Lately, or at least moreso than usual, I've judged video games on how good of a rental they were back in the day. Exile is most definitely not a perfect rental. It's not a great, good, or even passable rental either. This was one of those rare in-offensive picks for when I wanted to experience the little joys of leveling up and buying new gear. "Why not just rent Phantasy Star 2 or 3?" said a hypothetical voice. There's an easy explanation. This side-scrolling hack & slasher can be easily completed in a weekend. With hardly any effort, I get to experience the grand epic of Sadler, as he travels a war-torn world in search of the holimax. Once he obtains it, he'll be able to dimensionalize the mandalas to construct space. At least, I think that's how the story went. In an attempt to strip out even the vaguest allusions to The Crusades, the localization ends up reading like ten different Tales of games got into a head-on collision. There are so many proper nouns that nothing makes sense.
Even if I can look past the bonkers storyline, it's hard for me to see Exile has anything besides a struggle game. It's what I imagine Nanao from Robot Alchemic Drive would play after a delicious bowl of bread & water soup... if a giant robot hadn't smashed her Mega Drive the night before. There are game-like elements such as walking, jumping, and slashing. Dungeons have a point A, a point B, and sometimes even a point C. Unfortunately, the conclusion I keep drawing is this might be the one of the most absurd cases of reverse-difficulty I've ever covered for this site.
Just so we're on the same page, reverse-difficulty is when a game starts out being very tough and gradually gets easier over time. A classic example would be something like King's Field. In the very beginning, you're an unlucky loser with both feet in the grave. Given enough time and patience, those days of being insta-killed by everything will be ancient history. Exile is... okay it's never a hard game at any point. If you spend some of your starting cash on convulsant then you'll have no trouble getting over the single hurdle that is the first dungeon and its boss. Yeah, only this game would use a seizure-inducer to replenish hit-points. I guess the secret to becoming a badass assassin like Sadler is ingesting narcotics and poisons as if they were tik-taks. It wouldn't surprise me if the XZR trilogy was really just some guy getting fucked up on hardcore drugs and wandering the desert.
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| "We had two bags of kayu, seventy-five pellets of aconitum, five sheets of high-powered piper beetle, a salt-shaker half full of cantharis, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored poisons, somnifacients, cocas, and-" |
The only other thing you need to do in the first dungeon is take a few steps forward, or at least until the first giant ant you stumble upon respawns the instant it's killed. Something you'll quickly realize in this game is that dungeons are 1% getting lost, 4% treasure chests or bosses, and 95% respawning enemies. Find a safe spot to stand, hold down the attack button, and watch an infinite number of monsters waltz into your blade. Whatever semblance of friction you might've felt in the first few minutes of the game will never occur again. Now, I'll honor the suggestion that somebody would want to attempt a low-level playthrough. It's a big world out there with infinite possibilities; perhaps that somebody does exist. I'm positively not ever going to be them, and that's because I can't take any of the bosses seriously.
One laughable fight that immediately comes to mind is the second boss. He's some crusader on a horse charging left and right, hoping to gore an assassin with his lance. Unfortunately for him, his arena features platforms that Sadler can use to avoid the charges. Doubly unfortunate is that down-stabs will erase the pitiable fool. Almost every other boss has a tremendously easy pattern and dies in a few hits.
Exile is just another interactive product. While it does exhibit properties that are commonly seen in video games, none of them even attempt to capture the heart or mind. I don't hate it though, so hurray for the littlest thing.
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