November Eve

November Eve is a pretty huge game by ZZT standards, coming in at three files which I'm just now noticing are labeled numerically on the title screens but with letters in the file names. Given the strong impulse for ZZTers to bring in gaming culture from mainstream circles, it's surprising that they aren't called "discs" when the source material is split across two CDs.

The game starts with a menu with plenty of information, and nicely themed with Gem Hunter (the main protagonist of Tseng's games) and Kim (this game's protagonist) staring at a screen in Gem Hunter's space ship.

Starting with stuff is the first of many walls of text which provides quite a bit of info, "November" being a recurring word in Tseng's games and explains why the month has some personal significance to him thanks to the song Gone Till November.

Xamboxumbadria is the powerhouse of the cell for the advanced Hoodian species. This game had enough impact on me that I could have told you how to spell the term at any given moment for the past nearly-twenty years.

In Parasite Eve, the protagonist's immunity to the mitochondria uprising is a major plot point and source of intrigue. Here, it's revealed upfront that Kim is immune to manipulating xamboxumbadria because she's a human from Earth and thus doesn't have any in the first place. This reveal wouldn't take much to deduce for anybody familiar with Tseng's games, and it's kind of strange just how long it takes the characters within November Eve to explicitly acknowledge it.

This scene discussed of Kim winning a game of poker against Gem Hunter and deciding they have to have an opera date is also animated as the game's intro.

The game's most notable feature is its battle system, which puts forth a good effort into the already pretty unique RPG mechanics seen in Parasite Eve. The most obvious being that the protagonist moves around the environment in real time, actively dodging enemy attacks. In the source material, accuracy and damage can increase based on how close to an enemy you are, but here Kim will just be shooting her weapon and hit automatically for fixed damage. Tseng points out that it's easy to cheat, and I'm glad that it's not really necessary to do so. However, props to him for unintentionally making the game more accessible.

There's also "November" energy, which lets Kim use special attacks which are essentially this game's (and in PE, "Parasite Energy"'s) magic.

The rest of the combat system will be covered as it comes up, including weapon switching and item usage because yikes this scroll is over seven kilobytes in size and I'd like to get to the game eventually.

Finally, a whole lot of credits. This game has a huge list of names here thanks in part to the game including cameos of every single member of the ZZT company Interactive Fantasies at the time. Also every single member of Interactive Fantasies dies in this game. It was an advertised feature in previews for the game. Any Tseng game of this era had significant hype both by people excited for whatever he'd come up with next as well as Tseng himself doing a lot of promotion.

The cast section is a modest three entries. This doesn't even begin to cover the sheer number of characters in this game.

The player is immediately told that Kim's got no xamboxumbadria and gets to be the hero. I don't think she worries about her hair in this game. I do know that I praised the positive portrayal she has in Gem Hunter: Special Edition, being a woman in a ZZT game who gets to be competent and capable of dealing with difficult situations. She is absolutely going to kick a lot of ass in this one as well. Of all the characters, she's probably the most likable.

Tyrone is also rather prominent, being de facto in charge of the police department that serves as the base of operations. Tseng's worlds have all this history to them which almost never really matters, but expect "Boys In Blue" and "IBI" to be mentioned on occasion.

And the villain, not Eve, but Steve! It's a parody so the name rhymes. Steve has some really big arms and Tseng actually reflects that in the game which would let Steve do quite a bit of emoting, but in practice it mostly amounts to doing a pose or spreading them wide and talking about how it's time for the Xamboxumbadria uprising.

I'm always curious what to expect when games include options to quit on their main menu. This one... is a passage to the current board and doesn't end the game or say a snarky message or anything. It is very absolutely.

The introduction is pretty barebones, and has no parallel to Parasite Eve which begins directly with the opera date. Most of the game's cutscenes at the very least feature character movement, but this one is totally static.

In cyan we have Kim, and in white, Gem Hunter.

The plot is a tad forced. None of these characters actually want to go see an opera, but they have to see an opera. PE meanwhile doesn't make its protagonist Aya an opera fan either, but is able to put her on an awkward date with some dork who wants to look cultured. It's honestly a great intro.

