I don’t particularly have the urge to boot it up now, because I might get sucked into it (however briefly).  You play some kid who had his magic kingdom taken over by an evil guy when he was a baby.  His magical dog saved him and made sure he was raised appropriately (I think that’s how it goes), then reveals the truth to him.  Anyway, there’s a lot of fighting, and you have a magic dog, and there are shopkeepers that are entirely too chatty.  That’s about all I remember about the plot.  It’s sort of like a weaker Clash at Demonhead.  It’s anime-inspired, clearly, and there are bizarre goings-on, but they’re just bizarre enough to support the premise of the game.

Similar to 8 Eyes, your dog is a companion who you have limited control over.  He can be helpful, but (again like 8 Eyes’ Cutrus) he is entirely to weak to be your front-line and will likely die quickly.  Unlike 8 Eyes, he cannot be played by a second player, making this game a sad case of could-have-been.

It’s not like it’s a total loss, though.  The reason I still remember this game – and, in fact, what inspired me to post again so quickly – was the song for the first stage, which is unbelievably catchy (and linked below).  The composer credited with this is Masaharu Iwata, a wonderfully prolific and talented composer who is probably best known for his work alongside Hitoshi Sakimoto on games like FFXII and Opoona.   Incidentally, he also composed the music for the original Japanese release of Baroque.

Conquest of the Crystal Palace – Stage 1

Another, more significant part, is that they really rock.  Seriously, these are some damn good games, even when they have a few knocks against them.  It’s not a “they shore don’t make’m like they used ta” feeling, because one of these games is Persona 3.  It’s not even a “this game is good because it was made by X” because I dislike Suikoden 4, Wild Arms 4, Persona 2… and so on.  Simply put, it’s not all fanboyism and it’s not all nostalgia.  A significant amount of the reasons I like these games is because they’re a blast to play.  In some cases, the story is deep or satisfying enough that it doesn’t matter that it’s not.

All these words to say I love SaGa 2 (which, I may add, is actually Final Fantasy Legend 2 in disguise, or vice versa)  I have just written a review for videolamer, as usual, but there I try to pursue some vestiges of professionalism.  This game is fantastic; how many games let you shoot rhinoceroses with a PSI rifle?  How often do you get to battle (scaled up) microphages using a robot with a battle-ax?  The answer is not enough.  The best part of the game is its difficulty; ironic when most of my favorite games are easy.   In SaGa 2, your party is perpetually armed to the hilt with the most up to date weaponry and you are still just barely hanging on against the hordes of flying fish, oversized spiders, goblins, terrorists, the occasional demigod, robots, and so on.  Some of the original SaGa 1 / FF Legend artwork is evocative here:

The original SaGa is perhaps more realistic in feel – a game more in tune with the human condition, you might say.  The Tower evokes the lure of knowledge despite danger, and the characters are clearly adult (unusual for an RPG, sadly).  Perma-death is partially implemented (it is prohibitively expensive to keep someone in your party if they keep dying) and your party has to adapt to survive – I always end up swapping out a party member for a fresh one no matter how hard I try not to.  Other aspects – the hidden wet-world and dry-world in the tower, the fish statue land (this thing STILL exudes mystery to me, the others have some meaning)… it is a more philosophical game than one would think at first glance.

SaGa 2′s anime style fits more with the spirit of adventure.  Rather than a search for meaning, or forbidden knowledge, your main character is looking for their missing father.  In the end, the goal becomes fuzzier but your party is still running around righting wrongs.   The tone is significantly more childish, especially when the main plot-line gets lost and you get sidetracked saving the oppressed peoples of ancient Edo from their banana-banning masters.

