Wurm: Journey to the Center of the Earth
76 days until the vernal equinox
There's always a slow pan between the pilot and Moby, our main character.
So it's like not Malta. So this game could be set almost anywhere since Malta is only 640 or so Vaticans in area.
They’re called jelliguns even though they just hop at you on one psuedopod.
They can shoot bullets but usually don’t get a chance and most other enemies can shoot bullets but I don’t see them with gun on their name.
You can drill tunnels through soft earth.
No, wait, I think that’s Jelligun and that makes a bit sense. Which would mean the green hoppy enemies are unnamed by the manual even though they’re the first enemies and as the first enemies you fight, they ought to be named.
The enemies in the manual look like they were scanned with a bad photocopy of the original artwork rather than the actual original artwork, so while I was expecting Byrd to be a bird, Byrd might actually be these eyeball things. I don’t know. I’m also wondering if the enemies were named by the artist or if they just gave the manual writers said photocopies of the enemy artwork, no doubt originally drawn in color and everything and asked them to come up with names.
The screen shots in the manual look like they were taken by the camera.
I'm also going to remove a lot of the ...
Your first boss fight against Bemul, named in the manual.
Boss battles are weird.
They're going to walk you through it.
No duh.
You can't actually damage the boss until the possibility reaches 100%
You also have to select a weapon.
After talking eight times, the enemy will get an attack and you’ll have to dodge it or just endure it.
You can also shoot certain parts while its attacking to raise the possibility slightly.
I'd say it was also named by the game if you select the right option when talking but I already did that.
But be warned! Later on, talking to the wrong person can even decrease your possibility slightly.
Just aim at the eye and...
Now we're in the platforming segment. This game is a lot like Blaster Master or The Guardian Legend only not as good.
We get a pea shooter with limited ammo.
Listbat is camoflauged really well here.
You also get a kick, for when you want to save ammo. I noticed that I failed to take a screenshot around now and spent a bit of time trying.
This android thing's name is Bill. I'm completely serious.
With that key, we can open the door. Note: Door not pictured.
Nonmalta Empire, huh? It's definitely not Malta if it's an empire.
It's boss time.
Wurm was designed by the creators of Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode, which I actually have on cartridge and which is also a bunch of different game genres mashed up into one game.
G-13 is a nod to that.
The problem is that there are too few buttons to button and it’s especially clunky too. I mean, can’t use the pause to select weapons and can’t use the select button either which is weird because it’s just sitting there on the controller doing nothing, gotta use A+left/right to change weapons and A+up/down to change forms.
Quartz tracks your movement and then fires at you. Quartz has the crystalline structure of quartz. I just learned today that there are two green varieties of quartz, prase, which is moss-green and prasiolite, which is the Greek word for leek-stone and is a sort of sickly pale green. Prsiolite is only found in Brazil, which is definitely not Malta. Green quartz is not acceptable according to the Federal Trade Commmission and if you see anyone calling it that, stone them.
Diawheel is called that even though I don't believe we've met diadom (sic) yet.
Geoids fly at you and then fly back.
These guys are called anvils. Maybe if I take off my glasses and squint a little and then rub vaseline on my computer screen.
Oh yeah, flying consumes fuel while driving on the ground doesn't. If you run out of fuel, you die.
And now it's time for the vertical shmup segment. The enemies are iceburn. Because it’s an eye. Iceburn. I don’t even know.
Same thing, except you're always flying and instead of switching from flying to ground vehicle, you switch from a drill to unit-α, which is a "high powered water cannon" according to the manual.
To be fair, firebirds do look like they’re made of fire, even if said fire is green, which means it's magickal in nature or they are burning barium compounds or boric acid and copper (II) sulfate.
You'll want the drill, though, because you're going to be doing some drilling.
This is a fireball. Zetaplays thinks they look more like radioactive popcorn. They swap between red and green here.
Boss time.
Run away! Run away!
The game never explains Persidor.
Oh no, an insurmountable wall.
Loepin jumps at you when you get close.
Some more exploration later...
Even more exploration later...
I don’t know if the z is there to make the sneil sound slightly cooler and more intimidating or if it’s just bad translation. If it’s the former, it’s not working
Dragons breathe fire that moves in a wave pattern.
