Old/obscure/underrated JRPGs

[MRY]

Kind of amazing how striking the art design and production quality is compared to other early gen SNES RPGs.

 

[kaisergeddon]

Bah.. no english translation. Meh
http://www.geocities.ws/newkingmike/trans/ody1/index.htm

Soon! (hopefully):
http://www.dynamic-designs.us/odysselya.shtml

Dynamic Designs says they're practically done (with both games no less!), but waiting to fix some significant crashes.

 

[kaisergeddon]

After finishing the game you can enter Alice Mansion, talk to Alice Soft staff and unlock some stuff.

Any RPG that has a dev room as an easter egg or unlockable is peak SOVL to me. SaGa Frontier, Final Fantasy IV, Illusion of Gaia (Illusion of Time)... even Ultima: Runes of Virtue II. Many more I'm not mentioning, but they'll all equally better for having them.

 

[abnaxus]

Played Shinseiki Odysselya 2 (1995)

At the end of the first game after an epic journey through space and time the protagonist returned to godhood and unleashed another Great Flood to cleanse the world from demons and evildoers. She lost track of some of her guardian god party members in the process.

This game continues from where it left off. As expected at the end of the first game, the jooish princess’ son is one of the main characters. The main party members each have their own chapter of introduction, they come from different times and locations: the jooish prince and pseudo-elf gurl from 509 BC, a Roman gladiator from 64 AD and Prussian knight from 1192 AD.

Basically each character has their own personal motivation to travel together. All meanwhilst goddess waifu and her friends of first game are trying to undo their mistake and resurrect the 4 guardian beasts they were tricked into defeating in the first game.

Aside from the main party if you explore a bit you can find a fifth non-controllable “exotic” party member like a kung fu cyclops, fairy, djinn, etc.

The main villain is kind of a time-travelling Irenicus, a sorcerer trying to exact revenge out of extreme butthurt. But of course the demon king of the first game is back too, orchestrating everything behind the scene again. In the end his plans are thwarted by pseudo-elf gurl party member who turns out to be goddess waifu’s daughter. Overall it’s a very worthy sequel.

Spoiler

 

[Grampy_Bone]

How is it possible there are still untranslated snes rpgs?

 

[rohand]

Some freaky enemies on that one, love it

 

[lightbane]

Looks like the japs did hoard all of their good games for themselves, sadly.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

As long as people have spare time and are comitted to translating, there is hope for us non-MOONSPEAKERS.

(i blame gamesack for the term "moonspeak." It hust stuck with me).

 

[turkishronin]

Played Shinseiki Odysselya 2 (1995)

At the end of the first game after an epic journey through space and time the protagonist returned to godhood and unleashed another Great Flood to cleanse the world from demons and evildoers. She lost track of some of her guardian god party members in the process.

This game continues from where it left off. As expected at the end of the first game, the jooish princess’ son is one of the main characters. The main party members each have their own chapter of introduction, they come from different times and locations: the jooish prince and pseudo-elf gurl from 509 BC, a Roman gladiator from 64 AD and Prussian knight from 1192 AD.

Basically each character has their own personal motivation to travel together. All meanwhilst goddess waifu and her friends of first game are trying to undo their mistake and resurrect the 4 guardian beasts they were tricked into defeating in the first game.

Aside from the main party if you explore a bit you can find a fifth non-controllable “exotic” party member like a kung fu cyclops, fairy, djinn, etc.

The main villain is kind of a time-travelling Irenicus, a sorcerer trying to exact revenge out of extreme butthurt. But of course the demon king of the first game is back too, orchestrating everything behind the scene again. In the end his plans are thwarted by pseudo-elf gurl party member who turns out to be goddess waifu’s daughter. Overall it’s a very worthy sequel.

Spoiler

Isn't ペルシャ "Persia"?

 

[abnaxus]

Played Yume maboroshi no gotoku (1993)

The main character of this game is Oda Nobunaga, aka Oda Nobunigga, who is in many strategy games but not rpg games.

The historical Nobunaga was forced to commit suicide during something called the Honnoji incident by the traitorous Mitsuhide Akechi.

The premise of this game is that Nobunaga did not in fact die and returns from death. After his return, Nobunaga is quite mad and no longer gives a fig about ruling Wapan and leaves it to Hideyoshi and Ieyasu - lovingly referred to as “saru” (monkey) and “tanuki”. Instead he wants to conquer the rest of the world. But he keeps getting delayed into actually getting down to business.

