The Lynx’s gestation began at Epyx, a company better known for software, especially on the Commodore 64 in the mid-’80s. The machine eventually came to to market in 1989, after Atari had picked up the project – originally codenamed Handy – and renamed it. Funnily enough, it would remain a bone of contention that the development environment for the Lynx was based on the 16-bit Commodore Amiga computer – the direct competitor to Atari’s own comparable ST line of computers in the still-multiplatform home computer marketplace of the late ’80s and early ’90s before the PC’s performance and price levels caught up to became the de facto standard.

The Lynx was the first of what would become a succession of Game Boy competitors. Sega would eventually release the Game Gear and later the Nomad, and NEC the TurboExpress, a portable TurboGrafx-16, but these machines suffered similar flaws to those that plagued the Lynx as well as coming out far too late, years after the Game Boy had already established its dominance.

The redesigned Lynx II

The Lynx represented a completely different approach to handheld consoles than Nintendo’s all-conquering little machine. For a start, it was portable only in a technical sense, relatively speaking. Close to twice the size of the Game Boy, it also drained batteries far faster (making the AC adapter less of an optional extra and more of a necessity), and its backlit screen, while great in a dark environment, was near-useless in daylight. An optional sun-shield accessory was a less-than-ideal solution. Also, the system’s reliability and build quality was fairly poor. A redesigned Lynx that was often referred to unofficially as the Lynx II wasn’t too far behind the original, correcting several physical design flaws – for example, replacing the original’s bizarre side-opening cartridge hatch with a traditional cart slot, and finally offering stereo output through the headphone socket – as well as offering significantly better build quality and also slightly improving the atrocious battery life.

However, it wasn’t all doom and gloom. Both variants of the Lynx offered a symmetrical horizontal layout with the option to flip over for left-handed use, connectivity between up to eight consoles (if you were lucky enough to know any other Lynx owners), a vibrant color display and – for the time – hugely powerful hardware. While the screen hasn’t aged well in the intervening two decades, the hardware has – it wasn’t until the Game Boy Advance launched in 2001, twelve years after the Lynx’s debut, that a more powerful handheld console was available. While its capability to do truly polygonal 3D visuals was limited, it could fudge 3D effects remarkably well due to its incredible sprite-handling abilities. Scaling and rotation of hundreds of sprites at once were its specialties, matched even in home consoles only by the advent of the SNES and Sega CD years later. Some games even used both sprite-scaling and polygonal 3D at the same time, often to great effect.

The result of this weirdly powerful but esoterically-designed hardware was a plethora of remarkably unique games, mostly by Atari and Epyx themselves – as is so often the case with ultimately failed consoles, third-party publisher and developer support was severely lacking, and by the time the plug was finally pulled, the Lynx had a relatively small library of available games. However, the flipside of this trait is that the system has a very small amount of shovelware in that library, and indeed it has a reasonable number of fantastic titles – including some great conversions of arcade titles of the era – that remain well worth playing even now.

Here’s just a few of my favorites:

Chip’s Challenge – One of the Lynx’s best games didn’t really take advantage of the system’s crazy hardware abilities much at all. Chip’s Challenge was a stage-based puzzle game, where you guide nerdy Chip through some of the most devious, evil and brain-melting traps you’ve ever come across. Yes, it’s a puzzler that will challenge (ho ho) your smarts as well as reaction times. It doesn’t look like much, but appearances can be deceptive.

S.T.U.N. Runner – Atari’s 1989 arcade tunnel-racer-cum-shoot-’em-up game was converted (I hesitate to use the rather inaccurate term ‘port’ in this bygone era of gaming) for virtually every noteworthy computer system under the sun, but every one was a dismal failure except the Lynx version. Even by the Lynx’s standards, the game’s re-working of the arcade classic’s blistering 3D visuals using sprite-scaling was a technical tour de force.

Xybots – One of the earliest examples of a co-operative shooter in a 3D environment, Xybots originally appeared in arcades in 1987. The Lynx version dispensed with the other versions’ split-screen layout in favor of utilizing the link cable, but was otherwise identical. Before 3D visuals evolved to the point where games like Wolfenstein 3D and Doom became feasible, Xybots gave us a glimpse of where we were headed, and was a damn fine game in its own right. Bonus: the main characters have two of the best names in gaming history: Major Rock Hardy and Captain Ace Gunn.

