Lagoon is an action RPG game of the early SNES era, released in 1990. The game takes place in the country called Lakeland and has a very generic story. You play as Nasir – the Champion of Light, on a quest to clean the water of your homeland. Along the way, you encounter an evil sorcerer named Zerah, who seeks to release an evil spirit and take over the world! The story is pretty bland and unoriginal, which doesn’t help the game’s appeal.
In terms of gameplay, the game is an action RPG with a top-down view similar to The Legend of Zelda. You guide Nasir through many different towns and dungeons battling monsters and killing bosses! There are RPG mechanics such as gaining experience (and levelling up) which increases your stats. However, the sword-play is lacklustre as your sword is only a few pixels long which makes it very difficult to make contact successfully with enemies without injuring yourself. Players need to literally be right next to enemies to make contact, which can be frustrating.
However, the sword-play is lacklustre as your sword is only a few pixels long which makes it very difficult to make contact successfully with enemies without injuring yourself.
Despite the lacklustre sword fighting, there are actually a lot of items to find in the game that significantly improve your stats and make venturing into the dungeons fun and worthwhile. These items include various types of swords, shields, armour, and accessories. The game also has significant magic abilities which are much more fun to utilize compared to the sword. The game allows players to combine four different crystals and staffs to create unique magic attacks! These made engaging enemies much more enjoyable. MP points also naturally regenerate (albeit a bit slow) so you will generally always be able to save up MP points if you need them.
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Each area has a major boss fight, and I found these to be the least enjoyable part of the game because they often required level-grinding because of a significant need for HP as getting close enough to the boss to attack often left you getting hit yourself. With perseverance and a little luck, bosses are able to be defeated.
The graphics look like they came from a very early SNES game. The characters, enemies, and special effects all look and feel very generic and boring. However, the game does have some unique ideas, such as having your armor look different when you equip different types of items (a first, as far as I can tell, in the SNES library)! One thing I really don’t like about the graphics is that the dungeons all looked the same, so I often got lost (similar to how people might get lost in the original Metroid). The environments outside were much more fun and pretty to look at.
This game did really well in many ways, and music was one of them. The game’s intro music and a lot of other songs are easy to remember. The sounds aren’t as memorable, but they do their job.
Overall, Lagoon was a fun game when I was a kid, but it hasn’t held up well over the years. The gameplay is boring because you can’t use your sword well and the graphics are boring. This makes it hard to get around in the dungeons. But the game has some great parts, like a moody and awesome soundtrack and a cool magic system that lets you kill enemies in unique ways. Lagoon might be worth your time if you want a game that is similar to The Legend of Zelda but not quite as good. But if you’re looking for a truly great action RPG from the SNES era, you should look somewhere else.
In short, Lagoon is a boring action-RPG that was different when it came out but hasn’t aged well. It’s playable but not very fun because you can’t use your sword well and the graphics aren’t very interesting (which make the dungeons hard to navigate). Some parts of the game are great, like the moody and awesome music and the cool magic system that gives you a lot of ways to kill enemies.
Summary
Lagoon is an action RPG game of the early SNES era. You play as Nasir, the Champion of Light, on a quest to clean the water of your homeland. Along the way, you encounter an evil sorcerer named Zerah, who seeks to release an evil spirit and take over the world. The game has a top-down view similar to The Legend of Zelda, RPG mechanics, and significant magic abilities. However, the sword-play is lacklustre, and the graphics are bland and generic. Despite this, Lagoon has some unique features such as a cool magic system and an awesome soundtrack.
