Shin Maou Golvellius (1988)

Preliminary: Whether one considers it just another version of Golvellius, or truly the Golvellius 2 it seems it was sorta marketed as, it (and the Master System Golvellius 1 version) had a much better Look than the original MSX version! And wow full blown cutscenes at the beginning, with great music! Things really are getting advanced in late 88. Well, it's still-scene cutscenes but still. Love this plot that it's a guy who needs an herb and the woman heads out as the adventurer/hero.

Oh... wait. nevermind. She got captured lol. And now we play a man going to save her. Bleh. Anyway, now that I'm playing, it looks good, sounds good, plays well, hm. But I don't have a guide for this version! Will I actually just embrace a game now that I'm getting to the more modern era where there will be hints (I have a translated version of the original version) and just figure things out?! Especially since I played Golvellius 1 and know the basic premise/format. Hmmmm. That would be a first in a long time!

So far it's already giving me the later Zelda vibes (this predated it tho!) where I need to find a Bracelet before the Hospital lady will do her thing, I have to deliver a Letter to Jim (?Jim? Where? lol). Nice! I love retrieval quests, tho I know those are about to end (for some reason, the game just starts with some very simple retrieval quests and then goes into the Golvellius format I expected lol, the other ones started with the dragon/serpent cave thing). The Bracelet sparkled like in the much later Resident Evil games, and I found Jim at last. I already knew the locked door for the Key I was given for delivering the letter. Etc. Love it! Look at me. I'm a real gamer! Lol.

Day 1

The music is stellar and motivating me. I'm hoping the "dungeon" side scrolling parts don't bog down the game too much like the original Govellius did. Much like the original Golvellius, tho much prettier, the side scrolling parts looked worse than the top-down parts, controlled worse (your sprite doesn't even change directions... you face one way no matter what direction you go.... cmon that's so basic), and it just feels like an unnecessary addition to a great top-down action-adventure. Other basic things that felt a bit rushed or like they didn't try that hard, lol, were all the NPCs still talking about the Her after I delivered it to the king. Whatevs. Hopefully this is as solid and worth pushing through as the first Golvellius, despite the side scrolling parts bogging it down and the mediocrity of some of the aspects.

Sheesh, so far Find has been very fast to get (their word for Gold), but the top down action is... not as good as I had hoped. The adventuring is fun, but the combat is... just okay. And I'm getting to the era where just okay... wont cut it. Too bad too because I'm enjoying playing this blind, already came upon a Life Potion and refilled my Find. Half the battle of getting to the first boss was getting the game to recognize that I was standing on the hole to it... and omg no... not the vertical scrolling segments. Please God no.

Yeahhhh, so it was super cute to have the title screens for the different areas (I just got to Growth's Woods), but it is quite clearly just a rearranged Golvellius 1 with better graphics. I think I will just replay the first one in the future. I'm surprised it wasn't because of not having a guide that I dropped this, which is a good sign, but not a good sign that the reason is the play style and clunkiness heh. No desire to relive those vertical scrolling parts. And the miniboss and boss took soooo many hits, they weren't necessarily hard just took forever to kill. Overall, it's a game I want to like, but I'd rather just play the original and move on to the next great game, rather than this okay game

Completion: Got the first Crystal, got another Bible while in Growth's Woods, but dropped it then

Playtime: 1 hour