A look back at: Last Bible III

I might as well preface this by saying that yes, it's been quite a while since the last RPG lookback, and it boils down to real-life commitments and SO MANY OTHER THINGS. Not only am I accepting a long-term position which greatly prevents me from really enjoying more game time, but I'm also doing another Pokemon ROM hack walkthrough and doing a ton of planning ahead for two different jobs. My 200th RPG to play is going to take a while perhaps, but I will see if I can muster as much time as possible to getting to it. Be warned, it could be months, maybe by summer I would finish my 200th.

So anyways, Last Bible III is a perfect example of a culmination. It started with two lackluster games on the Game Boy Color, and then moved to the Super Famicom where the graphics are greener and the music is prettier. Oh won't you please take it to the home console?

But the quality-of-life improvements to Last Bible III make it a significantly better experience in gameplay. Finally the monsters you recruit have an emoji and a progress bar showing how you can do negotiations much easier than a guessing game of yes or no. You can even level up the monsters and equip them, allowing for endless possibilities. And there's plenty of characters who join your cause, not just plot-wise, but being able to pick the best characters for the big moments is always a plus. This is despite having a somewhat traditional and linear SNES JRPG progression.

And this game honestly delivers quite well for what it holds. Sure, the translation is going to house the usual curse word cause the translators get goofy sometimes. Sure, there's the ocassional call-back to previous Last Bible games, despite Last Bible III taking place a whopping 20,000 years after the second game. But Last Bible III is effective at hooking the interested JRPG player, something that the previous games could have done better in. You see the introduction, and while it's very reminiscent of FF6's intro in the snowfall and such, it shows the bleakness of what's to come. This is despite green grass and humdrum village life at first. Of course, your parent is a prodigy like DQ5's Papas, you have a brother like countless RPGs, a nerdy kid not unlike Earthbound's Jeff, a girl who has a crush on you like countless RPGs, the usual robot and dragon party member like countless RPGs, and while not necessarily new, the seasoned RPG player will get hooked at their inclusions. And then you have faces you see come and go, some unfortunately die and you feel for them as you have lost such a fantastic character at that point. You see villains that you just want dead cause you know how bad they get. Then they twist you several times. Heck, even THE MAIN CHARACTER DIES! Yes, your actual main character is killed in the game, something that most RPGs that aren't Chrono Trigger wouldn't actually think of doing, no matter how close it could get. Hey, at least he gets to meet his parents who also end up dying prior to him, and even better, his own younger brother resurrects the group, being a child prodigy of his own. Oh, and that guy from the beginning? Actually kind of surprising he became a vengeful son of a gun bent on destroying everything, even when you defeat and kill his main nemesis he decides to have it out on humanity. But killing his undead spirit does bring him around. We actually have a wonderful epilogue at the end of it all too.

I'm telling you all, it's a culmination, and actually worth it despite the translation barrier and all. It culminates in things you know, but can appreciate, and even ties together things from previous titles. Things really worked out well for this game.

A look back at: Last Bible II

Sorry if this one took longer than expected! Or not. I really could care less about this one. Last Bible II thankfully was playable fully with English translation with the occasional swear word, but even discounting all of that what you get is basically Last Bible I (for those who forgot, Revelations: The Demon Slayer) but with newer characters, plot, and music. The gameplay is almost totally the same, the only super duper difference that I could find was the usage of eggs, where you have one get beaten in combat to make a good monster hatch. Otherwise, you're better off figuring out how to recruit and how to fuse monsters, or just get the super ones from bones like the Dragon or Kirin or so. Those still work.

Sequel games are always weird to play. This one is one of those "thousands of years later" sequels, but it still has a weird plot where everyone who is playable is connected in some weird way that almost rivals that of how the characters in FF8 were all familiar with each other. Here, the main ones are basically going "we fought together at one point thousands of years ago but lost and everyone died" and now they're reincarnated somehow in this case. Also the main character himself happens to be the resurrection of a beast king, and appropriately a corrupt human king and his more corrupt advisor try to kill you. Using demons. Which ends up in demons killing them. Because of course evil humans don't know how to control evil demons properly. There was zero character development in the first game, but here, we get a little bit more. Yuri is still a silent protagonist like El, but the other characters are more talkative, the rambunctious Safia has her reasons for being who she is, while the more concerning Krau and Ganzu have their reasons for being who they are, and then there's Esau who's clearly trying to go somewhere important. Gotta love how everyone gets the Force. Okay, not THAT Force, but whatever.

Bottom line is, this wasn't that good of a sequel game. Almost nothing new gameplay wise, it's not gonna appeal to anyone who just wasn't a fan of the previous game, and considering how many of this type of turn-based RPG I've done so far, I can relate to it not being as good.

A look back at: Revelations: The Demon Slayer

My first RPG of 2025! Wonderful how I was supposed to do Devil Summoner, but couldn't find a single English translation that could work. This game, part of the Last Bible series and supposedly a lot easier, ended up replacing it, but yes, I am crowing through this franchise as best as I truly can. This game actually could be a whole lot quicker overall for me, but at the end of the day, it was because I was also simultaneously enjoying other things like Super Monkey Ball rom hacks and what not. Oh, you don't care about that stuff! Let's talk about this game.

...and basically a whole lack of things that are actually interesting about it. This is a very simple RPG, going for the top-down view instead of the usual first-person dungeon crawler the original series is known for. The talking to monsters (yes, monsters, not demons) is the only true holdover from SMT, along with a primitive usage of fusion and sorting of things. The game's got only two companions, with almost zero character development all across the board. The music would be normally fine but gets kinda boring after a while, since every town uses the same music as does every dungeon. The game's plot is basically a journey to find your missing mentor, who seems to be a conspiracy theorist against who are supposedly good guys, and it turns out your mentor is of course right all along. Gameplay is average on the whole, you have the opportunity to grind at any point for equipment like I did, gaining tons of levels and learning spells as needed. Recruiting monsters is a simple set of four yes or no questions, while fusing monsters is fun for experimentation. Others have said that the latter part of recruiting monsters isn't as necessary, although I think it could be for getting Amon, Kirin, and Dragon, the three best non New Game+ monsters, to their highest potential. The last few bosses have tons of HP, so having them along to take blows is what I aimed to do. It all worked out. No intention of playing through a New Game+ though.