The Spite Ends HERE! Lets Play: Hydlide!

My friends, I propose to you a question. Should we not do a Lets Play for games that are despised? ‘NO!’ say some, you should only Lets Play games you’re knowledgeable of. ‘NO!’ say others, you should Lets Play games people haven’t seen before. ‘NO!’ say the rest, you should Lets Play games that are beloved by all.

I… REJECTED those answers. I chose the unpleasant. I chose… HYDLIDE!



A small bit of backstory for the uninformed: Hydlide is actually part of a series that lasted until 1995, but the only games in it to make it to the America’s were the NES port of the original, and Virtual Hydlide for the Sega Saturn. I will be playing the NES port, since it’s what I have access to.

Since it came out originally in 1984, it’s hard to fault the games many, many shortcomings, but it didn’t come out here until 1989, after which point we’ve had 2 Zeldas, a Dragon Warrior and possibly a Dragon Warrior 2. So it’s a bit hard to appreciate it in hindsight. Point in fact, even though its aged like a carton of milk, I can’t even bring myself to spite it properly. It’d be like mocking a Special Olympian. Consequently, this is likely the first, and probably the last, summary of the events of Hydlide which involve little-to-no-Tard Harshing.

So let’s get crackin’



And Lo, with a Push of Button, the Great adventure did begin! The theme song sounds a lot like the Indiana Jones theme. While this sounds terrific by proxy, it’s a really tinny sound and it’s also the ONLY song in the game.






The game has absolutely no dialogue whatsoever, so this is all the story you’re getting before you start. To elucidate: The Demon Borealis attacked the kingdom and turned the fair princess Anne into three fairies. YOU (by which I mean, the knight, Jim) just journey forth and reassemble the Princess and destroy Borealis.

Tl/dr: Go get magical macguffins to fight a dragon.



‘And so, the great quest of an age begins’ thought the lone armored figure, standing outside the forest.

The knight was named Jim. He had just graduated at the bottom of his class in Adol’s Christian School for Swordplay and Damsel-Rescue. Many graduates of that prestigious academy went forth to become immortalized in word and deed. Saving all the land from dread forces, reunited a war-torn country, discovering lost civilizations and the like.

As soon as Jim had heard that the Princess of the country (?) of Hydlide (possibly) had been turned into a bunch of fairies by a dragon, he knew where his destiny lay.

Jim ignored the cutting barbs and jabs of his fellow graduates who mocked his choice of quest. Of course, saving Hydlide and rebuilding a Princess weren’t his first choice, he wanted to go to Hyrule or Alefgard or some-such. But those places were already filled to overflowing with heroes of legend (even the Deadly Towers and Neutopia had some heroes to call their own), and Hydlide wasn’t getting any less doomed, so he sucked it up and set forth. Armed with nothing more then the shirt on his back, the horns on his helmet, and the field guide of questionable usefulness.

Jims a nice guy, like that.



As soon as he set foot into the… middle of the countryside, Jim could see why the land was in such a state. The open field was swarming with hideous shambling mounds of goo. These abominations, these… SLIMES are luckily among the weakest monstrosities in Borealis’ army. For a proper hero and knight, they would stand little hope of prevailing.

Jim is no such knight.

One of the main reasons that Jim performed so poorly in Adol’s Christian School for Swordplay and Damsel Rescue was his complete lack of arm strength. The poor lad could barely carry a sword, let alone swing one. Clearly a poor trait for one enrolled in a Swordplay school. But what he lacked in bladed prowess, he more then made up for with his wide shoulders and upper-body strength.



While Jim couldn’t swing the sword to save his life, he was more then comfortable flinging himself, bodily, into monsters to destroy them, and harvest their precious, precious experience points.

Fortune paid its way to Jim. Despite the acidic mounds being… well… acidic, his rampant tackling of them proved to be a perfectly viable strategy. As he felled more and more of the goopy threats, his experience grew ever more steadily.



But danger was nearby. In the forest was a KOBOLD. Though the dog-man was still of little danger compared to many of Borealis’ minions, it was still considerably more powerful then the Slimes. Luckily, the jackal-man is quite shy, and will not leave its forested home, and Jim is not nearly foolish enough to challenge him.



Oh, but the cruel slimes were still able to overwhelm out hero, as he had but 3 HP to his name. And so, did Jim fall, on the first screen of his quest. And, unlike other Adventure Heroes, who may get another chance upon their failure, a chance to continue or an extra life, perhaps, when Jim dies, he is dead. And his entire quest must restart.

Luckily he hadn’t proceeded too far, so not much progress was lost. And his Identical twin brother, Jim the Second (henceforth: Jim) stood up to take his fallen brothers place.

OH MY GOD YOU KILLED JIM! YOU BASTARDS!

Wow this game looks special. I'm a firm supporter of making LPers suffer so nobody else has to. I applaud you for your sacrifice.

