104. Virtual Hydlide (T&E Soft, Saturn, 1995)

Virtual Hydlide is a strange and interesting game, and that's about all that I can say about it that's positive. Nominally a remake of a Japanese PC game originally released in 1984, Virtual Hydlide has a very barebones, trite fantasy story about a warrior rescuing a princess who has been imprisoned by some sort of demon wizard.

The game consists of a large overworld map with multiple dungeons that you can enter, fighting monsters and earning gear. The overworld map, as well as the dungeon layout, are randomly selected from a pool each time you start the game, though generally the events play out in the same order. This all sounds wild for a game from 1995, but Virtual Hydlide really takes a nosedive on the execution.

The Sega Saturn was not a 3D powerhouse, and it really shows in the presentation of the game. The world is foggy and the draw distances are about 10 feet in from of your character. Your mighty warrior himself is a large sprite digitized from photos of an actor like in the original Mortal Kombat games. He looks more like a peasant than a warrior, with a lumpy brown shirt and bad haircut. If I squint extremely hard, the game does look like a photograph, so I guess I at least get what they were going for.

The controls are even worse than the presentation. You move around the large world pretty slowly, and positioning yourself is some what tricky, as the d-pad and shoulder buttons are used to move / strafe. Because both you and enemies are sprites, it can be hard to tell exactly how far away they are, so I just wildly slash with my dagger until they are defeated. The button for the map (which I needed constantly) usually had to be pressed about 4 times to even open the map.

For all its flaws, I will say I had an interesting experience with Virtual Hydlide. Its strange, terrible graphics coupled with a confusing open world give it a kind of "dream that might be a nightmare" kind of vibe, at least to the point that I wasn't completely bored shuffling my way through its empty world. At one point, a tree turned into a monster and tried to bite me, so it just ignored it and shuffled away.

2/5, ugly, and a chore to play, but weird enough that I didn't hate it