Introduction
Today, I want to take you back to the distant past, all the way to the 12th century, and talk about a little-known game called Exile. Exile is part of a side-scrolling Action-RPG series, XZR, developed by Telenet and Riot. The series originated on the NEC PC-88 platform and eventually made its way to home consoles such as the Turbografx and Sega Genesis where it dropped the “XZR” moniker, and went by the name “Exile.”
Exile, known in Japan as Exile: Into the Boundaries of Time (エグザイル〜時の狭間へ〜 lit. Eguzairu 〜Toki no Hazama e〜), is a remake of the second game in the XZR series, XZR II, and is somewhat of a series reboot. In fact, I put heavy emphasis on the 'series reboot' part, because XZR and Exile are almost entirely different series. Which I find a bit funny, considering XZR II is subtitled “The Final Chapter,” meanwhile Exile is essentially the first game of the Exile series.
To make things a bit more clear though, I’ve provided a table below to display the series timeline and describe how each game plays into the events of said timeline.
XZR: Idols of Apostate
That said, I do want to briefly talk about XZR 1, as it gives a bit of background and lore in regards to the playable characters and the world this game takes place in.
When you start up the game, you’re introduced to our main protagonist, Sadler, lighting up a joint. Sadler is a gifted 20-year-old Syrian assassin whose sword arm is rumored to have led to the quick deaths of many key figures all across the Middle East. His current target is the Caliph of the Seljuk Dynasty who’s rumored to be ruthlessly oppressing the people of Baghdad.
Four assassins had been sent to take him out already, but none of them had returned. When you start XZR, you start off in Baghdad, and you meet up with Rumi, one of the four missing assassins who joins you in your travels. In this game, XZR II, and its remakes, you only ever control Sadler, so obtaining new party members doesn’t really do anything.
In any case, Rumi is a skilled assassin whose skills in acrobatics and knife throwing are without equal. She’s also fluent in eight languages! There isn’t a whole lot else to really talk about with her though, she’s kinda just The Protag’s Love InterestTM.
When traveling around the town, you learn that you can only enter the Caliph’s Palace by collecting the Four Symbols representing Heaven, Earth, Fire, and Water. If you travel around the town even more, you discover the location of one of the other four assassins.
F
The gravestone reads “Here lies the Assassin Sufrawaldhi…” Discouraging as it may be, Sadler presses on to find the symbols as well as the other assassins. Later on, you fight a witch who had taken the assassin, Fakhyle, hostage. After you defeat the witch, Fakhykle explains that he had allowed himself to get captured by the witch because she was hot, and he’s quite pissed off for the rest of the game.
Fakhyle is a mysterious sorcerer who teaches Sadler how to use Magick (Magic in the localizations of Exile), but in general is pretty lazy, and often leaves the party to go to sleep or something. The PC versions show his face very prominently, however in the console versions, his face is always covered up.
Later on, we rescue the last assassin, Kindi, who was sold off to a circus, where he becomes their number one attraction. After some events, the circus owners allow Kindi to join Sadler, and the full Exile party is formed.
Kindi is notable for his brute strength, and man, I love this guy. He’s a deeply religious, strong silent type of character. Though, he’s not really silent through any kind of stoicism or anything like that, it’s just that his dialogue is completely unintelligible. He was apparently Sadler’s combat instructor, and in Exile, he has a funny case of RIHTTASF (Resting “I Have To Take a Shit” Face).
Once the party is formed, you traverse through many locations in the Middle East, solve a number of puzzles, and fulfill a number of fetch quests. Once you collect all the symbols, you head back to Baghdad and confront the Caliph, who you end up learning is actually Sadler’s father. The backstory is that, at a young age, they were separated and Sadler was kidnapped by a band of assassins who raised him as one of their own.
At first, the Caliph offers Sadler to join him so they can rule the Middle East together, but Sadler refuses. As the battle between father and son starts, we are joined by someone else, Sufrawaldhi, whose grave we saw outside of the palace. He explains that he faked his death when he realized that he was in danger, and watched over Sadler from the shadows the whole time.
He’s a shrewd scientist who’s also very pragmatic, in the sense that he doesn’t allow his work to be swayed by emotions or Islamic law. Sufrawaldhi is also the character I was referring to, who was completely removed in Exile, although he appears in XZR II. In this fight, Sufrawaldhi helps you with… a gun.
