"Without a doubt, the earliest games in the IF Neverland franchise can be evenly split into two halves that alternate with each successive game we've covered. One half is the more experimental games, with mixed results... Still, where Spectral Force 1, 2, & Lovely Wickedness succeeded was in defining a fantasy world filled with unique & varied characters, all vying for control over one primary continent... but what happens AFTER one side claims victory?"
While Idea Factory started off with a small variety of different IPs, it quickly became obvious that the games taking place in the fantasy world of Neverland were the ones that seemingly got the most attention, even if a mixed critical reception tended to accompany them (or perhaps it was even due to that). This was seen most in the year 1999, which saw IF release six games (a number that wouldn't be topped until 2004, with the introduction of the IFMate brand), all of which were for the PlayStation but only one of which (Oasis Road) had nothing to do with Neverland. Last time we only covered the first two IF Neverland games released in 1999, and this time around we'll be mostly focused on the remainder of that year, as well as the pair of titles released in 2000, one of which brings an end to not just IF Neverland's time on the PS1, but also Idea Factory's time with the console as a whole.
As for the lore of IF Neverland, Idea Factory find themselves in an interesting place, as Spectral Force: Lovely Wickedness brought an end to the Great Neverland War, the major conflict that all of the IF Neverland games up to this point had some relation to, whether it was letting players experience the war themselves or showing the adventures some of the war's players had in the years before it broke out. Where, then, would Idea Factory go from there on out? Well, eventually, they would start to show what was happening in the Main Neverland Continent in the aftermath of the war, one that would act as a prelude to a second continental war, but first we have a couple of retreads to go over...
One of the games covered in "Episode 1" of the IF Neverland Reportage was Monster Complete World (a.k.a. "MonCon"), which was Idea Factory's take on the whole "Mon" craze that was sweeping Japan (& the world, honestly) at the time, while also acting as a bit of an origin story for Chiffon, who would later become the young warrior who kills Overlord Janus & winds up starting the Great Neverland War. "MonCon" would see release (only) in Japan on May 27, 1999, but just five months later (almost to the literal day!) IF would release Hole of the Legend Monster: Monster Complete World Ver. 2 on October 28, 1999. Taking place once again in Magic Era 989, this wasn't really a sequel to the original game. Instead, like the title indicates, this was simply a "Version 2" of the same game that simply addressed some bugs that were found in the original release (remember, the idea of patching games was still only done on rare occasion on PC at the time, & was still literally impossible to do on consoles), but there was at least a new addition in the form of the titular "Densetsu-Jyu no Ana", or "Hole of the Legend Monster", a new environment for you & your party of monsters to enter into. The only major difference looks to be that Chiffon now isn't the character you play as, though he's still around as a rival to compete with, instead giving players the option of a generic boy or girl to play as; if anything, think of this game as a parallel story to the original.
In terms of gameplay, though, "MonCon Ver. 2" is more or less the same exact game as before. Therefore, you play enter dungeons to capture new monsters & level up the ones you already have by way of roguelike movement & turn-based combat in which what your lead monster can do is based on how many available points you currently have to work with, while your two back up monsters can provide various buffs & the like. While the game naturally has a number of pre-made dungeons to explore, "MonCon" takes influence from Tecmo's Monster Rancher series by allowing players to use audio CDs to generate new content in the form of new dungeons to explore, theoretically giving the game a seemingly uncountable amount of places to journey into. Yeah, it's definitely a bit weird for an updated release to come out not even a full half year after the original, but the concept of Monster Complete World Ver. 2 in & of itself isn't weird, as there were other examples of PS1 games being given updated and/or expanded versions later on, though usually that relied on re-release labels (like Greatest Hits) to take advantage of. Interestingly enough, while Idea Factory did re-release the large majority of its PS1 catalog in 2007 on the PS3 & PSP via the PSOne Archives program in Japan, neither Monster Complete World game received that treatment, and it's not like the whole "using audio CDs" concept would have made that impossible, as both Monster Farm 2 & vib-ribbon got digital re-releases, with the latter even getting released abroad.
