1998’s The Granstream Saga, is not a remarkable game, it was (even 1998) a deeply flawed action RPG, that featured many good (if not great) ideas that were not executed properly. Shade (the developers) left us instead, with what in my opinion is one of the most glaring examples of wasted potential in an…
Tag: PlayStation 1
Throwback Bit Thursday: Wild Arms
Many will remember Squaresoft’s Final Fantasy VII (1997) as the first great Japanese Role Playing game for the PlayStation. However, a few months earlier, April 1997 to be exact, Wild Arms arrived on Sony’s debut system with a great JRPG experience for fans to enjoy. Wild Arms holds an 83 Gamerankings (The 90s Metacritic) rating….
Throwback Bit Thursday: Alundra, More Than Just a Zelda Clone
Go ahead, enter a gaming forum, and search for an action RPG discussion. The Legend of Zelda Series will usually feature a prominent role coupled with more modern titles such as Dark Souls and The Witcher 3. One game, that few, if any, mention is 1997’s PlayStation’s Alundra. Alundra is a wonderfully crafted 2-D Action…
The Rise and Fall of Japanese Role-Playing Games (JRPGs)
Before we start, let us make one thing clear: Japanese Role-Playing Games are not dead. The genre never died, its games are everywhere around us in portable machines, mobile phones and in-home consoles. The word ‘demise’ in reference to the JRPG genre is more a description of the genre’s current state in comparison to its…
Throwback Bit Thursday: Final Fantasy VII Could Have Been Xenogears
Those of us who loved Chrono Trigger, and its – not so direct – sequel Chrono Cross, might never get to see a third game in Square’s most critically acclaimed series. However, Xenogears in some ways felt like a spiritual cousin of the legendary SNES title. Made by a team composed of many of the…
The Top Ten Greatest Consoles of All-Time
Editor’s foreword: There are two separate rankings listed: The official ranking which is the ‘NER’ ranking, and the Personal Ranking. The entire list is mostly subjective, as quality of games and my experiences with said games are the biggest deciding factor in terms of ranking. However, the NER ranking takes many other things into consideration,…
Xenogears (PS1) Review: The Most Ambitious JRPG Story Ever Written
Six years later, and we are still waiting for a true FF7 killer. A lot of RPGs have come and gone since then, some were good, some were bad and a few of them had dared to reach greatness only to fall short of it. In my eyes, the greatest attempt at surpassing the great…
World of Dragon Warrior: Torneko: The Last Hope (PS1) Review
Time for the back of the case: “The world of Dragon Warrior returns! Torneko (the tubby merchant from Dragon Warrior IV) takes the best-selling series in new directions as he tries to save his village from the curses of a mysterious treasure. Classic dungeon action. Elegant and addictive combat engine. Over 130 monsters to fight-…
Wild Arms (PS1) Review
Wild Arms is a humble RPG offering developed by Media Vision. The game was published by Sony in the US in 1997, just a few months before the inevitable release of the great Final Fantasy VII. Because of this, Wild Arms pretty much went under the radar for most gamers, but was successful enough to…
Vanguard Bandits (PS1) Review
Vanguard Bandits is a Working Designs PS1 2000 Strategy/RPG, apparently PS1 owners got the worst of the two 32-Bit Generation Strategy/ RPGs released by By Working Designs. Unlike the all time great Dragon Force which was released on the Saturn, Vanguard Bandits while sporting the usual excellent packaging and translation work that Working Designs is…