MX7 wrote:
That Wizardry OVA is so surprisingly compelling as a one-shot dungeon crawler. Dungeon crawl narratives that exist outside of trpgs or crpgs are absolutely facinitating and there used to bevery few as this, though it seems that every other light novel series seems to be about embracing videogame conventions now. The murk and grime of VHS makes these OVAs really unlike anything else. I did a double bill of Wizardry and Digital Devil Story just a few weeks ago and it was a blurry fuggy feast for the senses
Oh nice, I'll check out DDS this weekend.

I was thinking of your old
Dungeon Cinema mini-thread after Wizardry, would've been a shoe-in.

Approaching from the other side of the game/film divide, I've been playing Rygar recently. Even by coinop standards, it's distilled. Run/jump/kill and grab goodies. But quite simultaneously, there's an unmistakably fond sense of place, and journey. Distant landmarks seen in daytime are later silhouetted against molten sunset, shrewdly evoking time and distance. There are no night stages, the torchlit shrines that dot the course presumably giving refuge from "night-goers" that even Beowulfs regard cautiously in the ancient dark.
Artifices amidst the wild are invariably unique, down to tiny curios like the quaint plank spanning an innocuous brook. The same for settlements - Antmen don't appear to like the feral mutants much, going by the skulls lining the former's village. You never see the latter's "home" - maybe they're classic nomad reavers despised by all? Both sides certainly don't like our hero much, guess god will have to sort them out. The midpoint, given the always-reliable #13, is a ruined settlement occupied by enemy soldiers, their beast mounts, and a horde of headless thralls. Concealed within is a massive treasure haul, and a parchment worth a staggering sum. Whether this was a recent sacking, or a fabled store attracting enemy notice, can't be known any more than the provenance of the massive ruined fort where the enemy leader resides.
I'd love to get a committedly hardcore action film, animated or otherwise, with a similar balance of thoughtful detail and outright exposition - that is, lots and none, respectively.