Of course, he still inadvertently ends up sorting out the squabbles of Hideyoshi and Ieyasu, like a father breaking up his fighting children. The main villains in the game are Mitsuhide and a western devil/ang moh/southern barbarian called Cabral. Both are so frightened/butthurt by Nobunaga’s return that they turn to demonic powers in order to stop him. And one cannot really blame them.

Gameplay wise the game is like Dragon Quest. There are classes like samurai, ninja, Buddhist/Catholic priest, Taoist each with unique skills and abilities.

At times there are strategy battles, but they’re about as superfluous as in Suikoden games.

In the end, Nobunaga ends up saving Wapan and the rest of the world. He does not die but disappears, chitlording somewhere else.

At the end it is also revealed Nobunaga somehow impregnated the cute ninja gurl (Hattori Hanzo's little sister) during the journey. Of course, you don’t get to see Nobunaga’s (pixelated) hyperweapon, which is just as well. It wouldn’t fit on the cartridge anyway.

Spoiler

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Tell me that one is translated?

 

[turkishronin]

lol Ranmaru is actually a companion too. Looks good for an ancient game.

 

[Jinn]

Tell me that one is translated?

Of course not. Almost every post in this thread is by abnaxus and a game you will never be able to play in English. It's hard to describe the feeling I have when I see a new post in this thread, but it borders on ambivalence, annoyance, and mild interest.

 

[abnaxus]

Played Airs Adventure, Sega Saturn exclusive (1996)

The main character of this game is an errant noble playboy called Henry (who looks like gurl actually) who is saved from having his head chopped off at the very last moment by pretty princess (Corinne) for an unknown reason.

Soon after Henry saves the pretty princess by going St George on a dragon and the two are transported to the fairy kingdom in the sky, summoned by the fairy queen to perform an important task. They need to beat some sorcerer but when you meet him he turns out an absolute nothing, like the Wizard of Oz. Instead some ancient evul appears out of nowhere to prolong the game.

Overall the story and setting feel like a Brothers Grimm fairytale.

Combat is very simple since there’s only the princess and Henry in battle for magic and melee respectively. The princess’ magic is related to three (comic relief) fairies who also level up.

For an early 3D game it isn’t really fugly at all. The game’s music is very nice.

After beating up the final boss I got graphical errors that ruined the ending parts.

Spoiler

 

[turkishronin]

妖精の幸せは、他の人の幸せがわかること

 

[LJ40]

妖精の幸せは、他の人の幸せがわかること

The happiness of a fairy is to understand the happiness of others

I'm just going to assume auto-translate got it spot on for once.

 

[Blaine]

Played Last Guardian (1995)

It’s a strategy rpg with gameplay similar to Nana eiyuu monogatari or Days in duel. Unlike those games this is a p. long game and quite story driven.

Characters are not (phaggit) Elves nor furries, but classic therianthropes (and one human, which is an important plot element). Some characters’ ability to shapeshift can be a game changer in certain battles (some of which are quite hard).

The story is p. gud and characters are likable. It’s a nice surprise after dropping a couple of games that looked good beforehand but turned out not fun to play.

Spoiler

I knew it was a PC-98 game immediately. The way Japanese developers utilized the "PEGC" GPU just resulted in incredible visuals.

I have no idea whether PEGC was flat-out superior to VGA (likely), or if the peccadilloes and limitations of PEGC simply resulted in aesthetically pleasing uses of the available palette (possibly in addition to being superior to VGA).

SVGA lasted for about fifteen seconds as a standard before it disappeared, so it's hard to compare.

 

[Derringer]

As long as people have spare time and are comitted to translating, there is hope for us non-MOONSPEAKERS.

(i blame gamesack for the term "moonspeak." It hust stuck with me).

Moonspeak and moonrunes are jokes that are about as old as Sailor Moon.

 

[abnaxus]

Played Benkei Gaiden for PC Engine (1989)

The game takes place shortly after the Genpei war at the end of the Heian period (794-1185). Ironically I believe I may have written about wanting an rpg game set in Heian period.

The Genpei war ended the Heian period and started the Kamakura period (1185-1333). There’s an epic tale about this war called Tale of the Heike featuring legendary fighters like Minamoto no Yoshitsune (whose ghost actually appears in Yume maboroshi no gotoku as well) and Benkei.

During the game you resurrect Benkei who becomes party member, hence the name of the game. Yoshitsune becomes party member right before the end.

