Miracle Warriors: Seal of the Dark Lord

Last night, I finished Sega's 1987 RPG, Miracle Warriors: Seal of the Dark Lord. The basic premise is that you have to find three companions and then, together as the Miracle Warriors, defeat Terarin, the Dark Lord.

Graphics/Sound
The graphics and sound are overall fairly nice for the time, but not outstanding. The enemy sprites and battle backgrounds are well drawn. A weak point is probably the overworld map tiles, which are merely functional.

The sound is fine, but mostly unremarkable. The boss battle theme does have a driving bass line that I liked, but I'm struggling to remember anything else from the game after I had played it pretty intensively for three days.

Text
The English translation of this game attempts to use Early Modern English constructs (thou, thy, ye, etc.), but like most games that do, doesn't get the corresponding verb conjugation right all the time. Amusingly (at least to me), although the game tries to evoke a medieval setting with that grammar, people and equipment names tend to be borrowed liberally from Ancient Greece (Iason, Argonaut, Titan's Armor, Kronos's Armor, etc.)

Mechanics
Traversing the overworld map is  fairly standard. Combat is where things become nonstandard. You (eventually) have a party of four, but only one enemy is ever faced at a time. Turns generally consist of only one selected member attacking (and receiving the enemy attack) and receiving experience for a successful attack. The three exceptions to this are (a) that use of certain magical items prevents the enemy from attacking that turn, and causes all party members to gain experience simultaneously; (b) certain enemies can use attack-all spells (Flame or Sleep); and (c) enemies get a free attack on all party members if they block an attempt to run.

New party members initially join at one level below the lowest among your current party, so it makes sense to do as much work as you can with as few party members, but this will be impractical or impossible after a certain point.

Party members are identical in terms of available equipment and stats. They differ only in name and in a couple of mechanics:

• One member has a strong advantage against a certain enemy.
• Another has the ability to open locks and is thus needed to progress the story. She is also the only member who can obtain critical hits.

But aside from these aspects, there is very little differentiation among the party, so strategies are limited to spreading out damage among the party in order to stay alive. As a result of this and the one-party-member-per-turn mechanic is that building up a full party is tedious and is probably among the least appealing aspects of the game.

There are two distinct currencies in the game, guilders and fangs. Items and services can be bought only with one or the other. There are merchants who will exchange all of your accumulated fangs for 50 guilders each, but this is generally inadvisable because fangs are needed throughout the game.

One interesting mechanic influenced by Western RPGs is that of character points or charisma. Winning most encounters increases character points by a certain per-enemy amount, but killing others -- such as innocent travelers or merchants -- will decrease character points. Certain places will refuse entry if the party's character points are too low. This is a fairly straightforward system in general, and it would be trivial to keep character points high except that defeating certain enemies will surprisingly decrease character points by a large amount, and yet doing so is sometimes necessary to progress the story. (Without giving away too much, the pretext for the storyline cases is that these guardians were put it place to protect against evil, and do not know that your party needs to progress in order to do battle against the Dark Lord.)

Other JRPGs of the era tended to place enemies solely by map location (and land vs. water). Miracle Warriors also takes type of terrain into consideration, such that the enemies encountered in the plains are different from (and generally weaker than) those encountered in forests, deserts, or mountains. This was a nice touch.

One final remark about game mechanics: As in Heracles no Eikou, equipment inherently has limited uses, but this mechanic is largely eliminated early in the game by hiring a blacksmith to travel with the party. The twist is that, in Miracle Warriors, it is possible to lose the blacksmith later in the game and to have to hire another.

Difficulty
Miracle Warriors depends heavily on the ability to interpret somewhat vague clues. This is standard RPG fare of course, but unlike other games of the era, Miracle Warriors tends not to bombard the player with clues that won't be relevant for the next half of the game (Dragon Quest II and Heracles no Eikou do this much more liberally), and as a result tends to be more linear. The main difficulty is finding new places in an overworld of which you can only see a 5-by-5 grid at a time.

In terms of combat difficulty, the game expects you to exercise good judgment and to attempt to run liberally, especially toward the beginning of the game. (In contrast, many JRPGs tend to make running much more optional.) The game has no qualms about placing Black Monks (one of the stronger enemies in the game, and difficult to beat without a healthy four-person party) throughout the entire overworld map.