The release of Monster Complete World Ver. 2 in October would mark the start of a monthly release schedule for the IF Neverland series for the remainder of 1999, because just one month later saw the release of Junjou de Karen Meimai Kishi-dan: Spectral Force Seishoujo Gaiden/The Pure & Lovely Meimai Knights: Spectral Force Holy Girl Side Story, which came out on November 25. Conceptually, this was yet another return to the Great Neverland War, specifically Magic Era 1000, only now with a different side of the war being given the focus: The Kingdom of Meimai in the Southeast. However, this wasn't just yet another retread of the war simulator that Idea Factory had previously released three times over, at least in some way. While that was still the main focus of the gameplay, now interspersed between segments were visual novel-esque sequences where your player character, Fort, would converse with the various members of the Meimai Knights, the all-female troupe that lead Meimai's forces into battle. In short, Idea Factory decided to fuse Spectral Force with Sakura Wars, so while the larger scope goal is to help Meimai survive the war, the personal goal is to get Fort into a relationship with one of the Meimai Knights. While this does sound a bit like trend chasing, this kind of fusion of a dating sim/visual novel with other genres was popular at the time in Japan, as seen with titles like Sakura Wars 1 & 2 on the Saturn, Thousand Arms on the PS1, or Blue Breaker for the PC-FX, PS1, & Saturn; in other words, Idea Factory wasn't the only trend chaser.
In terms of lore, this game mainly gives more character development to the Meimai Knights themselves, who naturally all fit some sort of archetype to appeal to players' interests for the dating sim aspect. There's Tina (as seen in Monster Complete World), the beautiful Princess of Meimai & Commander of the Meimai Knights (taking command of the Kingdom after her father passes away), who's the blatantly obvious & canon choice. Rato (also seen in "MonCon") is a curious & romantic martial artist who can deduce right from wrong using jewels. Rimm is Rato's sister-in-law who dresses like a maid due to her prior job, before the Meimai Knights recruited her due a special power she has. Kiratt is a young witch who joins the Meimai Knights after meeting Fort. Anita is the leader of a group of thieves who's as masculine as she is feminine, and wields a whip. Finally, even IF Neverland's iconic Hiro can become Fort's significant other, though I'm sure the path to this ending is much more complicated than any of the others. Most amusingly, though, is Fort's character design as his eyes are constantly shadowed out so as to help anonymize him so that the player can better see themselves as Fort... only for all future IF Neverland games that show Fort in some fashion continuing to shadow over his eyes, despite him no longer being a player avatar; talk about dedication! However, getting to all of this relationship building & romancing requires one to play through the same exact Spectral Force war simulator gameplay that Idea Factory had already previously released three times over by this point, with the only notable difference being that you can now recruit new commanders after conquering a nation (whereas before they had to come to you), so there's definitely a strong feeling of diminishing returns for Junjou de Karen. I can definitely respect Idea Factory for trying to add in something interesting to what was already an established formula, but this was literally the fourth Spectral Force game in just three years (& the last two were only released a handful of months apart!), so this also felt a bit too much like Idea Factory (once again) deciding that "there's no kill like overkill". Interestingly enough, though, Junjou de Karen wouldn't see a digital re-release in the 00s via the PSOne Archives, same as Lovely Wickedness, so anyone who tried experiencing the Great Neverland War that way couldn't even come to a canon conclusion, either lore-wise or romantically!
But enough of the Great Neverland War & what happened prior to Janus' death at the hands of Chiffon... what happened next?! Luckily, for those in Japan who were curious, there wouldn't be much of a wait, as only a month following Junjou de Karen's release, on December 22, 1999, Idea Factory released Spectral Blade for the PS1, which took place in Magic Era 1025, 13 years after the end of the Great Neverland War in 1012. At this point, the Simba Empire (established in place of Muromachi) rules over Neverland after winning the War, with humanity now having dominion over all after a near-millennia of the demons ruling over them. Simba himself has since passed the throne over to his confidant Solty, who sends a squadron of swordmasters, including one called Krayce, on a mission to exterminate monsters & destroy the various magic swords (similar to the Tenmaken that killed Janus) throughout Neverland. What starts off as a simple mission, though, eventually unfurls into discovering the truth behind (a now masked & hooded) Emperor Solty... which (spoilers!) climaxes in Krayce & his girlfriend Flonne (a magic swordswoman) killing Solty, which in turn will slowly throw the balance of power in Neverland completely out of whack. In reality, though, "Emperor Solty" was actually a clone created by Solty to take his place, as the real deal simply returned back to his home of Dukeland, and the clone slowly became corrupt with power. Along with them, the cast of Spectral Blade includes Demowan & Equatoré (fellow sword users of the Simba Empire), Gilster (their commanding officer, who seems to know much more than he lets on), as well as Negi & Alm, two mysterious younger folk who in reality have connections to Mugen, King of the Underworld. In short, Spectral Blade is the direct connection between the Great Neverland War that truly started the overall plot & timeline of the IF Neverland franchise as a whole & the next overarching plot, the Second Neverland War, and the path to that conflict starts here.
