Super Hydlide

[Zebbe]

Yeah, this game looks like crap, but it is very original, fun to play and has, as said by many others, great music! A bit frustrating at times but well worth a playthrough.

[SolarWarrior]

Hydlide 3 is what this is. The special edition version. Once I learned how to play it (needed to look up the manual online) I loved it.

I got into it one night, I just wish it gave you more direction on what to do where to go next.

Here is the original MSX version



The Genesis version

[Chimaera]

I played through this a few months ago with mixed results. I wanted to like it a lot, but the game seems to be actively fighting you at many points. Don't eat? Start losing HP. Eat too much or pick up too many items? You slow to a crawl. The graphical style makes finding essential items in dungeons a nightmare. The general difficulty of the game feels at times insurmountable, even compared to other hard early RPGs like Phantasy Star II.

However, I still can't bring myself to hate it. It was just a little before the times, tried to integrate too many things, and was in desperate need of an "easy mode." And it aged very poorly. I know it gets a lot of hate and appears on some "Worst Of" lists, but I still like it, even as just an obscure piece of the "Wild West days" of RPG history.

[Gentlegamer]

I tried playing it once. I started the game, bought leather armor, shield and a dagger.

And then I was over unencumbered and couldn't move.

[Chimaera]

And then I was over unencumbered and couldn't move.

Yeah, this game can at times feel like work, trying to figure out the most basic things, like how not to overload yourself.

[goldenband]

I like(d) this game a lot, but you definitely need to read the manual to get started without tearing your heart out.

Also, I found it easy to get into an unwinnable situation near the end of the game -- it's one of the (very) few RPGs I've ever restarted from scratch.

[Nightwolf]

Love this game. Surely looks like crap, and gameplay is everthing but good... but.... I like it, a lot, its very fun once you understand it and able to see throught its uglinees. I like to explore and wander in this game discovering secrets and day by day advance on the history. Guilty pleasure maybe

[Silanda]

Been playing a bit of this and the later Windows version lately. It's okay but rather obtuse and lacking in story. The grind is really frustrating in the early part of the game too, artificially lengthening what would be a rather short experience through repetition rather than good content.

It does have some gameplay tweaks compared to the original computer versions though. For example, the cloud stone is dropped by a boss in Super Hydlide rather than being hidden in the lift on floor 176 of the tower. One tweak in particular is quite helpful: you upgrade your magic in the starting town in Super Hydlide, this means that you can get the all important "move" spell before you complete the tower. In original versions you gain magic spells in the cloud city, meaning that until you get "move" you have to keep going through the first, second, and a few of the top floors of the tower to go from the field to the cloud city.

What I don't like at all in this version is the art. It's awful, grainy looking, and IMO aesthetically worse than the original art of the computer versions even if it's more colourful. I'd be interested to see how it actually looked with a composite or RF connection, because it looked truly dreadful when I tried to simulate that with the GTU shader. Some of the enemy redesigns are horrible too. Take the Tree Spirits and the Cannibals: in the original versions they look like trees, which is appropriate for what they're supposed to be. In Super Hydlide they look more like Parrot Grass from the Space Adventure Cobra Sega/Mega CD game. Not good.

Fun fact about this game: the PAL version is fatally bugged. Lots of text is missing on a PAL console. Play the PAL version at 60Hz and everything's fine, but play it on an unmodded PAL console and it's a mess. I have no idea whether the NTSC-U version is the same on a PAL console, but my suspicion is that it will be.

[knicksfan89]

Been playing a bit of this and the later Windows version lately. It's okay but rather obtuse and lacking in story. The grind is really frustrating in the early part of the game too, artificially lengthening what would be a rather short experience through repetition rather than good content.

It does have some gameplay tweaks compared to the original computer versions though. For example, the cloud stone is dropped by a boss in Super Hydlide rather than being hidden in the lift on floor 176 of the tower. One tweak in particular is quite helpful: you upgrade your magic in the starting town in Super Hydlide, this means that you can get the all important "move" spell before you complete the tower. In original versions you gain magic spells in the cloud city, meaning that until you get "move" you have to keep going through the first, second, and a few of the top floors of the tower to go from the field to the cloud city.

What I don't like at all in this version is the art. It's awful, grainy looking, and IMO aesthetically worse than the original art of the computer versions even if it's more colourful. I'd be interested to see how it actually looked with a composite or RF connection, because it looked truly dreadful when I tried to simulate that with the GTU shader. Some of the enemy redesigns are horrible too. Take the Tree Spirits and the Cannibals: in the original versions they look like trees, which is appropriate for what they're supposed to be. In Super Hydlide they look more like Parrot Grass from the Space Adventure Cobra Sega/Mega CD game. Not good.

Fun fact about this game: the PAL version is fatally bugged. Lots of text is missing on a PAL console. Play the PAL version at 60Hz and everything's fine, but play it on an unmodded PAL console and it's a mess. I have no idea whether the NTSC-U version is the same on a PAL console, but my suspicion is that it will be.

to me the best thing about this game(which I haven't played) is the soundtrack the o.m.i.s.e one is a quirky classic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxkxAS86Gno