The game can be saved anywhere on the map, and it's advisable to do so often in case an enemy decides to have fun with a sleep spell.

Overall, though, the game is probably of average difficulty for the era. It's not a cakewalk, but neither does it try to be extraordinarily vexing (by, for example, throwing nasty insta-death spells at you as in Dragon Quest II).

In terms of quality, it's an okay game, but the combat system is a little weird and repetitive. I liked Heracles no Eikou a bit more, but both have their faults. If you're a hardcore old-school JRPG fan like me, you may find this one interesting in the same ways I did, but given that Sega released Phantasy Star soon after this game, time is probably better spent playing that.

Heracles no Eikou: Toujin Makyou-Den

Heracles no Eikou: Toujin Makyou-Den is a 1987 Japanese RPG by Data East, very loosely based on the Twelve Labors of Heracles, although, like many RPGs, the game is ultimately a rescue mission: Aphrodite needs to be rescued from Hades.

In some ways, the game is better than its better-known competition of the era; in several others, it lags behind.

Graphics/music
The overworld graphics are functional and perhaps par for the course for 1987. That said, towns (but not houses, palaces, shops, etc.) are integrated into the world map, such there is no transition between town and field boundaries. This was pretty neat.

Heracles did have some pretty well-detailed enemy sprites for any game released on the NES, particularly for that era. There were some primitive battle animations -- nothing to write home about, but then again, better than what other JRPGs were doing at the time.

The standout track of the game is the main/overworld theme, which is actually pretty catchy, in my opinion.

Everything else is pretty repetitive and gets annoying after the first few hundred times that you hear it.

Battle mechanics
In this game, Heracles is pretty much a pure physical fighter by nature. There is an assortment of magical items to use, but there is no separate MP system. Heracles must expend HP to use them (a mechanics used in the much later SNES game Paladin's Quest). Depending on when you find/purchase these items, they can either be invaluable or largely useless.

The game had a limited-use weapon/armor system, which seems innovative for the first 1/5 of the game. Afterwards, to progress farther away from Athens, you pretty much need to hire Hephaistos, the blacksmith, to travel with you and repair your equipment after every battle, thus removing this mechanic. One battle mechanic that does stay throughout the game, and which tripped me up in my mid-game, is  that there is a one-handed vs. bow vs. trident vs. two-handed sword weapon system. Certain enemies are vulnerable only to one or two weapon types, and anything other than a one-handed weapon disallows the use of a shield. Since Heracles goes solo, defense is paramount, and the use of a shield can make the difference between getting hit for 1 HP and getting hit for 30 HP. Midway through the game, I struggled to have sufficient defense when the enemies became stronger because I was using a two-handed weapon. Thus, I power-leveled quite a bit to make it through until I could reasonably revert to a one-handed weapon.

Nonlinearity and difficulty
The game is also very non-linear, even more so than Dragon Quest II. Lots of clues are given, and in no particular order. However, given the progression of enemy strength, there is, in hindsight, a more-or-less "intended" sequence of events that I deviated from quite heavily, which probably also contributed to my overleveling. If I were to play this again, I would definitely try a different order, knowing what I know now.

Inventory management is a huge problem in this game. There are 10 item slots, and, most of the game, you will need 8-12 items. This is also where the non-linear part can be painful, because can easily end up with a bunch of items that won't be used for about 3-4 subquests down the road. Note that I'm not really complaining about the nonlinearity of the game. I appreciate the challenge, but it can be tedious to figure out what else is dispensable and what isn't every time you find something.

One byproduct of the nonlinearity is that, if you're like me and train until you can comfortably handle the enemies in an area, the endgame will probably be extremely easy, since the final dungeon's enemies are no stronger than what had been encountered in various previous areas. On top of that, the game tops out at level 30, reached at something like 16,000 experience points. There is an easy-to-defeat enemy late in the game that yields 200 XP. For comparison, Dragon Quest I requires 65,535 XP to max out at level 30, and the most that a single enemy will yield is 115 XP. And even at level 30, the final dungeon is not a complete cakewalk in DQ1, as it is in Heracles. Even Hades, the final boss, was plinking me for 1HP per hit in Heracles, whereas you still have to be mindful of your HP against the Dragonlord in DQ1.