Despite this I love SaGa 2 more for its intense combat and more rewarding battle system.  SaGa 1 is a jumbled mess, seemingly a bunch of themes and morals with a game tacked on.  SaGa 2 is also disconnected plot-wise.  “Hey, you know what would be cool?  Frickin’ VALHALLA as a world!  And get this – when you kill Odin he doesn’t give you re-dos on battles anymore!”  There are no consistent themes, very little in the way of overarching plot.  Merely a bunch of worlds just floating around.  Despite all that, it still manages to give me the same feeling of adventure as the more famous Lunar games and Skies of Arcadia.  As Steve Brust has said about his writing style: “…And now I’m going to show you something really cool.”  The game simply keeps getting better as you progress, with your party and the enemies consistently getting stronger and more complex.

So yeah – long story short, I played the DS remake of SaGa 2 – very playable if you have played the original, although katakana and hiragana would be useful for weapon / item names.  It is very much a good extension of the original.  The additions are disconnected, jumbled, occasionally confusing – but they add to the game in much the same way as the plot.  They’re another nifty feature – another weapon – perhaps a chain-sword, rifle, or a rune axe – hanging off the belt of one of the characters.

The DS remake has done justice to some of the only work of Akitoshi Kawazu that I enjoy (and man, do I enjoy it).  Square Enix needs to localize it so I can buy it a second time.

You play the snake(s) appropriately named Rattle (and Roll).  To get through the stages, you avoid or defeat strange, snake-hating enemies, from water-dwelling sharks to razor blade traps to giant, snake-crushing disembodied feet.  Your objective is to get to the moon for reasons unknown.  Placed at specific points in the level are pellet dispensers, which shoot out pellets which you can eat.  The pellets try to avoid you in a different way each level; the early ones simply roll or walk, while later ones will bounce or fly away.  In an interesting touch, the walking pellets have tiny white feet; after your snake consumes one, it spits out said feet.  Likewise with the later wings, et cetera.

Eating serves a couple different purposes.  The first is that it lets you survive a bit longer against easy enemies.  As you eat, you get additional segments added to your body, and if you’re hit you lose one.  The second purpose is that it’s the only way to beat levels (aside from the warps scattered throughout early levels).  Your snake has to reach its maximum weight, then stand on a scale to open a door.  After going through the door, you’ve beaten the level.

The first purpose of pellets is quickly defeated.  The game is full of spikes, the evil giant feet, anvils, and other evil things that kill in one hit.  Jumping puzzles are quite tricky, especially in later levels.  Dying to spikes or pits, however, is entertaining as your snake will make a high-pitched, plaintive “Aaaaaaaarrrrrgg” complete with text coming out as it falls.

Though it’s tough to beat, Snake Rattle ‘n Roll is a great little bit of entertainment.  It was among Rare’s first games, and is definitely one of the cooler cooperative NES games,  So long as your buddy doesn’t hog all of the tongue upgrades.

The most likely source of this awe is simply that the game is so abominably random.  I never owned the instruction book, and the introduction only gives vagaries as to the plot (blah blah, 4 elements, 2 poles of power).  Fact is, you create a party and start in the middle of the Earth area with little direction.  You’re told that you have to collect 8 Tears of Power, and that you should check at the nearby castle first.   Oh, the introductory information tells you a decent amount about the game’s system.  What it *doesn’t* tell you, though, is what’s ironically most important.

For example, observe.

This mysterious black dog head will attack you if you bump into a grave.  Any grave.  It will also pretty much kill your entire party if you blunder into it before you’re level 15 or so – better have the best equipment just in case.

Combat in general is quite random.  You move your selected character around, and if you walk into enemies he or she will occasionally attack.  It’s vaguely like the Gauntlets, but more just painful.  To be fair, if you know what you’re doing the game’s none too rough – you can get all your equipment from the various castles, and it regenerates if you move two areas away, so you can max out on the Power Armor as soon as you find it (in one of the Water castles, I think).  Bows are crucial for the late-game as yet another random encounter starts popping up – at night, if you look at the constellations funny, they come down and start attacking you.  Yes, the constellations will beat the crap out of your party – often, if you don’t have bows.  If that weren’t enough, you have all sorts of bizarre and occasionally unfair random encounters, like giants crawling out of the ground or slimes that will crush any early-game party.

