Lagrange Point is a science fiction RPG released for the Nintendo Famicom. The thing about it is that it just doesn’t make any sense. I’m not talking about the game itself, rather, it’s creation. Lagrange Point came out in Japan in 1991. This is well after the release of the next generation Sega Mega Drive, and the Super Famicom was on it’s way in. So why develop a big budget role playing game on outdated hardware? The world may never know the answer. Still, I’m glad Konami took the plunge, and fresh off of completion I’m sitting down here to write my review for it.
The story here takes place in the 22nd century. Mankind has established colonies in outer space. Two of these, Land-1 and Land-2 respectively, are artificial biomes while the rest are satellites. Lagrange Point unfolds as a biohazard outbreak occurs on Land-2 which is now overrun by mutants. All attempts to stifle the threat fail, and the story begins as the problem begins spreading to Land-1. A research team led by our protagonist Gene is sent to investigate, but upon arrival is attacked. Gene loses consciousness, and awakens to discover that their goal was to track down a scientist named Stolte. He sets out, and eventually assembles a rag-tag team of adventurers to save the world.
It must be said that sci-fi RPGs were definitely out of the ordinary at the time this one was released. Sega’s Phantasy Star paved the way, but the genre was by and large stuck within medieval trappings. The premise and scenario are imaginative and original, but the execution leaves a little to be desired. There’s very little in the way of characterization or even character specific dialogue. People join your party and then never make another peep. The protagonist himself is a silent one which flushes all of his personality down the toilet. There are a few simple cut-scenes but nothing super impressive. The story has some great ideas and is unique, but it’s not very personable.
Lagrange Point is by and large a traditional RPG. You explore the world from an overhead perspective guiding Gene’s avatar from city to city fighting your way through monster filled dungeons in between. Town areas serve to progress the story (which usually involves speaking to a specific character) as well as healing, saving, purchasing items/weapons/armor. It’s your typical fare as far as the genre is concerned. Dungeon areas are much the same as well, but usually serve only as a means to make it from one point to the next. They’re basically long hallways, and only sometimes do they feature a boss encounter. The dungeon designs however are pretty decent. There aren’t puzzles or anything, but they’re fun enough to explore and rarely annoying.
One aspect of this game that’s very different from it’s contemporaries is how Lagrange Point handles it’s world map. Through almost all of the adventure you can only traverse this by vehicle. You start with a car that can travel along roads. Next you’ll get an off-road tank, then a ship which is exclusive to waterways, and finally a plane that can go just about anywhere. You gain access to these new vehicles by getting new passes, and you’ll find these naturally as the plot progresses. You can only load up in one of these at transportation buildings found in every town and sometimes on the world map. The ship is only available in specific areas (near the water, obviously).
The world map is a bit daunting to be honest. When you begin with the car it’s easy enough to navigate, but the roadway system is too labyrinthine for it’s own good. Things open up with the off-road vehicle, but that’s where things get confusing. There aren’t a lot of landmarks to use, and while you have a map it isn’t completely accurate (this is on purpose, as it is supposed to show the worlds before they were attacked). You also have Land-1 and Land-2 to contend with. It’s tough to memorize locations of cities, especially when you have to return to them, when you have two land masses that look very similar to each other. I was very confused, and it doesn’t help that the random encounter rate is so high (even in the airship you’re still attacked by enemies).
The battle system in Lagrange Point is pretty typical. You view the enemies head-on, and the command menu is at the bottom of the screen along with the interface displaying your hit points and more. You begin by selecting commands for each of your characters and then watch as these are carried out. Your party and the enemies exchange attacks, and then the cycle starts anew until either side runs out of hit points. The action moves at a brisk pace which, as any fan of the genre knows, is very welcome. Sounds pretty typical, right? Well, for the most part yes. Lagrange Point does introduce some new ideas, and while some are good a few are pretty bad.