Then again, you could argue that not everyone will be at level 30, but it's pretty hard to be underleveled for the final dungeon if you were well-prepared for the previous areas, and, if you rarely run, you'll probably hit a sufficient level anyway.

Random-number generator hell
What I will complain about is the random-number generator (RNG), or more specifically, the probabilities based on it, in Heracles. I once had eight "random" encounters on consecutive steps, and in general the probability for a random encounter seems as if it's somewhere between 1/4 and 1/8, which makes it extremely annoying to get anywhere until you have (and use) the Holy Bell, an item that suppresses random encounters until the area changes.

Another probability that was set too high was the chance to miss, which seemed to be between 1/4 and 1/6. (By contrast, Dragon Quest I's chance to miss was generally 1/64, going higher for evasive enemies.) This led to rather drawn-out battles, and, in some cases, three consecutive rounds in which both the enemy and I missed.

If Data East had halved or quartered these probabilities, the game would have been more enjoyable, and, I think, generally a bit more balanced given its nonlinearity and the exploration required.

Top 10 8-bit JRPG overworld themes

As I've played through a very large number of old-school Japanese RPGs over the last several years, I've paid quite close attention to the music. While there are lots of limits on what you can technically do on an 8-bit system, I've always felt that enough themes have been able to convey their intent even on a limited system.

So I've decided to make a list of my favorite overworld themes from 8-bit JRPGs. I've tried to find YouTube videos of the original themes, as well as, when possible, updated versions from a re-release or alternate soundtrack. Although I'm providing links to orchestrated versions, my ranking is based on my perception of the original 8-bit versions.

Understanding «se» in Spanish

In Spanish, se has a bunch of different meanings:

• Se hizo daño. He/she hurt himself/herself.
• Ellos se pelean. They quarrel/fight [among themselves].
• Se levanta la mano. He/she raises his/her hand.
• Se enojó. He/she became angry.
• Ya se lo dije. I told it to him/her already.
• Se habla español. Spanish is spoken.
• Se dice que... It is said that... / They say that...

Most of the time, se is introduced first as the reflexive third-person pronoun, which is true, but it's often paired with many verbs and phrases that are not reflexive in English. darse cuenta is an idiomatic verb phrase usually best translated as to realize in English. sentarse (to sit down) is rarely used with the reflexive in English, except for emphasis or verbosity, although it is possible (sit yourself down).

Many will explain this as a fundamental difference in the Spanish thinks about verbs, in that certain verbs are inherently reflexive, even if, in English, we omit the reflexive pronoun. This makes sense at a certain level, and is pretty easy to accept: you just have to remember that, whereas a lot of verbs in English can be intransitive in form, but are semantically reflexive, these verbs in Spanish require a reflexive pronoun more often than not. Fair enough.

Then we come into the rule that le transforms into se before lo or la. This is usually explained on the basis of ease of pronunciation, and is another rule that can be accepted. It's just something to remember.

And then we come to the "passive reflexive" or "impersonal reflexive", from which we get se dice que, se sabe que, and sí, se puede. For me, this use of se was the easiest to internalize, because of the myriad phrases in which it's common, and which translate well to corresponding English phrases involving impersonal you or they that are probably just as common.

None of this should be new to anyone who's studied Spanish for a while, and I wouldn't be blogging about the various uses of se just for the sake of listing and explaining them, because that's already been done, and probably in more clarity than I just did. With the caveat that I haven't formally studied linguistics, the reason that I'm blogging about this topic is that I was curious how se came to be used as an impersonal pronoun, because this phenomenon of using the third-person reflexive pronoun as an impersonal pronoun exists in other Indo-European languages.

It turns out that this all stems from the mediopassive voice. With the usual caveats involving Wikipedia, its article on mediopassive voice is a decent introduction. Mediopassive voice was/is used for, among other situations, reflexive/reciprocal actions, cases where the subject changed its own state, certain stative verbs, and verbs that are semantically passive but not grammatically so (e.g., this sells well in English).