Todd’s Adventures in Slime World – An almost Metroid-esque, side-scrolling shooty explore-’em-up, Slime World mixed up beautifully gooey graphics (it’s amazing what the Lynx’s graphics hardware can do with oozing, dripping snot) tons of secrets, solid action, a bunch of different modes and support for up to eight players both co-operatively and competitively to become one of the system’s classics. It even includes a zit-popping mini-game! Just what you’ve always wanted, I know.

Gates of Zendocon – This side-scrolling shoot-’em-up (we didn’t call them ’shmups’ back then) was less remarkable for its action as it was for its exploration. Its 51 levels could be explored in a non-linear fashion through the titular gates at the end – and sometimes in the middle – of whichever level you happened to be in at the time, and the visual diversity was so imaginitive that you’d always want to see where you’d end up next. Explosions that would literally fill the screen without a hint of slowdown were the icing on the cake.

Starting this week, Elaine and I will, as promised, be watching video game movies and discussing them as part of the podcast.  Even before we began this venture, however, I’d decided to watch an anime series through Netflix (and God bless Netflix, by the way) that was sparked by Final Fantasy, perhaps the most influential video game series in my own personal gaming career.  Now, I don’t have a whole lot of experience with anime in general; I’ve watched a few of the bigger titles here and there, but overall, I just find the breadth of material a little too intimidating to really get into (although I’m trying to broaden my horizons through the recommendations of a former roommate of mine who happens to be quite the anime aficionado).  I was warned, though, that Final Fantasy Unlimited is what they like to call “bad” anime.  I had no idea how right this would turn out to be.

Final Fantasy Unlimited is a series of twenty-five episodes that tell a new story which is, admittedly, right along the lines of something you might find in a Final Fantasy game.  Let me take a deep breath and see if I can sum this up.  Two geologists encounter a strange black pillar of energy that spits out two angry dragon-like monsters whose fighting causes a whole lot of bad shit to go down.  Years later, the children of these geologists (did I mention that the woman was pregnant at the time?) set off to find their parents, who have gone missing into Wonderland, the alternate dimension connected to their own world by the very “Pillar of Darkness” that spawned the monsters.  They do this by riding a special subway, which is presumably the same way their parents traveled between the worlds in the first place.

From there, the main thread of the story is that the kids, Ai and Yu, travel through Wonderland in an attempt to find their parents, meeting, of course, all sorts of good and bad guys along the way.  On the “good” side, we have Lisa, the first ally they encounter, who takes a sort of big-sisterly role in watching over them (and who hides her own agenda through most of the series), Kaze, the mysterious hero-type who serves as the muscle to defend the travelers (when it suits him), Chobi, the obligatory Chocobo who eventually gets a mech suit, Lou, the werewolf-girl, and the Comodeen, a collective of fighters who also helps the crew throughout a large portion of the story.  On the “bad” side, we find, for the most part, a classic setup composed of the big boss and a bunch of minibosses: the main bad guy is known as “the Earl,” and for most of the story, takes the form of a little kid (although of course, things are more than they seem…).  He’s supported by his henchmen, who go by the collective name of the Four Lords of Gaudium (briefly the Five Lords, but things even out pretty quickly there), and individually are known as Oscha, Fungus, Herba, Pizt, and Makenshi. 

Okay.  That’s a bit of an oversimplification, but if you think about a typical Final Fantasy game, you’ll realize that NOT oversimplifying would take approximately as long as watching the series itself, so if you really want to know more, then do that.  Or check out this Wikipedia page, which will probably be less painful.  What you really want to know, I’m sure, is what I thought about the series as a whole.  To answer that, I’m going to try to break down my impressions into a few categories so that they come out a little less random…

Characters

I guess this is the logical place to start, but even this is kind of a broad category.  The series throws a LOT of characters at you through the course of the story; some are really important, and a few just fade into the background.  And a few fade into the background and then turn out to be important later on…. okay, I’m starting to confuse myself.  At any rate, a lot of the individual characters’ stories feel a little unfinished to me, probably because the series was, I believe, supposed to go on for quite a bit longer than it actually did.  You are given quite a bit of back story, but it generally seems to be the same thing over and over again, with little to no explanation.  Okay, I get that Kaze had to let go of this chick Aura.  But he doesn’t give a flying fuck about anyone else… I’m assuming she was his special lady friend, but really, how many times are you going to show me the clip of the two of them drifting apart while she sparkles?  I GET IT.

