Elemental Gearbolt - Japanese Version with English Cutscene/Text (Sony PS1) - Full Playthrough

Описание: The Japanese only recording can be found here    • Elemental Gearbolt - Japanese Version (Son...  

I played the Japanese version of this game because the US version made by Working Design is completely unbalanced. Working Design was notorious for bumping up the difficulty to absurd levels. However, there is a lot of lore in this game and it is more than just a simple railshooter. It's basically an episode of an anime with a complete story arc so I decided to swap the cutscenes and epilogue text with the english version with the magic of video editing. Usually, I like to preserve the original look and feel of a game - and that's also the reason why this is played at the original resolution - but I found it important to understand what is going on.

This is one of the few games where, after playing it, I had to find out all the backstory. Just a quick overview (from https://shikigaminoshiro.fandom.com/w...

The events of the game are framed through the character of Tagami, a mysterious figure who travels to the world in which the game is set many centuries after the main events conclude in order to investigate what caused the world's destruction. Tagami relives the tragedy of the Elemental Gearbolt incident.

Before the Elemental Gearbolt incident, the world was home to two races, Audo and Sulunkan. The Sulunkan, descendants of a fallen magical empire, were oppressed by the Audo. There are secret resistance groups, but none strong enough to challenge the powerful Audo ruling class. Destiny is set in motion when Nell and Seana, the Sugiku (half breed) daughters of a resistance leader, meet Bel Cain, the Sugiku son of the selfish King Jabugal. Nell and Bel Cain promise to meet again, but other circumstances interfere.

Years later, Bel Cain becomes crown prince, full of ambition to end the bitter class struggle. Armed with advanced technology, he starts a campaign of conquest. Meanwhile, Nell and Seana join the Sulunkan resistance, only to be killed. Their bodies are taken back to the capital city as trophies. At the same time, one of Bel Cain's technologies, a Neural Network Computer comprising human brains, malfunctions and initiates a self-destruct sequence. It links powerful weapons known as Holy Guns to Nell and Seana's corpses, re-animating them as Elementals. They have only one purpose - seek and destroy the Network. Nell and Seana, now reanimated as elemental war machines, battle their way through the cathedral in the Opening Act: "Grieving Angel's Descent".

There is also a "Library" in the game that adds even more details to the story. I also added it to this video in case anyone is interested.

Aside from the interesting story, it is an excellent game in all other aspects too. The stage design, graphics and especially the orchestral music are all amazing! I played this in the duckstation emulator and kept the internal resolution at 1x because I found it looked better than the plastic look of high res polygons with low res textures. Speaking of duckstation: the GunCon emulation is weird. The target reticle and the area where you hit only match at the right side of the screen and the further left you aim the bigger the offset becomes. That means I couldn't get all fairies in the last stage because a few gems are almost impossible to hit with this emulation bug.

Anyway, very long description this time. I highly recommend this game! Also, please don't forget to like & subscribe. Thank you!

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00:00 - Intro
01:57 - Title Screen
02:18 - Prelude
03:54 - Opening Scene: Grieving Angel's Descent
08:22 - Scene 2: Enter the Dragon
15:11 - Scene 3: The Crypt of Despair
20:53 - Scene 4: Plains of Regret
27:28 - Scene 5: The Palace Ruins
33:58 - Scene 6: Purposed to Perish
39:20 - Ending
41:18 - Credits
42:18 - Start of Hidden Lore (in Credits)
45:50 - Outtakes (Voice Actor Bloopers)
50:20 - Library (Additional Lore)