8-Bit Adventures: The Forgotten Journey Remastered Edition Review
Blue, Green, and Red
While many staff have sung the praises of the 8-Bit Adventures series, I asked myself the immediate question: why? From all of the promotional materials of both the first and second games, what I saw appeared to be a generic, uninspired ripoff of classic Final Fantasy games. My colleagues assured me that there’s more to the experience than meets the eye and that I would enjoy it. I ended up picking up 8-Bit Adventures: The Forgotten Journey on a Steam sale for less than three dollars, with the logic that if I don’t enjoy it, I can move on with not much in the way of financial loss. 8-Bit Adventures: The Forgotten Journey is the first game in the series, and while I hear the constant praise of its sequel, I wanted to start at the beginning, because I’m old, stubborn, and hate jumping into series without context. While it certainly has its charms, there is also some first-game awkwardness that holds it from being great.
The story begins with three heroes — a warrior, a thief, and a mage — on a very familiar quest to find three magic orbs in varying locations. As these stout-hearted heroes find the orbs and uncover their power, they are soon whisked away to a new world that is plagued by a strange dust. After being transported back to their world, they learn from a supercomputer that their world is in grave danger, as an entity known as the Dust is planning on erasing the entire world and its inhabitants. This sudden narrative switch introduces a metanarrative that 8-Bit Adventures: The Forgotten Journey clearly thinks it s clever, but ultimately comes across awkwardly in its execution. Changing the way it wants players to engage with its story, it wink-wink-nudge-nudges the player by looking and feeling like classic 8-bit RPGs, before offering a narrative twist that goes in a different direction than those classics. However, 8-Bit Adventures story tries a bit too hard, and while there are glimpses of intrigue, it ultimately falls flat due to how incredibly predictable the twists become.
Take to the skis… I mean skies!
It’s not to say that the story is bad, because it isn’t. The writing itself is quite well-done, and each of our three heroes has a distinctive personality beyond just their colour palette. Ignoring the metanarrative, there are some wonderful side stories, including a medusa trapped in ice who is desperate for a companion; exploring the dwarves’ hidden forge, only to discover sentient weapons; and assisting a town that has lost its water source. These side stories add a wholesome element that the main narrative often lacks. When the game forgets about the supercomputer narrative, that’s when it’s actually at its best, and it’s when the main characters truly get their chance to shine. This is one of those games where not doing the side content will have players miss out on some truly great writing and character development.
Since 8-Bit Adventure is an homage to classic titles like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, those versed in those titles will know exactly what to expect combat-wise. The game sports classic turn-based combat, where characters can attack, use a skill, defend, or run from battle. Unique to this turn-based system is that enemies are weak to a specific colour-type, with blue representing water, red representing fire, and green representing wind. It’s a rock-paper-scissors system, wherein guessing the correct colour weakness will allow for more critical hits. However, this system isn’t interesting in any way, and considering how high the game’s encounter rate is, players will find themselves using up all of their MP and relying on having enough healing items, and it’s lather-rinse-repeat. There’s not a lot of breathing room between battles, and given how little money players get from battle, it’s a toss-up between buying healing items, new armor, or grinding forever to do both. The game does a great job of paying homage to the classics, but it also does nothing to modernize and make the combat loop interesting. There are also no growth systems in the game, meaning there is nothing to encourage players to want to participate in that level of grinding, and to top it off, there is also a lot of awkward writing during combat when enemies attack, and it’s pretty darn cringey.
HOW DARE HE?!
While the combat is serviceable, though uninspired, 8-Bit Adventure successfully looks and sounds like the games it’s paying tribute to. The game has a fantastic soundtrack, full of upbeat battle riffs to pump the player up during combat. The more somber tunes do a fabulous job of playing over some of 8-Bit Adventures’ more emotional moments, particularly in one moment between a certain knight and mage before meeting their destiny. Carfonu’s music is always on point throughout, and while there are only a handful of tracks, they never outstay their welcome and constantly fit in the story beats when present. Visually, the game is quite simplistic with a very limited colour palette, which fits the game’s overall aesthetic of being old school. The graphics are crisp, clean, and serviceable, but don’t stand out in any real way.
Did I get my three dollars’ worth? I would say so. While 8-Bit Adventure has its problems in terms of the main narrative, some cringey writing here and there, and an overall “fine” combat system, it’s not a bad game in the slightest. I applaud the developers for taking some narrative risks, even if the payoff wasn’t successful and overall quite predictable. That being said, there is a charm to this world, its characters, and its side content that truly kept me engaged, and when the storytelling was on point, I stayed intrigued, but when it was at its worst, I was rolling my eyes. 8-Bit Adventure: The Forgotten Journey is a decent game that wears its inspirations on its sleeve, but when it deviates, it often misses the mark more than it hits.
Strong writing, particularly in side content
Fabulous music
Looks and feels like the games it pays homage to
Metanarrative storyline is baffling
Combat is uninspired
The best part of 8-Bit Adventures are the NPCs. They all REALLY have a lot to say. Play the second one, it’s a really step-up compared to the first.
Agreed. I only played 8-bit 2 and it was a really enjoyable experience.