Far East of Eden II: Manji Maru

The story unfolds in the fantastical world of Zipangu. Be sure to check out the hero of fire in action!

JP release: 25th September 2005
EU release: N/A
NA release: N/A
Developer: Hudson Soft
Publisher: Hudson Soft
NGC Magazine Score: N/A
Mods Used: None

This is one of the more obscure titles on GameCube. It’s part of the Tengai Makyō (Far East of Eden) series, which were PC Engine CD games that have never been translated into English. They follow a near identical gameplay style to the Dragon Quest series (which weren’t available on the console) and became quite popular. This game is a remake of the second Far East of Eden game.

The game has been completely recreated with a 3D world combined with highly detailed 2D sprites. It’s a really nice look, especially inside buildings. You can rotate the camera in a small arc, letting you look around some objects. Battles also feature some nice background with animated enemies, although the two things don’t gel as well as the main game. On top of this are fully animated and voiced cutscenes, which are quite epic in scope.

It’s a turn-based RPG (and plays almost identically to Dragon Quest) set in a fantasy world. You play as Manji-Maru Sengoku (who seems to have bullied the local children into doing his bidding) who has to become a hero when a giant monster plant (with evil skeletons in its mouth) destroys a nearby village during a festival and making everyone except him (including his mother) disappear.

I managed to get to the end of the first dungeon, where the game pretty much tricked me. It was fairly smooth sailing, including the boss, when the boss revealed he pretended to die, came back and utterly destroyed me. With the language barrier, and it being a grind-based RPG, I left it there. Apparently there’s some quite gross themes throughout, mainly for shock value.

Fine

This also easily holds the new mantel for the most shockingly homophobic/transphobic game I’ve ever played, not only having it’s very bluntly gay-coded villain both be an animal abuser, but also very heavily implied (they stop the adventure to directly repeat it to you several times) to be both a pedophile and into bestiality. While the funny moments did make me genuinely laugh out loud several times, I think this game’s writing has too easy a tendency to use human suffering and triggering topics like sexual assault as lazy plot dressing to do no more than gratuitously drive home how evil the villains are. It’s overall aged like fine milk and is trash better left in the dustbin of history.
Partridge Reviews

Remake or remaster?

English released would probably be welcomed by classic RPG fans wanting a new one.

Official Ways to get the game

There’s no official way to buy Far East of Eden II: Manji-Maru