Over time, the distinct mediopassive voice as a separate conjugation became lost, and was replaced by the use of the reflexive pronoun. (My guess is that the reflexive made sense because the mediopassive involved many situations involving oneself). The Wikipedia article gives Spanish as a particular example of a Romance language that developed this, and explains why, for example, enojarse should not truly be viewed as a true reflexive verb, but rather as a mediopassive verb (although the wording in the article makes this point a bit unclearly). Another example that lucha fans might recognize is dice llamarse (says to be called) Here, se is better interpreted as a passive/impersonal construction rather than a true reflexive.

It's then logical to assume that the other impersonal constructions involving se (se dice que, se puede, se habla, etc.) were not too far of a leap from the original pure mediopassive voice.

Knowledge of how se came to be used in this way isn't necessary by any means to being able to use and understand Spanish effectively, because there are other not-too-difficult ways of remembering its usage. But understanding the rhyme and reason behind many of the seemingly disparate uses of se does involve going back and understanding a little bit of mediopassive voice and how it was used in older languages.

Lucha libre mask vendor review: Don Galle

If you follow me on Twitter, my avatars there for the last several months have been a sampling of the masks that I have purchased from Don Galle, who's located in Zapopan, Jalisco, but can be found on MercadoLibre on the Internet: http://eshops.mercadolibre.com.mx/don+galle/listado/_CategID_7831_Desde_1_DisplayType_L . (However, I've done direct email transactions with him after the first purchase; it makes for a smoother and more flexible transaction.) I'll cut to the chase and say that I'm generally really happy with his work. Examples:

The Rey Cometa mask was a custom order; the others are (or at least were) masks that he kept in stock or, at worst, with about one week's lead time. Additionally, I have several other masks not yet photographed, including Máscara Dorada (signed!), Volador Jr./Carnage, Stuka Jr., and Mr. Niebla. He keeps several other masks in stock.

His prices per mask generally range from 400 to 700 MXN (at the time of this writing, about US$30-53) each, depending on the luchador and style of mask, which is among the lowest prices I've seen for comparable quality. His shipping rates are reasonable, 200 MXX for one mask to the United States via EMS and 700 MXN for a 1-kg package (5 masks) via DHL.

One thing that I appreciated was that Don Galle haas been transparent in letting me know about minor differences in stock that he had remaining on hand (e.g., drawstring versus elastic band at the neck, minor size differences from standard size) and giving me the option to take what he had versus waiting a week or so for new masks. I appreciated being given the choice.

Out of the 10 or so masks I've purchased for Don Galle, one (a different Sin Cara mask from the one pictured above) had the piece and the bottom center of the mask very noticeably curved to the side. Don Galle was happy to exchange (although I did ship back at my own expense), and I haven't had a problem since. I do ask for photos of masks that he has in stock now, though. Otherwise, in terms of quality, the masks have been excellent. I suppose that one other minor quibble is that the evenness of the stitching could be a little better overall. Even though slight variation is always to be expected, there's probably just a little more of it on average here for a professional-quality mask. Don't get me wrong; it's not as if the stitching is bad, but I think it could reasonably be a little bit tighter in spots.

He's usually prompt with communication and answering my questions, although a few times I've had to ping him for status updates when original ETAs have passed.

Nonetheless, the masks are overall great and very reasonably priced. Given how the Rey Cometa mask turned out, I'll probably be asking Don Galle to make me an Aero Star mask in the upcoming months.

Update: Someone asked in the comments how to contact him directly. With his permission to post his email address publicly, he can be emailed at dongallezap2010 [at] yahoo [dot] com [dot] mx . He's also on Facebook (which I rarely use) as Don Galle Delgadillo at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001120442436 (Note that I don't think that he speaks English; hopefully, your written Spanish is decent enough to be understood.)

General considerations on choosing lucha libre masks

I probably should blog more than once a month, but I'm a slow writer. :-p Anyway, some final, non-vendor-specific tips on buying masks, before I start reviewing individual sellers.

