Review Of Fatal Labyrinth For Sega Genesis

[Milton W. Kuo]

There seems to be some interest in a review of Fatal Labyrinth.
Someone even asked me for a review! Anyway, here's what I thought of
the game....

Game Name : Fatal Labyrinth
Game Type : Adventure/Role Playing
Game Maker : Sega Enterprises
Game Size : 2 Mbit (256 KB)

Taken from a game played over a network in Japan, Fatal Labyrinth
is a new game from Sega which allows you to explore 30 levels of mazes
in a quest to retrieve a goblet which will return light to the world.
Since Sega Of America has released Fatal Labyrinth to be a beginner's
"role playing game," there are no puzzles to solve, no people to talk
to, and no battery or password backup! Essentially, this game is sup-
posed to be easy enough that anyone can finish it.

Being that this game is originally from the Sega Game Library in
Japan, the information contained in the graphics and the music is min-
ute compared to other games (my guess is that it reduces data trans-
mission times). As a result, the graphics and sound on Fatal Laby-
rinth are sub-par for a Genesis game. The graphics in Fatal Labyrinth
are simplistic and the mazes are made of of "units." These units are
sections of rooms and walls and are used to reduce code size. As a
result, when new areas are revealed, they are revealed in blocks which
looks cheap. Oddly enough, the monsters are actually quite detailed
and do move when they walk and attack.

Sound on Fatal Labyrinth is quite bad because the background mus-
ic changes only once every ten levels! To make matters worse, the
music is not good to begin with and listening to it for the duration
of ten levels is almost unbearable. The only thing which saves Fatal
Labyrinth from getting a lower score on sound is the satisfying CRUNCH
sound it makes when a monster is killed :-)

One feature which Sega says makes this game interesting is the
fact that each time the game is played or continued, the mazes change.
While this is true, there are a finite number of mazes in this game.
Fatal Labyrinth does not (at least it so appears) generate new mazes
to explore. Instead, there is a set of mazes which the program sel-
ects as the game is played. A good number of mazes makes Fatal Laby-
rinth a good maze game. I kind of liked it because I like walking
around in dungeons, exploring them, finding treasure, and killing mon-
sters. However, this game has a fatal flaw in that is lacks a means
to save the game so that it may be continued later. Thus, in order to
finish Fatal Labyrinth, one must play from beginning to end without
turning off the machine.

One other problem in Fatal Labyrinth's game play is the menu sys-
tem. Upon calling up the drop down menus, there are many different
categories which are available. After a point, the menus became cum-
bersome and I wondered why the extra buttons on the control pad were
not put to better use. One final negative about Fatal Labyrinth is in
its crude combat system. Like Ys, one fights a monster by running in-
to it. Unlike Ys, combat is not done in real time, i.e., the monsters
will not move until the player does. There are no Phantasy Star-like
menus and there is no real strategy -- just run into the monsters un-
til they die. If you get too injured, just run away.

Overall, Fatal Labyrinth would not be worth purchasing at any
price over $20.00. As far as difficulty goes, I was able to finish
it the first time I played it. For those looking for a true role
playing game, pass on Fatal Labyrinth and get Phantasy Star instead.
The multiple story threads in Phantasy Star, the better graphics and
sound, and a battery backup feature put Phantasy Star light years
ahead of Fatal Labyrinth.

Ratings:
Graphics : 6 (plain and no use of extra backgrounds)
Sound : 6 (monotonous and poor background music)
Gameplay : 6 (no battery backup makes this game tedious)
"Funness" : 7 (mindless, but fun to an extent)
Overall : 6 (okay game if you like searching through mazes)

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By the way, I've finally gotten my Phantasy Star III back from my
friend and have been playing it. It's quite interesting and I've got-
ten to the third generation already. This game should be released in
the US sometime in June or July and is definitely worth looking at.

One final thing, Fatal Labyrinth is in Japanese on Mega Drive al-
though if you don't understand Japanese, you can still finish it.

Milton W. Kuo
mil...@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu