Linda3 was a CD-ROM game released on the PC Engine (the Japanese counterpart of the TurboGraphix) in 1995. The Playstation version (Linda3 Again) was released by SCEI in September 97. It has been developed by MARS and Alfa System.
Since I have never played the PCE version, I will be reviewing the Playstation version on its own credits.
Linda3 is a "psycho thriller + hunting RPG". The game takes place on Neo Kenya, an earth-like planet. In 8 years, a huge meteor is going to strike and destroy everything. Anabis (the god and creator of Neo Kenya) has conjured an Ark, and commanded a man and a woman to enter the Ark, and bring a couple of every kind of Animal on Neo Kenya with them. Ken (the player character) has volunteered to be the male crew, and his girlfriend Linda the female crew. (The speeches of Linda are spoken by Minami Takayama.)
Your objective is to collect different kinds of Animals and bring them to the Ark. There are 3 scenarios that you can play. They are separate stories in unrelated parallel worlds, with significantly different roles for the same characters in the support cast (and Linda, too). In scenario A, there is a linear storyline. Linda cannot crew the Ark unless you complete the storyline. The hunting quota (30 different couples of Animals) is very easy, so game play is centered on the storyline. Scenario B is similar, but with a bit more hunting to do (50 couples). These are meant to be practice for scenario C, where Ken and Linda must exert their hunting skills to try to preserve as many kinds of Animals as possible (preferably 100 couples) within the 8-year time limit. There are minor missions here and there: completing them helps you in some way, such as granting you a couple of a rare Animal, but the missions are optional and not required to clear the scenario, though completing certain missions would open up extra areas of the map, and be a major help in finding new Animals. The way I look at them, Scenarios A and B, being story-centered, are the psycho-thriller RPGs, while scenario C is the hunting RPG. The "parallel world" layout of scenarios, and the stories of scenarios A and B, are well satisfactory. Even in the story-centered scenarios A and B, you can travel freely around the entire world map a few minutes after the start of the game: a feature uncommon in Japanese console RPGs as we know them.
The hunting part of this game is very interesting, and a major derivation from orthodox console RPGs. Animal groups are visible on the outdoor or dungeon map; by running into one of them, you enter combat with the group. You capture Animals by defeating them in combat, but they may flee, or you may kill and shatter an Animal (and get nothing, not even EXP) if you attack it with a large overkill. Unlike some orthodox RPGs (such as Wild Arms and FF7) where you fight endless waves of easy and pointless battles, here you can usually avoid most undesired battles, especially considering the fact that most Animal groups would run from you. By pressing the dash button, you can chase down or outrun most Animal groups, but dashing costs a few HPs (except in towns) and should not be over-used.
While you are wandering outdoors or in dungeons, game time passes. In additional to the end-all meteor approaching, the passage of time, measured in seasons, have strong impacts on many aspects of game play; the following list is by no means exhaustive. In wet seasons, the lands may become flooded, and what used to be land is now water. In winter, lakes may become frozen, and be easier to tread. Most Animals have different seasonal behavior: they tend to roam in large groups in summer and in small groups in winter (this obviously has a huge impact on both your chance of success in combat, and your hunting efficiency); in spring, the females walk their young around, while the males do so in autumn. Some animals migrate, and some appear only in specific seasons. As for human beings, as the evacuation of Neo Kenya progresses, you see fewer and fewer people in towns. Some of the interesting shops, or rather, places, are seasonal (the Dog Fight Coliseum, for example). Ken, as a member of the Rangers, receive a seasonal salary, plus a bonus every winter.
Once you've captured a new type of Animal, you can bring it back to the Ark and register it. Extra copies can be used for a number of purposes. Obviously, they can be sold for cash. They can also be made into meat and used for HP recovery, but some meats have nasty effects (which can be fed to enemy Animals in battle). One critical use is to make them into equipment: males into weapons, and females into protective clothing. Finally, if you capture wild Dogs, they can be trained into hunting hounds.
Battles are orthodox command-input style, but there are substantial derivations from the orthodox system. For one, you have hunting hounds. You can take 10 hounds along with you, and 2 can fight with you in a battle. You may need reserve hounds, since a hound that has been knocked out cannot be healed (barring the use of a very rare herb) except in a Hound Clinic in town (at a random cost, sometimes outrageously high). You may also want to have a weak hound or two, for the purpose of capturing weak Animals without shattering them. The hounds fight by their own will; each hound has its own character, especially concerning its tendency to flee a battle (on its own will ...). When Ken and Linda have gained high experience levels, they will also be able to release captured Animals in the cargo, or summon local Animals to fight for them.
Terrain plays an important part in battle. You fight on the same terrain as you're standing on when you run into the Animal group on the map. Dry-land creatures (such as human beings and hounds) fighting in water or snow are halved in speed. (Combat is 'agility battle', where your speed determines how often you take turns.) Despite that you may freely enter rivers and lakes in the outdoor and dungeon maps, fighting fishes in water can be significantly more dangerous than doing the same on land.
