Deep Forest for the FM77AV is another one of the handful of games I bought from yugen2corp on Yahoo Auctions that are stated to be, and appear to be, unopened and unused. Of course, there's no way to know for sure, but it does look to be that way. Well, did look to, until I opened it.

The first thing that struck me is that it actually says "FM77AV20/40" on the box, most just say FM77AV. I don't know if this is taking advantage of any of the extra features of the later models or not, though. And Xain? Never heard of them. I did a quick Google search for them and it turns out that Xain Soft was previously known as Sein (which I more readily recognized) and later known as Zainsoft, so perhaps this Xain period was relatively short-lived.

A handful of months passed before I finally gave the game a whirl. The opening screen grabs your attention as it slowly draws a high-color image on your screen. The FM77AV has digital RGB at 8 colors for backward compatibility with monitors for the FM-7, and analog RGB at 4096 colors. I can't claim to have counted the colors, but it seems to draw heavily from the 4096, to be sure. Takes maybe 10 seconds to load but it's worth it.

I like it, a lot. It's a real-time action RPG, in the vein of Zeliard. You start out as a regular guy, walking through a regular city, when you are suddenly transported into another dimension. Upon your arrival, you are informed by an old man that you are a hero and he gives you your initial quest. Rescue the princess. Original, I know. But there's enough going on in the game that it doesn't feel like something I've seen a dozen or two times before. We can also see that the in-game graphics don't disappoint. They're not as colorful or detailed as the intro screen, of course, we're still in the 8-bit world here, but they take advantage of the large color palette and provide subtle details and shading throughout the game.

The opening scene also includes a door to a weapons shop. Although you already have a weapon, I find it is well worth upgrading it right away. They offer a knife (which you already have), an axe (which is the only one you can afford), a sword, a spear, and a shot put, all out of your price range for the time being.

Make your way through a not-so-deep forest for a bit, your introductory enemies are wasps, who are weak but move in a fairly annoying pattern, especially for your short-range projectile weapon. Soon after you encounter slimes, who are a bit stronger. Before too long, you reach a corridor. They don't necessarily make it obvious, you have to fall down a you-sized crack in the ground, but doing so doesn't cause death in this game. They do have ladders for other caves, so I am a little surprised they didn't use one for the first cavern to make it a bit more inviting and clear!

You can use a key on that lock (position yourself directly on the lock or it will use a key without opening anything!), but before I got much further, I died. So this would be a prudent time to point out the in-game menu. Press both joystick buttons (or both of the game's spacebars, a statement that probably only makes sense if you have an FM77AV or PC-8801 keyboard), and you'll have a variety of options presented to you.

I guessed maybe I wasn't ready for that cave, but I think the real issue is that I was using the default weapon. After buying the axe upgrade, things got a lot easier. I nonetheless passed up that cavern for the time being, and ventured a little deeper into the forest. To my delight, I was presented with a wider variety of landscapes and enemies. There were platforms to jump up to and down from, ladders to climb, and more types of shops. Mummies and skeletons became more formidable opponents, though still didn't present a serious challenge. I felt a bit braver and wandered down a ladder to another dungeon, which didn't seem to house much of interest.

After climbing back up to the overworld, I found a new type of item. These are called magic boots, and I've yet to try them, but they seem to be single-use items that help you jump higher.

I wandered forward to a more distinct looking cave entrance. Yep, this one was housing something pretty interesting alright, an enemy called "boss" and a captive princess. I'd just saved again so no worries, I hopped down to the platform the boss was on and did battle. It was not so difficult as I took him out without needing to re-load. Woohoo!