For this installment of Games from the Frog's Box, it's Elise, a Super Mario 64 ROMHack by Team Cornersoft.
This one was made for the Dream Themed Level Competition on Romhacking.com, and took first place. Rightfully so- this is a wonderfully bizarre experience worthy of your time. Full of joy, whimsy, and occasional terror.
GAMEPLAY:
As befitting its inspiration, this game is not terribly concerned with providing a satisfying challenge. You're meant to wander around aimlessly, taking in the sights and collecting the Tears of Relief. Elise plays identically to Mario- no fancy new abilities here. There's moments of custom trickery, but for the most part it's a very vanilla experience with a wonderfully odd coat of paint.
The game is rather easy for the most part, but if you want to delve deeper, there are optional red Tears of Trauma to collect. They're either really out of the way, requiring a fair bit of effort to suss out- or placed in spots that require a touch more skill than the rest of the game.
Another strength of this game is its brevity. A lot of Yume Nikki-esque games like this are sprawling to a fault, requiring a map to get absolutely anywhere, or with areas so incoherent and ridiculous they're impossible to map at all. Elise is small and constrained, and that makes puzzling out all of its secrets perfectly manageable without a guide- an attractive quality for a game like this.
I could go on more about the gameplay, but it's too deeply intertwined with the story to separate them. Speaking of which...
THE STORY
Unlike a lot of Yume Nikki-like games, this one has a story. And a good one, too.
Straight from the opening cutscene, I was pulled in. The sketchy artwork combined with honest-to-goodness voice acting bumps this one up high in the production value department compared to most other SM64 hacks.
The game gives you just enough of a setup to ponder- a little girl named Elise is having a bad time of it, and wishes she could be eternally asleep. Then, it sets you off loose into the world, starting in this room.
A crystal, with a copy of yourself inside, and three doors. Already you have places to go, and an objective to accomplish- what is inside that crystal?
It's not terribly complex, and leaves a lot to interpretation (as expected) but it's very nice to have a bit more to chew on than just "girl with weird dreams". Especially since Elise is no silent protagonist, and will occasionally chime in with cryptic remarks to heighten the mystery.
What really shines here in my opinion is how the level design is a storytelling device in and of itself. Little things like Elise talking about her previous pets, or experiences she's had, or just subtle symoblism scattered all over.
The Tears of Relief are generally out in the open, or connected to neutral or positive memories. The Tears of Trauma, however, are connected to creepy or unsettling moments, befitting their out of the way status.
All this makes for a spellbinding, if not necessarily mechanically deep, game. And that's fine. Games that thrive on atmosphere shouldn't be too difficult, lest frustration overtake the game's tension.
GRAPHICS:
The cutscene graphics are very well drawn, too But no matter what, it's always a joy to see what odd sight you stumble upon next.
Elise herself has an ADORABLE character model, that barely even looks like it's from the same planet as Mario 64. (Aside from the traditional awkward squatting and arm-flailing, of course.) She even comes with custom voice clips! It's a flawless translation of RPG Maker-esque aesthetics to the SM64 engine.
MUSIC:
The music in this game is a marvel, honestly. It's always so fun to see ambient/horror tracks in a fundamentally bright and bouncy set of instruments, and this game does it WONDERFULLY.
Specific tracks I liked include "Sulking Darkness", used for ominous/dark areas, and does a great job setting tension.
"Me and My Pillow Fort", the theme for the Moon area, only appears once, but it's a lovely, spacey piece. "Liquid Medicine", for the medicine bottle area is perfect for the climbing ascension of the area in which it appears.
Really, most of the tracks only appear in one or two areas each, but that's all that's needed to make each place feel distinct, which you want in a game like this.
Click to show
SPOILER SECTIONAgain, this'll be mostly a sampler of bits from around the game, and moments that I really liked about it.
Past the starting room, there are three doors. One takes you to this place- a sprawling, empty void floating in static, filled with lampposts. It feels like a typical voidscape, but it's fairly easy to find your way around, with only a couple branching paths.
Look up into the UFO, and you'll find this room- apparently Elise had crushes on alien boys. It's nice to see a character in a game like this that isn't just doom and gloom. Exit the spaceship, and you'll find...
Apartments is next, and this place is basically another hub for how many doors to other areas are present. The first one leads to a cute room with a birdhouse- jump inside!
Jumping into the birdhouse leads to the Swamp. I really like this area- you've got nothing but the sounds of rain to accompany you, letting you soak in the gentle, calming atmosphere and simple platforming. But the dark water underneath adds just a little undercurrent of dread.
The end spits you out in another adorable room with a dinosaur, and an egg. Cute!
Another door around here leads to the Games World- a calming void of chess pieces and dominos. I love how the floor and platforms are translucent here, and the ticking clock in the music adds just enough anxiety. This is the most involved area yet (though that's not saying much), jumping across floating dice and travelling through several connected doors.
And at the end is this. Just a little nugget to give you something to chew on. Why is her mom so devastated? That's something to find out later.
Next door... leads to this. Other speaking NPCs are rare in this game, so it's fun to find them when they appear.
Anyway, the dog room next door hides a secret warp inside. You can jump in the poop, to enter the Poop Slide! Dream logic at its finest. Thankfully it's mostly terrifying in concept rather than execution- you pop out the other side with a Tear for your troubles.