By registering Animals in the Ark, Ken and Linda get a bonus to their attributes. They sometimes also get new special attacks, and more importantly, new transformations. By transforming in battle, you get important modifiers to your attributes, and may become native to the local terrain (and ignore the terrain penalty). However, each transformation (or special attack) costs BPs ("Beast Points"?, similar to "MPs" in other RPGs). When you register more animals, a transformation may improve and give you better modifiers (but at a higher BP cost).
There are many, many different kinds of shops, or rather, places, probably more than any other RPG. The more orthodox ones, such as equipment shops, may become less useful as Ken and Linda gain experience and learn outdoor survival skills (such as wilderness camping for recovery, and making equipment from animals by themselves; these replace their obvious counterparts we know too well about), but some shops are unique in this game, with no counterpart in other games.
My personal favorite is the Dog Fight Coliseum, in Dogfight town. Dog fights are open only in summer and winter; in spring and autumn, not only can you not participate in a dog fight, but also the entire coliseum is empty, and even the Hound Shops and the Hound Clinic are unmanned. Unlike coliseums in other RPGs, here each hound can only participate in fights once per season. A hound fights its way up a "ladder" of opponents; success in previous seasons are preserved. You get prize money for winning against each opponent, but the real reward and excitement is that a very successful hound receives a name in kanji (ordinary hounds only have kana names), plus a large seasonal salary (payable to its owner). However, winning all the way up the ladder isn't too easy. By the way, although Linda can train Animals other than Dogs as hunting hounds when she gets enough experience levels, only Animals that reasonably resemble Dogs may participate in dog fights.
The menus and utensils in this game are adequate, and facilitate game play well. One feature worth mentioning is the color-coding of Animal names, according to whether you have registered or captured it, in all messages and text. This is a very convenient and important feature, without which the playability of the game might be significantly hampered. Many other features and rules also indicate that this game has been 'well thought through', IMO: examples are the navigate system (area and dungeon maps), and the monster encyclopedia (monster info), both available at the touch of a button.
Having completed scenario C with the required 100 couples of Animals, I feel that there is a lack of uniformity in the distribution of levels and strength of Animals. Initially, there are many things to take care of during hunting, including equipment, food, and rest. You sometimes fight tight battles, where strategy may make a difference. However, once you have secured good armor and built some levels, and become stronger than the major concentration of Animal levels, most of the fights become walkovers. Since most Animals are no longer a threat, there is little need for equipment, food, or rest, and the game degenerates into a mere search for rare Animals in remote areas of the maps. (In other words, merely walking around to meet new Animals.) Once past that point, the excitement of wandering into dangerous areas and fighting tight battles becomes mostly a matter of the past (though there are still occasional revivals). Despite that, because there are convenient methods of transportation and easy ways to avoid battle, and that all you need with most Animals is to capture one couple, the number of walkover battles you fight in this game is hardly any comparison to other orthodox RPGs (such as Wild Arms and FF7).
There are a few IMO flaws besides the above. A major one is that, in battle, the game displays excessive, DragonQuest-style text. That is outdated; (late) Final Fantasy-style damage numbers should be displayed, for the sake of brevity. (When battle text speed is set to "fast", the delay soon becomes intolerable, while if text speed is set to "very fast", I sometimes miss useful information.) Other flaws, or rather, bugs, are quite minor. The price of hats are based on that of 4 Animals, instead of 3 which are used to make the hat. (Equipment normally costs 125% of the price of its ingredient, but a hat sells for the price of 5 Animals.) One result is that you can get more money by paying at the equipment shop to make your females into hats and selling them, than selling the females directly at the Animal shop. This to me looks like a program bug. There is also another annoying bug, that the bank sometimes 'forgets' to pay my seasonal salary and interest (this seems to happen only when I camp in certain map areas).
Despite the problems and flaws, Linda3 is an innovative and interesting game, being a significant departure from run-of-the-mill orthodox RPGs. Many features big and small add to the realistic feel of the game world: the absence of artificial event-barriers of movement on the world map, the noticeable evacuation project (which does not wait for the player to complete certain events to proceed), the bank and the phone, and so on; yet they have not constituted distractions from the main game play (which happens so easily in other games with lots of elements), but rather add to the game. Even though little effort has been made on the graphics to hide the PCE origin of this game (i.e. all 2-D sprite graphics, no 3-D renderings), the graphics, the BGM, and the speech are pleasant. The 3-scenario story is good, with interesting plot twists, and parodies in one scenario of another. There are a few verbal, implicit references to sex sprinkled throughout the game, so discretion is advised for young players. There are also a few scenes of horror violence and gore. The game is a bit complex, but scenario A is a friendly introduction that makes the game easy to get into, even for novice RPG players. However, that is for players who can read the Japanese language: I would not recommend the game to players who cannot read Japanese until the English translation, if ever, comes out. (The game is highly innovative and but just a little bit complex, that it isn't very playable with no language literacy and mere orthodox RPG knowledge, as are most orthodox RPGs ...) To all mature RPG players who can read Japanese, especially but not limited to those who have got tired of the orthodox formula, but with the exception of those who play games solely for eye-candy,