I think the green crocodile things that jump out of the water are Bitonga.
The starfish are starguns even though they attack by swarming you and not by shooting you.
Those things are called homebase (no, they look more like globs of molten rock to me).
The manual calls this guy Zatan. At least, I think that's what it says.
The only thing Legends of Localization mentions with Wurm is that the Hellen Keller reference regarding water if you talk to the “wrong” characters when fighting a boss exists in the Japanese version as well.
Maybe they're mixing up this guy with things that are not Malta, which makes sense because this guy is also not Malta.
He'll use his tail to attack. When the possibility reaches 100%, remember to USE the Hydro-Sonic.
You just have to say something, don't you?
There's only four different enemy types in the exploration sections.
They're also the weakest part of the game by far.
So forgive me for rushing through them.
We've obtained the unit-Γ which shoots homing missiles.
This, I believe is the diadom.
And those things are diamechs.
You're just going to want to get through this meteor shower as fast as possible. Your shields regenerate over time.
In the original script, it was 666 miles so it made more sense but Nintendo of America says no religious references. Although you might be able to argue that 666 refers to the emperor Nero, which would make sense because the entire Book of Revelation is a thinly veiled criticism of the Roman Empire.
This monster is called Bandal. A part-machine part-human creature created in the evil laboratories of Nonmalta.
Don't say "lab-ra-tor-y," that's where you do science. Say "lab-or-a-tor-y." That's where you do mad science. Like putting the brains of a zombie inside of the body of an even bigger zombie to create a race of super-zombies.
34 million years ago was the end of the Eocene.
I find it funny that the monster's name is Bandal and the father's name is Banda. Coincidence? Yeah, probably.
This had to be a mistranslation. Otherwise, this is one of the weirdest video game relationships of all time.
The dragons shoot red fire now.
I'm pretty sure that's a capital Θ, not an omega of either sort.
The starfish will tear you apart. The unit gamma is too slow and the regular gun won’t hit them so you’re gonna have to use unit Θ even though they don’t drop shit when they’re hit with it.
Whatever, I’m at the end.
Or maybe they do drop shit and I was just really unlucky. Or maybe they only drop shit in the vertical scrolling segments.
Since we’re at 680 miles now, either we went back up or the translators forgot they had to change the 666 to something a bit less, shall we say, Romanesque.
We're about halfway to the outer core.
In real life, the deepest parts of the crust are about 70 km deep. At this point, we’ve crossed the moho long ago and we’re well into the lower mantle, which has the consistency of caramel but is also really hard due to the tremendous weight above it.
The deepest hole in real life is about 12 km deep and was done mostly for scientific research. When the USSR collapsed, the funding dried up. And it’s the same here. Even with all this emphasis on STEM, it’s really just engineering and technology and when we do tolerate science, it’s science that can easily be politicized by the right, like evolutionary biology.
When fighting VZR-5, G-13 says "May the Power be with you!" Triggering that message also takes 5% from your possibility but gives you two points of life.
The scenes with Ichamod are optional.
The Japanese have a weird obsession with Mu (pseudoscientific crap by some guy who claimed he translated the Popol Vuh), Lemuria (which was an explanation for why lemurs show up in both India and Madagascar but not in Africa or the Middle East but it turns out that Madagascar and India were attached to each other and then India broke off and drifted northward and formed the Himalayas), and Atlantis (which was a political allegory).
There are actual sunken continents like Zealandia.
Hm, looks kind of like a moai.
The final battle against Sogalz himself.
Yes there is. If you get it wrong, you'll have to start over.
I like how the crystals' placement is that of the Super Famicom controller buttons in Japan (Americans, you just get lavender and purple)
And that's Wurm.
I took 452 screenshots. Most of them got giffed, of course. This game has a lot of text. It’s a miracle this game was released in English. Especially for a game that's a 7/10 at best. I mean, I like the shmup segments and the boss battles are at least interesting, but there's not much substance to the platforming segments.
Oh yeah, the name WURM never actually shows up in the game. In Japan, the game's called Vazolder: The Underground Battle Space.
burning question: You mean I could have gotten a free trip to Antarctica if I just spouted off nonsense about a flat Earth?
