 Superman voiceCómo kons2 Super Nintendo didn't have a whole lot of horror games, at least not in North America. Sure there were the Castlevania games, Super Gools and Ghosts, Knows For Ahtoo and Zombies Ape My Neighbors, but those games really just had a horror motif, they weren't really horror games so to speak. They were just platformers or shooters or whatever. Meanwhile the Super Famicom in Japan had horror games like Shin Megami Tensei, clock tower, and the Vic Tokai developed Laplace Nomah, or Demon of Laplace. This is a turn-based RPG with some survival horror elements to it, so in many ways it's unlike any other game in the Super Famicom or Super Nintendo library. It takes place in Newcombe, Massachusetts, USA in 1924. Three kids had gone missing while exploring an old house which was said to be haunted. Well, yeah, I mean kids are drawn to haunted houses, like steel to magnets, but of course there can be some drawbacks to exploring a haunted house, like, you know, getting killed or going missing, which is what happened to these kids. The owner of the mansion, Benedict Weathertop, also went missing, rather conveniently in his case, and police and investigators were unable to figure out what happened, so the place was locked up and sealed off from the rest of town, that is until some random guy wanders in and unlocks it, and that's where your character comes in. You play as either a male or female that has taken an interest in what has now become a cold case. You have five different class types to choose from, all with different stats. Detective is a solid fighter, but can't use magic, that's really the best class for people playing this game for the first time. Medium uses psychic powers, but can't wield many weapons or armor. Scientist also can't use many weapons, but does use what's called a spirit machine. They start out pretty weak, but can get really powerful the further you progress. Journalist is probably the weakest fighter, but they accumulate money like crazy by selling photos of the mansion, and that allows you to get tons of weapons, armor and items quickly, and Dabbler is your average all-around character. What's cool here is that once you pick your class, you head to the speakeasy and pick out up to three other party members, so in other words, there's one class you have to leave out, and it's up to you to pick which one. You can double down on one class if you'd like, but I wouldn't recommend doing that. After picking your party, you can mosey around town and visit other places like the library, where you would eventually store your photographs if you picked the journalist. There's the hotel where you can switch party members, the hospital where you can heal or resurrect fallen party members, the fortune teller who hints at what to do next. Psychic, where you can allocate your experience points to certain skills, and the shop where you can buy and sell weapons, armor, ammo, tools, and supplies like film for your camera. Bear in mind you have to equip this stuff yourself, the game doesn't do it for you. I have to take a second to call attention to the translation here. This one was done by Aeon Genesis, their track record speaks for itself at this point, but in this game they did an especially good job. All the item descriptions are here, there's plenty of personality in the dialogue throughout, and it really helps guide the player through what could potentially be a confusing game for some people. Anyway, you eventually make your way to the mansion, Weathertop Hall on the west side, and that's when you encounter your first random battles. Yes, that's right, traditional RPG random battles here, for better or for worse, and the encounter rate is exactly what you'd expect for the time, so there are a lot of battles. It's all very standard stuff, nothing particular unique or anything. There are limit breaks here, that's what the meter is below your character's HP and MP, so there's that. But overall the battles can be a bit of a drag. I should mention that if you try and level up in this game through random battles, the game doesn't give you much experience that way, so don't bother. You get more experience by completing quests, which you'll come across here and there, and the game does a nice job introducing those organically throughout your playthrough. You also have the option to talk to enemies, which grants you some clues about what's going on and where to go, but many opponents will refuse and just fight you anyway. You need to build up your parley skill in order to get adept at getting any kind of information. I will say the flea option here is actually pretty forgiving, unlike most RPGs of the time, so if you get burnt out on battles or if you just need to get out of the mansion, fleeing is an option available to you. And yeah, you can leave the mansion to restock items, heal up, resurrect someone, or save if you need to. Also, I should point out real quick that when a party member dies, he doesn't disappear from the party. He's just in a body bag, being dragged around. Now that's funny. So yeah, the combat system really isn't all that great, but what really carries this game is how you can investigate practically every little thing in this entire mansion, trying to find clues to unlock more rooms and more of the story as you go, which includes talking to enemies like I mentioned earlier, and the dialogue here really adds to the atmosphere quite a bit. Yeah, the art direction and music certainly do their part, but the dialogue surprisingly goes a long way in creating an unsettling atmosphere, so even if the adventure or combat elements here don't stand out for you, the story definitely should. As DariaPlaysRPGs points out in her video featuring this game, Laplace Noma takes obvious inspiration from the Call of Cthulhu board game, and that's definitely not a bad thing since this game gets all the horror elements down pretty well. There just aren't many other games like this on the Super Nintendo or Super Famicom. I really don't want to spoil too much of the story here, because that's the main reason to play through this one. And there are a couple of elements here that I don't want to give away. I'll just say both the way the story is structured and the way that it's told through dialogue is well done. I should mention that Laplace Noma is actually a port slash remake, and it was originally made as a first-person dungeon crawler for the PC 88 and 98, before getting ported to all sorts of other computer platforms like the MSX and the Sharp X68000, as well as the PC Engine CD, although that version also stayed in Japan. The Super Famicom edition however went for a different kind of presentation, but rest assured the story is pretty much the same. So yeah, Laplace Noma is a unique experience on the Super Famicom, and I like it. The story is well done. It executes the horror motif surprisingly well for a 16-bit game. There's all sorts of twists and turns featuring giant demons, time travel, and there's plenty of side quests that I haven't even mentioned that you can go through. I will admit the usual RPG random battle stuff is a downer that can get frustrating for all the wrong reasons. I mean, come on, can I just land one attack? Ugh. But the real problem with a game like this is that there's not much replay value once you know the story. It's not like there's multiple paths here or anything. It's kind of like a book you plow through once every few years, but that's definitely not a bad thing. It certainly has a unique place among its 16-bit peers, and I think it's well worth checking out. All right, I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.