Topic: Lupin III: Pandora's Legacy Review

[Crying Freeman]

This won't be a super well written review, just thoughts on a very obscure game.

Everyone who knows Lupin knows Cagliostro. This game is a sequel to the film, with Clarisse getting kidnapped and Lupin along with Goemon and Jigen go to rescue her. Really good idea, and the first level is wonderfully executed: It's the Castle of Cagliostro, and a memorable part of the film serves as a gameplay mechanic: running down a slanted roof, using the momentum to get across large jumps as Lupin did in the film. You start off as Lupin but can switch to Jigen or Goemon on command, with each character having different abilities based on their abilities in the series: Lupin has a short ranged pistol but is the only one who can use gadgets (found in... urinals?), Jigen's pistol reaches to the end of the screen and can shoot rapidly, and Goemon can run the fastest and his sword is a close range weapon but the most powerful attack. Plus, stage 1's music is INCREDIBLE. Oh, and you fight Cagliostro guard-assassin things from the film.

All the good ends right after stage 1. The game's graphics are admittedly ugly. They mimic the color of the series well, but everything (especially the sprites) look rather blocky. (on a side note, why do Famicom games based on anime have bad spritework? Golgo 13 TSE and Fist of the North Star anyone?) Graphics don't make the game as we know, so a minor complaint. But after stage 1, we come into the problem TONS of games of the era suffer with: Where TF so I go!? Stage 1 is straightford and fun to get through, but in stage 2 you have to run all over creation while avoiding baddies (did I mention 1 hit kills without gathering body armour?), and it's WAY too confusing to navigate. It's a chinatown type stage, so all the indoor areas look the same. You have to meet certain people in a specific order to make the boss appear in his room, but even with the english patch, there aren't any clues on where to go. Walkthrough time! Something good about stage 2 however is that it takes another element of Cagliostro for gameplay: Lupin in scuba gear like in the film, with underwater Cagliostro guards... in China?)

Stage 3, back to linear levels, and it's a decently fun stage, relying more on basic platforming than stage 1. It's on some docks and a ship, and the problem is how bland it looks. It looks like how docks and a ship should, but it lacks character (think Castlevania Legends stages). It's challenging in a fun way. Not near anywhere stage 1's greatness, but WAY better after the hell of stage 2.

Stage 4... Gameplay switch! You're driving in a desert, similar to one of the series' openings. It's HORRID! The control is awful, and 1 hit kills against instant kills from enemies and pits... Save states are required, especially since there are limited continues. After the driving stage we get to the final stage, a pyramid, and ITS ANOTHER WTF DO I GO LEVEL, but even worse than stage 2... It's more complex and a walkthrough is completely reqiured, it's so rediculously maze-like and cryptic, idk what the designers were thinking! We beat the last boss, and we get the end of the story...

Apparently the Lupin gang was also looking for a golden bird called Pandora, and it's revealed Fujiko kidnapped Clarisse (wtf...) and Clarisse tells Lupin to forgive Fujiko for the adventure (wtf....) as the bird flies away. Fujiko tells Lupin the get the bird but Lupin says the bird deserves to be free (that's actually a very Lupin-esque plot point, leaving the treasure behind like in Cagliostro and Nostradamus). I guess Fujiko kidnapped her to lure Lupin into finding the treasure for her, but common...

Such a disappointment. Stage 1 starts off so strong, and then the game just becomes horrible to the point you don't want to play. After stage 1, it's confusing, bland, and a waste. I'd even accept how short the game is if it wasn't impossible to navigate the open levels. It needed small levels, a map, and a way of telling you where to go (sure, gets rid of the exploration factor, but they are too confusingly designed and too large). The good points are so good, but the bad points take up too much of the game. A Lupin game where you play as the main trio, each with their unique abilities, is such a wonderful idea, and in terms of the characters playability, it's so well executed that it makes this title even more disappointing. The game suffers from such horrid level design, which is what kills the game. If they made it longer, completely linear stages/or more accessible open stages, with more emphasis on good level design like stage 1 (and to a certian extent 3), we'd be golden. You can tell the developers got lazy, because there's nothing technically wrong like glitches, it feels more like they focused on the first stage, and then got too ambitious for their own good. Why, Namco... Why did you have to ruin such a potentially great Lupin game!? (BTW, no password system is killer)