Plot

I already gave about as concise a summary of the plot as I could, so I suppose the best I can do here is to simply say that it is… convoluted.  The early episodes are little more than monster-of-the-week adventures (complete with the exact same summon sequence each time to cap the whole thing off), and when the later ones start to actually adhere together to form a true storyline, it’s very easy to get lost in all the weirdness that goes on due to the prevalence of side-stories and tangentially connected adventures that are often a regrettable necessity when dealing with an ongoing set of episodes.  Maybe the DVD box set should have come with a strategy guide.

Visual Style

I think I would have been happier with this particular facet if it had been more consistent.  Most of the series is drawn in what I (and probably most people without a greater degree of experience in the medium) think of as standard anime style.  Nothing to write home about, for good or for bad, it’s just… what you would expect.  There are a few points, however, where I kind of had to scratch my head and wonder why they bothered to deviate from that style, or if they really felt they had to, why they didn’t do it…. well, better.  The first of these is Kaze’s summons.  I suppose the creators thought that they had to distinguish them somehow from the rest of the art style, and that’s fine, I guess, but to someone who’s played a great deal of Final Fantasy, they just sort of end up looking blocky, undetailed, and generally unimpressive (like Odin, pictured, who should look like a raging badass but instead comes out sort of generic and blah).  I’m not saying that they had to look the same as in the games, but it would have been nice if the art would have conveyed the idea of their badassitude a little more effectively.  The other art decision I had a problem with was the places in which they chose to use some positively horrid CG animation.  This usually showed up in the repeated sequences (like Kaze’s summoning, again), the Subway, and some of the really powerful monsters, like Kaze’s and Makenshi’s dragon forms and most of the appearances of Omega.  This series isn’t THAT old; it was created in 2001.  Really?  I know you guys have money.  You could have done better.  And if you couldn’t, then again…. just stick to the normal animation.  It would have gone better, I think.

Sound/Voice Acting

Music is an important part of any Final Fantasy game, but even though Nobuo Uematsu did compose for it, it just didn’t have the same kick to me as the games tend to do.  It was forgettable.  The opening and closing themes are pretty much your standard J-pop (which in itself is, I suppose, something that shows up with frightening frequency in Final Fantasy games, and thus is faithful to the series), but the background music didn’t make an impact on me.  I think my favorite part of the sound design, actually, was that when anyone wins some sort of pivotal battle, they play the Final Fantasy victory music afterwards.  I chuckled.

I lumped voice acting in with this category, but to tell the truth, I don’t have a whole lot to say about it.  I wasn’t quite brave enough to tackle the English dubbing, so I kept the original Japanese tracks on, and they were pretty much standard fare.  There were a few voices that were annoying as hell, but I think overall they were supposed to be.  If anyone has actually watched this with the English voice tracks on, I’d be curious to know how horrible they are (although not curious enough to rewatch it myself, of course).

Faithfulness To Games

Here, actually, is the only point at which I have to concede that Final Fantasy Unlimited does a good job.  If this story had been constructed in game form instead of in animation, I think it actually might have been pretty decent.  It certainly would have fit right in with the rest of the series, as it bears most of its hallmarks.  To start off with, there’s a storyline that starts out as one thing but gradually reveals its true purpose through the adventures of the characters.  The characters themselves are practically straight out of one of the canon games; we’ve got our strong, silent-type hero (Kaze), boasting not only an oversized special weapon and beautiful girl-hair, but also an atmospheric moniker (”Black Wind”), as well as minor recurring characters such as the chocobo, Chobi (who actually does speak in “Kweh”s), a swarm of Cactuar, and even a version of Cid.  Also, I could just see the final confrontation involving working your party’s way through the sub-bosses in order to get to the Earl, who would of course change forms before allowing you to triumph… yeah, this whole thing could definitely have made a better game than series.  This is, actually, a shining example of why this particular cross-over doesn’t work too often (and thus, why this segment is going to prove to be hilariously terrible).

