Forgotten gems.

I was giving my evening walk when, at coming near to an electronics shop, I saw the recent Super NES Classic Edition was sold there, more known as Super Nintendo Mini (due to, among other reasons, my farewell to video game consoles during the last breaths of PS2, it's been long since I trod on one). I stayed watching the display window for a while and I continued my walk, while thinking about the limitless success of the 16 bit generation, able to sell even nowadays.

As I got interested, I decided to check which games were included. The article on Wikipedia informed me that the Japanese version and the International bring different games. This made the fact that quite many games aren't known outside a country, in this case Japan, to stick in my mind. And that made me remember Moon: Remix RPG Adventure.

It's very likely that the reader, even if doted with a good knowledge of video games, doesn't know what game is, except if it's Japanese or has a good knowledge about games that didn't make it abroad. Moon: Remix RPG Adventure appeared in Japan in 1997 for the first PlayStation and ows its fame for being, to say it subtly, a hard parody of the Japanese concept or an RPG. Because, in the same way that in Spain some ignorants with a degree (sometimes called journalists) believes these games are part of Satanic rituals (1), in Japan the concept of an RPG is very ligated to one of the electronic adaptations of Dungeon & Dragons, Wizardry. In particular, to the gameplay Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy inaugurated in their time, as well as the rather melancholical plots that made the latter saga notorious.

Moon: Remix RPG Adventure, as it indicates the linked article, doesn't only parody this kind of gameplay directly, like the more recent Like a Clockwork, but it also show us that art essence is construct again the sand castle and adds a story original for what the standards of Japanese games then. With a quest structure already known in western RPGs and a strong pacifism, the game stands for treating NPCs like individuals instead of considerating them as generic. The articles explains better than me what makes the game notorious.

I've never played Moon: Remix RPG Adventure, but without a doubt it's an attractive idea that really deserves an opportunity. Indeed, I knew about this game in its time through a brief comment in certain magazine. Nevertheless, it never came out from Japan. Love-de-Lic, its creators, also count among their works other two creations, even more unknown: UFO: A Day in the Life and L.O.L: Lack of Love (2). Neither came out of Japan and, furthermore, the second appeared on the prematurately abandoned Dreamcast. Both of them look even stranger: the first consists of searching aliens and the second is a kind of sandbox whose only goal is living, making various actions such as cooperating with other creatures, eating them or even something as basical as urinating (note the formerly linked article speaks of other game with a button for the said excretory function). In 2000, however, the company dissolved.

Anyway, they're interesting games. The problem is that none of them has seen again the light of the day. Moon: Remix RPG Adventure has been privileged with no less than two translation teams who have tried to adapt this great work to English. But no word has been said about a remake for either a modern console or PC. In part, it's logical since all works by Love-de-Lic have fallen into a legal vacuum after its disappearance. In its own way, it worries me, because it implies forget a fragment of video game history. Of human expressions, video games are one of the most affeced by obsolescence (either intentionate or not): home consoles get surpassed and old PC games need patches to work in modern operative systems, too.

The mentioned Super Nintendo Mini, just like the slightly former NES Mini, works with an emulator of the original home console created in a Linux system. Something similar happens with Moon: Remix RPG Adventure, which needs an emulator of PSX to work. But there's a difference: these emulators are creations of fans and lack a brand, to put it simple. And, incredible as it may be for free spirits, lots of people ignore anything unbranded. And little is done to teach video game history.

In Berlin, a video game museum exists. One of its most notorious incentives is the fact that it allows to not only observe, but also to play in the original machines and to understand gaming twenty or thirty years ago. It's quite good, but the problem resides in that you can't always go to a museum. In the same way that we admit reeditions of literary classics, although their authors were never able to enjoy their profits, we should admit official reeditions of electronic products and readapt them to new devices.

Of course, it's impossible, due to the very legal vacuum that allows the existence of ROMs on Internet. Who's the actual owner of Moon: Remix RPG Adventure? And what happens with its artistic features, like storyboard, graphic design, music, dubbing...? And so, for a great portion of the audience, they reamain unknown, to be enjoyed only by collector and those interested on the little ROM world. Very sad.

1 Short summary for foreigners, who aren't likely to know about pre-Internet Spain: In Spain, there was a disgraced murder, in whick a bastard and an imbezile killed a poor gentleman who was waiting for the bus. Later, it joined with another murder, caused by a supposed addict to Final Fantasy VIII, and later thanks must given to media ability to throw rubbish where it isn't needed. This why RPGs still have among some slick-haired people of serious speeches, actually ignorants with just looks, an air of macabre entertainment, to use an expression that could go out from their lips, proper of murderers and sectary groups.

2 I have observed that the authors are obsessed in the structure Noun: Noun Syntagma for the titles of their games.