Laplace no Ma (Laplace's Demon) is a RPG based on the lovecraftian tale (and subsequent tabletop RPG) Call of Cthulhu released for the Super Famicom. Thanks to the fanstranslation we can now (unfortunately) play this game.

The term Laplace's Demon it's actually based on a real theory created by Pierre-Simon Laplace which says that if someone (this Demon) could know the exact position of every atom in the universe, then he (the demon) would know the exact behavior of every cell, and then of every person, and then of every society, so on and so forth. I'm not expert by any means on the subject so take all of this with a grain of salt.

Now, all of this sounds really interesting; lovecraft + this kind of scientific determinism + elements of the Call of Cthulhu. We are here for a treat, right? Sadly no, because this game sucks.

1.- The Story:

Basically is about this guy, Benedict, who begins to practice black magic inside his mansion. He did bad stuff inside his house, some people went inside but are missing, so now it's up to you to investigate and try to descifer what it is all about. The rest of the stoy is told in small cutscenes in the second half of the game, but you feel them as empty, as is something is missing, and then you realize there was never a good story here to begin with.

The setting feels so wasted due to this lackluster story and the way they delivered it to the player. All of the madness, the avoid fighting, etc, in CoC are here, except that they are devoid of anything but, what it feels like, rushed elements.

Ok, enough of the story. We know that a bad story/setting can be overlooked if the gameplay is solid, so let's talk about that.

2.- Gameplay:

If I have to summarize it in one word, it would be: boring. The first element you encounter in the game is the roles in your party. You can be/have a detective, journalist, medium, dabbler, among others. Each one has its one stats and skills, like for example, the detective is full melee, kind of a warrior, the medium is about magic and spells, like a mage, dabbler is good in anything, the journalist is expert in taking pictures, but sucks at fighting, etc. I took the detective for my PJ and then started with a dabbler, medium, and journalist, since I felt that having all the boxes checked was a great way to start. Then you are thrown in the mansion (it serves as the first "dungeon" in the game). The first thing to notice is the top down view of the place and your party. I bring this point up because this game was originally released in 1987 and ported to several systems, but all of them used a first person perspective, which are reminiscent of the classic dungeon crawlers of that time. I don't know why they chose to make it top down, cause a dungeon crawler type vibe with this setting would have been much more impactful overall.

2.1.- The Battles:

The encounter rate was ok for me, nothing crazy like Arabian Nights but the battles are so dumb, you don't want to fight ever (kind of lore accurate, in a weird way, to CoC where you never want to fight). The enemies gave you insignificant amount of xp, they gave you 0 loot and 0 money. They are so easy to defeat, it became a smash "A" situation, or even better, you can flee the fight with a pretty good escape rate. Maybe with different roles for my party the thing would have been more fun, right? No, because everybody in this game sucks thanks to the poor battle design. It all comes down to, if the enemy is a physical being, then use physical attacks, if the enemy is a spiritual being, then use a spiritual attack (like the one the scientist has), anything else, does not matters. Oh, your medium and dabbler have (by the half of the game) 15 spells each, doesn't matter. Your scientist has 10 components for his spirit machine so you can combine them and create and discover new HP and MP attacks, thanks, but I'm staying with the default ones, because they are the best ones in the game. Oh, you have 20 items in your inventory to use at your disposal in battle, I never used one in the middle of a battle, cause you don't need to. All of the above sucks and truthfully, even if they work, they are unnecesary, because you are never in danger. And that is because you can heal your party after every battle, it does not matters if you defeated the mosnters or if you run away. After each encounter, just press the Rest option and you are good to go. No, it does not replenish all of your HP and MP, but it heals for around 20-30% after every battle, so you don't even need heal/mp items.

I have to mention though, two things before I forget: The first one is that you can go crazy if in the battle all your party loses all of the MP (which, again, lore accurate with CoC) and the second one, a funny one, is that, if one of your characters dies, they keep in your top down view but as a body bag dragging around you, pretty funny actually.