Overall, I don’t think I can assign a rating to this series.  I will say, though, that I don’t recommend it, particularly if you, like me, hold the Final Fantasy name near and dear to your heart.  Is this the worst thing I’ve ever experienced?  God, no.  I watched Street Fighter yesterday, for heaven’s sake.  Even though I was cautioned against Final Fantasy Unlimited, though, I just had to know.  Maybe you do too… but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

• Super Mario Bros. (May 28, 1993)
• Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie (August 6, 1994)
• Double Dragon (November 4, 1994)
• Street Fighter (December 23, 1994)
• Mortal Kombat (August 18, 1995)
• Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (November 21, 1997)
• Wing Commander (March 12, 1999)
• Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (June 15, 2001)
• Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (July 21, 2001)
• Resident Evil (March 15, 2002)
• Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (July 25, 2003)
• House of the Dead (October 10, 2003)
• Resident Evil: Apocalypse (September 10, 2004)
• Alone in the Dark (January 28, 2005)
• Final Fantasy VII Advent Children (September 14, 2005)
• Doom (October 21, 2005)
• BloodRayne (January 6, 2006)
• Silent Hill (April 21, 2006)
• Dead or Alive (September 15, 2006)
• BloodRayne II: Deliverance (September 18, 2007)
• Resident Evil: Extinction (September 21, 2007)
• Hitman (November 21, 2007)
• In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (January 11, 2008)
• Postal (May 23, 2008)
• Max Payne (October 16, 2008)
• Dead Space: Downfall (October 28, 2008)
• Resident Evil: Degeneration (December 17, 2008)
• Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (February 27, 2009)

I really thought that I would like Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero?.  I like platformers, and I like watching things explode.  I particularly like being able to punish my on-screen proxy when he/she/it does something wrong (because clearly, it couldn’t be MY fault).  So, exploding penguins gathering dessert ingredients seemed like a natural fit.  However, I guess I should have taken into account that when a game provides you with a thousand lives for six levels, the result is likely going to be punishingly difficult.  I would not have been incorrect had I done so.

Prinny starts out okay.  You are one of a thousand penguin-like critters that are actually souls of the damned, trapped in these bodies to atone in hell for the crimes they committed in life.  Also, they explode.  Demon Lord Etna is rather a spoiled little bitch, and when her sweets go missing, she sends out one of these doods (and you WILL get very, very tired of hearing that word), armed with a magical, anti-explodey scarf, to get her her sugar fix.  You can choose from two difficulties, the lesser of which kills your Prinny after three hits, and the greater of which drops the little bugger after only one.

I made it through the tutorial and the first level without much of a problem; the game was tricky, but in a good way.  I was enjoying it up to that point.  Then, I hit the second level (it should be noted that you can choose the order of your levels, but they are each assigned a difficulty from the beginning, which goes up as the day goes on).  As one might expect, it was tougher, but still in a fun way… until I got to the boss.  Twenty-six Prinnies and a lot of profanity later, I finally had success.  By this time, I was beginning to think that perhaps this game would be a bit much for me, but I decided to keep going.  The third level upped my ire yet again, but I eventually pushed on through to the boss, which is where my adventure, sadly, came to an end.  I remember a time when I used to throw controllers when I got mad at a game.  I stopped doing that when controllers became too damn expensive to replace every time I had a temper tantrum, but I swear that I almost lost a PSP today.  I was somewhere near a hundred Prinnies lost when I finally gave up and decided that I’ll be playing something with actual enjoyment potential from now on.

I’m not saying that Prinny is a bad game, I’m just saying that it’s not for everyone.  It’s not even for most people.  If you are one of those folks who believe that games are too “soft” nowadays and yearn for a simpler time, when 8-bit graphics reigned and you had the patience and determination for games that only the very young can display, then Prinny could very well be the game for you.  If, however, you aren’t insane, masochistic, or a Furry, then it might be best to steer clear of this one.  I think I’m running away and back to my DS for a while, though.