There's always a slow pan between the pilot and Moby, our main character.
So it's like not Malta. So this game could be set almost anywhere since Malta is only 640 or so Vaticans in area.
They’re called jelliguns even though they just hop at you on one psuedopod.
They can shoot bullets but usually don’t get a chance and most other enemies can shoot bullets but I don’t see them with gun on their name.
You can drill tunnels through soft earth.
No, wait, I think that’s Jelligun and that makes a bit sense. Which would mean the green hoppy enemies are unnamed by the manual even though they’re the first enemies and as the first enemies you fight, they ought to be named.
The enemies in the manual look like they were scanned with a bad photocopy of the original artwork rather than the actual original artwork, so while I was expecting Byrd to be a bird, Byrd might actually be these eyeball things. I don’t know. I’m also wondering if the enemies were named by the artist or if they just gave the manual writers said photocopies of the enemy artwork, no doubt originally drawn in color and everything and asked them to come up with names.
The screen shots in the manual look like they were taken by the camera.
I'm also going to remove a lot of the ...
Your first boss fight against Bemul, named in the manual.
Boss battles are weird.
They're going to walk you through it.
No duh.
You can't actually damage the boss until the possibility reaches 100%
You also have to select a weapon.
After talking eight times, the enemy will get an attack and you’ll have to dodge it or just endure it.
You can also shoot certain parts while its attacking to raise the possibility slightly.
I'd say it was also named by the game if you select the right option when talking but I already did that.
But be warned! Later on, talking to the wrong person can even decrease your possibility slightly.
Just aim at the eye and...
Now we're in the platforming segment. This game is a lot like Blaster Master or The Guardian Legend only not as good.
We get a pea shooter with limited ammo.
Listbat is camoflauged really well here.
You also get a kick, for when you want to save ammo. I noticed that I failed to take a screenshot around now and spent a bit of time trying.
This android thing's name is Bill. I'm completely serious.
With that key, we can open the door. Note: Door not pictured.
Nonmalta Empire, huh? It's definitely not Malta if it's an empire.
It's boss time.
Wurm was designed by the creators of Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode, which I actually have on cartridge and which is also a bunch of different game genres mashed up into one game.
G-13 is a nod to that.
The problem is that there are too few buttons to button and it’s especially clunky too. I mean, can’t use the pause to select weapons and can’t use the select button either which is weird because it’s just sitting there on the controller doing nothing, gotta use A+left/right to change weapons and A+up/down to change forms.
Quartz tracks your movement and then fires at you. Quartz has the crystalline structure of quartz. I just learned today that there are two green varieties of quartz, prase, which is moss-green and prasiolite, which is the Greek word for leek-stone and is a sort of sickly pale green. Prsiolite is only found in Brazil, which is definitely not Malta. Green quartz is not acceptable according to the Federal Trade Commmission and if you see anyone calling it that, stone them.
Diawheel is called that even though I don't believe we've met diadom (sic) yet.
Geoids fly at you and then fly back.
These guys are called anvils. Maybe if I take off my glasses and squint a little and then rub vaseline on my computer screen.
Oh yeah, flying consumes fuel while driving on the ground doesn't. If you run out of fuel, you die.
And now it's time for the vertical shmup segment. The enemies are iceburn. Because it’s an eye. Iceburn. I don’t even know.
Same thing, except you're always flying and instead of switching from flying to ground vehicle, you switch from a drill to unit-α, which is a "high powered water cannon" according to the manual.
To be fair, firebirds do look like they’re made of fire, even if said fire is green, which means it's magickal in nature or they are burning barium compounds or boric acid and copper (II) sulfate.
You'll want the drill, though, because you're going to be doing some drilling.
This is a fireball. Zetaplays thinks they look more like radioactive popcorn. They swap between red and green here.
Boss time.
Run away! Run away!
The game never explains Persidor.
Oh no, an insurmountable wall.
Loepin jumps at you when you get close.
Some more exploration later...
Even more exploration later...
I don’t know if the z is there to make the sneil sound slightly cooler and more intimidating or if it’s just bad translation. If it’s the former, it’s not working
Dragons breathe fire that moves in a wave pattern.