At the end of the Apartments, you can go to some stairs. Go into the door on the other side, and you get to this unsettling dark street, that loops endlessly- but only one way.
Check the other way, and there's another Tear behind the tree. What could have happened there? Who knows. "The last place I saw him..." is what this Tear is listed as in the star log- ominous indeed.
Another door takes you to an endlessly looping surburban street- nothing here but the unnerving visual.
Enter any of the houses, and you'll wind up in this empty house, with soft wind chimes lulling you into a sense of security- another great track from the soundtrack. Root around long enough, bumbling through the looping hallways...
And you'll find a GIANT HAND sticking out of the ground. At least it has a Tear for you.
Past that, however, is the stairway area, full of transparent stairs, and multiple doors to go through. One of which, goes here- one of my favorite areas.
There's nothing here but another door, but the music just made me stop and bask in it for a moment. The starkness of the white, dead tree, laying there, but with it having leaves in the reflection- it's a very striking visual.
Elsewhere, you can find a snow area. It's another one that seems relaxing on the surface, but the dark sky hammers in that something's not QUITE right around here. The echo of Elise's voice clips does not help.
Like the sinister Nosedad looming underneath the moon, watching you as you grab the Tear... and yet, he says he'll always be watching over her. This should be sinister, but the gentle music made me think twice.
Another door in the stairway room leads to the Flower Room, which aesthetically is one of the best areas in the game. I love the flowers and dandelions suspended over the void...
And ESPECIALLY this demonic-looking Elise with the rainbow eyes. But sadly, it is the game's lowest point in terms of gameplay. Leaping around with floaty gravity from pole to pole is imprecise and jank, and tedious too. and I do not like it. Thankfully, pits just warp you back to the nearest platform, so it's not really a big issue.
At the bottom of the stair room is THIS red door, the only one of that color. And for good reason.
This area speaks for itself. The chopped down tree, the unsettling, discordant music... Elise's comment about needles. This is the first true horror this game has to offer.
Go down the hole in the stump, and you end up in another slide, but this one is BLOOD VESSELS. If you follow the red blood cells- except for the last trail of them, a twist which was a bit annoying- you'll find another Tear, and your OWN HEART.
The music here sounds like a vitality reading, which brings up rather grim implications, too.
Though, if you take a wrong turn, you end up in a purple/blue slide with fish instead. The Tear here is kind of annoying to get, having to jump through all the rings, and basically trial-and-error your way through to find all of them- and THEN have to follow an entirely separate path to grab it.
Not my favorite section. At the end, though, you get taken to another surreal place.
Bubbles that you have to jump on (despite looking like 2-d sprites), shiny fish floating in the air, and a gentle, melodic track to guide you. The giant psinal column is pretty freaky, though.
Get the coins, and another Tear is yours. I will say, the biggest fish's edges not being walkable on is annoying, i fell off like twice and had to jump all the way back up. Too high, however, and...
You end up in here, a bizarre, bloodied version of that area. And instead of cute fish, there's a blood-red polygonal brain. Terrifying. No wonder a Red Tear is here.
Back to the colorful slide, if you jump through the hole behind the
masked figure, you end up here, in an unsettling realm of doors and eyeballs. It looks more intimidating than it is- all you have to do is pick out the right eyeball.
You do get this lovely vista for your troubles, though.And now, finally, you get dumped out back at the eyeball room in the apartment. There's one more Red Tear worthy of mentioning, though...
In the Apartments, if you jump down to the lower floor, you can enter THIS unsettling place. There's not really any context for it, but the name of the Tear, "It... Pains Me..." is a bit revealing.
It's probably clear by this point what the storyline is. Elise's father collapsed in the street at one point, and later died. Then, Elise herself had some medical condition that required her to undergo surgery, and is currently in a coma as a result. She's got a lot of guilt, which you'll have to confront soon.
Despair is the only bit of combat in the entire game, and thankfully it's not difficult in the least. Just dodge his attacks, and hit him when he stops spinning. Instead, it lets you focus on the aesthetics of the thing- the wicked design of his crystalline form, the fact that the arena is a faceless Elise holding up a crystal... and the MUSIC, a spellbinding, surreal number. Oh, and remember that rainbow-eyed Elise in the flower area? HMMMMM. It matches Despair's eyes, doesn't it?
I do love how your health is "willpower", that's a fun little detail.
(Even though Despair is apparently still around... oh well.)
The game ends on this adorable illustration- Elise is awake, and is ready to face life.
Elise is one of those things that isn't very long, but it punches quite a bit above its weight class.
It's got major uniqueness points on its side, for one thing. There's nothing else really like it in the SM64 engine. And by having a character with personality and dialogue, it already stands out from the myriad of Yume Nikk-inspired games out there. And yet, it doesn't tell you everything, instead letting the player piece together the backstory through environmental storytelling and brief snippets of context. And aside from a few moments of slight frustration, this game is about as chill as it gets.
I highly recommend it- it'll only take you an hour, possibly longer if you miss some of the secrets and have to backtrack.
Game Link: https://romhacking.com/hack/ELISE
Soundtrack: https://teamcornersoft.bandcamp.com/album/elise-original-soundtrack
No comments:
Post a Comment