The main character is an orphan boy called Kijaku with special powers who was found in a basket and raised by mountain priests. When demons invade when he’s grown up he must save the land by finding the three legendary Imperial artifacts and learn the truth about his existence in the process (spoiler: he’s the child of Shizuka Gozen and Yoshitsune).



The way you go about finding the three artifacts (sword, mirror and jewel) is fairly freeform.

Gameplay wise it’s like Dragon Quest. It’s overall p. difficult as your party’s stats are capped at 255 while the endgame bosses have thousands of hp. Plus you can carry only 16 items, with about half of those quest items that can’t be dropped and never disappear from inventory. Also buffing/debuffing spells and important silence spell last only one turn so must be applied again and again which is a pain in the ass. In the end this game is memorable for setting + bestiary originating from Wapanese folklore/mythology.

Spoiler

 

[Shinji]

Played Airs Adventure, Sega Saturn exclusive (1996)

So it's just a party of two characters the entire game?
How romantic

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

As long as people have spare time and are comitted to translating, there is hope for us non-MOONSPEAKERS.

(i blame gamesack for the term "moonspeak." It hust stuck with me).

Moonspeak and moonrunes are jokes that are about as old as Sailor Moon.

<Googles Sailor Moon>
How old is Sailor Moon and her bitches now? Are they single?

 

[abnaxus]

Played Sword World SFC (1993)

Sword World PC is one of the best rpg games on PC98, so how does the console version compare?

Well, it’s largely the same except that there is only a party of five this time (there’s a bonus slot for a quest related party member), less cities and some party members are missing, like the blue hair priest/bard. There are less scenarios and the ones hauled over from the pc version seem to play out a bit differently. I focused mostly on other cities this time compared to the PC version and indeed saw some new stuff.

There were some really interesting dungeons with puzzles in the PC version, in the console version there’s nothing like that. At least waifu Nightshade is still around.

Admittedly the main story is much better incorporated in the console version, in the pc version the game kinda ends out of nowhere. There's a semblance of a plot this time around. After the final battle you see your party GTFO like at the end of FFVI.

I don’t remember the music in the PC game, but the console version has a gud soundtrack.

It’s still recommended to play the PC version, but console version has a sequel…

Spoiler

 

[MRY]

Graphics lost a lot of the PC98 version charm.

Also, was it already raised in this thread that Minsc seems to appear in the PC98 one?

 

[grundo1561]

I've been lurking in this thread for a while, just wanted to say that it's inspired a deep longing that will never be satisfied.
I wish I could play through the Tengai Makyou games, especially Manjimaru.

 

[abnaxus]

Played Elden Gate, late gen very quirky PS1 rpg game

Apparently the game director was Koji Igarashi (literally who)

After the release of Symphony of the Night, Igarashi was director for the 2000 PlayStation role-playing game Elder Gate. Igarashi says that he was motivated to create the game because he had played other heavy story driven games and after a long break had lost motivation to continue. He says he wanted to make a game that could be played at any time, and could feel fresh every time you played it. He wanted each player to have their own unique experience when playing the game. The game received a 22 out of 40 score from the magazine Famitsu.

The titular gate is connecting two different worlds, Roswell and Eldora. The adventure begins when somebody is siphoning energy off the gate, draining away all life on Roswell. The main character is an apprentice shaman (for lack of a better word) who must collect spirit stones to repair the gate.

The party members in the game are elemental spirits but end up not as unique as one’d expect: with how the character system works you can theoretically build them all exactly the same (the game has a job system combined with slotting spirit stones with which you can get special abilities, increase attack/defense etc.).

The light and darkness party members aren’t in the manual, wtf is with that

Spoiler

The game areas are procedurally generated by means of a sequence of numbers you can input into the gate, but it doesn’t affect how the main plot develops (not that there is much of one).

In every area you basically delve through dungeons, collect enough spirit stones (which can be slotted to gain more attack/defense or gain special abilities) and find the portal back to Roswell to power up the elden gate. All the while you collect new party member and the main plot continues glacially.

The way you come across new party member may be randomized as well, since really only the lightning chick I met in a somewhat unique way. And later in the game somehow I came across a unique weapon for her (she’s supposed to use a whip but there are only swords for her, wtf is with that).

Each time you use the gate to warp to a new area on Eldora, you dump all your experience points and start a new scenario at level 1. All accumulated experience and spirit stones eventually are recovered for the final battle.

The game gets a bit repetitive but it’s never really boring. If only there was a plot. Main character flies an eagle in the intro movie and fights the doggie boss in a mountaineous area… that stuff never happens in the actual game. The music at least, is excellent.

Spoiler