 At just about every used video game store you go to, you'll see an avalanche of sports games of course, but buried in there among Super Caesars Palace and Vegas steaks, you'll almost always see lagoon sitting there for a meager $5. Hey, it's a top-down adventure game, those are fun, how bad could it be? Well, it's not that lagoon is bad. If there's an adequate word to describe lagoon, it's annoying. The game begins by shuttling you all over town. Hmm, these doors don't open. Oh, I see, the functional places have opened doors already. Oh wait, never mind, some doors open. Let's go talk to the mayor at the church. Uh-oh, something happened, but the game kindly teleports you there, that's nice. Hmm, this guy got attacked, but they won't let me through without a sword. So I gotta walk my sorry ass back to town and get a sword. But wait, I gotta tell the cleric what happened. Let's go to the mayor's house, why? Why can't we talk here? Fine, go to the freaking mayor's house, right, at least get some money. Let's go get a sword and go after those guys over at the shop here. Wait, what? Why aren't you open? Oh, there's another place to buy stuff. Fine, I've got the exact amount to buy all three of these things. Nothing is equipped automatically, okay? So let's... wait, what? You equip one thing and it kicks you out of the menu. And so it goes for Lagoon, one big annoying game. This game is work. I will say they at least do a nice enough job with the overall presentation. The game looks nice enough, especially the intro here. The music is pretty good, and it's really surprising how good the soundtrack is here. It's well done. The boss designs are interesting, although the game for some reason forbids you from using magic against them? What the hell is that? And it's got the typical top-down adventure style gameplay, but the biggest flaw with that, as you can see here, is that your attack range is absurdly short. The gameplay is pretty similar to the early East games, where the movement is kind of the same and you heal automatically. It may be a top-down adventure game, but you do level up and manage equipment and items like an RPG, but seriously, it looks like I'm waving a toothpick at these guys. Come on! But yeah, your basic adventure game stuff is here, and I want to stress the word basic. The story is as generic as it gets. Some evil guy named Zera has mucked up all the water in the world and made everyone sick, so you gotta stop him before he's able to release some evil spirit hibernating under a castle. Woo, Lord! It warrants mentioning that Lagoon was first released on the sharp X68000 in Japan in 1990. Look at this beast. I think the 68000 is actually how many pounds that thing weighs. Anyway, that version has more cutscenes, and the quests are in a different sequence than the Super Nintendo version. I haven't played it, but it doesn't necessarily seem better in any way. The cutscenes do look nice, though. So yeah, Lagoon might serve as a starter adventure game if you don't want to shell out the dough for Link to the Past, but let's be honest, you're not missing anything if you don't play Lagoon.