Sr. Mxy

Next, we get a comical scene where Randolf says "Any minute now, Corda will bust in here" (given the context, we can assume "bust" is not a typo) and Corda, who is standing right behind him, is like "hi." Another fight scene with Randolf ensues. You can guess how that goes.

Before dying for the third time, Randolf tells you that Culex is up north, since it's "not like you can stop him." With the strippers liberated from having to put up that guy, the heroes head north in search of Culex and encounter several catmen, tree men, and a few 3/4 horse 1/2 men (or as they're known in mythology: Cent-- er, "RedHorses").

Eventually (after realizing that Randolf didn't mean "north" but more like "north and to the west") you come across a castle, and Culex patiently waits inside. He's even nice enough to let you do your shopping and resting in the castle's establishments while he stands like three feet away.

So you go up to Culex, and this is when you find out he did have a second lackey: Jerzi the knight?! You've been leveling up a filthy traitor all along! The worst part of this betrayal is that, even after you've heard him call Culex "master" and take his order to destroy you, Jerzi still feels the need to treat you like an idiot and spell out this plot twist for you, adding insult to literal injury.

(At least he's apologetic about it.)

So you're forced to kill your fake friend in self-defense, and with his dying words, he tells you where Culex is going next -- not because he had a last minute change of heart, but because "going there would mean certian doom, heh heh." You learn from Jerzi that Culex went to his private island castle, which you can't reach without a ship. As luck would have it, this is when you meet a kindly king (not to be confused with the kindly king who died earlier in the game just because they look exactly the same) and he gives you a bell that can be used to summon his personal ship. All right! You've got a boat now!

That is, if you're leveled up enough to use the bell, which we weren't in our playthrough. Must be a heavy-ass bell.

Off you go to kill more sentient trees and talking cats until you're level 18 and thus powerful enough that this magical bell will fear and obey you. All right! You've got a boat now! And we hope you like sailing, because that freaking island castle is a bitch to find. As you go through every corner of the map looking for anything that might resemble a castle in an island or an island that is also a castle, you inevitably come across a cave full of friendly soldiers who tell you why the island castle has eluded you: it's a flying island castle, apparently.

In order to reach the island, you need to visit a tower that, according to the soldiers, "holds the power to fly." That sounds like a corny way to refer to a dispensary. Fine, so you go to this possibly marijuana-filled tower (which you'd probably come across already while looking for the damn castle) and the camera pans up to show you how much climbing you'll have to do, which feels incredibly advanced for this game. Yelfe isn't thrilled about the amount of physical effort involved, though.

As you climb weed tower, you fight an appropriately trippy assortment of monsters, including bird people, zombies, mummies, minotaurs, sworded skeletons, and Draculas (known here as "BldSuckrs," possibly to avoid issues with the Bram Stoker estate). At one point, you meet a guy called "Zofia, the warlock" who instantly joins your party because he says he hates Culex and, well, he's there. When has that selection mechanism ever gone wrong? Except that one time.

At the top of the tower, you run across a big orb. Now we're cooking; it isn't a real RPG until you run across an orb. Touching it causes a booming all-caps voice to ask "DO YOU MORTALS SEEK TO AQUIRE MY HELP?" If you ignore the voice's poor spelling and say yes, it says "THEN COME!!," makes the entire screen shake, and forces you into a fight scene with a huge dragon who looks a lot like Shen Long from Dragon Ball. Guess there are only so many ways to draw a huge dragon.

(Note: If you use this game to create a Dragon Ball RPG, get in touch ASAP.)

If you survive the dragon attack, he'll be so impressed that he gives you a flute you can use to summon him whenever you want to fly somewhere. All right! You've got a dragon now! Something none of the other 10 games we've covered in this series had used, for some reason! The game even changes to an isometric perspective when you're on the dragon, which looks very cool. Mode 7, baby!

That's the good news. The bad news is that we learn, via a cutscene, that those friendly soldiers from earlier have been massacred, as indicated by a red filter on top of them and a text box saying "!!!!!". We also see Culex standing in front of what's either a big monolith or a very dark entrance, saying that "Now only Corda and those fools are left!!!" It sure feels like we're nearing the end of the game here.

But nope, we're not, because we still have to get through everyone's favorite part in every RPG game: the game-stretching fetch quest! When you fly to Culex's castle (which wasn't really a flying castle, it was just hidden between some mountains), you meet a ghost who says you're not allowed to pass until you bring him four artifacts:

Right, so now you need to remember where each of those places is. "The traitor," of course, is punk-ass Jerzi, who died near the strip club. "The murder" is poor Joyce's, which happened at the shrine where Corda fought Culex alone. "The dead king's throne" is... the throne of the king who died, duh. And the tower is the one where you fought and befriended the dragon. Each of these places holds a piece of equipment that Corda recognizes as having belonged to his dad, which he thinks is "odd" (maybe because that character hadn't been mentioned before and will never be mentioned again).

