58| Space Funeral

Released: September 17th, 2010

Available on: PC

Undertale seems to be all of the rage lately as it takes the classic Mother formula of mixing JRPG with a comical theme that doesn't take itself too seriously.  While I do agree that Undertale is a great game, it appeared on this list after all, I wonder why there wasn't such fanfare for Space Funeral which came out half a decade earlier and was free. Sure the game was even shorter than Undertale and didn't quite have its production values, but its world was even more intriguing and "weird" than Undertale's. It's a hidden gem that definitely deserves a playthrough from anyone.

The game begins with a selection screen giving the player the option to start a new game, load a game, or exit the game. What's strange is that rather than having these things written out, all of the options simply say "Blood" instead. This is accompanied by a bloody disembodied head on the title screen. To add to that the Final Fantasy theme is being played, though in an off-tempo manner. Once the top "blood" is selected the first screen appears. The player controls the character of a fat sobbing young man. He is in front of a casket which contains him. Standing next to it is a zombified man and next to him a woman who is possibly his mother. When the character talks to the woman she repeats "Eat your greens." The hysterical fat character exits the building to find himself in a nightmare inducing world filled with blood lakes, giant disembodied heads for houses, and strange creatures including zombies, muscle men, wizards, and ball shaped rabbits. The world is truly unlike anything else you will encounter in a video game.

The plot starts off when the player eventually bumps into a horse with its head and tail chopped off. The horse is very much alive and even talks. According to the horse, who calls himself "Leg Horse", he was once a king and someone took over his throne. He has since been on a quest to take back his rightful place as heir and demands that the sobbing young man accompanies him. This is the basis of the story, but just like Mother and Undertale, what makes the game stands out isn't the plot per say, but the characters and locations the player will visit during the journey. Players will find themselves roaming through blood caverns, talking with a Guru Wizards, fighting of Crime bosses, meeting vampires, amongst other things. It is all very "Mothery" but with a twist of course.

The presentation of the game is fantastic. The setting has been described enough as it mostly consists of a living nightmare world with blood and decapitation at every turn. What adds to this is the game's art style. It is very crude and unprofessional as it all is done in Microsoft Paint with single filled colors. Despite this it works very well and helps it stand out. However, none of this even mentions the game's psychedelic '60s and '70s era soundtrack. It sounds crazy at the first listen but it is absolutely perfect for the game. It adds to its mysterious and unsettling atmosphere as your ears are in the same state as your eyes. It is a state of encountering something strange and possibly even grotesque, but you just can't find yourself to turn away as you actually enjoy what you are experiencing.

I have yet to mention the game's actual gameplay. While the setting and theme are anything but typical, the gameplay itself is actually very average. It is your usual linear JRPG experience. You follow a pathway on the map until you get to the next major event. During the travel toward the destination the heroes will come across enemies they will fight in a turn based battle system. The only thing to really note is that the game doesn't use random battles, but rather the more modern system of having enemies follow the player around on the map to in which if they touch the player then they will be transferred to a battle screen. The game's battle system is active turn based, so each character will have a meter that fills up until they can attack. The character can't sit around too long as the enemies have such a delay between attacking as well, and as soon as they can attack they will. During the battles their is a command list where each character can either attack, use a skill, use an item, or use "mystery" which has rare chance of causing something random. It's essentially the ATB battle system from Final Fantasy. It would be nice if the game did something a little more unique, but being that everything else about the game is so different it isn't that much of a mark against it.

The game isn't perfect as it is too short and could use a few more stand out characters. That said it is still a highly enjoyable title that deserves a playthrough from any gamer. The atmosphere is amazing and its style is very baldly and is nothing that a non-independent developer would ever dream of attempting. Once again the game is free. F-R-E-E, free! There is no excuse not to at least try the game. Believe me you will not regret it.

Free or not, the game looks ugly as hell. 8-bit or 16 color palatte games are all well and good when its designed in a clean and aesthetically pleasing way. I think there's a minimum standard that every game needs to meet in order to catch the attention of the masses, and this is not it. Plus sometimes developers are better off, asking for a few dollars for their game rather than giving it away for free. I think there's a genuine stigma attached to free games, that only recently started going away. And to be fair most of the good free games are still trying to ding you for microtransactions.