Introduction

 Written by Vetinari

Daughter of Serpents is the second of the two games created by British developer Eldritch Games and based on the Cthulhu Mythos by H.P. Lovecraft, the first of which, The Hound of Shadow, was my first series of posts for this blog.

Chris Elliott and Richard Edwards are credited as authors also for Daughter as they were for Hound, but here they had contributions from at least six or seven other people, which may bode well for this game, at least in comparison to Hound where there were four persons credited in total.

Missed Classic 123 - Dismal Passages (1992) - Introduction

Written by Morpheus Kitami

A thousand moons ago, the CRPG Addict played a game called Shapeshifter, an unremarkable game by all means. A RPG centered around one character changing form. But the author of the game was one I knew. Jeff Kintz, a longtime shareware developer. Mr. Kintz is an interesting figure from a certain point of view. Having just plucked away at making shareware titles throughout the '90s to little success. His big title, in as much as anything of his can be called a big title, is a Hugo-clone by the name of Darkest Convergence, released in 1993. I don't think I can cover that yet, while Joe covered a 1993 game, he's been around the longest or almost longest, and he can do that. If I do that, Ilmari is probably going to break into my house and complain loudly about my decor. My ninjitsu is not strong enough to stop him.

As I'm rapidly becoming that guy who plays games rejected from the Addict's blog and games masquerading as adventure games, its only natural that I should desire to play one that fits in both categories, Dismal Passages. To be clear this is the Dismal Passages credited as being Dismal Passages on Mobygames. As opposed to the one credited as being Dismal Passages 1. (which is unambiguously an adventure game) There is no Dismal Passages 2 in either case. Mr. Kintz apparently never made them. We know this because multiple people have asked for his games and he's sent them to them. (including an unreleased game) This didn't stop him from advertising a part 2. And something called Beyond 2. Do they really exist, and they were just lost? The world will never know.

Missed Classic 122 - The Last Half of Darkness II (1992)

Written by Morpheus Kitami

It's October again, or close enough as makes no difference, and you know what that means. Horror games.

Come, let us stare inquisitively at skeletons

We've got a suitably creepy selection of games this year, starting off with continuing the saga of The Last Half of Darkness. William R. Fisher's long-running series of horror adventure games, which at this point had had been sort of abandoned for two years while he did Nine Lives of Secret Agent Katt. This, incidentally, marks the last time he would release an EGA game, making these three games fit together more thematically than his later titles.

Missed Classic 95 (1992) - Weird Island

Written by Morpheus Kitami

Weird, as following the I before E rule

There are some games, that you can tell what they're going to be about just by looking at the title. Weird Island or Wierd Island. Maybe it takes place on a plane, that'd be weird. The readme, before talking about the story, mentions an original 'point and click' interface, eradicating the need for typing complex sentences. Perhaps I'm showing my age, but I can't remember typing any complex sentences into a game, and I have the benefit of living in an age where you could easily program a response to this entire paragraph, in a game. 

Anyway, story: 

[Leafing through the newspaper one morning you come across a notice requesting your presence at 'HUGH, PUGH and BARNEY-MAGREW Solicitors to Elizabeth Taylor.' Puzzled (and who wouldn't be), the next day you visit the solicitors where you are told that you have come into possession of a remote island paradise. The island was apparently claimed by five galley slaves many, many years ago; one of whom was your ancestor (its nice to know who your descended from). 

Ownership of the island passes between the families of the founders every 100 years and your family is next in line to do with the island what you wish. You were supposed to be told this by the previous owner of the island but he seems to have conveniently disappeared. Anyway, the solicitors suggest you go out to the island to see for yourself. Strangely, you feel happy to oblige...] 

I see several problems with this. Firstly, while I can believe this agreement can withstand modern times, I'm not clear on how a bunch of slaves were able to keep hold of an island during Roman times, or the Dark Ages. They were galley slaves, you want to tell me that all the Edmunds that were kings in those times were okay with that? Could have just written that I won a contest, dude. I'm American, for one, I'm not going over to jolly old England without being told why without a paid-for ticket. Secondly, I am not an orphan descended from orphans, why do I specifically get this island? Thirdly, what if I don't browse the personal ads?

Missed Classic: The Palace of Deceit: The Dragon’s Plight – WON! and Final Rating

Written by Will Moczarski

To my enormous relief, the second Palace of Deceit game turned out to be winnable. It took a lot of pixel hunting to get there but finally we were able to save the day. A short recap is probably in order: We play a blue dragon called Nightshade who was imprisoned by the evil wizard Garth who hates dragons and wants to kill all of them. Why we are still alive, I don’t know, and game logic is not strong with this one but it was still a rewarding experience.

Missed Classic: The Nine Lives of Secret Agent Katt - Won and Final Rating

 Written by Morpheus Kitami

Previously, I had almost solved my problems, but was forced to restart the game thanks to an admittedly generous time limit. I do believe it's linked to your actual actions as opposed to in-game time, given the game's speed issues, is a pretty good bit of foresight, all things considered. I mean, someone with foresight would also not force the player through duct work or a crappy action sequence...but I get ahead of myself.

Does that mean we won't be able to sell it?

