The pixel art seen throughout Magical Vacation, Brownie Brown's 2001 GBA RPG, is never anything less than utterly stunning. Every location is bathed in comforting pastel colours and brimming with astonishing levels of detail, this art encompassing everything from lush forests to industrialist towers and populated by fluffy dog people, talking puppets, and every other kind of … Continue reading From the spelltacular to the magically mundane
At first blush the rigid grid-based dungeon crawling of From Software's 2006 PSP exclusive King's Field Additional I appears to be a drastic departure from the immersive die 'em ups that came before it, this UMD upstart choosing to ditch the freeform exploration of old in favour of a right angled labyrinth and the solitary town above … Continue reading Taking an old series to new depths
Balancing out the clean colours and comical stylings of Westone's Wonder Boy series is the Super Famicom title Dark Half, a turn-based RPG soaked in sombre colours and painterly artwork. The game's defining feature is its unique "zapping" system, the plot switching back and forth between heroic protagonist Falco and Demon Lord antagonist Rukyu over one in-game week, … Continue reading A game of two halves
Langrisser IV dared to reshape the remains of the well-intentioned misstep that came before it, cleverly polishing Langrisser III's unpopular albeit inventive rock into the shining gem it always could have been, guiding the series in a thrilling new dire— Oh wait no Langrisser IV is actually trying very, very, hard to be Der Langrisser v1.1. In fact this is so keen … Continue reading Langrisser 2+2
How do you play Wizardry, 1981's hottest RPG, in 2022? "With some difficulty" is the only honest answer, as official access to Sir-Tech's pioneering dungeon crawling adventure is virtually nonexistent. The Ultimate Wizardry Archives for DOS/Windows was as close as the series ever got to a convenient compilation, but that came out so long ago the pack's now … Continue reading WELCOME TO THE WIZARDRY WORLD
It turns out the Magic game I've always wanted to play, simply (and unhelpfully) titled Magic: The Gathering, not only already exists but has existed for about a quarter of a century, received a local release, and really I could've bought it at any time between then and now if only I'd realised the game was … Continue reading Magic: The Microprosing
Gaea Entertainment's Moon Dragon for Windows 95 - as far as I can tell their first and only release - caught my eye thanks to its "My First Photoshop" box art, a cacophonous scrum of dissonant imagery pulled from the game and then haphazardly plastered across the cover. I love it, I really do. Not only does it … Continue reading That dragon came from the moon!
Koudelka refuses to be bound by neat descriptions. On the one hand it's definitely a dark horror game set in a Welsh monastery and as such contains all the pre-rendered backgrounds, torture chambers, murders, ghosts, suicides, and gruesome half-resurrected bodies the genre required at the time. On the other it's also definitely a '90s console … Continue reading Aberystwyth, 1898
Vanillaware's 2011 PSP exclusive Grand Knights History is bursting with the developer's trademark visual splendour - and the game knows it. So proud is this strategic battle buffet of its good looks the team took the time to include an anytime, anywhere, screenshot function, making it easy to share direct captures of the game's warm tones … Continue reading A fighting fantasy
Fans of the original Dungeon Master will find Dungeon Master Nexus' opening eerily familiar: Once again you are Theron, a brave young man who can't seem to keep himself alive and corporeal for more than five minutes, once again made to rescue his magically unavailable master Greylord from another huge dungeon of nefarious design using a player-picked selection … Continue reading Authentically different
Kimimi The Game-Eating She-Monster 