Interestingly enough, though, the kind of game Spectral Blade is is one that kind of actively goes against what this franchise had quickly become known for: A traditional turn-based RPG. Yes, while IF Neverland had featured more standard RPGs before, they all still had some sort of quirk or mechanic that kept them from being "traditional". Spectral Blade, however, is essentially as close to something like a Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest game as IF Neverland had ever gotten to this point, and even afterwards would arguably remain the only one that truly fit that mold for the entire franchise. However, Spectral Blade will still feel familiar to some extent, as it uses a slightly modified version of the engine that powered Monster Complete World! That means battles (with random encounters now replacing on-screen enemies) still revolve around a single point character on each side, while the remaining two party members waiting in the back row until the player decides to swap one in (no passive effects, ala "MonCon", though), & attacks utilize a point system to use, where if you don't have enough points you have to recover some first. Interestingly enough, though, Spectral Blade doesn't allow characters to use items during battle, so stuff like healing either has to be done via the menu between battles or via a character that has a healing skill equipped. However, characters can only equip up to four skills at once, so healing will replace an attack, and skills themselves are attached to specific equipment. Overall, it makes for an interestingly unique RPG in some regards, but also one that's much easier to just jump right into & start playing, and unlike the various Spectral Force games before it Spectral Blade is actually something that one with little knowledge of Japanese would actually be able to fumble their way through & understand what does what through simple experimentation. That being said, it looks as though reception towards it in Japan might be on the lower end of things, with complaints of the plot taking too long to really get going (the first half is apparently mostly comprised of doing missions for Gilster, with only subtle plot development), one specific skill being ridiculously overpowered once acquired (even with it draining a little HP with each use), & the battle system seemingly being a step back from Monster Complete World, due to the lack of item usage & passive effects from your back row party members; also, dungeon layouts are extremely simplistic.
Playing some of it myself, Spectral Blade seems like a game that's arguably a little too simple & straightforward for its own good, but at the same time that does make it much easier to just get into & play, when compared to the Spectral Force series. Also, if a multi-part complete playthrough on YouTube is anything to go off of, it's not even all that long for a traditional turn-based RPG, clocking in at around 10 hours or so, so at least Spectral Blade isn't a major time sink.
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| Being a browser game, all that remains is an archive of the website. |
It's at this point that we reach the year 2000, which was the first year in a while where IF Neverland didn't make up the majority of the company's releases. Instead, IF expanded out with titles like debut PS2 games Sky Surfer (developed by Toka), The Mechsmith: Run=Dim (the first part of a multimedia endeavor with Digital Dream Studios), & Mamimume Mogacho's Print Hour, as well as Ikasama Mahjong for the PS1. Run=Dim & Mamimume Mogacho would also also receive their own TV anime series around this time, marking IF's only attempts to produce anime for TV, before sticking to just OVAs, mostly for promotional purposes. Beyond those, IF Neverland only saw three releases in 2000, and one of those was the Windows PC port of Spectral Force 2, which I covered last time already. Of those remaining two games, only one of them ever saw physical release, as the other was an online-only title & is now effectively (actual) lost media. So let's start with that "lost" game, which was Kingdom of Chaos, an MMO browser game that IF launched on May 15; luckily, a fair amount of info on the game can be sourced in Japanese online. Similar to other MMOs of the time, like EverQuest & Ultima Online, players would create an account for KOC & set up their own player avatar by way of name, gender, father & mother (the combination of which determined the race, interestingly enough), and character class (which were called "roots", just as in Spectral Tower 1 & 2); while a new account had a free trial with restrictions, long-term players would have to pay 300 yen/month. Though player characters were the main focus, there were also NPCs that in reality were played by actual IF staff, and if a player managed to find an IF staff's NPC home & left a message, they would sometimes receive a response.
Following that, the player could do a variety of things, treating the game as either a life simulator or a war simulator. You could buy a house, open an item shop, farm crops, or (appropriately enough for this franchise) be a part of the Second Neverland War, which started in Magic Era 1030. Yes, KOC was technically the starting point of IF Neverland's second major conflict, though once console games started coming out involving this war (we'll get to those next time) KOC would quickly be considered a non-canon "parallel world" to the main IF Neverland timeline. Just as with the Great Neverland War, there were 40 nations that players could join in battle, and some could even find their way up to being "King", who in turn would assign other players to be various Ministers (Home Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Military Affairs, Development, etc.), all while other players could act as soldiers & fight the war itself. At first, KOC only featured the Main Neverland Continent, but on December 16, 2002 the Old Continent from Generation of Chaos III was added as a second server to play on, while some time later on (likely in 2004) the Lost Ground from Generation of Chaos IV was added as a third server.