So, the key, this opens a room with another jewel. It's some stupid name, but it's the jewel that opens the scanner. So this means I can take the final jewel, the one I really need. It occurs to me this is just key busywork, but with another name. Upon using the jewel, the door opens really slowly. As can be expected.

That's awfully blue for a black jewel...

...and I've found the jewel...and no money. I can take it, but the alarm is tripped. I have no empty soda can to change it with. The only thing I can think of that I'm missing is the guard in the bathroom. Leaving my squad somewhere safe, I return to the bathroom. Nothing. I go back to the furnace, crank it up, and return. Nothing. Maybe he's doing a number 2? I try opening the door. It works. I wasn't expecting that.

So what happens if someone needs to take a no. 2?

Aha, the scuba gear. That means the scuba section. I was wondering when that would happen. What wonders await?

Missed Classic 94: The Palace of Deceit: The Dragon’s Plight (1992) – Introduction

 Written by Will Moczarski

Here we go again! According to Wikipedia, The Palace of Deceit was “remade for Windows 3.x and subtitled The Dragon’s Plight as a graphical point-and-click adventure game with an entirely new plot and graphics”. Call me old-fashioned but how is this a remake and not a sequel? You actually play a dragon in this one, so it must at least be a spin-off. However, the designer was still Cliff Bleszinski and according to a portrait of the man written by a guy called Joe Funk (seriously!) in Hot Jobs in Video Games (2010) his inspirations were the ICOM games like Déjà Vu and Uninvited. I’ve already pointed out the similarities to Shadowgate when playing the first iteration of the game, so this doesn’t actually come as a shock.

Missed Classic: The Nine Lives of Secret Agent Katt - Too Many Numbers

 Written by Morpheus Kitami

Secret Agent Katt is a weird game. I don't mean weird in the usual sense. There's nothing I could take out of context and say, what is this crap? Nothing like Inca or Melvin Freebush, or whatever Japanese obscurities there are. Secret Agent Katt is entirely mundane in that regard. Too mundane. In Secret Agent Katt, the most obvious answer is seemingly the right answer. Door's locked? Find a key. Nothing does anything? Well, its already open you fool.

In the mythical women's bathroom

Meanwhile, in a gas station bathroom...

I had done something, that was certain, but what did I do? The lounge area offered me nothing but a guard. It had two bathrooms, the woman's one was clean and the men's was dirty. Get it? Because women are prim and proper, while men pull a Jackie Chan on the ceiling to take a dump. Nothing here. Not even opening the faucet does anything. I should explain, in Last Half, if you messed with one, they turned on and the sink overflowed. Neat touch. I'm not seeing that here. At some point coming back here, I saw a guard, but I ran away afterward, uneager to waste ammo. We'll find out if that's right later.

Puzzle...solved?

Nearby there was a vending machine...which was unplugged for some reason. I didn't do that. I plug it in. There are some names on the wall, but is that for a puzzle or just something clever? I have no money. You'd think unidentified US black ops agency would give their agents a few Lira before dumping them somewhere in Italy.

Missed Classic 93: The Nine Lives of Secret Agent Katt (1992) - Introduction

 Written by Morpheus Kitami

What do you do when everyone is wrong about a game? I don't mean in a subjective sense, like you think Citizen Kane is worse than Plan 9 From Outer Space; I mean objectively, like Citizen Kane is a space opera/nunsploitation film starring Jackie Chan, Vincent Price, and Gloria Swanson. Today, that's what I bring you, the game the internet calls a RPG, The Nine Lives of Secret Agent Katt, hereafter referred to as Secret Agent Katt; Until I need to inflate my word count that is. If you submit to the collective wisdom of the internet, its a RPG. Even one Russian site, who are usually good about this, and shall remain nameless, mention RPG elements in the description. I know the CRPG Addict briefly played this game before rejecting it. Why wouldn't he? After all, everyone says it is a RPG, and everyone is wrong. But first, a little backstory...

Mobygames lists this as 1991? Another lie?

Secret Agent Katt is the second or third game by American developer Softlab Laboratories, later WRF Studios, and consists of William R. Fisher III and whoever he works with at the time. He is known for two things, a series of horror adventure games known as The Last Half of Darkness, six sequels, three remakes, and a series of vampire RPG games called Bloodlust. The Last Half of Darkness was little Morpheus's first horror experience, something that haunted him for years. I guess they're second fiddle to the Hugo series, in the sense that anything is second fiddle to the Hugo series, shareware adventure games never hit it big like action games.

Genre Hopping: Ultima VII: The Black Gate (1992)

Written by Andy Panthro

We talk often about what makes something an "Adventure Game", much like any genre this one was very loosely codified but I'm sure most of us would know one when they see one. Certainly we have already covered games that stray in some ways from accepted adventure gaming norms, most notably the Quest for Glory series which uses the classic Sierra graphical adventure gaming engine to deliver a fantastic RPG series.

The Ultima series was one of the earliest commercial RPG series, and one of the most popular through the 1980s and 90s. As Origin Systems developed this and other series, they were always wanting to be at the forefront of new technology and game design. The increased graphical fidelity of the Ultima series allowed them to increase the amount of unique characters, items, interactive elements and mechanics. The peak for this was surely Ultima 7, in which you can bake bread from flour and water, weave cloth from wool, and in the expansion pack even craft your own sword.