Chaos Seed is a rather unique genre game released by Taito in spring 96, for the Japanese Superfamicom (Super Nintendo) system. All the game messages are in Japanese with an extra heavy dose of Kanji characters. There is no planned English translation that I am aware of. A translation to Saturn has been announced.
Chaos Seed is an exceptionally high quality game near the end of the life span of the SFC. The game system is rather complex, and may be difficult to grapse for some novice gamers even with the lecture scenario. However, for experienced gamers the game has depth and would offer over 100 hours of entertaining game play. (This is a review written by an experienced gamer, not a Square ad, and I do mean 100 hours of entertaining game play according to first person experience.)
Besides the rich game play, the game also has top-quality graphics and game music among SFC games, although they are of course no match for some of the next-generation 3-D games.
The player is a "Cave Master", who uses excavation magic to create "Enchanted Caves". He lives in a place where the land is sometimes drained of its energy, resulting in its withering. The player builds an Enchanted Cave, with which he collects the energy buried in the land and channels it into the "Ryuketsuro" (Dragon Vein, the center of energy flow inside the Cave), and revives the land. He summons "Enchanted Animals" to help him maintain the Cave. However, outside people do not understand what he is doing. They think that he is causing the withering of the land with his weird cave and monsters! They even form parties to invade the Cave and attack the Cave Master, and he has no choice but to battle them. The game is set in a "Chinese Fantasy" setting.
Rather than progressing along a linear storyline, the game takes the form of many short scenarios with some connection between them, but there are "parallel worlds", and the connection is more a cause-effect kind of connection than a temporal one. The player can choose to play any one of the accessible scenarios. Each scenario has its own ending; most scenarios have multi-ending, and the player's eventual objective is to see all of the endings. (The game play is good, so that a scenario stands up to repeated play.) The story involves elements of dinmensional and time travel, and shows some appreciable intelligence of the story writer. There are a couple of omake non-cave-construction scenarios. One is a detective story adventure game, with a quite interesting story.
The game has two main components: Cave construction and action stages. The action stages are like any action adventure game: you fight your way through dungeons, and also fight bosses. This part of the game is quite soundly developed. The player has many moves, and his attack magic is very powerful. There are also some auto-event scenes (including some cute Namco-style intermission between game turns) and a town map.
The main feature of the game is Cave construction, which would take up about 90% of the game time. The player can freely construct rooms and corridors, subject to the map borders and his “dungeon point” and energy allowances. The player may construct eight kinds of rooms (the following description is adapted from the instruction booklet):
The game plays in real-time. The player moves around his own Cave, creating rooms and corridors, fighting enemies and destroying teleportals, and accessing the abilities of the various rooms (such as collecting energy and Sentan, and summoning Animals). A clock counts down the time remaining for the current game turn. At the conclusion of the game turn, there is a “Reckoning” phase. During Reckoning, the player (in Sim-mayor style) purchases improvements for the rooms, organizes the Animal groups and set their routes, and places traps. (All other game functions have to be done during the game turn proper, by physically accessing the locations.)
Let’s take a look at the game flow for scenario 1 for an example. The player initially starts with some energy and some “dungeon points”, and a production room. The first order of business is usually to construct a Sentan room and a summoning room. The Sentan room is needed to produce Sentan for room improvements and summoning Animals. The summoning room is needed, because only Animals can take the Sentan from the Sentan room to other rooms for improvements. Once these rooms have been created, the player withdraws some Sentan from the Sentan room and summons a dragon in the summoning room. In the next Reckoning phase, the dragon is ordered to distribute the Sentan among the rooms.
After a few rooms, the player finds a staircase room, which leads to the Ryuketsuro. The player may continue to expand his Cave, building more production rooms to increase the energy production. Besides various kinds of rooms, he also builds corridors to improve the connectivity of his Cave and to improve the fung-shui. Construction consumes energy and dungeon points; the latter can be replenished by feeding energy into the Ryuketsuro. Enemies appear every turn; they try to destroy rooms, steal energy and Sentan, and kill the player and his Animals. The player and his Animals fight the enemies, sometimes with the help of the attack room and traps. As the player feeds energy into the Ryuketsuro, some scenario events are triggered. Eventually, the required amount of energy has been fed, and the dungeon to the scenario boss is opened.
