🌊

the above-average vibeyness continues but the game graduated to boring me this session, which consisted of roaming around to unlock the next dungeon. i saved and quit right before it.

what struck me this time is that some of the simple outdoor environments, which have you running long distances across mostly empty plains toward a fog-colored horizon, have the evocative feel of pre-release beta screenshots magazines would run back in 1995/1996, perhaps alongside breathless prose about the mysterious and exciting SGI-powered 3D hardware Nintendo was prepping. it is neat to get to "play" one of those inchoate magazine screens, even if Goemon's bad framerate and simplistic, undercooked run-jump-bop core make it feel like a first-wave N64 title in less interesting ways, too. (it actually came out over a year post-launch.)

hoping to keep going if only to experience the soup-filled submarine (!) dungeon i remember is coming.

previously: more images