Together you fight the Caliph and manage to defeat him, and this sequence is briefly shown off in the intro cinematic of Exile, minus Sufrawaldhi’s assistance, of course.
After you defeat the Caliph though, you return to the assassin's hideout, and the place seems to be in shambles. There was a Mongol invasion, leaving many people either injured or killed. You search the houses and find the leader of the assassins. He tells Sadler that the only way to save the world is to travel into the future and stop the world leaders. So then… he warps you into the future.
Sadler is taken to the present day, which at the time, would be 1988. You traverse the area and make it to the final portion of the game. You reach a Soviet military facility where the boss seems to be Mikhail Gorbachev.
After you defeat him, you’re then taken to the United States where you walk through the streets and fight police officers.
You reach the final boss room, and you’re standing toe-to-toe with the final boss, the president of the United States, which at the time would be Ronald Reagan.
After you defeat the former president, you are warped back to Sadler’s own time, and he reunites with the rest of his party and everyone lives happily ever after.
In Exile, it’s not directly stated exactly how much of XZR 1’s events are canon to Exile. The relationship between Sadler, Rumi, Fakhyle, and Kindi is relevant, as they all seem to know each other well at the beginning of the game. In addition, the defeat of the Caliph and the Seljuk Dynasty are also referenced both in the opening cutscene of Exile and through NPC dialogue.
Seljuk was renamed to Cerjeuk
Similarly, I assume the ending portion where you fight both the president and the soviet leader is non-canon to Exile, as a similar section featured in XZR II was also removed in Exile. Likewise, I assume either the existence of Sufrawaldhi is also non-canon, or in Exile, the lore is that he actually did die when attempting to take out the Caliph. I’m just theorizing at this point though, let’s jump into the main focus!
Let’s Play the Game
Since Exile is quite short, I don’t want to give a whole play-by-play and synopsis of the entire game and its plot. I feel it’s best to experience the game by playing it yourself, so I'll just briefly set up the premise of the story and explain the mechanics. Afterward, I want to form a discussion regarding the pros and cons of the game and how I felt as I experienced the game during my run.
So, when starting the game, you are shown an opening cutscene that gives a brief rundown of the story. After Sadler defeats the Caliph of Cerjeuk, a new threat appears from the north, the Klispin Crusaders. These crusaders have invaded the land and have committed countless atrocities against any infidel in the name of their god. This needless bloodshed sickened one of the Klispin’s allies, Yuug D’Payne.
Yuugs is based on the real world Hugues de Payens, the co-founder and first Grand Master of the Knights Templar. That said, he seeks a way to unite everyone under a single rule and bring about peace. To help him, Yuug looks towards the world-renowned assassin, Sadler.
You start in the town of Assassi, which is based on the real-world location of حَشّاشِین. But before you get a chance to take a single step, you run into Rumi who seems distraught. She seems to have been looking for us everywhere.
…Even though we’re just standing right outside the largest building in the same town everyone is staying at.
She tells us that there’s trouble afoot: a spy was spotted just outside of town who may be working under the banner of the Klispins, and everyone in town is worried. We go around and talk to the civilians to get more info and learn that the spy was spotted by an oasis. After that, we reunite with Kindi and Fakhyle, buy some weapons, tonics, and armor, and leave town.
Before I move on though, I want to address a few things, for one, the localization. This game was brought to English by Working Designs and it was one of their earlier works, so some things are a bit rough around the edges. I’ll discuss that a bit later, but one of the most obvious things though is the font used in dialogue.
It’s very big and ugly, and it makes taking screenshots of the game a bit hard since I have to post five or six images to display one sentence. From the size of the characters and how they all align, it makes me believe they just changed the kana used in the game to English characters, then modified the mojibake to form actual words and sentences without any additional modifications. I should know, the same was done in FE1’s fan translation, and a lot of older fan translations in general.
Like FE1, the dialogue boxes in Exile seem to have a limit of roughly 16 characters per line.
