Until then I’ll talk a little about Estique’s story, what basic material it is. Yes I am one of those nerds who takes every narrative at least a little seriously, even if it’s the plot of an MST3K-featured movie or a single sentence in a video game, and Estique has at least a few sentences and some character to it. The pilots of the world-saving Estique mecha are Mary and Kanon, both designed with modern anime flourishes. Kanon wears maidlike attire and Mary prefers a sparing getup similar to Rika’s in Phantasy Star IV, with neither outfit seeming practical for extended time in a robot’s cockpit. Such realism is hardly the point, of course, so I initially wrote off the characters as pandering decor for Estique’s side-scrolling shooter spectacle. Hey, you gotta sell your game.
Yet they won me over. Estique’s creators, including director Takayuki Komabayashi and Compile veteran Dagattai Kodama, wanted their shooter to make impressions across the board, and there’s a little joke in its plot. The NES version has deliberately awkward English text and a simplified plot about alien invasions, while the Famicom version gets into slightly more detail with Mary and Kanon, particularly in an ending with some romantic tension between them. How scandalous this would have been if Estique were a vintage 8-bit game from 1990.
The plot variations are a cute extra, but I was more amused by the images that pop up between levels. Each stage takes place in a different city, and after defeating the resident giant mechanical boss, Mary and Kanon enjoy the local sights and fashions. While I have no doubt that this was motivated by some desire to dress the heroines as biergarten waitresses, it’s surprisingly innocuous overall, as though Mary and Kanon are sharing their vacation photos.
They sometimes even hang out with the enemy pilots of the giant mecha they face. Heck, everyone even shows up at the end of the game for a party, apparently freed from whatever evil forces were possessing then. I trust I’m not spoiling anything. Estique isn’t that sort of game.
It’s a soundly charming detail, though I admit some disappointment that the New York level had Mary and Kanon cavorting at the beach. It’s perhaps a reference to GG Aleste 3’s endings, but I had hoped the game would trot out stereotypical Americanisms with the two pilots wearing football uniforms, serving up giant cheeseburgers, and voting against their best interests. New York City isn’t really known for its beaches, either.
Then again, Estique also shows New York City with spacious canyons and prairie sunsets in its background, so perhaps this is a world radically altered.
Anyway, I recommend Changeable Guardian Estique to anyone who enjoys shooters. I also recommend buying it legitimately. That should go without saying, but the developers were concerned enough to make this.
So I think it bears emphasizing.
