The 1001 entry for this next title says that it 'is well worth the considerable effort it may take to hunt down a copy', owing to the fact that it was released so close to the end of the Neo Geo Pocket Colors' life that copies didn't even make it to the shelves. Thankfully, enough of them made it out into the wild and into players hands that someone, somewhere, managed to copy a ROM for us peasants to emulate, and what a game it is.
Turn-based Mech combat isn't new. Turn-based Mech combat where everyone programs their turns then fires them off at the same time, hoping not to see an enemy walk out of range of a 'well-planned' series of shots is new. New to my video game experiences at least. Programmable movement and board games I'm familiar with, in Robo Rally and Colt Express, but this isn't a board game. This is perhaps the best Neo Geo Pocket Color game in existence (is my bias showing?). This is Faselei!.
Fun Times
Was that a Mech? Is this a mech game? What on Earth is that nude woman doi- this is a Mech game, alright!
I'd be fine with that as a quote to describe my first impression after firing up Faselei!, having absolutely no idea what it was about. Imagine my reaction when I find it's a strategic, tactical RPG with gameplay mechanisms that allow you to react before something happens.
It is the future, and some people we don't know are dying and disappearing, maybe into places we don't know - I don't know. I know so little that I've fallen asleep through boredom on the way to my first mission.
It's a Goddamn giant mech you pillock, why are you even anywhere close to falling asleep in their presence? Wake the hell up and tuck yourself inside, you idiot. We've got some 'splosions to create.
I'm getting vibes of Metal Gear from this kind of display. The colours, the layout of information, the character portraits all look great. I would be all over this game had any Neo Geo Pocket Colors made their way to my childhood and lasted long enough before being recalled that Faselei! arrived to play on them. But they didn't, so I wasn't.
The only thing to drag it down a little at this stage is the amount of text that can be squeezed into those dialogue windows - not much. PS Vita remake when?
Soon into our mission, we get told we can't go blindly firing our weapons because they'll trigger a bunch of mines. Bummer. However, we're told that a radar dish nearby can be destroyed in order to turn them off. Thanks, Hummer.
To get there, we've got to go programming. That bit of dialogue doesn't make much sense out of context, so the next screen should hopefully clear it up. It's the screen where I got quite into Faselei!.
A lot of games have an action point system of one kind or another, especially if they're turn-based. I've just played a fair bit of the recent Battletech game, where you can move and shoot on a turn, but not sprint and shoot because sprinting takes effort and action points. You understand this, why am I explaining it again?
Here, instead of picking an action, watching it happen, picking another (if you've still got points to spend left), then waiting for your next turn, you line up all the actions you want to do, then fire them off, along with everyone else on the map.
When alone, this is simply a case of taking the time to pick an efficient route to your objective and timing your actions appropriately...
When not alone, however...
Hummer's hammer hit the nail on the head there. With everyone moving at once, you've got to plan ahead. You've got the time to do so - nothing happens until you have finished picking your moves - but you've got to pay a little attention to what might happen.
Of course, you generally don't have a clue. Enemies might just sit there and take it, but that one time you think 'it'll be alright to just spam all my weapons' is the one time they'll decide to reverse out of range, thus making you look like quite a lemon, doing nothing in the middle of the battlefield.
An introductory mission out of the way, it's time to head back to base and see what else Faselei! offers for gamers on the go. Well, for a select few gamers on the go with working Neo Geo Pocket Colors and a rare copy of Faselei!, I suppose.
This main menu, I suppose, contains a shop (why do I need to buy things from my own base?), some Docks to work on your Mech, nicknamed 'Toy Soldiers' for some reason, as well as various mission hubs and information screens.
As far as starting Mechs go, I'm sure we've had worse. Ronin here can be armed with different weapons and painted different colours, but I'm just not sure we should be stomping around the battlefield in it. It's heading into the Japanese Mech design territory - only a little, mind, but a little is enough. Faselei!, despite its intro video, doesn't seem like a game about Japenese Mechs. Let's go shopping.
