XZR: Hakai no Gūzō

Game Overview by Mike Finkelstein

Here in the West we tend to think of Zelda II: The Adventure of LinkThe first sequel for Nintendo's Zelda series, this game was a marked departure in gameplay and style from the first adventure. Developed by Nintendo R&D4, who were responsible for the Super Mario series as well, this game was an action platformer with some exploration elements, which felt very strange when compared to its predecessor. as this strange, one-off title that didn’t have much impact on the Legend of Zelda series, or gaming as a whole. It came out somewhat late in the NES’s life and felt like this strange thing, certainly not what games were wanting from a title in the Legend of Zelda franchise. The third entry, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the PastThe third official game in Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda series, this title took the gameplay back to a topdown perspective (after Zelda II's sidescrolling antics) while crafting a deep and interesting adventure that's still held, even now, as one of the best of the franchise., went back to the traditional, top down storytelling, eschewing the side-scrolling style of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, and for most gamers that was that.

Except, while Zelda II: The Adventure of Link was an odd fit for the Legend of Zelda series, it actually did fit better into the overall landscape of gaming, especially in Japan. The title feels much more of-a-piece with other games that were coming out around that time, such as all the various proto-MetroidvaniaAt the intersection of Metroid and Castlevania lies the exploration platformer genre, the game style with heroes wandering expansive worlds, looking for items to expand their quest, known as Metroidvania. titles that Konami was released in the late 1980s, along with titles like Rambo for the Famicom and NES the Dragon SlayerThis classic dungeon crawler from Nihon Falcom helped to define the rules for action RPG exploration games, ushering the eventual development of everything Metroidvania, all packed into a topdown adventure that is still fun to play all these decades later. games from Nihon Falcom. But other developers as well were interested in exploring this nascent genre, combining light RPG elements with side-scrolling action, and it was inevitable that more series would spring up to tap into those ideas.

Developed by Telenet (famous for the Cosmic Fantasy and Valis franchises) and released in 1988, XZR: Hakai no Gūzō was the first game in what would become the Exile series. The game focuses on Sadler, a Syrian Assassin, who acts as the protagonist not just here but in the following titles to come. Set in 1104 CE in the Middle East, Sadler is set on a quest to kill the Caliph, the head of the Islamic Empire. And then he travels the countryside, from Baghdad to Babylon, Assyria to Alexandira. He’d fight monsters, encounter gods and goddesses, get baptized in the Jewish faith, and then return to Baghdad to kill the Caliph.

Only it’s then revealed that the Caliph was actually his father all along, and they had been separated at the time of Sadler’s birth. Then the game tells a subplot about the Mongol Invasion before warping Sadler to the 20th century so he can fight the Russians and kill the U.S. president. You know, because that makes a whole lot of sense in the game up to that point. It should come as no surprise that, due to questionable content like this (as well as prolific drug use in the game and a lot of modern references that would mostly make sense only to Japanese audiences), Telenet didn’t translate and port this game over to the West.

Still, there is a grain of something interesting in this title, which taps into similar beats we saw in games like Zelda II: The Adventure of Link and Wanderers from YsThis third game in Nihon Falcom's Ys series took the gameplay from a topdown perspective and turned it into a sidescrolling adventure, akin to Zelda II, which was a real test for audiences and fans of the series to adapt to. (the SNES and Sega Genesis version). The game features a weird, hybrid style of gameplay, opening with overhead town sections for the hero (if we can call him that) to fully explore. There are people to talk to, houses to enter, items to buy, clinics to get healed at, and everything you would expect from your standard RPG. So far, it’s nothing to make you think this was anything other than just another role playing title.

The trick is that once you enter into one of the dungeon portals you switch from overhead light exploration into side-scrolling action. It’s these sections of the game that feature the actual meat of the adventure. You control Sadler as he walks along the corridors of these dungeons, fighting randomly spawning monsters as he works his way through the labyrinthine structures. Although, to be fair, before you actually go exploring you’ll want to get some levels on your character first. You’ll find that when Sadler first starts out he’s incredibly weak and only through slogging through a lot of very tough to kill enemies (that, annoyingly, yield very little in the way of experience points) will you get enough power to actually start mowing through them properly.

Honestly, I could see this first part of the adventure being a phase that stops a lot of players. As you’re sitting there, fighting endless spawns of jumping fleamen-style (see IgorThis diminutive leaping fleaman was part of the very first Frankenstein boss fight in the Castlevania series, and while he hasn't shown up in a boss fight again his brethren continue to popular Castle Dracula's halls to this day) enemies and crawling beetles, you’ll have to adapt quick to the way combat works. You have a shield, and that can block attacks, even enemies that want to face-tank into you, but you’ll also have to swing your sword a lot, over and over, just to kill one enemy. It gets better over time, but the very prospect of sitting on one screen and slashing enemies for upwards of twenty minutes just to get the game going, finally, could turn a lot of people away.

Weirdly, the action dungeon sequences also have some of the most boring music of the game, repetitive and uninteresting. Which really sucks because so much of the game has great music in it, starting off with the killer opening song that set the game ablaze. The music for the PC-88 game was composed by Yujiroh, Shinobu Ogawa and Tenpei Sato and it absolutely slaps. If you go online to find information about this title you’ll mostly see people talking about the music, uploading playlists, and enjoying the vibes. Fewer seem to care much for the actual gameplay.

And honestly, that’s pretty fair. Even with the alternating gameplay between overhead towns and side-scrolling action, I wouldn’t say this game is all that thrilling to play. It struggles with the same issues that plagued Wanderers from Ys, with repetitive gameplay and obtuse dungeons that drag the whole experience down. It doesn’t help that this game didn’t get ported to Western shores, so there’s no official English translation for it. Sure, if you dig enough you can find some fan utilities, but if you aren’t comfortable with that you’ll either need to know Japanese or find some really good guides to make your way through the game. It’s not the biggest hassle, but again, for a game like this, that might set the bar a bit higher than players are wanting to go.

Which is a pity because while the gameplay is kind of rote, especially for this side-scrolling genre, the story is absolutely wild and the music is fantastic. I do wish it were paired with better gameplay (and that speaks nothing of the fact that the movement and animation in the game can be choppy pretty frequently, even if this isn’t game-breaking) because then we’d have a killer game that more people talked about.

Instead I’d call this the most obscure entry in the Exile franchise, with even its direct sequel getting a port while this game remained stuck in Japan. It’s such a strange, odd-ball adventure that just for that reason it’s worth experiencing, if only once. After, though, you’ll probably want to check out the later entries and explore those more fully instead.