The Animals are based on the twelve birth signs of China. (I really like this, as it matches the setting well.) Initially, the rat, the dragon, and the bird (rooster) can be summoned. The rat transports energy, the dragon transports Sentan, and the bird heals lost HPs of rooms. The dragon is the best fighter among the three, but since it is actually a mini-dragon, there are more powerful fighters that can be summoned once the summoning room has been improved. (One of the most powerful Animals is the all-round hog.) The Animals gain experience and levels as they fight enemies. (Also, Animals can be summoned at higher levels with a summoning room improvement, so that Animals summoned late in the game have a fair chance. However, summoning high level Animals costs a lot more Sentan.) A slain Animal can be revived in a summoning room without loss of experience, though there is a small Sentan cost. As the summoning room is improved, "higher class" versions of some Animals may also become available.
Animals are organized into groups. Each group may contain up to four Animals, but some large (fighting-class) Animals, such as tigers, count as two. The first group always contains the player; additional groups can be created when more summoning rooms have been constructed. In each group, the player selects one Animal as the leader. Some Animals have a leadership bonus, which improves certain abilities of the group when that Animal is selected as the leader.
The various Animals have different attributes and abilities, and they are nicely animated. A nice feature of this game is that you can name each Animal individually as you summon it. The name can be recalled in a future scenario. (Alternatively, you may use default suggestions.) The Animals add a lot of color to the game.
The fung-shui system is a unique feature of this game. Normally, certain basic improvements are offered for each room, based on the type of the room. However, by meeting fung-shui requirements, other improvements can be added. You can increase the energy or Sentan production in a room that is not a production room or a Sentan room, or make a room that is not an attack room attack enemies automatically. You can get the ultimate improvements for the room type. There are even “global” improvements, which benefit all rooms once installed.
Each room belongs to one of the five traditional Chinese elements: Fire, Earth, Metal, Water, and Wood. The element is determined by the location of the room when it is constructed. Only six of the eight types of rooms can be created from a room of each element; for example, an Earth room can become any type other than production or Sentan. A room receives flow of fung-shui “ki” from rooms it is directly connected to via corridors, but only up to six corridors may be connected to a room. Normally, a room receives one unit of ki of the element of each connecting room, and also one unit of the element of this room itself. However, the amount received from connecting rooms may be modified by the traditional “interaction” between the five elements, and also by doors.
Fire generates Earth; Earth generates Metal; Metal generates Water; Water generates Wood; Wood generates Fire. (These are one-directional, non-symmetric relations.) If the element of the connecting room generates the element of this room, this room receives double the amount of ki from that room. When a corridor is constructed which leads into a room, a door will be created at the room unless the corridor is too short or it runs into the room at a corner. (A door is not created at a corridor which leads out of a room.) A door into this room doubles (or re-doubles) the amount of ki from that corridor.
Fire hurts Metal; Metal hurts Wood; Wood hurts Earth; Earth hurts Water; Water hurts Fire. If the element of the connecting room hurts the element of this room, this room receives no ki from that room, unless there is also a door. In that case, this room receives one unit of ki.
Each fung-shui required improvement requires specific amounts of the ki elements. For example, Energy Production Level 1 (which doubles the energy production) in other than a Production Room requires 1 Fire and 2 Earth, with another 1 Wood required for Level 2. To attract enemies to an attack room, you need 2 Fire, 2 Earth, and 2 Wood (which incidentally also allows you to install Energy Production Level 2). And so on.
Chaos Seed is an innovative game with some acclaimation in Japan. The game successfully combines action-RPG with Cave construction. Both the setting and the game system are highly original. The rooms and improvements, the Animals, the unique fung-shui system, and the scenarios, will provide the player with long-lasting game play and an unforgettable gaming experience - but only if the player has the gaming experience required to understand the rather complex game system.
Despite a few minor flaws, I heartily recommend this game to any experienced gamer who can read Japanese.