This English Mech isn't bad, but it is English. Are the English famous for Mechs? No. No, they are not. Bring out the German offerings.
Content with my purchases, I'm ready for my mission. I could have bought all kinds of parts and upgrades. Weapons, shields, armour, bigger backpacks for storing more items, better CPUs for being able to store more program chips, even chips that allow you to call in Backup or blow up bombs.
We won't be needing any of that, though. Arm me to the teeth and let me loose, tactics be damned.
Faselei! has clearly fascinated me. I actually stopped playing Battletech a week or so prior to playing this because I was getting a bit fed up with the way it did things, so to have the Mech itch scratched so soon and in such a satisfying way was nice. And then the problems came.
Frustrations
I went on a random mission to see what they were about. As a way to test a Mech's loadout or to hunt some extra resources, I suppose these little side missions serve as a nice little breather from the plot, should you get stuck.
I advise you not to get stuck. I also advise you to save state the shit out of your game, and for the love of all that is Holy, equip the extra ammo you bought before charging into battle.
Your Mech, so far as I could tell, doesn't have a fallback weapon shaped like a fist or a boot, so you can't do melee damage when you run out of Gatling gun rounds, Quail missiles and whopping great big machine guns. Maybe there is a program chip for melee that I should have bought. Maybe I have the wrong Mech. Either way, it looked like I was going to have to wait for the enemy to kill me, 4 damage at a time, or load my save state.
God bless emulation.
Stocked up, I carried on with the main story instead of the side missions. I've already said that it's a shame that the dialogue takes up the space that it does, but if Faselei! wrote about anything other than characters falling asleep, I'd let that slide. I don't understand how my two character traits, as revealed to me by the plot, are 'exceptional Mech pilot' and 'falls asleep often'.
Anyway, on with the mission.
All was going to plan until the game's antagonist jumped into the action and utterly wiped the floor with me.
I was holding out for one of those fights where I had to lose in order to further the plot, but no, I was shooting spitwads at a guy shooting rockets. No contest. The fight was over in seconds, and memories of Battletech came flooding back. Bad memories of Battletech. Memories focused around difficulty spikes, and of not liking when they arrive from nowhere and get in the way, as is their nature.
Final Word
I called it a day there. I'll go back to the save state when I learn a little more about how best to play Faselei!, I think. It seems that in Mech games, you really ought to know the ins and outs of a system before embarking on the game that uses it. You need to know how to maximise every decision in your favour, and then moan regardless because the enemy did something you didn't expect them to do, ruining your plans.
These kinds of programmable games can be a laugh. The last time I played Colt Express, I scored zero points, a full two and a half thousand behind the nearest player, owing to things all firing off at the wrong time. It was a laugh because it didn't mean much - it was just a game, and sometimes that's how they go.
But video games are often a story, and stories don't just end in Chapter 3 when the 'hero' has a lapse in concentration or is too stupid to understand the nitty-gritty of the gameplay mechanisms.
There doesn't appear to be a video of Faselei! played by someone who is an actual hero, so it seems that if I want to see where this story goes - and boy, do I - I'll have to follow a walkthrough, get good, and save state very, very often.
If emulation wasn't a thing at all, Faselei! might as well be lost in history, never to be enjoyed by anybody more than a select few. It is an absolute hidden gem in this 1001 list, and I'm glad it was brought to my attention at least.
Play it. Enjoy it. It's not perfect, but I like it.
Fun Facts
Snagging a copy isn't all doom and gloom - the recalled stock that wasn't sold at release did manage to hit some shelves a few years later, especially in the US, where Faselei! was sold in an add-on package with Neo Geo Pocket Color purchases.
Faselei!, developed by Sacnoth, first released in 1999.
Version played: Neo Geo Pocket Color, 2000, via emulation.