2025 Special - Lagoon

Before going any further, we have to address the toothpick in the room: Nasir's sword. Nasir is the protagonist of Lagoon, and his sword is the piddliest saddest scrap of metal you've probably ever seen. Range? Reach? It's not there. If you want to destroy your foes and save the world, you have to get within smooching distance, and I ain't talking about a little peck on the cheek either.

They say, 'it's not the size that matters it's how you use it'. Yeah, whatever!

Why the smallest sword ever known to gaming, you ask? This is the part where my completely uninterested in properly citing my sources ass jumps in. The original Lagoon used a combat system scientifically known as 'bumpin'. You want something dead you shove your body against it until it explodes into a gooey mess. At least that's more-or-less how it worked in the original Hydlide, one of the progenitors of the Action RPG. The Ys duology would iterate on the system by requiring the player to be just off-center when they collide with an enemy, else they end up as the gooey mess. It's surprisingly deep and allows for a number of creative approaches to combat. Even decades later, the definitive version of Ys 1 & 2 is the bump-heavy Chronicles + edition available wherever PC games are sold.

The bump combat system continued in Japan's PC gaming space for years to come. On consoles, it got a bit more complicated. The Famicom version of Hydlide released in 1986 and was very successful. The Legend of Zelda also hit that same year, and it practically introduced the swordplay Action RPG fans of the modern age are readily familiar with. Nevertheless, Zelda didn't really dominate the charts until its NES release in the West in 1987. Before long, an entire generation of gamers became accustomed to actually seeing the sword when they pressed the attack button. The thought of bumping into everything just never materialized, especially not when Hydlide didn't hit the NES until 1989. Unsurprisingly, it failed to find its audience and collapsed in America.

Since the Legend of Zelda went on to sell something like 4 million copies, developers of Action RPGs had to go back to the drawing board. Some went with straight-up clones like Golden Ax Warrior or Neutopia. Others took already successful games and tried to adapt them for console gamers. Finally, we've gotten back to Lagoon! Originally released for the Sharp X68000 in 1990, Lagoon was a modest hit that took ample inspiration from Ys, particularly in its usage of 'bumpin' combat. However, that just wouldn't be enough to appeal to console owners, especially in the West. When Lagoon was ported to the Super Nintendo in 1991, the bump combat was dropped entirely. Monsters are dangerous no matter what angle you touch them, so your main method of slaying is an actual - press the button to swing -sword.

And it totally sucks. I have played games that range from AAAAA masterpieces to "Asset Flip 2K19" and I still have not found a worse sword than Lagoon's. It's aggressively humiliating, especially if you're patient enough to push all the way to the end of the game. Finally, you acquire the ultimate sword, said to be crafted from moonstone or something else inexplicably awesome, yet it still looks and feels like a cheap butterknife. From minute 1 to hour 9, you'll be spending the entire time learning and relearning how to stab without dying horribly, and you'll be miserable.

Get used to this.

Now, it's not all bad. I mean, when a sword game can't get the sword part right it absolutely should be "all bad", but ah what the heck I'm feeling generous. Lagoon has a fun magic system, with a myriad of damaging spells depending on the staff and stones you use to cast them. There are also rings if you need HP restoration or a temporary defense buff. The jump isn't bad either. Yes, it's mostly used for platforming and that's gross, but it can also dodge some projectiles. Indeed, I found something resembling satisfaction when I jumped over a monster's fireball and landed the killing blow.

Unfortunately, this is still a video game, and bad things tend to culminate into something terrible. Boss-fights are a matter of trying to find the magical moment to stick them with a worthless dirk. Remember, you have to get close enough to a boss to make out with whatever giant eyeballs or venomous fangs adorn its face. Magic is useless against them, so don't even bother. All you can do is fumble around and die repeatedly. Eventually you'll discover the exact spot to do some damage...and probably die anyway because of course. It's not much fun!

You look at this camera and tell me there's a God.

Lagoon also suffers on the technical front, with its practically useless camera and framerate that goes from rough to hilarious whenever multiple enemies are onscreen. There's a hack that addresses the camera, at least. The music is also quite nice, even accounting for that one song that's just two notes repeated indefinitely. Still, unless you're a maniac or a 90s kid who holds nostalgia for the only game that was available at the rental store, then it's not nearly enough to put up with all the other nonsense that'll get thrown your way.

Sad as it may seem, Lagoon isn't the worst Action RPG I've ever played on the SNES. It sets a bar so incredibly low that it touches the ground, but it's a bar nonetheless. There are games that I might cover in the future that have to dig into the earth to get underneath that bar, but I assure you it'll happen. 

Final Score: F out of 100.