The game itself is split across several several days like PE. Each one gets one of these little intro screens with a subtitle.

Carnegie Hall? MORE LIKE MIGRANE HALL. Plenty of the game's 1:1 parodies are on the same footing as a cheap Mad Magazine knockoff, but don't let a low-effort gag at the start sour the mood.

Kim and Gem Hunter arrive at that opera and Gem Hunter will lament about he'd rather not be here, hoping maybe he'll sleep through it.

Our first of many many in-game cutscenes. The stat limit means that most ZZT crowds like this have to have white text for their chairs. I do like Tseng's choice to keep a mixture of bright and dark colored smileys for the audience. It's done in such a way that you might not immediately find the pair in their seats, but once you do they stand out plenty.

Things escalate almost immediately, and a dull night at the opera turns into chaotic room of people bursting into flames. I'm very amused by the lack of panic as two people on stage and then several audience members burst into flames.

I also enjoy Gem Hunter calling a room of people suddenly being killed without warning or reason "this shit".

Gem Hunter confronts the unnamed actor with Kim close behind. The brief flicker of flame on Gem Hunter is done really well, but leads to a rather annoying issue I had with the game where it's never questioned or explained why Gem Hunter doesn't get burned up like everyone else. He just gets plot armor and is allowed to live. He'll be the only Hoodian in the entire game to go up against Steve (that name will be revealed soon enough anyway) and not be killed.

There's supposed to be a blossoming relationship between Kim and Gem Hunter so I get why it couldn't be some random guy that does burn up like in Parasite Eve, but finding a way to get him to not be there would have been simple enough. Just have him get up to go to the bathroom beforehand! It'd be funny. I swear.

With Gem Hunter out of commission, Kim decides to take the lead and shoot Steve to no avail, but it's a stalemate and Steve leaves, leaving Kim to make the call to hunt him down herself.

November Eve isn't all cinematics. Sometimes you run through empty hallways with locked doors!

Continuing backstage, a random rat wanders for a few steps before it too dies. ZZT can't really do the creepiness of the source material, which is full of Aya running into folks who die after she interacts with them, or in this case watching the rat mutate before having to fight it.

It's still gonna happen here. It'll just be a lot sillier.

Four doors this time, but they're not all locked, giving Kim a chance to explore.

Tseng does this nice board that combines all the rooms onto a single screen. It's an easy way to give the player something to look forward to, and since these rooms don't have anything happen if Kim's not there, there's no visual distraction compared to if the rooms were full of ZZT lions to shoot or something.

Look! There's somebody in the lower right room!

The only thing in this first room is a key. The... green in the back there is left unexplained and I kind of like that it's just "stuff". You probably couldn't quite make out everything in Parasite Eve on your 20 inch CRT either. It fills the room without adding a bunch of decoration that the player will feel compelled to check only to receive nothing.

Door number two leads to the survivor room.

Why, it's Flatcoat Lab! Famed ZZTer of Interactive Fantasies.

He bursts into flame and quickly becomes nothing but charred remains.

I again admire Tseng's commitment to the charring. That kind of thing requires some setup to pull off due to the use of special colors. Specifically, Tseng had to have invisible gray objects carefully slide into place and appear as the charred remains once the burning animation finished.

Alas, the only thing in here is a locked closet.

In our top left room, there's a big carpet, a locked closet, this mirror, and most importantly the actor who just killed everyone's diary.

I love how nobody wants this opera. Everybody hates it.

The fourth wall breaks and Kim gets a new key.

I'm not sure what the M shaped thing is supposed to be. It's possibly a large desk, but it may just be more vague abstract decoration.

There's very clearly a secret passage in here, and simply touching the wall is enough to reveal it, with Kim commenting how obvious it was.

Inside is some special ammunition. These are one time use items that can be used during boss fights to deal some extra damage. In practice, they are nearly always useless as bosses are frequently immune to random special types of ammo, and you waste a turn (and the ammo) if you choose poorly.

Steve's key allows access further back where the player gets more cutscenes.