Like many online-focused things, though, Kingdom of Chaos couldn't last forever & eventually Idea Factory pulled the plug on it. However, this wouldn't happen until August 31, 2012 (effectively acting as the final nail in the coffin for the IF Neverland franchise, as a whole), meaning that KOC was an active MMO browser game for a solid 12 years, which is definitely nothing to scoff at. Also, to celebrate KOC reaching 500,000 active users, Idea Factory produced Kingdom of Chaos: Born to Kill, a four-episode OVA released between October 24, 2003 & April 23, 2004 that told a standalone story about Aide, an amnesiac warrior who finds himself being a part of the battle between Orthozes & Bjor on the Old Continent, the latter of which is ruled by Fract, a man who looks remarkably like Aide. Most shocking of all, though, is that KOC: Born to Kill is not just the best anime Idea Factory ever self-produced, but it's also the only one that I would heartily recommend anyone to watch (though only the first two episodes ever got fansubbed), as it requires no prior knowledge of IF Neverland to fully enjoy & isn't primarily just a promotional tool for a video game. Instead, this tells a complete story, one that even messes with your head in the final episode in a cool way.
So, with Spectral Blade taking place in Magic Era 1025 & Kingdom of Chaos establishing the Second Neverland War as starting in 1030, did anything happen in between the two, in-universe? The answer to that would be "Yes", and the game that explained what exactly would be Suna no Embrace: Edin no Sato no Navel/The Sandy Embrace: Navel of Edin Village for the PS1 (or "Embrace in the Sand -In the Lonely Earth One-", as the intro FMV says), which came out on July 27, 2000 in Japan & took place in Magic Era 1027; a rare IF Neverland game whose title doesn't feature the words "Spectral", "Chaos", "Souls", or even just "Neverland". Compared to the larger importance that Spectral Blade had in terms of the greater Magic Era timeline, Suna no Embrace is a much more personal story starring the titular Navel, a young girl who lives in an arid region & is searching for a magic stone that can allegedly make any wish come true, so that she can see her grandmother Soile one last time, as she had recently passed away & Navel feels guilty in that she wasn't able to get the local doctor to her in time. That being said, Suna no Embrace still ties into the greater Magic Era timeline by being the first game to feature Ankrowyer/Ancrowire (a.k.a. Ankrauser, in some official English translations), the "Black Lion" of the Simba Imperial Army who has been dispatched to Edin to create a new base; he also hates any disparity between people, instead wanting equality for all. There's also If, a half-demon ostracized by both humans & demons, who has come to Edin looking for power so that he can get back at his father for leaving him & his mother behind. In terms of a "villain", Suna no Embrace also marks the first appearance of "Holy God" Earth, a former angel who eventually took over the Heavenly Realm in place of Coria following the Great Neverland War, and it's Navel who breaks the seal on Earth over the course of this game; Earth plays a larger role in some later IF Neverland games.
In terms of gameplay, Suna no Embrace is what Idea Factory classified as a "hole digging RPG", as the primary focus is to guide Navel in digging holes in order to come across various items & the like, with the main goal being to find the wishing stone, alongside the other rare trinkets that comprise the in-game album of 72 rare items. While you can go about this in a random fashion simply by roaming the large open world-esque environment the game puts players in & digging all willy-nilly, the main focus is on examining the 120+ wind spirits (i.e. green orbs) that are dotted around the world. By examining them, Navel is provided hints as to certain landmarks & areas that check out, and some even just outright give X & Y coordinates to dig at (your current coordinates are available on screen at all times, making it hard to truly get lost), and that more or less comprises the main gameplay loop of Suna no Embrace: Head out, dig, find items, & return to base to recover before heading out all over again. The biggest difference between this title & most modern digging games (Miner Dig Deep, Steamworld Dig, etc.), though, comes from the fact that this is also an "RPG", so Navel will get into random encounters (& the occasional boss fight) that's contested via turn-based combat. Unlike Spectral Blade, though, Suna no Embrace's combat is much more straightforward, utilizing a first-person perspective & still images for enemies, & attacking sees the player selecting a type of attack based on different concepts (insect, dragon, neutral, etc.), with the main idea being to match the attack concept to the right enemy, i.e. hiyokomushi are susceptible to the insect concept. You can also use items during battle, and spend some water to heal Navel for a turn. Yes, alongside the standard HP gauge there is also a water gauge, with the latter being especially interesting. Obviously, water slowly drains as Navel roams about the overworld, but it's also both her equivalent to MP during battle (for healing) & her currency, as you can come across merchants who will sell you items & gear in exchange for water! This makes for an interesting little mechanic that helps add some neat risk vs. reward elements to the overall gameplay loop, as water bottles to replenish your water gauge (seemingly) can't be bought & are instead only found, so there's an element of "is it worth using up some of my water to buy stronger gear for fights?" to be found, which is neat.