The next thing about the localization I wanted to discuss is how a lot of the real-world religious and drug references had to be changed at the request of NEC, the parent company. Religion is generally seen as a sensitive topic, and so a lot of the names referencing the topic had to be changed, though, you don’t have to be a scholar to know what religious denomination the Klispins are supposed to reference.
Misty from Pokémon holding up a Klispin cross in the face of a Gastly.
I do find it kind of funny though. Since no one owned a TurboGrafx back in the day, people didn’t really notice the religious parallels portrayed in this game, yet at the same time, people were complaining about how “satanic” games like Pokémon were.
As for the drugs, depictions of certain drugs were frowned upon in the US as well, so some of them had to be renamed. However, about half of the names of the drugs were already renamed by the Japanese dev team, Telenet, in the transition from XZR II -> Exile, and Working Designs simply finished the rest of the work. In addition, in the main menu, “Drug” was changed to “Tonic.”
In addition, all of the real-world locations were changed to fictional names that loosely referenced the real-world locations, which I also assume was due to NEC’s policies. Furthermore, “Magick” was renamed to “Magic.” There is actually a difference between “Magick” and “Magic,” as Magick is often associated with occult practices and esoteric traditions, particularly in the Western mystery tradition or modern witchcraft. The addition of the "k" to "magic" is often used to distinguish these practices from stage magic or illusionism and to emphasize their spiritual or ritualistic nature.
With that aside, when you leave Assassi, you’re taken to a world map. It’s basically just a menu where you can save your progress, choose where you want to go, and look at your stats and items. But for whatever reason, the game’s manual advertises this as the “Strategy” portion of the game and describes it as if you’re some grand tactician planning your next move.
It’s literally just a menu.
When you reach the desert, you’re taken to another overhead section where you can check out the area, where you discover the fabled oasis. However, checking out the oasis reveals that it’s actually a pool of quicksand that sucks Sadler in and you start your first action portion of the game.
The game shifts from an overhead view to a 2D side-scrolling view, where you jump with Button I and attack with your sword with Button II. In addition, Sadler has a down slash attack if you press the attack key and the down key when he’s in the air. The 2D Action sections play very similarly to Popful Mail or Wanderers from Ys, and the game as a whole can be seen as similar to Zelda 2, where the overworld map is replaced with the “strategy” mode, and the towns are your standard overhead RPG towns where you can talk to civilians, buy items, and explore the area.
At the bottom of the screen, you have your HP, which is self-explanatory: you take hits and your HP goes down; if it reaches 0, you die. There’s also your MP, which when you get magic, serves as your gauge for how many magic attacks you can use. After you clear the second area, Fakhyle will give you an item that will allow Sadler to use magic, and as you level up, you gain different magic spells. One thing to note though is that the Warp spell, which warps you back to the beginning of any stage, is removed in the US version.
The AP bar just displays your attack power: the higher it is, the more damage you do to enemies. Meanwhile, the AC bar is your armor class. The higher it is, the less damage you take from enemies.
Like most RPGs, you gain both exp and gold from slaying enemies, gold allows you to buy new equipment and tonics. Meanwhile, getting a certain amount of experience will bring you to the next level.
In this first dungeon, you fight a number of giant bugs and annoying dragonflies. When I played this game for the very first time, it was a bit difficult, and there was definitely a steep learning curve. I know Working Designs usually increased the difficulty of games they localized, and even though they did the same with this game, to my surprise, in this first area, apart from the boss, the enemies’ stats were hardly changed outside of having a negligible amount of extra HP.
Image taken from The Cutting Room Floor. 00 and 01 are the generic enemies while 02 is the Ant-lion boss.
After defeating the Ant-lion, Sadler discovers the spy who was sent by the Klispins… or rather, what’s left of him. After inspecting his corpse, you discover that he was gripping onto a note from Yuug D’Payne who had summoned Sadler to help him with his cause.
Against Rumi’s wishes, Sadler travels to El-in where the Klispins are currently occupying and are unhappy to have visitors. Sadler makes quick work of them though and reaches Homis Shrine where he meets up with Yuug. When we meet Yuug, he explains his motivations for rebelling against the Klispins and explains that the only way to unite everyone is to use the Holimax, which I believe is a reference to the Holy Grail.