As if the game weren’t random enough, I distinctly remember the early-game: after you go into Hordkhen’s castle and talk to him, he sends you to the other side of the Earth area.  There is a huge verboten line across the whole Earth continent for some hellish reason, and if you try to cross it you’ll get stopped by a guard.  This guard manages to simultaneously be everywhere along the line at once.  The solution?

Yes, the solution is to go around the line.  There’s an area just perfect to slip by – not far enough into the other region that you’re in danger, but enough outside the line the soldier can’t stop you.  I have played few games where the solutions I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to use feel so jury-rigged.

Even the merchants in the game are random encounters – old men who teleport in and have goods based on the area.  Sometimes they just want to chat, though.  Never had a random encounter in any other game where some batty old wizard pops in, says one line of dialogue, then warps out.

All in all, though, despite how raw the game feels, it’s quite natural.  You can save wherever you want, so it’s not especially unfair either.  It’s not that the game was made to be unforgiving – it’s that the world you live in hates humans in general.  Even though I’ve beaten it twice, every so often this game still calls out to me, as if there are still areas I haven’t explored, constellations I haven’t conquered, and loot hiding in the dungeon of a castle I haven’t plundered yet.  Every so often I hear the soft, calming music while wandering the world map, avoiding sharks on drawbridges (oh yeah, watch out for that second castle)… ahh, great memories.

I would never recommend this game to someone who was looking for anything easy or logical, but it’s entertaining enough and has pretty good music, too.  It’d score about average on a fair rating scale, but it’s enjoyable enough and not very long if you FAQ a bit instead of wondering what to do.

No, I’m not bringing back Game of the Day.  I have neither enough games nor enough motivation, but I’m planning to cover random games as I remember them.

Key:
- means I wrote this one up as a GOTD
* means I haven't played it in a while but was meaning to.
Games similar enough to be mentioned in the same review are on the same line.

SNES

Actraiser
B.O.B. *
Der Langrisser
Earthbound
EVO: Search for Eden
Genghis Khan 2
Harvest Moon
King Arthur's World
Robotrek
Shadowrun
Soul Blazer * / Illusion of Gaia
Zombies Ate My Neighbors

NES

8 Eyes
Guerilla War
Jackal
Jesus
Kickle Cubicle *
Mendel Palace *
Milon's Secret Castle *
Rygar
Startropics *
Ultima 1/2 NES
Wizards & Warriors *

GEN

Cadash
General Chaos
Gunstar Heroes
Master of Monsters *
Vixen 357 *

GB
FFL2
Dadaelian Opus
FFA

PS
Persona 1/2

PC
Arcanum
Battle of Wesnoth
Fallout 1/2
Inner Space
Master of Magic
Mines of Titan
Space Rangers 2
X-Com: UFO Defense

---------------------------------------
Completed:

SNES
- Aerobiz
- Arcana
- Gemfire
- Harvest Moon
- Kirby Super Star
- Legend of the Mystical Ninja
- Lufia & The Fortress of Doom
- Uncharted Waters (1/2)
- U.N. Squadron

NES
- 8 Eyes
- Clash At Demonhead
- Crash 'N Boys Street Challenge
- Crystalis
- Deja Vu
- Dragon Warrior 4
- Faxanadu
- Legacy of the Wizard
- Snake Rattle 'n Roll
- Solar Jetman
- Solstice
- Xexyz

GEN
- Contra Hard Corps
- Dungeons & Dragons: Warriors of the Eternal Sun
- Gauntlet 4
- Shadowrun
- Warsong

PSX/PS2
- Armored Core
- Dynasty Warriors 3
- Jumping Flash! 2
- Suikoden Series
- Valkyrie Profile

OTHER
- Master of Magic
- Cave Story
- Seven Kingdoms II
- Two D&D Arcades

Valkyrie Profile is simultaneously one of the most well-known and rare games that there is. It’s been hailed nearly universally as an example of an RPG everybody should play and that should be remade (and it was!). Unfortunately, the game is not all awesome, but it is good.
There are several good points to the game. The story, although filled with unrelated, usually depressing sub-plots, is carried across very well. The game as a whole is incredibly non-linear (in a good way) and contains a good deal of variety. The meshing of the action in dungeons with the battles works pretty well, and the music is great.