I think the green crocodile things that jump out of the water are Bitonga.
The starfish are starguns even though they attack by swarming you and not by shooting you.
Those things are called homebase (no, they look more like globs of molten rock to me).
The manual calls this guy Zatan. At least, I think that's what it says.
The only thing Legends of Localization mentions with Wurm is that the Hellen Keller reference regarding water if you talk to the “wrong” characters when fighting a boss exists in the Japanese version as well.
Maybe they're mixing up this guy with things that are not Malta, which makes sense because this guy is also not Malta.
He'll use his tail to attack. When the possibility reaches 100%, remember to USE the Hydro-Sonic.
You just have to say something, don't you?
There's only four different enemy types in the exploration sections.
They're also the weakest part of the game by far.
So forgive me for rushing through them.
We've obtained the unit-Γ which shoots homing missiles.
This, I believe is the diadom.
And those things are diamechs.
You're just going to want to get through this meteor shower as fast as possible. Your shields regenerate over time.
In the original script, it was 666 miles so it made more sense but Nintendo of America says no religious references. Although you might be able to argue that 666 refers to the emperor Nero, which would make sense because the entire Book of Revelation is a thinly veiled criticism of the Roman Empire.
This monster is called Bandal. A part-machine part-human creature created in the evil laboratories of Nonmalta.
Don't say "lab-ra-tor-y," that's where you do science. Say "lab-or-a-tor-y." That's where you do mad science. Like putting the brains of a zombie inside of the body of an even bigger zombie to create a race of super-zombies.
34 million years ago was the end of the Eocene.
I find it funny that the monster's name is Bandal and the father's name is Banda. Coincidence? Yeah, probably.
This had to be a mistranslation. Otherwise, this is one of the weirdest video game relationships of all time.
The dragons shoot red fire now.
I'm pretty sure that's a capital Θ, not an omega of either sort.
The starfish will tear you apart. The unit gamma is too slow and the regular gun won’t hit them so you’re gonna have to use unit Θ even though they don’t drop shit when they’re hit with it.
Whatever, I’m at the end.
Or maybe they do drop shit and I was just really unlucky. Or maybe they only drop shit in the vertical scrolling segments.
Since we’re at 680 miles now, either we went back up or the translators forgot they had to change the 666 to something a bit less, shall we say, Romanesque.
We're about halfway to the outer core.
In real life, the deepest parts of the crust are about 70 km deep. At this point, we’ve crossed the moho long ago and we’re well into the lower mantle, which has the consistency of caramel but is also really hard due to the tremendous weight above it.
The deepest hole in real life is about 12 km deep and was done mostly for scientific research. When the USSR collapsed, the funding dried up. And it’s the same here. Even with all this emphasis on STEM, it’s really just engineering and technology and when we do tolerate science, it’s science that can easily be politicized by the right, like evolutionary biology.
When fighting VZR-5, G-13 says "May the Power be with you!" Triggering that message also takes 5% from your possibility but gives you two points of life.
The scenes with Ichamod are optional.
The Japanese have a weird obsession with Mu (pseudoscientific crap by some guy who claimed he translated the Popol Vuh), Lemuria (which was an explanation for why lemurs show up in both India and Madagascar but not in Africa or the Middle East but it turns out that Madagascar and India were attached to each other and then India broke off and drifted northward and formed the Himalayas), and Atlantis (which was a political allegory).
There are actual sunken continents like Zealandia.
Hm, looks kind of like a moai.
The final battle against Sogalz himself.
Yes there is. If you get it wrong, you'll have to start over.
I like how the crystals' placement is that of the Super Famicom controller buttons in Japan (Americans, you just get lavender and purple)
And that's Wurm.
I took 452 screenshots. Most of them got giffed, of course. This game has a lot of text. It’s a miracle this game was released in English. Especially for a game that's a 7/10 at best. I mean, I like the shmup segments and the boss battles are at least interesting, but there's not much substance to the platforming segments.
Oh yeah, the name WURM never actually shows up in the game. In Japan, the game's called Vazolder: The Underground Battle Space.
burning question: You mean I could have gotten a free trip to Antarctica if I just spouted off nonsense about a flat Earth?