I've played through Hydlide with save states out of curiosity.

I do not envy you.

What about Super Hydlide for the Genesis? I have such fond memo- wait no I don't. Although I did own it, and might still.

I was going to chastise you for using such a terrible pun, but then after seeing how Jim fights I changed my mind. That's actually wildly appropriate.

1Up's just posted a new Broken Pixels video of Seanbaby, Crispin, and Shane play Virtual Hydlide! Amazing suckiness!

I... like Hydlide.


...I'll see myself to the forums exit, thank you

Elevator's broken, you'll have to use this 37th story window.

Well, perhaps like was too strong of a term, but once I got the mechanics down, it was enjoyable while I was unemployed with no diversions or anything except the NES emulator on the Dreamcast and a 9 inch tv.

Coincidentally, that's also the story of how I maxed out EVERYTHING on DQIV

I see what you did there...

I don't.. : (

Adol Christian is the hero of the Ys series. And he went to Adol's Christian School for Swordplay and Damsel-Rescue. Like I said before:

It's appropriate because in Ys 1 and Ys 2, Adol fought enemies in the same manner that Jim does. It's still pretty facepalmingly awful, though.

Retreating from the threatening wounds suffered on the pseudopodia of the Slime army, Jim retreats the East, and spies a Castle, with a large hole blown into it. A more courageous or powerful hero would gladly leap into the crevasse in an attempt to explore and discover new treasure and weapons. But Jim is still pitifully weak and threatened by slush, so he shall evade the castle for now, and instead head back to the west and to the south.



Jims courage in exploration was scarcely rewarded, though, as his new heading put him into what could possibly be described as a graveyard, and this field was full of the bountiful armies of the living undead. Zombies stalked this necropolis.

The husks were powerful, far, far too powerful for Jim to even hope to defeat this early in his quest, and so, trying not to cry out loud, he slinked off to the north and once to the west, again.



Luckily, all the long-distance running he had undergone thus far served to refill Jims meager life bar, and he was feeling significantly more confident about his chances to actually prevail in his quest to destroy Borealis.

His optimism was rewarded, as the fates had seen to leave a chest in his wake, just outside a vast, outdoor, labyrinth. Surely there would be some powerful relic inside, perhaps a sword with which to cleave the dark armies, or an enchanted shield to repel any blow?



Jim was somewhat crestfallen to discover that his treasure was, in fact, just a simple cross. No doubt of great spiritual worth, more so if there were any priests or parishioners remaining in Hydlide, or indeed if Hydlide had any religious service available ever.

It would appear that the only use for the Cross in this day and age would be to assist with battling Vampires.



Jim recalled the words of old man Adol back in his schooling days, “If you get stuck on your quest, and are not strong enough to prove a match for the local monsters, grind, grind away”, and so he did.

Jim bravely walked forth and tackled Slime after Slime until his experience level rose to a new plateau. He was even feeling brave enough to tackle the Kobolds and was delighted to learn that they fell almost as quickly as his gelatinous oppressors.



However, cruelly, Jim fell into an innocuous tree, which was full of furious bees. And a single sting did prove fatal, as Jim was deathly allergic to bees.

Hearing of his Brothers death, Jim the Third did take up the mantle to trek forth and slay Borealis.


And so did the third Jim succeed where his two brothers failed, and he did level up. His strength increased, so that the foes of the world would tremble before him, and his life bar did extend slightly, so he would not die as quickly as Jim 1 or Jim 2.

Jim 3 kind of wished that there was some sort of audio cue that he had leveled up, rather then him noticing that the bar had emptied again, and his Strength and Health bars were slightly longer.



Jim 3 was feeling confident enough to try to plumb the depths of the Castle he and his brothers had been so frightened of earlier, but his newfound bravado was meaningless, for the castle could not be entered. Perhaps later, when some variety of magic item was obtained, could the cave be entered, but until then, Jim shrugged and headed North.


A short hike through the Woods refreshed Jim’s spirits and he found another large hole gouged into the ground. He felt much more capable of entering THIS crevasse!

To Be Continued...
?

Shit is tense.

So how did Hydlide get away with including crosses when Dragon Warrior and Castlevania had to remove/alter them?

Hydlide needed all the divine help it could get

so when you die, do you lose all exp and start fresh every time?

Have we seen the extent of the world map now or is it much larger? How long did you spend grinding to level up? What are those words below the map screen, that say "turn, fire, ice, wave, flash?"

Why am I getting excited about a game that is so terrible?

OH MY GOD YOU KILLED JIM! YOU BASTARDS!

This is thrilling!

Octoprime is the king of bite-sized LPs of games nobody else wants to play.

He's our very own Deceased Crab.

You should have an expository post on the intricacies of the combat system

They exist, I assure you.
(not that much, though. The combat basically consists of playing chicken with the attack button and hoping you blink before they do)

Too crappy for Nintendo's QA censors to play.