Unfortunately – as with any game, no matter how good otherwise – it has its flaws. The English voice acting, though better than you might expect for the time (i.e. Grandia), is nowhere near the quality of more recent games’ and will probably grate on your ears. In addition to this, it’s not possible to skip through any of the scenes. If you’ve played through the game already, you may want to see some scenes again – but probably not all of them, particularly if you had to see any of them multiple times.

Combat is a mixed bag. You’ll either enjoy it or you won’t. It looks relatively simple – and it is relatively simple – with a couple of tricks to it that you’ll have mastered by the time you get your 3rd or 4th Einherjar.

Speaking of which, the Einherjar system is really cool, but it’d be nice to see it used more. As it is, you send appropriate members of your party to Valhalla and you hear about how they’re doing, but you don’t really get anything from it. While you still have them, however, developing skills is, similar to in Star Ocean, a fun part of gameplay.

And along with Einherjar (a term I had heard once before this game), the Norse mythological themes to the game are generally cool, but specifically lack. Such as switching of gods’ gender, numerous Aesir/Vanir/Jotun mix-ups, Norns == Valkyries? Although it’s pretty neat to see all this stuff, even with my lack of knowledge on the subject I found it annoying from time to time. I’m the kind of guy who finds that stuff hard to ignore, though.

Overall – an interesting game, but perhaps not worth the $100+ price tag that it will likely require. The game sells for less than $20 in Japan – if it were the same price here, it would definitely be worth it. The PSP version is supposedly good, too, although I haven’t tried it.

A last note – if you do play the game, do so on Hard Mode. You can get all the extras and the difficulty is negligible anyway. The other modes are just an annoyance.

Although I usually prefer multiplayer cooperative games, this game is surprisingly addictive.

If you’ve ever played the Mechwarrior game for SNES, you know more or less what the formula is: you are a mercenary pilot with a “Core” – or giant humanoid bot (as is standard). You are offered missions – usually between 1 and 4 are available at a time – and as you progress you find out more and more about what is going on between the two mega-corporations that are your primary employers.

As you progress, you will also make more money which you can use to buy parts and weaponry for your Core. You might go for a speedy, booster-heavy approach, or you might try to make a heavily-armored tank-bot. Whichever you go for, you will likely find the parts that you want.

You may be offered parts as compensation instead of money, and you can also find parts in stages. Although some aren’t as useful, you can find some unique parts in certain stages.

Your mercenary group, the “Ravens”, has a ranking system where you will gradually move upwards. If you get close enough to some other mercenaries, they may feel threatened and decide to work against you – except 8-Ball, the top-ranked merc, whose rank you will likely never succeed. You may eventually encounter him, though.

Difficulty is usually light enough to keep frustration at bay, but the game is difficult enough to keep your interest. I had to restart a few missions, particularly later on in the game.

Controls in the game are particularly easy to use, but you may have to adjust to them at first. Boosting might seem a little awkward for a while, but if you test it out a bit, you’ll get used to it.

The only major complaint I have is that the game is both incredibly linear and not long enough. The game is around 10 hours, which is admittedly pretty long for an action game, but for a game that has this scope, From Software could probably have put together a 20-hour game.

I have not played the sequels – yet – but I’ve heard they are pretty good. Try this game out and see if you like it.

This entry is somewhat diferent in that if you don’t own the game(s), you probably never will. Regardless, these are two excellent games that I highly recommend playing if you see them at an arcade near you.

Gameplay is similar to Final Fight or Knights of the Round, but is more complex. Up to four players (in Tower – in Mystara I have only seen two-player consoles) can cooperate to defeat enemies and collect treasure and experience.

Although you do not actually create your character, you get to choose from some possibilities. In Tower, you can choose from Fighter, Dwarf, Cleric, and Elf, while in Mystara, Magic-User and Thief are added. Some characters cannot use certain items, and appropriate classes can cast spells as well.