2.2.- Money and XP:

Another important part (as I mentioned before) is the lack of money after every fight. In order to gain coins in this game you have to use the journalist. She can take pictures of the monsters in battle and then sell them in your hotel for different amounts of money. Now, this sounds interesting and even a little strategic, because, while the journalist is good at taking pictures, she sucks at fighting. She is by far the worst at it, so, if you want to make money, you need to have basically a party of 3 because she is dedicated 100% to taking pictures. Like I said, this might sound interesting because you think: I have to manage the party in the right way cause I have one less person to fight and she doesn't have much HP, maybe I can take X or Y approach to battle, maybe this, maybe that. It does not matter, you can spam the pictures in every battle (she has a maximum of 20 rolls before you need to buy more), then you can sell them and repeat a couple of times and now, you have a lot of money, after that, she is no longer necessary in your party, until you are out of money again (in like 5 more hours), because you don't spend that much money (I know, there is a guy in the second "dungeon" who sells good stuff, but... meh). I even found a cheese strat where you can fight over and over again the same boss (a door) which gives you a lot of money and a lot of xp.

Now, for the xp gain after every encounter... You would never level up fighting the regular monsters. I mean, you can, if you fight 200 battles for just 1 level. The main way of gaining xp is doing some sidequest. There are mainly 2 quest, help someone to get X, or retrieve the dead bodies of the people who went into the mansion and never came back (or you can cheese the door boss like a did for around 1-2 hours and gain 1 level). This game has a level cap really small, like 9, maybe 10. So gaining 1 level it's a big deal in this game.

Besides that, you can spend experience points at a shop (forgot the real name) in the town to level up some attributes, like shooting, magic, fast talk, find clue, photography, etc. I think you get the idea about the combat and level up aspect of the game; now, let's talk about the dungeons:

3.- The Dungeons:

3.1.- The Mansion:

It consist of 2 floors with some stairs here and there. I would say that the layout itself is ok, nothing great, but it could be worse. Now the design itself, ugh, it's all a dark brown mess with the same beds and furniture across 30 rooms. All of the spaces look the same. It might not be that bad, but when you start playing without a map (you have to obtain it), it starts to feel a little frustrating, cause you don't know if you were in X or Y room before because of the ugly design of the whole mansion. Add to it the fact that, after you check the beds or furniture, sometimes you get an encounter, to waste more of your time. Once you have a map, thing go a little more easy, and by that time, you have a good idea of which rooms serve and which do not. Of course there are lock doors, puzzles to solve, getting keys to open this and that. Those moments felt ok to me, no puzzle or deduction was really hard, so good on that aspect.

After some hours in the game, you gain acces (through an elder sign) to the other dungeon of the game: the castle. This, it's where things go south for me, and made me realize, once for all, how bad this game trully is.

3.2.- The Castle:

The castle is divided into 5 floors, each one with a layout so messy, I don't know where to begin. Every floor is so convoluted, you are going to get lost pretty fast, because you don't have a map. To make matters worst, each floor has it's own map and you don't get it at the beginning of each flor, no, you have to wander around like and idiot, avoiding every fight (because they are worthless) until you finally obtain it. Each floor has a little gimmick but, they are not even worth mentioning. The only interesting part about this dungeon (which takes most of the second half of the game) is the basement. There, you can find some future partners for your party and even the "protagonist" of the game (yeah, sorry, you are not the MC in this story)

4.- Conclusion:

I 100% do not recommend Laplace no Ma for all of the things mentioned above. It had potential, but at the end of the day it feels like a rushed project with things so disappointings. This goes for sure in a top 5 worst RPG on the system for me, even maybe TOP 5 worst RPG I have ever played. I remember watching SNES Drunk's video about this game and being a little hype about it, all that to be hit in the face by a boring and disappinting game. Maybe, the other ports are better than this one, who knows. As far as I know, to this day, this is the only game translated in the Laplace no Ma universe.