Alongside all the hole digging are some dating sim aspects, as Navel can interact with & potentially romance one of five men over the course of the story; some rare items are actually with the men, and even something like running from battle can affect their affection towards Navel. Alongside Ankrowyer & If are the pretty boy Michael, the foul-mouthed but well intentioned Mule, & the priest Miroku; apparently, even Earth can be romanced as a secret sixth option. Meanwhile, Navel would later appear in some future IF Neverland games as a recruitable ally, and she naturally has the unique ability to dig, so as to find items & the like (or, at worst, enemies to fight). Overall, Suna no Embrace is a simple concept at heart, but one that's actually executed in an interesting way, though the RPG mechanics & random encounters admittedly aren't really needed, & instead just feel like IF keeping them here because that's mainly what they know, by this point; even over in Japan this seems to be one of the more fondly received IF Neverland titles. Finally, Suna no Embrace would actually see digital re-release via the PSOne Archives on May 31, 2007, alongside Spectral Tower & Spectral Force 2. Its overall importance in the Magic Era calendar isn't exactly as notable as Spectral Blade, but it's arguably the better game, overall.
I've organized The IF Neverland Reportage into five parts, with each one focusing around either one of the major conflicts seen throughout the IF Neverland franchise (The Great/First Neverland War, The Second Neverland War, & The Seven Years War), or a post/between-wars era, and this second part is one of the latter focuses. In terms of the games themselves, this does feel like a bit of a time of uncertainty from Idea Factory, as stuff like Monster Complete World Ver. 2 & Junjou de Karen don't really offer too much different than what came before them (aside from the latter's added focus on building character relationships, both friendly & romantic), while Kingdom of Chaos being shuttered in 2012 means that it's literally impossible to experience today, for anyone who might have been curious; it's actual lost media. That just leaves Spectral Blade & Suna no Embrace, with the former being a bit of a dichotomy due to it playing a notable role in the overall Magic Era timeline while oddly playing like a stripped down "MonCon", & the latter being an interesting mix of a digging game (years before it'd really start finding itself a niche as a genre) & a turn-based RPG, complete with some dating sim elements for flavor. Without a doubt, this was a time of experimentation from Idea Factory.
There isn't a lot here to cover, & this is easily the shortest part of them all (the remaining three will all be pretty packed, hence why this is on a "when it's done" non-schedule), but there's still a good amount of importance to be found here, at least with Spectral Blade, Suna no Embrace and, to a lesser extent, Kingdom of Chaos, when it comes to the overall lore & timeline of IF Neverland. Prior to the Great Neverland War, all the denizens of that main continent really knew as their "normal" was that humanity was subjugated by the demons for nearly a millennium... and now things have flipped completely over with the end of the Great War. Humanity, now wielding absolute power (&, in turn, becoming corrupted absolutely), have become the subjugators themselves, treating demonkind as lesser beings, and even those who have lineage from both sides are seemingly looked at as neither, as seen with If. Understandably, this isn't sustainable & eventually something's going to break under the pressure, just as it did when Chiffon killed Overlord Janus. The only difference is that it'll only take 18 years in the Magic Era to happen again, instead of nearly a millennium...
Preview: Much as the humans did previously, now demonkind rises up against their oppressors, creating a second continental war in Neverland. Deciding to create a new series to tell this this conflict "of Chaos", Idea Factory decides to fuse war simulation together with more traditional RPG gameplay, while also experimenting with other genres on the side (RTS, tactical, card battler, Gauntlet clone, etc.), all on a new generation of console hardware. In fact, IF Neverland finally makes its debut outside of Japan for the very first time!... sort of.
Next time on The IF Neverland Reportage... Episode 3: The Second Neverland War!
Hole of the Legend Monster: Monster Complete World Ver. 2 © 1999 Idea Factory Co., Ltd.
Junjou de Karen Meimai Kishi-dan: Spectral Force Seishoujo Gaiden © 1999 Idea Factory Co., Ltd.
Spectral Blade © 1999 Idea Factory Co., Ltd.
Kingdom of Chaos © 2000-2012 Idea Factory Co., Ltd.
Suna no Embrace: Edin no Sato no Navel © 2000 Idea Factory Co., Ltd.
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