At the end of each stage, your character can gain levels and spend the well-earned gold he or she may have accumulated. Hardcore D&D fans might even notice that the Human characters have a higher max level than non-humans.

Some differences between the two games should probably be mentioned – Mystara has more branching paths and a lot more secrets to be found, including several special swords that the combat-oriented classes can use.

Unlike most arcade games, it’s possible to play a ‘perfect game’ – to a point. I once saw someone playing Mystara in Japan who got through several stages without being hit.

As with any multiplayer RPG, it’s considerably better if you bring a friend and choose classes that complement each other.

Precisely what it is that this game does that makes it incredibly good, I’m not sure. But I do know that it is an amazing game, and one that has yet to be surpassed in its genre although Age of Wonders has done a good job of getting almost there.

The core gameplay is relatively simple. Imagine Civilization with magic and several different races. You build cities, conquer cities, and cast spells – for summoning, enchantments, et cetera – both in and out of battle.

Although there are pre-set wizard types, part of the fun of the game is playing as a custom wizard. You get a certain amount of picks as to your magic types, from the elements of Life, Death, Nature, Sorcery, and Chaos (although you can only choose one of Life and Death). How many ‘picks’ you spend in each determines how many spells you can research in that field. In addition to this, you can spend picks to get special abilities, such as increased research, lower hiring costs for mercenaries, or (my favorite) the ability to create artifacts for heroes at half the cost.

As the game progresses, heroes may approach you to be hired – or you may summon them if you research the spell – and these heroes will gain experience and improve over time. Some heroes may assist you in casting magic, some may be healing specialists or archers.

The maps that are created are randomly generated, and include monster lairs, magical nodes (which you can send spirits to to gain more magic power), and towers that lets you transfer over to the dark plane of Myrra (if you didn’t choose to start there).

The only problem I have with the game is that there is no multiplayer. This is certainly forgivable since the game is more than half my age and multiplayer for PC games was not common then.

Fusing Civilization-esque gameplay with heroes and tactical combat, this is one of the best games that Microprose came out with. Try it out.

The Suikoden series, based loosly around one of the first novels in the world (Outlaws of the Marsh, called “Suikoden” in Japan), takes place in an original fantasy world of Konami’s devising.

In this world, “runes” grant users the ability to use elemental and spiritual forces. While most rune types are relatively common, there are 27 “true runes” which are the only ones of their type in the world.

In each Suikoden game, you receive at least one true rune – in Suikoden III, you get 3, with the ability to command characters with 2 more – and play a role in preventing an evil takeover of a continent, rebelling against an evil empire, preventing a potential doom of the world… et cetera.

Although I will not go into detail about each particular game (I have written more details in my review), there are several good reasons to try at least one member of the series (with the possible exception of IV).

For one, each game has 108 characters to recruit. Generally, around half of these are event characters. You can use at least 60 of the characters in your party at any time, although some characters are certainly better than others (Flik versus Freed Y, for example). Some characters are particularly memorable, but even in IV, by far the worst in the series, the character development shines through at one of the games’ best traits.

Although the character amount has been done before (earlier in Destiny of an Emperor and more recently in Radiata Stories), few other games have let you have your own castle, which grows along with the set of commanders you recruit. Few other games (Star Ocean II is the only one I can think of) have cooking minigames. And I have rarely seen a game series where it is so rich – in terms of plot – to play through the games in order. Particularly between Suikoden I and II, although to a limited degree between other members in the series, you get to see what happened to the former Scarlet Moon Empire from Suikoden I.

Between the variety of characters to recruit and the intermittent strategy battles (very light strategy), there is enough variety – and enough characterization – to occupy anyone who enjoys RPGs.

Although the Suikoden series is now famous for having earlier entries which are expensive (upwards of $60), III and IV are relatively inexpensive. V was just released, so it is the traditional $40. III and V are certainly worth it; I would wait to see about IV until you try other members of the series.