Taiyou no Shinden Asteka II: Difference between revisions

 

The Famicom/NES port deserves special mention, for two reasons. First, it was the only one to receive an English-language localization; this version was titled ''Tombs & Treasure'', released in 1991 by [[Infocom]]. (It's worth noting that this "Infocom" was Infocom [[In Name Only]]; it was really [[Activision]] using the Infocom trademark, the original Infocom company having been disbanded two years earlier.) Second, Compile, who developed this port, made some major changes to the game; in particular, expanding upon the story (which was almost non-existent in the original), adding more characters, and adding some minor [[RPG Elements]]. The backstory now involves a previous expedition to Chichén Itzá, led by Professor Imes, in which most of the group disappeared, and your mission is to find them. Also, whereas the original game had only an [[AFGNCAAP]] player character, here you play as a party of three characters: a man (whose name is chosen by the player, and there is no default name), Professor Imes's daughter (this character also does not have a canonical name), and José the guide. Each of the latter two characters has an ability that must be used in order to progress past certain obstacles; specifically, the daughter can play musical instruments, and José can move heavy objects. The [[RPG Elements]] consist of a few enemies that you encounter (there's a fixed number of them, each one is unique, and each one appears at a single specific location), a turn-based combat system for fighting the enemies, and an [[Experience Points]] system (these points are rewarded both for defeating enemies and for making progress through the adventure-game puzzles).

* [[Adventurer Archaeologist]]

* [[AFGNCAAP]]: The player character in the PC-88 / PC-98 / MSX2 versions; not so in the Famicom/NES version. And in the Saturn and Windows versions, the player character [[Expy|bears a suspicious resemblance]] to [[Indiana Jones]].

* [[Blind Idiot Translation]]: Honestly not that bad for most of the game, but you can tell when the writing staff obviously hit crunch time and had to rush some lines which suddenly drop the use of articles or other unimportant words, or even punctuation.

* [[Breather Level]]: So to speak. The Nunnery has no enemies and serves no purpose other than to provide you the Ixmol Jewel and perhaps get used to using the various verbs available in the first-person sections.

* [[Character Portrait]]: These are used to represent which character is currently "selected". (To use a character-specific ability, you must select the character who has that ability.) Also, there are certain events in the game that cause event-specific static pictures of one of the player characters to be shown.

* [[Combat Tentacles]]: The [[Big Bad]] (Famicom/NES version only) is called Tentacula, and (appropriately enough) has tentacles. (It's not clear exactly how Tentacula or any of the other enemies fights, since it doesn't quite have an animation for their attacks; instead, each enemy sprite has an animation that loops continuously whenever that enemy is present, regardless of what you and they are currently doing.)

* [[Feelies]]: The manual is modeled after the professor's notepad.

* [[Hair Colors]]: The professor's daughter has bright green hair.

* [[Hint System]]: Cycling through the characters will sometimes make them comment on the situation if their given talent can be utilized. In a stranger example, finding a hidden tunnel to the Nunnery in the southeastern part of the map will make the Mayan god Kukulcan divulge a random tip for you.

* [[In Universe Game Clock]]: But you need the Sun Necklace to be aware of it, [[Fridge Logic|for some reason]].

* [[Use Item]]: The ubiquity of the command is lampshaded -- the icon for "Use" is a man scratching his head with a "?" next to him.

* [[Video Game Remake]]

* [[World Map]]: A [[Shown Their Work|fairly accurate]] portrayal of Chichén Itzá, although the Well of Sacrifice should be much farther away, and a few buildings unimportant to the game are missing.

** Oddly enough, the original Japanese version was the one who got it wrong about the geography of the game: the original name ''Taiyo no Shinden: Asteka'' means ''Temple of the Sun: Aztec'', when the "Temple of the Sun" is located in Teotihuacan, near Mexico City and the Aztecs lived in the Central parts of Mexico, but the game itself takes place in Chichen Itza, in Yucatan (located on Southern Mexico), and it was builded by the Mayans, not the Aztecs.