Corda equips the full dad armor and we finally enter Culex's castle, which is packed with ghosts, hydras, ogres, witches, medusas, giant worms, dragon/lion/goat chimeras, etc. -- basically, every enemy sprite that hadn't been used yet. And boy, does this game have enemy sprites. You also run across a guy called "Humongus" who was somehow hiding inside a normal-sized chest.

(His only dialogue should be "Aghhh my back!!!!")

The castle isn't huge by RPG standards, but it does have a neat little Easter egg: if you take a detour and explore some weird-looking pixels lurking in a dark corner, your curiosity will be rewarded with... a heart attack when those pixels say "I've been waiting." Oh, and a ninja attack. Nobody expects a ninja attack, especially in a fantasy RPG (or we wouldn't if a bunch of the other games hadn't used this sprite too).

You defeat the ninja, and the 50 other randomly-spawning monsters that come at you in this place, until you've gained access to two switches that open a path to the castle's boss. And then, at long last, you come face to face with that boss: no, not Culex.

It's freaking Randolf again.

So you kill him for the fourth time.

But wait! After you've re-re-re-killed Randolf, you hear Culex's voice saying he needs more time. As a result, Randolf is re-re-re-revived in a bigger, deadlier form we shall call OMEGA RANDOLF.

So you kill him for the fifth time.

(No dying last words this time, he just vanishes in shame.)

Now you get to meet Culex, who seems very happy that his giant black square is "finally open." So what the hell is that? We find out that Culex and Zofia both used to work for some dark master that Zofia sealed in another world, but Culex has just opened that seal by "harnessing the energy of the souls of the dead" (presumably Randolf over and over). Zofia exclaims "I will never serve him again!," to which Culex replies "Then I will destroy you all!" You are then thrown into a fight against "Culex?" and his two unexplained "Flunkie" sidekicks.

(Stay in school, kids, or you too will end up being cannon fodder for an RPG boss.)

You beat Culex, but once again, that wasn't even his final form (that's why he was called "Culex?" in that fight, you see). He calls for his master to lend him his power, turning him into "CULEX" in all caps, a muscular demon with a shitload of HP and big "final boss" energy.

Come on. Look at that guy. That's definitely, 100% the final boss.

Or is he?? Upon defeat, Culex flees into the other world and the heroes decide to pursue him before he can revive OMNICRON, his master (who must be almost twice as powerful, since he's got almost twice as many caps in his name). You step into the other world, ready to face OMNICRON in an epic battle -- only to be immediately arrested by soldiers, thrown in jail, and sentenced to death. After a brief cutscene with Corda pacing around in a cell, we jump to the day of his execution, and learn that...

...yeah, that was the final boss just now, because the game ends here with a "TO BE CONTINUED."

But wait, there's more? Somehow? After that ending crawl, you appear in a place called "The Programmers' Room," where the dev, Spoony Bard, welcomes you to his "stupid, mindless, and TOTALLY non-related to the story, MINI SUB-QUEST GAME!!!!!" He explains that most programmers' rooms are boring as hell (you just walk around and talk to static dev sprites), so he made what he calls the "first ever programmers' mini-game" for the amusement of any hypothetical player who reaches this point.

And, you know what, maybe this is the first post-game RPG mini-game ever! But this article is long enough, so you'll have to play the game yourself to find out what happens in it (or watch our livestreamed playthrough to see us fumbling through it). We'll only spoil one thing here: yes, you do get to kill Randolf again, "for old times."

And that's Honorable Direction 2 - Enter Culex. Did a part three ever come out? We tracked down the real Spoony Bard and asked him, and he said nope. He also confirmed that the first Honorable Direction for RPG Maker 95 is lost, and said he fondly remembers another full-length SNES RPG Maker game called Black Rain, which came out in multiple parts and used "pretty much every available resource it could," but that one only seems to exist today as a bunch of dead links. (Obviously, if anyone reading this has those files, please get in touch.)

This concludes our dive into every SNES RPG Maker game that can be found today, unless more are being traded in the deep web or something. Or if someone makes another one, of course. Reminder that if you decide to do that, there's now a way to add custom characters and even distribute them as a SNES-compatible "DLC" pack...