As a note, I'll be focusing on professional-grade masks, since that's what I've been personally buying. I don't have the experience to judge the quality difference between a vendor's pro-quality masks and their next step down, or to recommend whether the savings would be worth it. I do know that I'm happy with most of my masks, and that there's enough variation within what's nominally called "professional-quality" to give me enough material to write about. :)

Know what you want, how much you want to pay, and how long you want to wait
This may seem obvious, but there are infinitely many variations on any given mask style, and any good mascarero will be able to change colors, materials, sizes, and styles on demand, especially for pro-grade masks. Some may keep some sort of stock on hand, especially for masks of the more well-known luchadores, but will be happy to do a custom order if you're willing to wait. Lead time varies depending on how complex/different the order is and the size of their backlog, but 4-8 weeks is reasonable for a style that the mascarero isn't used to making. (I waited about 8 weeks for my custom Rey Cometa mask; it was worth it!) Be sure to ask ahead of time and to be prepared to be very specific about what you want. (Pictures help here, if it's a style that the luchador has actually worn.)

Even if you aren't placing a custom order, it's possible that the mascarero has lots of different styles available for a given mask (including, in some cases, variants that were rarely or never actually worn by the luchador), so be ready to choose among more options than you were originally thinking about.

Know whether and where you're willing to compromise
If you aren't willing to wait for a custom order and can't find someone who has exactly what you want, have an idea of how much you're willing to compromise from what you originally wanted, and in what aspects. Perhaps a different color is available, or perhaps an open-/closed-mouth variant is acceptable, or perhaps a lower-quality version is okay for what you want.

Also, have an idea of how much of a stickler for accuracy you're going to be. Do keep in mind that masks are hand-made and that a given luchador has possibly worn masks with more minor variants than you might be aware of, so a strict, hard-line comparison to single reference image or video may not be the best idea, even for the purposes of looking for something like alignment of one part of the design with another. (For example, the exact placement of the cross on the forehead of the Rey Mysterio mask varies considerably. A quick Google image search shows this rather readily, but making this sort of determination for lesser known luchadores is going to be harder.)

Ask for more pictures if necessary!
If you need pictures from different angles (especially with designs on the back of the mask becoming more common) to judge whether you want to buy, don't be afraid to ask for them! Sometimes vendors, especially private sellers on eBay or MercadoLibre, don't take as many (or any!) pictures of the back of the mask, or don't take photos at high enough of a resolution to be able to judge the quality of details, such as stitching.

If you suspect that the mask would be on hand, it might be worth asking whether you can see photos of the exact copy that would be sent to you before you buy it. This might be a bit toward, but I explain that I'm a serious buyer, understand that masks are hand-made and, because of the shipping distance and cost, want to be sure beyond a doubt that I'll be happy with what I'm specifically buying.

Lucha mask sizing, laces, and display heads

No, I haven't forgotten that I had started a "series" of posts about lucha libre masks; I've just been busy. I thought I'd spent this post describing some things that aren't immediately obvious about lucha libre masks, at least based on my experience.

Sizing
Mascareros have a notion of a standard adult size for masks. As far as I can tell, this standard size is consistently roughly aimed at what we'd consider in the US to be a head size of around 7 1/4 to 7 3/8 or so. My size is around 7 1/2, and every "standard size" mask that I have fits, but usually just a bit snugly. (I usually do order standard size, though, just because it's easier and more likely to be on hand. I do have one mask that was measured at 1 cm larger, and it fits more naturally.) This means that if you wear, say, size 8, you'll need to make special orders. :) Also, lace-up masks will obviously have a little more leeway than masks that are closed in the back.

As far as neck size goes, my collar size is 16", and, again, every standard-size mask with snaps or Velcro fits snugly, so take this as a sign that if your neck is any bigger than that, you'll probably need a larger mask around the neck/chin. Masks with a single piece of elastic around the neck have some stretch room to spare for me, so you might have more leeway with those masks.

Laces and display heads
Some mascareros will ship laces with lace-up masks; others don't and expect you to buy laces on your own. Amazon.com is a good place to find laces of all sorts of wacky colors to match masks. Length will obviously depend on how many eyelets the mask has and how tightly you'll be able to lace to mask. For a point of reference, Deportes Martinez masks have 14 pairs of eyelets in the back and ship with 60" laces

If you want to put masks on display, you can get mannequin heads made out of styrofoam or plastic on Amazon as well. I bought these for my office: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000V9PYHY/ref=oh_o00_s00_i00_details

They're significantly smaller than an average human head, but they serve their purpose well enough, and are fairly inexpensive. My only real complaint is that they're so light that it's a bit difficult to keep them in place while trying to get a closed mask with an elastic neckband on them, so maybe next time I'll try to find something a little bit heavier and/or larger.

