Asmik Ace Entertainment - Nemuru Mayu (2000, GOTY 1ST Place)

Developer: Asmik Ace Entertainment

Console: PSX
Composer: Zonlu
Game Release Date: 2000-03-23
Run Start: 2020-01-31
Run End: 2020-06-14

I hope you all had a happy new year. In line with my previous posts let's get to what the best game I played in 2020 was. It was the relatively obscure PSX dungeon crawling RPG, Nemuru Mayu (or Sleeping Cocoon). This was an experience in both story and gameplay. 

How exactly I heard about this game I'm unsure. The order of events is unclear. I likely saw a tweet about it and made a note of it in my games-to-play list. Then I saw someone on reddit looking for a copy of the game (who had may or may not have committed suicide sometime thereafter), then someone I subscribe to started a run themselves. At school I watched a bit of the LP, but it was just so surreal I had to give it a try as well. I am not a native Japanese speaker and have little knowledge of the language. At the time of playing an English translation did not exist. However, I had also heard that RetroArch had implemented an AI translate service through the use of zTranslate. Prior to this I had never used RetroArch. So, after a bit of configuration and setting up I had set up RetroArch to upscale the games graphics, set the right D-pad to pause the game and left D-pad to translate and set movement to the joystick. 

Due to me machine translating the entire game I do not know the accuracy of the plot. However, coupled with my little knowledge of translation plus the machine I got a good idea. You play as a nameless protagonist who gets sucked into some kind of spirit world through a book of the dead. You start off by fighting the lord of the book but after a brief confrontation you are killed. However you don't just become another mindless inhabitant of the book and have the unique ability to traverse the world. However, in order to traverse it you need to pick an avatar, another spirit of the world who is trying to find their history and escape too. As I always pick the water-elemental in games (Mudkip ftw) I chose Dakuro. Then a doll is created that will temporarily house your soul as you traverse the world. The world is depicted as a tower with each floor containing different types of spirits and demons. 
The gameplay is a grid-based RPG with a unique combat system. The game features two areas, the tower and the hub. In the hub you can modify your character, equip items, save your game, upgrade stats and read through the games extensive lore. 

The game has traditional level ups and stat gains, but you get the option to upgrade your stats using something called dream credits. When you find a piece of your avatar's soul or when you complete an unlisted side quest you will get some dream credits. To upgrade your stats you have to perform a mini game and depending on how good you do will determine if you get the upgrades or even lose points. They range from a random pick and choose to a first-person Arkanoid thing to one where a demon is throwing basketballs at you. It's really surreal although nothing isn't surreal in this. 

When you are in the tower you move in a first-person grid (think Orcs & Elves or Legend of Grimrock). Encounters with enemies transport you to this 1x6 battle field where you can cast spells, attack or flee from the enemy. I literally can't stress how surreal the game looks. Spinning rooms, subterranean villages, floating rocks and glowing tents over water are just some of the surrealist things you will see. The game draws comparisons with PSX classic, LSD: Dream Simulator although I think Nemuru Mayu just exists in a completely separate world. At least LSD seemed sort of grounded in reality. Nemuru Mayu is just gone. I personally think it is similar to the King's Field games, albeit on acid. 

As your progress throughout the dungeon you will find the history of the tower, the history of your avatar, meet a number of characters who will either wish to be freed from the tower (killed) or some that will help you in your quest to escape. 

As I stated before I machine translated the entire thing. From entire pieces of dialogue to stat and weapon names. I don't remember the exact number of screenshots it took but it was around 1000+ iirc. Some stuff had to be translated multiple times throughout the run in case I forgot. zTranslate was the MVP of this and their services were extremely fast. I would pause the game then hit the translate button. A few seconds later it would give me a translation of what it displayed. Although it wasn't perfect I felt it gave me a good enough understanding of what happened. There's a lot that would come out as almost gibberish, but I found it easy to decipher what it meant. 

The game started off difficult but as it progressed I was met with spurts of easy and difficult. Some floors were a nightmare to go through and others weren't that bad. Although you can run through the floors as many times as you want you need to spend your dream credits wisely. It was definitely a challenging game. I found the spells much better than the weapons and found myself using those for the most part. You only have a limited amount of attacks per session before you the weapon runs out. Then you are stuck with your fists which for most enemies is useless. Spells use your health so as long as I was avoiding hits I could cast as much as I want (until my health gets too low). In order to go back to the hub world you either need to run back all the way to the top floor or use the teleport system that requires AP. AP being points you get from killing enemies. 

I started the run late January of 2020 and only by mid-June I beat it. In-between being busy and other projects, my job and other investments I played it on and off. I really didn't think I would beat it in March, but I pushed through anyways. I am glad I did. 

The soundtrack is mostly sequencer & tracker dark ambient. All the tracks have this dark sound that evoke this feeling of loneliness as you traverse the tower. Some tracks were slightly happier such as Reincarnates and Kakai which sounds like a digital village festival. The music is composed by Zonlu. Not much is known about her. From what I can find she appeared on some music from GuitarFreaks and DrumMania but didn't really appear anywhere else aside from this soundtrack. With how mysterious the game felt it feels natural that there isn't much information about its composer. I'd like to compare it with the Hellnight soundtrack. Dark ambient tones that twist and turn. 

This was by far the best game I played. I completed the entirety of Dakuro's run and slayed the king. However, to properly beat the game you need to run through it 4 times in total. You need to find the souls of all the avatars and complete their runs through the tower as well. That may seem monotonous, but each avatar has their own version of the tower with its own quirks and music. It's really like playing another version of the game. I loved my run so much I do intend to do more runs of the game. This year I plan to beat it through Siriko and then next year we'll see. I am now also the proud owner of a copy of the game. When the COVID-era started locking everything down I found a copy on a Japanese auction site and snagged it. Japan shut down mail to the United States but kept it open to where I was at. It took a month, but I got it in good condition too. 

The games unique atmosphere, music, story, mystery and gameplay all propelled it to 1st place. By June I knew it was going to be GOTY. I doubted anything else I played would get close. MKF did get a bit close but it was unfinished. Nemuru Mayu is a lot like my 2020, a strange experience but I pulled through and ultimately had a good time. 

I downloaded the soundtrack shortly after beating it. It is sourced from the YouTube video below. I split the tracks myself and titled them accordingly. I didn't want to run through each floor, so I made up track titles. Either way at least it's split and in MP3. The music was a bit low, so I remastered it to be louder.

Download: aHR0cHM6Ly9tZWdhLm56L2ZpbGUvdUl4M3hZVEkjdVpGSHh4bHBpV2NQT1FsMnR0ZVdIV2V2ekplMmR2ZERFZ2VGWmVwSV83RQ==
Stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dWPrf_QHz8
p@ss: escapekakai