I still remember that the happiest thing in junior high school was going into the game store at the back door of the school after school. The boss is a middle-aged man with a mustache. There are several GBAs for trial use on the counter, and the cardboard boxes next to them are filled with colorful pirated cassettes. There was not much pocket money at that time, so I could save my breakfast money in exchange for a set of cards, with several games stuffed in it, the names of which were translated in all kinds of weird ways.
The game "Full Moon Night" I want to talk to you about today can be played for free on Android and Apple. It is a card game with a dark fairy tale style. There is no mandatory novice guidance. When you open it, you will find a storybook that you can flip through freely. When I first saw it, I felt like the excitement of "Wow, this world is mine" when I inserted a pirated cassette into the machine for the first time and the screen lit up.
In the game, you play as Little Red Riding Hood and explore a dark forest. Every step you take is a random event, encountering werewolves, witches, mysterious merchants, or some strange little stories. Combat is a turn-based card game. It is not a mindless game where you hit me and I hit you. Instead, it emphasizes "the enemy advances and I retreat." The card sequence, blood volume, and action points must be carefully calculated. This smell is very similar to the days when I was playing the card version of "Pokemon" and reading the rules from the manual - although the manual was a pirated copy and the words were blurred.
What surprises me most is that it just launched a new DLC "Apothecary" in September, which adds a new profession and boss. I played it for two hours and found it to be more brain-burning than the original version. There are so many different ways to match the cards. Think about it, like back then, a pirated version of "Final Fantasy" was Chineseized in a mess, and the plot was all guesswork, but we still had fun playing it. The current "Full Moon Night" has exquisite graphics, complete plot, and is free. It really feels like "buying the cassette and getting a strategy book for free".
However, there are still some changes that make me sigh. Although pirated cassettes were shoddy in the past, the dream collection of "Contra + Tank Battle + Ninja Gaiden + Super Mario" on the cover of the combined card always made people look forward to it. Nowadays, when a mobile game updates a DLC, it can be downloaded with just one click. There is no sense of ritual like "going to the boss to change the cassette". But at the same time, I also like the current experience better: the archive will not be lost, the battery will not run out, the picture quality will be clearer, and the music will not be harsh. Just like practicing leveling on a black and white screen back then, now watching high-definition fairy tales on mobile phones, each has its own beauty.
Speaking of music, the BGM of this game gave me goosebumps instantly, especially the tense atmosphere before the battle. The rhythm has a vague flavor of "Castlevania". When I was a kid, I played a pirated version of "Castlevania" in a Heka game. Every time I died, I had to start over from the beginning, but I couldn't bear to change the cassette because the background music was so touching. Now in "Full Moon Night", I actually found the tension and heartbeat of adventuring in the dark forest again. Youth is really back.
If you have ever hid a game cartridge under your pillow for fear of being discovered by your mother, or squatted in front of the TV and restarted it repeatedly, just to wait for the pirated cartridge to occasionally recognize the machine - then I highly recommend you try "Night of the Full Moon". There are no pop-up ads, no compulsory money, just quietly telling stories, playing cards, and exploring. It's like a damp old fairy tale book. When you open it, the moonlight inside is still so bright.
Finally, I would like to ask everyone, what is the most outrageous pirated cassette that you have ever bought? I remember I had a copy of "Three Kingdoms", which was actually a modified version of "Fire Emblem". All the generals had names in Chinese characters, but the plot was completely wrong. Haha, that can be regarded as the unique romance of childhood. 😄