A few months ago, I read this article:
https://www.kotaku.co.uk/2015/03/13/dungeons-dragons-session-became-real-life-phenomenon
Yesterday I finally tried out a branch of that, the Japan-only SNES game “Record of Lodoss War” for 3 hours, but because emulation, I failed to properly save it, so I lost my progress (I since solved and can remedy in future). I’m not sure if I’ll start it up again, but I’ll share my impressions.
Going into this game knowing that it was originally inspired by a Japanese ttrpg group helped a lot. Given the generic nature of it, I otherwise would probably have passed it off as just-another-jrpg. If somebody ran a ttrpg of it, I think I would be compelled to roleplay in the world presented. The lore is laid out right away and seems manageable, generic fantasy flavour, with roles and stories you could slip into. I only played through the first little bit, where you start off as a single character. More than once, it seems like you are KO’d intentionally and your spirit moves to a new body which is a really cool idea. That’s scripted though, so you don’t get to choose. At first you’re a legendary warrior, then a lowly thief, then an OP wizard. There is talking, wandering and retreading using new info/equipment. Based on chracter art I’ve seen, I think this is only during the intro, and future charactes are probably static. The thing that stood out most for me is the linear nature of the game. I had zero chance for exploration. Also bothered me that I couldn’t investigate barrels or shelves or things on a table, etc. The world feels more dead to me if I can only interact with NPCs. If I play more, it’ll be because I want to play beyond what might be the intro section, and finally have more party members and agency. If this is just an intro section, I think it’s a really cool way to start off the game; ease you in, instead of managing several characters from the outset, kind of like DQ4 or Live a Live. Something I also like about the game is the battle system. It feels a lot more dynamic and interesting compared to Final Fantasy. You have an isometric (this might not be the right term. not side on, not first person, but turned 45º) grid of 3 or 4 by 4 or 5, so a rectangle. You have a move action, then an action-action. If you want to escape, move off the board. Magic can be cast across the field, melee is next-to (obviously). A battle feels more pressing in this game, since distance and spacing matters when you have an enemy - or multiple enemies! - upon you in a turn or few. I’d like to learn how battle are late in the game. In other RPGs, it’s navigating the turn-based structure and juggling multiple abstract effects, but this game might be more like tactical D&D grid combat.
Oh yeah. The music is generic and reptitive but fine. The art is not bad and standard SNES RPG, with nice anime portraits for party dialogue. Just navigating the UI, I love seeing an RPG not made by Square of Enix. There is a persistent frame throughout the entire game, like Super Game Boy except stylized like a fancy picture frame. If I play more, maybe I’ll check out the anime.
https://www.romhacking.net/translations/2155/
Can you guys suggest any other Japan-only fan-translated games?