Next post, I'll start actually talking about specific mask vendors.

Logistics of international payment and shipping

This post is part 1 in (at least) a 3-part series on buying lucha masks from Mexico. This post will be dealing with paying for and getting stuff shipped internationally, since there quite a few aspects here that wouldn't be obvious at the outset.

Background and scope
If you're a lucha fan like me who lives nowhere near Mexico, and doesn't (or can't) plan on traveling there any time soon, the Internet is probably your sole venue of getting lucha masks. Though I don't consider myself an expert, I've had some experience buying from different vendors in Mexico over email and the Internet, and what I've learned (especially concerning logistics) may be helpful to other people, so I thought I'd write about it.

I was originally envisioning a gigantic post about this, but it kept growing and growing, and although my target audience is probably not uninitiated to long blog posts, I felt that it'd be better in the long run to talk about a few aspects separately. So instead I'm going to do a series of posts. From this point on in this post, I actually won't be discussing masks or specific sellers at all, although that's probably what most people would be eager to read. You can be patient. :)

I'm going to start off by discussing logistics of paying and shipping, since I learned quite a bit (and ran into a few things that surprised me) along the way. Some of what I write will be specific to having packages shipped from Mexico to the United States, but I'll try to note this where possible. At the same time, many of the caveats here would apply equally as well to other international transactions, so even more reason  to break this out into its own post.

Payment
International payments are tricky. Basically, your viable options are, in decreasing order of preference:

• PayPal
• Direct credit card charge, if the seller can accept these
• Wire transfer service (like Western Union)
• International money order

Ideally, your seller will accept PayPal. That makes things simple for everyone. It's not that hard to get a merchant account. I have one. Even though I don't sell things, I used to do occasional freelance website work, and billing international clients was just so much easier this way.

If you're dealing with a well-established merchant, they may be able to charge a credit card directly. This is fine, but be aware that direct international transactions, at least in my experience, tend to get flagged more readily by credit card companies as suspicious (more so than transactions that go through PayPal), so you may end up calling or getting called by your credit card company to verify the transaction. This can be slightly inconvenient.

In Mexico, it seems to be more common and accepted to use wire transfer services, such as Western Union or perhaps MoneyGram, for payment. These have a stigma in the US because of the potential for fraud. If your seller doesn't have a PayPal account, you should decide whether you trust him/her enough (ideally, you'll be able to see feedback from other buyers) and whether the fees charged by these services are acceptable to you. You'll also need to exchange full legal names, agree on where to send money to, and wait for the money to become available there.

Some of these services (MoneyGram) require you to specify the payment in the originating currency (i.e., yours) -- or at least I had to. Do your seller a favor and round up a bit to make sure that they don't get short-changed by exchange rates. Tell them to keep the change (it'll be a few pesos at most if you did your math right).

I've didn't have a problem with the two sellers whom I had to pay via wire transfer, but, again, do due diligence and check references and/or feedback.  Also, encourage your sellers to get a PayPal account; it'll save them from having to go somewhere to pick up payments. :)

If you can't use PayPal or a credit card, and don't trust a wire transfer service, the last recourse would be an international money order. I've never had to do this, but you'd have to pay for the money order, then pay to ship the order, and wait for it to arrive and clear. This would be expensive by any means, even more so if you actually want the payment to get there in a reasonable amount of time.

Shipping
Always confirm with your seller that they will ship internationally, what they would charge for international shipping and what shipping methods they would offer. Ideally, your seller would be able to ship via a DHL, UPS, or FedEx expedited service at a reasonable cost. Some sellers are able to ship packages under one pound, or half a kilogram, for about US$20-30 from Mexico to the United States. I personally don't know how they get those rates, because international DHL/UPS shipping is more expensive for me, as well as for many other sellers; we seem to be quoted about double that cost. Nevertheless, the cost may be worth it for larger or valuable shipments. Although expensive, these services clear customs quickly, and have accurate tracking. DHL is able to get stuff from Torreón, Mexico to me in Connecticut in less than 24 hours, door to door.

