A look back at: Orphen: Scion of Sorcery

A BITE...OF LIGHTNING!

This was, by far and away, the most confusing game ever. Not in terms of its in-game stuff, but the whys as to how it was made and just what the heck even was the gameplay and plot. Honestly, I just don't get it. The original premise is alright at the very least, then you choose one of three companions, go through a bunch of cutscenes, have bits of 3D game gameplay not unlike the 3D Zeldas, and then you basically have more cutscenes. The game's battles are incredibly perplexing. For a real time battle system, you'd think that movement is important, but the characters stay in place the whole time. You've got targeting, projectile attacks, sword attacks, shield, and elemental spells. And geez, this just has to be one of those games where the voice acting has to say the spell name every single time. It's so weird. And even moreso that the voices show up for new spells every time you beat a boss. Although that is Metal Gear's Colonel giving the voice there, I will admit that's cool. Orphen is kind of a dick more or less, especially since all he cares for is money and has some...very questionable lines throughout the entire game.

So this plot is strange too. How? Well, you pick a character, go through his/her scenario, then you're back on the sinking ship. Even worse, that stupid monster that was trying to sink the ship is one you have to battle two more times, which was annoying. But what was weird was how the familiar old lady, the familiar witch girl, and the familiar granddaughter were basically in every scenario, but in different roles. Like the old lady is fairly ambiguous, being a flat-out villain in Zeus' scenario while being an exposition fairy more or less in Mar's. That Quaris girl was confusing, being a villain in Sephy's scenario, but somehow is Azell in Zeus' scenario and Mar's mother in Mar's scenario. What the hell? And then you finally realize the truth after finishing the three scenarios as the whole thing was supposedly all acting, all by this one machine that makes these people perpetually act out everything. None of this makes any sense to me and possibly never will.

So while I applaud the game for NOT taking a path strictly from an anime/light novel it's based off of, it frankly had me turning my head way too much.

A look back at: Ranma 1/2: Treasure of the Red Cat Gang

Ah, the missed opportunities. I feel like some franchises just get an RPG out of them but that's about it. The more I think about it, the more I realize it only works plot-wise. And this game is a fantastic example. Nothing new to the traditional genre-savvy RPG player as far as anything this game has to offer. It just has an interesting story. Not even the "defend to increase special power juice" thing is new. For shame.

There's barely much to talk about in this game overall, it's over quickly, you level up a lot, the walking speed is slow, encounters are frequent but special abilities basically get rid of them all the time. There's a moment near the end where you can use any other party members you got for the finale, which is nice, but not all that new. The idea of characters with cursed forms has some potential to it, but they are marginal, for example one character can only use one special in cursed form, another has access to all but one special in cursed form, and another has access to all specials in cursed form but one isn't available in normal form. But Ranma and Shampoo, they get absolutely not one change gameplay-wise in cursed form, so it doesn't even matter which one you prefer in that case. Bosses are usually just damage sponges, but some don't even last one turn.

There's just really not much to say about this game that hasn't been said about many others just like it.

A look back at: Tenchi Muyo! Game Hen

Sometimes, I wonder why I play the games I play. And this one certainly is no different, as I'm completely unfamiliar with this particular anime and I'm unsure on how this correlates to the game itself.

Gotta say though, I wasn't entirely pleased. It's a Final Fantasy Tactics clone, but it only has the basic parts. The interface is clunky and not too well made, and the enemies always attack you, in other words, the game completely lacks variety other than attacking, buffing, and healing, no status effects or anything too advanced. Perhaps being able to customize who gets to go is interesting, especially with the unique sets of characters. Yeah, using characters that can only move one space per turn is gonna be harder to maintain than using a character that has multiple spaces of movement. And then you factor in characters that can transform and have better abilities, plus a level cap of 8, meaning yeah, there's quite a bit of training to do, although it may or may not be all that necessary given that this game was pretty short, something I'm actually thankful for.

Perhaps what I was most annoyed with in this game was the enemy AI. They tend to get more turns than I do, plus they always move into positions that are disadvantageous for some of my slower characters. To compound this further, they always gang up on the person that is first in my character slot. Although it allows for strategizing the most defensive characters there, the fact that they usually gangbang one character is still annoying. Also the reinforcements tend to show up if you take too long, further prolonging things for battle-weary characters. And speaking of which, yeah, trying to level characters here basically involves specific characters killing enemies. Easy for some, hard for others.

And again, not much in story for this game overall, maybe if I knew more about these characters, I would enjoy this game more. Well, there's at least one original character, but the plot devolves into basic kidnapping of girls and rescuing them from villain, and also finding out villain behind villain and defeating her. Yeah, it's pretty rote.

A look back at: Magic Knight Rayearth

This SNES game really didn't take off at all, probably because I don't even recall if this anime series even was popular to begin with. And to make matters much worse, this was a game I beat in literally three days. That includes some grinding which I did as I played along. Magic Knight Rayearth for the SNES was a game that was too short to even have a lot of substance to it. Unlike Sailor Moon: Another Story, this game was too short to actually be enjoyable. It thankfully isn't too long, but it needed to be the right length, which is what made Moon a better game than this.