Your one lead is that the members of the Katari Sect might know of it, so you travel to search for them. Sadler sets out with Yuug and Rumi, while Kindi and Fahklye stay behind. From here, you go on a globetrotting quest to find the Holimax, and go through many events, tragedies, and good times which will have our protagonist go from Sadler to Madler, to Gladler! During the game you’ll also meet—
…I’m sorry, that last joke was really terrible.
During the game, you’ll also meet up with other notable figures such as Prince Larma, whose name is based on Prince Rama of India, which is found in the ancient Sanskrit epic Ramayana; Ninkan, a Japanese Buddhist monk based on Nichiren, a Buddhist priest, and philosopher of the Kamakura period; and Pythagoras based on, well, Pythagoras, the guy behind the a2 + b2 = c2 formula that we did in school among other things.
Oh yeah, you also get to meet James Rolfe!
One of the things I appreciated immediately was the overall setting and theme behind the game. Playing a game where you play as a Syrian assassin fighting against a religious group that parallels the Christian Crusaders is an interesting and unique concept for a game. One criticism I did have regarding this plotline though is the fact that you only really fight the Klispins directly in the second area of the game. I kinda wish they tapped more into this concept and had the Klispins be more of a looming threat, since by the time you reach the end of the game, you kind of just forget about the Klispins.
I also like exploring many different places in the world like France, India, Japan, and even the Garden of Eden, or at least their in-universe parallels. One of the biggest criticisms of XZR from the Japanese player base was how while it advertises itself as a piece of historical fiction, the game itself doesn’t take itself very seriously. There were numerous historical inaccuracies, fourth wall breaks, and some aspects that were way too bizarre to feel like a serious historical fiction piece in our world.
The localization’s idea of renaming the locations to fictional ones does a good job of circumventing this problem by establishing a wall between our history and this game’s history and preventing anything from feeling out of place or being too bizarre.
Speaking of naming, an underrated concept I really like about the equipment and tonics in this game is how they all have unique names that stand out compared to the standard "Short Sword, Longsword, Chain Mail, Round Shield, etc." line-up in similar games.
When it comes to the items though, while the HP and MP restoring tonics are quite useful in a pinch, one criticism I have is that a lot of the tonics that temporarily boost your AP and AC are almost completely useless. If you’re adequately leveled, you will be killing most enemies in a single attack anyway, so you’d only ever use the stat-boosting tonics during bosses. Though, for bosses, you’re better off using magic instead. I kinda wish they had the opportunity to expand on these items more. Although, considering the length of the game, the overall format and design, and the general effects of the tonics themselves, I wouldn’t know you would expand on these items without changing them too much.
Shifting over to the dialogue, aside from the big text font used in dialogue, the text in this game is fine. I don’t usually dislike Working Designs’ work, and I don’t mind some of the little jokes they added in this game. For instance, there's this one cool cameo featuring Yuko from Telent’s Valis series talking about Exile 2: The Revenge, before transforming into her combat outfit. In Japan, she just talks about how she got lost on her trip to France.
I’m glad they went with “Wicked Phenomenon” instead.
I kind of wished Working Designs exercised some subtly and fluidity when it came to some of the jokes they added. In their later games, they got a bit better at sprinkling jokes in, but in this game, it can feel a bit overt or off-key. For example, you reach a town where civilians are being burned on crosses, and you meet a guy who randomly says this.
I guess if we’re being 100% fair though, XZR was not a stranger to off-key humor.
There’s also a boss early on who alludes to the next game Working Designs planned on localizing in his pre-battle boss dialogue.
I need to try out Cosmic Fantasy 2 sometime.
This is kind of a bruh moment, to be honest. Imagine being so shameless that you have to advertise something you worked on in a completely unrelated project.
As for the increased difficulty, I wish I could say that “the increase in difficulty is a welcome change,” since the Japanese version is a bit too easy, but this version is also pretty easy. Though, it’s not brain-dead easy or anything like that, you can die if you’re not paying proper attention, and it’s actually a nice casual experience you can pick up and play right after work or school or something.
Another point I'd like to highlight is that if there’s one area that Exile/XZR really excels/XCLs in is its soundtrack. There are so many good songs in its OST that I listen to frequently when I drive or exercise. Seriously, Shinobu Ogawa and Hiroto Ōtsubo went crazy with this game. A few standout songs for me are Red Countac and For Muscle.