Due to the loss in graphical fidelity between the PlayStation and ZZT, it might not be clear that Steve is just sitting in here playing a piano.

Steve reveals his true form which has some giant arms and some honestly clean animation. He yet again can't figure out why he's unable to set her on fire, and I don't think he ever actually does learn why.

Oddly, despite the quality work in animating Steve, there's nothing on the board indicating a hole in the floor other than Kim saying there's one.

Also "You're a walking public hazard, y'know that?" is a good line.

Sewer level!

Sewer. Level.

S e w e r   L e v e l

The lack of random encounters in this game do a lot to make its environments feel a lot longer than they need to be. In Parasite Eve, you're fighting monsters and gaining experience, plus finding items either through combat or scattered throughout the sewers. Here the inventory is by necessity limited and there's no experience system, so a lot of "dungeons" are just walking to the next cinematic.

Eventually Kim catches up with Steve and after more dialog, things can proceed to the first RPG battle.

There's a lot of references to this game being a game.

That's an alligator all right. Tseng drops you in with no refresher on the main menu's instructions for how to fight, but it's mostly just typical ZZT RPG from Kim's side other than being able to move around.

Both parties have meters that fill up and allow them to attack when full.

Kim can attack, use a magic power that is never explained, or use an item.

Her powers unlock (without any indication) as the player's score increases. This mechanic means well, and unlike most ZZT RPGs the energy consumed to do a magic attack replenishes during the fight. This could be good as it avoids having to worry about saving your spells, but the spells in this game are pretty mediocre, with only healing really being worth spending a turn.

Not that I knew as much at the time, so I figured by starting the battle with haste, I'd speed up my own meter and be able to get more attacks in. Instead, haste speeds up your next turn and nothing else which makes it entirely pointless since you had to waste a turn to get a single faster one. Admittedly, this seems to be a programming error caused by multiple objects sharing the name "Timer" making a #send command cause multiple objects to jump back to the label that fills the attack meter at a slower speed.

Meanwhile, the alligator's own meter fills and they get to attack. The strategy for November Eve is to use the arrows to maneuver Kim and dodge enemy attacks. Again, it's a good concept with sub-par execution. Most fights make it very easy to stand in one spot and be safe from nearly (or sometimes every) possible attack the enemy can use.

The meters fill a little too slowly as well so there's way too much time spent where there's nothing for Kim to do but wait.

Some fights can really be cheesed by wedging Kim somewhere and preventing an object controlled by the enemy from doing what it wants to do. I did my best to not do this since just standing still and waiting to attack makes these fights really boring. Contrast if I was still down below. Suddenly, Kim would have to actually dodge a bunch of bullets!

Adding to the tedium is the lack of damage Kim deals. Each basic attack deals a single point of damage. Later on, she'll get better weapons, but since this first fight is also supposed to be easy, it drags on far too long.

Kim leaves through the front door which seems like a bit of a jump, but Parasite Eve fades to black shortly after its own fight and cuts to Aya walking out of Carnegie Hall as well.

A single squad car and a reporter show up to deal with an auditorium full of charred corpses. Kim doesn't want the media hounding her, and before getting a chance to deal with the reporter herself, Tyrone shows up and hits the reporter.

This being a ZZT game made by a teenager, the good guys can do no wrong and punching a reporter is really minor in terms of things the protagonists can get away with without consequence. Okay so in Parasite Eve a cop also decks the reporter that is explicitly stated as broadcasting live so maybe this is a criticism that applies to games in general.

It is pretty funny to me that these people all have no idea what xamboxumbadria is, since mitochondria is like, high school biology. Admittedly, I think the majority of Parasite Eve's cast is equally clueless about their cells.

In what at first glance seems like a wise move, Tseng is able to write out a few of his ten thousand characters from the story, giving the existing cast a chance to get some development. Alas, Tseng can't help himself and Absentminded, the Stooges, and Reno will join the roster eventually.

For now though, the incident at Migrane Hall is just a freak occurrence, and Kim can relax for a bit, while Gem Hunter is taken to a hospital to be treated for his injuries.