So this game, three schoolgirls get caught in magic land and become knights to fight off these prestigious bad guys. I don't know. I am not too versed in this series on the whole. Otherwise, it's a fully standard turn-based RPG with spells, random encounters, standard stuff. Oh, and guest characters sometimes come in, usually after you actually beat them in combat first. There's some character interactions as to be expected, but since I'm really not familiar with source material at all, I don't have much to say on them.

The interesting tidbits this game has, well other than the guest characters, are two things. One is that there are two types of critical hits, which is makes things slightly more interesting. The other are a few notable battles in the game which I'll actually describe. One is where you fight as Fuu alone against your other two main party members who end up brainwashed. The problem is that Fuu has to lose this fight, but I found out that it is completely winnable. Another fight has your party against Lafarga, who also was brainwashed then. The main thing about these fights is that winning is a game over in a sense, since you kill your allies. The game also tries to make the final fights of this game interesting too. Just lose against the final bosses to get some different endings if you will. Again, those little things are quite nice, but the game itself doesn't provide nearly enough for me to find it enjoyable.

A look back at: Sailor Moon: Another Story

Sometimes, an RPG goes on for too long. Other times, it is often too short. This game hits just the right amount of length and somehow, somehow manages to stay fresh.

Right from the get-go I can imagine some anime elitist sulking at the fact I played a game involving Moon and the planetary guardians. But it's not entirely bad. Sure, a turn-based RPG with combo attacks and formations isn't entirely the most unique thing ever, but it manages to be quite a bit charming. However, I will say that many of the characters tend to be of the same type. Think about it. Jupiter, Mars, and Uranus are amazing attackers, but have the lowest possible defense. Jupiter being the most extreme example and having the highest health but the shoddiest defense. On the other side are Saturn, Neptune, and Mercury with very low health and attack power but much better defense. Not a whole lot of uniqueness for the characters. Moon and Venus are jacks of all trades here, while Chibi Moon is actually very fast but very weak. Pluto is the most interesting of all though, having the worst overall stats except she has the ability to stop time for only the opponents, and it works on everything. Yes, even the last bosses. All you really need to do is get Pluto to use this move, get an item to refill her power all the way, then after three turns from the time stop she's ready to go again. And unlike in the Sailor Moon anime or manga she doesn't die or anything like that (although it really would've made more sense to just deplete all her HP instead of magic power then). The same could be said for Saturn's special ability. Still though, it's certainly rather broken.

On the plot sort of thing, it somehow manages to be unique. And for Sailor Moon, I consider that an accomplishment. You have a unique villain and five foils to the five main guardians plotting to, of course, rule things. And to do that, apparently bringing back the dead villains from the first three seasons was the way to go. The game honestly focuses less on Usagi being a ditz for the most part and actually being a heroine, unlike what you may see upon watching a random Moon episode. Whether it's saving Chibiusa or her brother Shingo, she is actually doing things with whichever group she's with. And it doesn't stop there. Chapter 2 of this game is an excellent chapter entirely because you get to play as each of the individual inner senshi on their own quests, with their respective foils trying to stop them. And given the locales and some apparently potential love interests, it was quite interesting. So Faregg apparently was dead all along, which sucks for Mars. That one doctor guy was a creeper to Mercury for god-knows-what reason. And Jupiter apparently was getting two lovebirds together, and found out they were cousins, while Venus being a goddess of love gets more than she would bargain for.

Alright, I'll admit, I'm not a fan of Anshar and Chibiusa's relationship, especially considering his relationship with Sin and her group. But at least it provided something I truly actually enjoyed most about Moon as a whole. And that was the overall length. Five chapters, generally good gameplay that becomes enough of a grind in the later segments. But by then, you don't have a whole lot left. This game had just the right length, not short enough to be boring, but not long enough that even without grinding it felt like a chore. So good job overall.

A look back at: Majin Eiyuuden Wataru Gaiden

What a weird and unique NES game I found when I played this back in 2015 or something. It's actually an action RPG too, which is pretty good! Then again, I know absolutely NOTHING about this anime that the game is based off of, so a lot of the plot ends up lost on me. Then again, maybe not. This game's plot involves finding something in the title, a hero named Wataru, and the player character is a nameable hero that is searching for the guy. In almost true anime fashion, this game's method of combat involves machins, which are, well, you know, mechs. You actually get several in game which is cool, along with...magic for them. The gameplay is like Faria's, standard overworld navigation which becomes a different kind of action-oriented battle system, except this is more like Zelda II instead of Zelda I.

Not much else to say about it since I'm not familiar with the source material at all. The plot is nice and short, the damsel in this case is actually a guy for some reason, and there's that idiotic ordeal where you actually save some princess as well and she asks to marry you. There's some lookalikes in one particular area, a dragon to fight, and apparently not only is said Wataru character captured but in some sort of bottle as well. So a plot with cliches and some rather dumb things, at least the gameplay is decent enough for an NES game. Also the music is decent as well. Probably could have been a replayable RPG if it was actually released outside of Japan.