Dempa's X68000 remake of Falcom's eternally popular Ys: Ancient Ys Vanished opens with a superb digitised recreation of the sumptuous Yoshitaka Amano illustration found on the front of the game's box. As first impressions go, this would have been about as perfect as anyone could've hoped for... if only any care at all had been taken … Continue reading Ancient style vanished
Look, I'll admit it - when Ys Seven was in its teasing pre-release advertising phase I didn't like what I saw at all. Why has the artwork been changed? What's this about a party system? And there's no PC version at all? Seriously?! Whatever this made-for-PSP Ys was going to be, it sure as heck wasn't going to … Continue reading The same in a different way
Sorcerian Original is the Windows 98/95 compatible remake of the... well, the original Sorcerian, a game first released on the PC-88 back in 1987. As remakes go Original's a fascinating case of the very old meeting what was at one point in time the very new. The graphics for example have been completely overhauled, many environments now boasting … Continue reading There’s only one Original
If the screenshots of Gravity's Korean-born PC RPG shown below look familiar it's probably because you've spent some happy time with their best-known work, the phenomenally successful MMO Ragnarok Online. The same standard of spriting excellence found in their long-running online game is found in equal measure in this single player title, Arcturus' art remaining as much … Continue reading Never judge a game by its cover
What happens after you save the world? Well if you happen to be the caped hero of a charming fantasy RPG you round up a few of your old friends, make some new ones, and then go off to save the world all over again a few short years later. In a smart move for … Continue reading So good they saved the world twice
Let's get the one question on everyone's lips out of the way before we get started: Fans of dinosaurs - I'm sorry to say there are no terrible lizards at all in Falcom's only first-person dungeon crawler, Dinosaur. I know, I know. At least we'll always have Dino Crisis 2. The good news is this 2002 update of … Continue reading I have some bad news…
The "VM" in VM Japan stands for Vantage Master, a very short and sporadic run of tactical fantasy games by Falcom beginning in 1997 with the predictably titled Vantage Master and (currently) ending with Vantage Master Portable for the PSP just over a decade later (this title was eventually ported back to PC via an official Chinese licensee). VM Japan … Continue reading The mystic far east – powered up!
Brandish 2 continues the noble Falcom tradition of having their brave heroes fall flat on their faces in unfortunate circumstances as the only flimsy excuse needed to drag them into another adventure. The first game's distinctive "world-turning" system makes a functionally identical comeback here (as do many other features), which means our protagonist Ares always … Continue reading The world revolves around Ares
Falcom's Xanadu series is comprised of a long and tangled web of wildly differing action RPGs going so far back at least one of them's available on tape, which naturally leads budding fans to wonder exactly where The Legend of Xanadu (AKA: Kaze no Densetsu Xanadu) fits in to this sprawling mess and what should … Continue reading A PC Engine encore
Falcom's 1999 PC release of The Rhapsody of Zephyr (later ported to both the Dreamcast and PlayStation 2) was originally a Korean PC RPG by Softmax - creators of the War of Genesis and Magna Carta series - and the first overseas game Falcom brought to Japanese audiences in what became a mini-trend for the famous … Continue reading Bursting the localisation bubble
Kimimi The Game-Eating She-Monster 