dungeonbuster.bsky.social
Seeking adventures from the archives of the past, one story at a time. I love taking a look at the history of RPGs, the tales they spin, and in shining a light on these from time to time in my threads. Let's explore together!
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Though it might be a longshot filled with hopium, I'd love to see Phantasy Stars I - IV given the remake treatment and released together the same way Suikoden I & II were by Konami.
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With a password system to checkpoint your progress, Alcahest's action packed quest was a neat gem from the Super Famicom's past inviting players to challenge the ambitions of a ruthless emperor, engage in arcade-like action, and play their part in a prophecy to save a world on the brink of doom!
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At key parts of the adventure, NPCs would partner up with you assisting with special abilities in addition to the elemental power the main character will also be wielding. Experience didn't level you -- it just gave you an additional "life" to continue -- with gear and upgrades found along the way.
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Alcahest involved a number of famous names ranging from the musical talents of Jun Ishikawa to Satoru Iwata who served as the executive producer, all of whom crafted exciting action reminiscent of titles like Soul Blazer and Terranigma filled with plenty of traps and beasts.
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F.H. released an unofficial English translation in 2002 with another group, KingMike's Translations, adding to it in 2014 helping to bring this 16-bit quest from the Super Famicom's history packed with action, neat ideas, and plenty of adventure to a wider audience.
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Exile's unusual story and the localization efforts sanitizing it for Western audiences make it stand out among fans and those curious to know where it came from. But for many players at the time and for those with fond memories of the TG-16's glory days, it was a neat CD enhanced adventure!
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Gamepro's preview of the game for Working Designs' localized release in the United States noted that "an entire cast of actors was hired" to voice scenes in the game. EGM, for its part, gave Sadler's adventure decent marks all around with most of the crew praising it as a solid RPG.
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As for the game itself, it combined top-down interactions in towns and other places with NPCs and "dungeon" stages for the side scrolling action eventually taking the player to places like the Middle East and Sri Lanka (or Lanken in the game) complete with angry bosses.
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When Renovation brought the game over for the Genesis, its localization was a much more severe than Working Designs' was (some items, like the burning village scene, were entirely removed). Dialogue, character backgrounds, along with a few other items, underwent their own batch of changes.
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Many of these story elements were watered down when it was localized by Working Designs following NEC's guidelines for North American audiences. Christians became Klispins and scenes, like a horrifying burning village, and characters like Yuug D'Payne (referencing Hugh de Payens) were altered.
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Exile turns out to be the CD-ROM remake of a 1988 title, XZR II: Kanketsuhen, released for PCs like the MSX2 in Japan. Its time-bending story referenced the Crusades, religious genocide, and the use of figures from history like the Templar co-founder, Hugues de Payens, in Sadler's quest.
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Lucienne's Quest, despite some rough spots, is still something of a interesting RPG among the very few that made it onto the 3DO. A rare gem for the console that may not have knocked the mailed socks off of veterans, but for a few others, something of a charming crawl that was still worth trying.
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A year later in '96, a version of Lucienne's Quest would release for the Sega Saturn but only for Japan. It also underwent a name change becoming "Sword & Sorcery" and receive a lavish, animated intro starring Lucienne and the friends she would meet while remaining the same game at its core.
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The lighthearted RPG had a mix of reactions though the game as a whole wasn't quite as well received, especially when compared to other RPGs at the time on other platforms. As EGM noted in their review, it largely stood out because of the 3DO's lack of RPGs while Gamepro noted "it needs help."
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It even had a day/night cycle and during the journey, Lucienne would meet many characters that may join her adventure. Night even had a particular effect on one of your companions, turning them into a wolfman. Players could even pick power levels for spells similar to games like Wizardry 6.
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In combat, players can move their character on one side of the isometric battlefield mostly to take cover behind obstacles or other characters to protect them from direct attacks. As long as an enemy is in an attacker's line of sight, they can still initiate an attack, jetting across the gap.
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Lucienne's Quest joined a small handful of RPGs on the 3DO. It mixed 3D poly environments and 2D sprites that make up its turn-based world of adventure, but despite the 3D battles, tactics are more of a matter of eyeballing lines of sight to foes rather than chess-like positioning.
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Ginga Denshou did its best to immerse players in the same way that certain other RPGs in the West had also done in a time when physical extras contributed as much to the experience as the games themselves. A neat, space faring chapter from the Nintendo's disk-based adventures from the past!
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Ginga Denshou's formula would also be something of a precursor to Compile's Guardic Gaiden (aka The Guardian Legend) which came out on the Famicom two years later in 1988 (and was also the sequel to a 1986 shooter also by Compile) featuring a transforming hero challenging a runaway planetoid!
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There were also stores with upgrades and NPCs with 'warp' codes to quickly travel to each planet. While on-foot, oxygen slowly depleted and could only be replenished from capsules dropped for enemies. Players could even mix certain medicines together to create a nice heal (or halve their life!).