Its amazing that the "Official Nintendo Seal of Quality" didn't lose the "Quality" much earlier with games like this.

I'm going to answer all these questions at once!

Potentially, yes. There is an option to save in the menu (which I only discovered the existence of when I accidentally hit the wrong button to pause, much later in the game), but it's only a quick save that disappears when you load again. There's also a menu option for a password save if you don't feel like beating the game in one sitting. This is a wise, sensible feeling.

Whoa, slick, one at a time.

1. That's not the extent of the map, no, but it doesn't get a whole heck of a lot bigger. It does loop around though, so as to give the impression that it's an infinitely sprawling landscape. It doesn't give this impression very well, mind.

2. Too long. Each pixel of that experience bar was aquired, no, EARNED by killing about 2 or 3 slimes. It was made less painful by having my DS handy.

3. You'll find out soon enough *wink, wink*

4. I seriously don't know, it's creeping me out.

...Thank you?

Why wait?

Run into stuff, hold the A button and hope it dies before you do. Running into stuff from behind or slightly off-center works better. Not holding A does less damage, but raises your defense. This is totally unimportant until near the end of the game.

I've never, ever understood this "method" of attacking. I'm sure before people got the hang of console RPGs it kind of made sense as a dice roll, but without numbers (or commands) it kind of just fries my brain. I'm sure Ys is good (or gets good in later versions), but I've never had any desire to try.

Ys's battle system is actually a little different (going back as far to the NES versions at least) in that you don't move a whole tile forward, but you move per-pixel, so in Ys you need to hit enemies in the back, or from the side, as in:

If EE is an enemy, and AA is Adol:

EE
AA is bad.
_EE
AA is good.

The main problem with the early Ys games is that the collision detection wasn't the greatest.

Reader Beware, You're In for a Scare!


As it would so happen, Jim COULD enter the second cave, but it was too dark to see anything. Well, too dark to see anything but the curiously sentient flames that danced through the night, in any case. But though his search in this cave was pointless and warranted a hasty retreat, id DID teach Jim two important things:

There must exist some item that allows one to see in the dark, and (perhaps more importantly) you have to press the A Button to enter caves.

Jim headed back to the castle, with his new-found knowledge of the games basic controls.


The Castle possessed significantly better lighting then a mangy hole in the ground, and so Jim could easily see his surroundings. Though, honestly, they were drab enough that he didn’t feel particularly thrilled about it. The Castle was a labyrinth of bats and curiously thin walls.


The Bats were far more powerful then the Kobolds and Slimes that lurked outside, but even more dangerous then them was their master, the feared and fearsome VAMPIRE.

Indeed the Vampire was far too powerful for Jim 3’s meager experience cache to hope to defeat. Or, at least, that would be the case if Jim 3 didn’t have an Ace up his Sleeve. Besides the Cross, which allows him to damage his quarry, reaching Level 2 means that Jim also knows the incredibly useful TURN spell?

The magic of Turn causes all nearby monster to flee in terror of Jims fearsome visage, rather then staying to fight, and since Monsters can’t hit back if they’re running away…





At last, the Undead Monstrosity perished at the onslaught of Jims constant bumping and bequeathed its spoils, a Lamp. While the quality of the treasure Jim and his progeny had uncovered was more then slightly disappointing, at least it was functional. With the Lamp, Jim should be able to enter the previously darkened tunnels and caves. Jim heads North again and re-enters the previous Cave that was too dark to traverse.

The cave interior was full of the same sentient flames (his field guide would later identify them as WISPS), but Jim could now see well enough to navigate around them, and make his way to the treasure chest. Perhaps after two spectacularly uninteresting treasures, Jim would finally get some impressive tool for his questing.



Not before meeting his end at the living flame that inhabited the cave though. It seems that Turn isn’t quite so effective against these foes. Hearing of Jim the Thirds death, his father, Jim Sr. took up sword and shield (or rather, strong shoulders and back) to avenge his various sons.



Jim Sr.’s dogged perseverance paid off, however, as he was rewarded with the genuinely useful SWORD. The Sword causes Jims attack power to sky-rocket. According to his Hitchhikers Guide to Hydlide, the sword would double Jims attack power. This is a bit of a misnomer, however, since it actually raises Jims attack power by 10. It was previously at about 10 anyway, so the effect is the same.



Jims new found strength served him well, making him able to escape the terribly powerful ghosts by show of force, where previously, they would destroy him utterly. Jim could even battle the Zombies easily now. The world was Jim’s oyster, all he had to do was crack it open and steal the pearl.



There was also a new Chest in the graveyard, but it would not open to reveal its delightful contents. He decided to return to it later.

*Thing I always say*

I really thought poor Jim3 was gonna make it. I hope Jim Sr does because I don't know if I could stand learning what their mother's name is.