When it comes to the voice acting, it’s alright… for the time. It won’t blow you away the same way Ys Book I & II would, and it’s a bit campy, but I’ve heard worse.
Another aspect I really love about the game is the character designs, which were done by Yokohama Kikaku, Masayuki Gotō, Ryūji Katō, and Masanori Kitsuda. I’m always a sucker for 90s anime-styled character art, and the designs of the four main assassins are really nice to look at.
The sprite art in the game is also really nice, and the vibrant colors really bring these characters to life. They stand out really well compared to the backgrounds and you can really have a general feel as to what each character is like from their designs alone.
The Sega Genesis Version
As I alluded to before, this game was also brought to the Mega Drive and localized into English for the Sega Genesis by Telenet’s Renovation Products. It’s almost a direct port, but some changes were made to this version compared to the TurboGrafx version.
For one, the Genesis version was censored a lot more compared to the TurboGrafx version. While the TurboGrafx version only changed a couple of names, the Genesis version removed the entire town of people being burnt on crosses, as well as removing the nude villagers in one of the latter portions of the game.
There’s also the fact that the cutscenes and voice acting were removed due to hardware limitations. Instead, they’re mostly just CGs with text boxes, which is a shame because the cutscenes and voice acting is something I’d consider a highlight of the game. If only the game was put onto the Sega CD instead.
When it comes to the music, I prefer the music found in the TurboGrafx version. The Sega Genesis music is fine, although despite the songs having the same names, they’re almost completely different. If you listen closely, you’ll notice the same general progression and chords, but the instruments are so different that it’s hard to tell if they’re meant to be the same song or not.
When it comes to the graphics, the Genesis colors are slightly muted and aren't as vibrant. Some details were also changed like removing Sadler’s cigarette, general facial expressions, face shadings, and angles.
Left: Turbografx CD version, Right: Sega Genesis version
Left: Turbografx CD version, Right: Sega Genesis version
The Sega Genesis version also features a nice smaller text font which allows for more dialogue to fit on a single screen, leading to the game being a bit more wordy, although the translation itself isn’t very great. It contains a lot of Engrish-like dialogue and awkwardly worded conversations.
Don’t get me wrong though, the Genesis version of the game isn’t bad, and most of its low points come down exclusively to the presentation and aesthetics. If you only have a Sega Genesis or don't know how to emulate TurboGrafx games, the Sega Genesis version is a perfectly fine alternative.
Conclusion
All-in-all Exile isn’t a revolutionary game by any means, but it’s a very fun and solid game that takes you around the world briefly exploring different cultures and mythologies. One of the biggest criticisms people have regarding Exile is that it ends way too quickly and abruptly, and I definitely agree. Hell, the final boss hardly has any build-up or even a unique boss theme, and on a first playthrough, you may not know that the game is over until the credits suddenly pop up. But if the worst thing I can say about a game is that “I wish there was more of it,” that’s not a bad thing at all.
There’s a lot of games people say can be beaten in an afternoon. In fact, I believe I said the same thing about Popful Mail. However, Exile is a game that is short enough to be beaten multiple times in a single afternoon. A long play of the game on YouTube is only about two hours long. So it’s very much an easy pick-up-and-play sort of game. A lot of the quests and dungeons are pretty straightforward, and the story itself is very linear and easily digestible if not a little thin.
Exile proved to be quite popular amongst the Japanese fanbase scoring decently in Japanese magazines. Exile did eventually get a sequel, Exile: Wicked Phenomenon, which I plan to play eventually, and who knows, I may write a separate review of that game as well.
But aside from that, Exile never received any other ports, sequels, remakes, or anything like that which is a shame. I’d love to see the series ported to modern systems in the same way Cosmic Fantasy 1 and 2 were, or even a full-on remake. Telenet released a lot of great hidden gems during their tenure, and a lot of them deserve more attention. Exile for one is a hidden gem that stands above a lot of them and if you are a fan of side-scrolling action RPGs or if the central themes and iconography piqued your interest the same way it did mine, I’d recommend trying out Exile yourself. And with all that said and done, I thank you for taking the time to read this review and stay safe.
No comments:
Post a Comment