What’s interesting about the combat here is the ‘mood’ system. Various things within a battle will affect your character’s outlook which has direct relevancy to how potent they are in combat. They can be excited, nervous, etc. It’s treated almost as a status effect, and thankfully there’s a spell Gene learns which can optimize their mood instantly. I found this kind of neat. Regular status effects supercede your character’s mood, and you have all of the basics here such as poison, sleep, etc. Again, this is very basic stuff, and not too much is different from most other RPGs of this era.
Lagrange Point is an RPG that was truly ahead of its time. You have not one but two different ‘planets’ to explore along with a satellite base. The worlds are rather large too, and are a real joy to traverse. Secondly there’s a weapon synthesis system (accessed on the satellite base) wherein you can combine equipment to create new more powerful tools. This is neat, and there’s nothing quite as advanced in the genre up to this point. Additionally there are ten different characters that join your cause. You can only have four in your party at once, but you can switch between them on the satellite base. What’s unique is the fact that they all fall within three different categories; human, cyborg, or robot.
Each of these classifications has their own benefits. Humans are the basic fighters, and most common among the bunch. Then there are robots. These require special healing items, do not need new equipment, have no emotions, but can rust after a while (this is healed with special items). Cyborgs are a mix of the two with the advantages and disadvantages of both. Personally I stuck with an all-human team so as not to complicate the game, but the options are nice.
Now we get to the bad stuff I mentioned earlier. The worst thing about Lagrange Point is how BP is integrated into the game. Normally something like this is relegated to just spell useage, but in this case, every time you both attack and use a spell you drain your BP. When you run out of this your character can still attack, but only causes a very minimal amount of damage. It’s super annoying. You have a limited amount of item storage space, and because of this system you’re forced to waste so much of it on BP restorative items. It adds an unwelcome sense of urgency to the dungeons.
As you gain levels your hit points and stats increase. Unfortunately your maximum BP does not. For some unfathomable reason you must purchase upgrades to this in shops, and at a high price too. The game never explains this, in fact, I didn’t figure it out until I was fairly far in the story. Speaking of shops, the interface for these is terrible. Rather than having a list of items you can buy, or a separate weapon/item/armor shop, you have just one and must scroll to different categories. This system is counter-intuitive and feels more archaic than what’s in something like Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy games from this time.
The last major issue I have is the game’s encounter rate. I’m usually not one to complain about such things, being a classic RPG fan at heart, but something must be said about it in Lagrange Point. You get into battles far too often. Not just that, but with your BP ticking away with every attack, I felt more compelled to run from encounters than in any other game before it. What’s worse is that sometimes you’ll have back-to-back encounters. The game calls this ‘calling for reinforcements’ but I call it a ‘bad design choice.’ Never has anyone wished for a higher encounter rate, let alone back to back battles at random. Thankfully this only seems to occur on the world map. The difficulty is just right for a game like this which means the high encounter rate is just cumbersome.
Lagrange Point is the most advanced looking RPG on the Famicom. The characters are really big and feature decent animation when you’re walking about. The scenery is also really cool with a great amount of variety. Normally I don’t care for anime portraits in RPGs, but I feel like they’re really well done here. Where Lagrange Point really excels is in the enemy designs. They are full of character, and distinctly unique. You’ll fight everything from common looking animals to cool robots to weird and disturbing mutated monsters. Battle sequences have a cool scaling effect on the side of the screens meant to convey motion. It doesn’t make sense, but it sure does look neat.
This is one of those few games for the platform that had a specialized chip. This one is called the VRC7, and it allows for higher quality sound output. Trust me, you’ve never heard music quite like this on the NES/Famicom. Sound quality is absolutely superb here and has a very distinct style. Nothing quite sounds like Lagrange Point. The various town themes are highly memorable, as is the world map music, and I even enjoy the dungeon tracks. The battle theme is great at the start, but you’ll be hearing a whole lot of it so you better like it or you’re in for a long journey. This is a fantastic soundtrack, and I’m saddened that this was the only game to use the sound chip.
