One of the important elements of a strategy RPG for me is a developing story. To me, if it's just a series of battles with no story sequences at all (other than maybe an introduction and ending), it's lacking a key part that puts the RPG in the SRPG.
Sometimes it's hard to tell from videos or descriptions whether games qualify, and my master list is peppered with question marks; I'll evaluate those games as I get closer. Sometimes it's hard to tell even after playing it -- there are games that might technically qualify but are right on the line, and in these cases I just have to make an executive decision.
First on the chopping block is Dark Wizard, a Sega CD game. Although it has an opening sequence and there appears to be some slight story sprinkled around, it plays much more like a strategy game than an SRPG to me. It also looks like it's a fairly long game and it goes slowly (even on an emulator), plus it's available in English, so I'll skip it.
Powers Kingdom, released as Guardian War in the US, is notable for being on the 3DO, an unpopular and expensive system that few people had or played. But as far as I can tell there is no story in the game other than a brief introduction and a very short ending. Once again, it's available in English.
The twitch user Landail who is doing a playthrough of all English RPGs, has full plays of both of these games (on youtube or twitch), so if you want to see them, check out his channel.
Therefore the next game will be Sword Master, a PC Engine SRPG that seems to be very little known in Japan, much less the US.
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Played through Dark Wizard a long time ago. An interesting thing about it is that each character gets a different ending, so there is some replayability there, but it's veeery long, and not particularly RPGish.
ReplyDeleteYeah, in the end I think the length was what did it for me -- Landail took 51 hours to finish the game; he plays the games on actual consoles, though. I was surprised at how slow the game was and how long the loading times were even playing from an ISO on an emulator. Just going to the status screen took several seconds.
DeleteOn the topic of the 3DO, the Korean-exclusive SRPG Battle Blues was recently fan-translated. I don't know enough about the game to know whether it meets your threshold for inclusion (though my impression is that it does); either way I wanted to make sure it was on your radar.
ReplyDeleteThanks -- I've been limiting my play to console games originally released in Japan for now.
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