Assuming that you can't get a good rate on third-party carriers, your next best bet is Express Mail (or EMS). This should cost about US$15-20 for a small package (again, from Mexico to the United States) and goes through the postal system. Expect this to take at least a week, and probably more realistically two weeks: 2-5 days to get out of Mexico (depending on how close they are to Mexico City), 2-7 days for customs clearance inbound into the US, and 2-3 days from customs to you. Customs shouldn't pose a problem unless you have a big order; I've never had to pay any duties or had an issue. Your mileage may vary if you are buying from other countries or live outside the US.

A third option, which would be even less expensive (about US$10) would be Registered Mail (the name is similar in Spanish, if I recall: correo registrado). This is supposed to be the most secure shipping method, but, because of the security, you cannot track the package in the USPS system until/unless an inquiry is lodged, and that can't happen until the allotted 21 days permitted for delivery (after the package enters the United States) have elapsed. Suffice it to say that your package will probably get to you, but you had better be a patient person. I don't recommend using this, because the loss of tracking information is extremely annoying, and EMS has been reliable enough for me, even though I do complain about its variability in delivery time.

If you do use the postal system (either EMS or Registered Mail), be aware that the same tracking number should work in both the originating country's tracking system and in the USPS' system, once the shipment reaches the US. This may seem perhaps obvious, but it wasn't immediately clear to me the first time that I had something shipped internationally (via Registered Mail).

One last quirk: If you have goods shipped from Mexico, the Mexican tracking system uses the confusing status «Depositado en Valija» ("Deposited in Mailbag" -- i.e., more or less "out for delivery") to signify that it has handed the package over to the receiving country. At this point, you should continue to track the package in the receiving country's tracking system.

In summary: use a third-party delivery service (DHL, UPS, or FedEx) if you can afford to do so; otherwise use EMS (which translates to Express Mail International on the USPS side).

Addressing
Mexico's postal addressing system that is rather different from the one used in the US. Mexico uses postal codes, cities, and states, but within cities in Mexico, there are "colonias" (roughly, "neighborhoods") that are a vital part of the address (e.g., you may be familiar with the Colonia Doctores in which Arena México lies). Also important to the address are the intersecting streets in between which an address is located.

Some vendors unfamiliar with US addresses will try to fit your address into Mexico's postal addressing system, and thus will ask for colonia or intersecting streets (often designated in a form as simply the entre field). Neither of these components make sense in a US address, so politely insist that they write the address as you've given it. (I have my packages delivered to work, whose street-level address is simply a building name and floor. I've had to explain how this is impossible to fit into a form that asks for número exterior, número interior, calle, and colonia.)

On the other hand, postal code (or ZIP code in the US) and city are universally recognized and useful, regardless of country, and some carriers will want them noted separately to help them route (and perhaps price) the package. You may need to point these out separately to the shipper.

The Sword of Hope II

I finished The Sword of Hope II recently. It's a 1992 GameBoy game by Kemco that tries to cross an adventure game like Shadowgate with a JRPG, without being great at either. (It may be worth noting that Kemco had actually published Shadowgate.) I had played and beaten the original Sword of Hope growing up, and, while the original had the same general defect of underwhelmingly trying to mix genres, it was a decent enough game, so I was interested to see what had changed in the sequel.

Story
You play Prince Theo, who, in the original Sword of Hope had resealed an evil dragon who had controlled your father, the King of Riccar. Years afterward, troubles begin brewing again in the kingdom, and you must journey to stop them. As luck tends to have it in these types of stories, one thing leads to another.

Mechanics
There are two main modes of gameplay: field and battle. As with Shadowgate and games of that nature, the field is divided into distinct screen, and you navigate from one screen to another. Each screen may have one or more objects with which you can interact (Look, Open, or Hit). Unlike Shadowgate, The Sword of Hope II (as well as the original) list out these objects for you; you don't have to (and can't) click on the view of the area to try to find things. It's a simpler and more limited system.

Both Sword of Hope games lack the really sinister, deadly traps for which Shadowgate was famous. At practically any point in Shadowgate, you could easily unwittingly do something that meant Game Over. In The Sword of Hope games, a trap generally means a mild loss of progress or a few hit points or an extra random battle, nothing too serious. This makes the adventuring aspect less frustrating.

As I mentioned though, interaction with the environment is relatively limited, and even more so in The Sword of Hope II, where, in later dungeons, several rooms offer nothing with which to interact. This was not the case in the first game, whose final dungeons were interesting to explore; it's almost as if the developers ran out of time in the sequel.

Each time you move to a new area, you have a chance of a random battle. The battle mechanics are fairly standard JRPG fare, involving attacking, magic, fleeing, items, etc. Unlike the first game, which was a solo adventure, The Sword of Hope II has additional playable characters, and the maximum party size is 3. These additional characters join and leave at fixed points in the game and have different strengths.

The second game did revise the spell selection heavily. Support spells are now more prominent (and in some cases, essential). There are no direct attack spells that could end up backfiring and hurting you.

The weapon/armor selection is broader than the first game, and there are some weapons later on that can target a group of enemies, or all enemies. All allies can equip all weapons and armor, but your mage's base strength will limit his attacking ability throughout part, but not all, of the game.

One interesting element is that you have a good chance (1/3 to 1/2) of winning a "coin" after each battle. This allows you to play a casino side game in which you can win useful items (and some of which can be sold for roughly 10 or even 80 times the value of the coin).

Pacing/Difficulty
This is where I have problems with the game. There are very pronounced level/equipment "checkpoints", meaning that an area will be very often be difficult to impossible without having gotten certain levels, spells, and equipment, but then usually become an absolute cakewalk once the checkpoint is attained. True, to some extent, many JRPGs have these, but there's very little of a difficulty curve in this game; it's more like a series of huge valleys with steep mountains in between.

In and of itself, I could forgive this, because, as I said, it's a common trait of many games. I think, though, that the epitome, and most ridiculous occurrence, of the problem is the last checkpoint. After you've maxed out your equipment and are in the final dungeon, the final floors contain enemies that will almost one-hit-kill you at level 25 (out of 32). However, at level 25, you learn a spell called Empower, which doubles your entire party's attack, defense, and agility for the duration of the battle, for a mere cost of 2MP (the character who learns it has 56MP or so at this point in the game, and you have the ability to buy way more MP-restoring items than you need). A 80-100 HP attack suddenly becomes 1-5 HP. You can steamroll through the boss rush at the end until you reach the final boss, and even he isn't a threat as long as you're at all mildly careful with watching HP. This was quite comically absurd.

The other problem with the checkpoints is that, when they involve equipment, you'll almost certainly need to spend a lot of time there racking up the requisite money. Because you can save the game at any point, you can (ab)use this to make the money-gaining process somewhat faster perhaps, but you'll still have play the casino a lot unless you want to spend inordinate amounts of time on weaker enemies. I am one who usually doesn't mind "grinding" for levels or money, but doing this was too mind-numbing in this game, due to my perception that battles seem slower-paced than in many RPGs. I have to think that the casino route was the one intended by the developers, given the frequency at which coins are dropped.

Music, Graphics, and Text
The music was merely okay at points and quite awful at others. This is subjective of course, but I thought that it was too repetitive and not nearly compelling enough, even for 8-bit standards. I actually think that the original, though musically unremarkable, was decidedly better in this regard.

The graphics are actually fairly well-done for a GameBoy game. They're more detailed than in the original, but there's still generally little in the way of actual animation, given the nature of the field view.

The dialogue is grammatically correct, if a bit simple. Limited menu screen space leads to some slightly obscure abbreviations (though not as bad or inconsistent as those in Paladin's Quest).

Conclusion
Overall, The Sword of Hope II has some elements that sound interesting on paper, but the execution was lacking. The battle mechanics themselves were significantly improved from the first game. The elements borrowed from Shadowgate would have been more interesting if they bothered to use them more than occasionally in the last third of the game. The casino would have been nice if it weren't a necessary money supply. And reliance on a single overpowered, cheap-to-cast support spell to get through the final dungeon and bosses is ridiculous. It's a sign that the designers didn't put much thought into game balance.

This game is skippable. If you liked the first Sword of Hope game, I'd say to leave well enough alone unless you're an absolute stubborn JRPG nut like me. :) There's a possibility you might like the second, but the second is in some ways more flawed, and sometimes significantly so.