The problem is, I don't know of many. In fact, the only ones coming to mind at the moment are the following:
* Dragon Quest Monsters I and II
* Final Fantasy Adventure
* Final Fantasy Legend I, II and III
* For the Frog the Bell Tolls (aka Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru)
* The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
* The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons
* Pokemon Blue, Green, Red and Yellow
Am I missing any that you think would be worth a look?
I'm primarily interested in RPGs that were made for the original GameBoy as opposed to the GameBoy Color, by the way--despite the fact that a couple of the ones mentioned in my bullet-pointed list were GBC releases.
Oh, and feel free to name Japanese RPGs that weren't translated into English--as long as you're sure they're top-notch examples of the genre.
33 comments:
I feel like despite having a Gameboy, I absolutely missed out on 90% of what was out there, gamewise. I didn't have much income then, and games were limited to birthdays and Christmas, mostly. So I rarely even chose a Gameboy game. That being said, I didn't have a SINGLE RPG on my Gameboy. I'm no help, I guess.
I hear ya, Justin. I didn't have a *ton* of GB games myself, mainly because b-day and Christmas money and other gifts/money have to be spread between NES, SNES and GB games -- and maybe TG-16 games? Anyway, no worries that you're no help in this situation. That said, I'm surprised you never tried any of the Final Fantasy Legend games! Not sure you'd enjoy them today, but back when they were "new" they were great. Same with Final Fantasy Adventure (which def. is enjoyable today, if a bit frustrating).
i am summoned
again, no recollection of what you do and do not own, other than ff adventure and for the frog the bell tolls, so i'll take this from the top
Cave Noire (JP): excellent roguelike from konami with great presentation. all in japanese, but for the msot part good visual design and iconography explains what you need to know. has multiple modes that change the game significantly.
http://mirrors.glorioustrainwrecks.com/gamersquarter/viewtopic.php?t=2250&sid=a2d428b115416c098f92b0a7c793b64a
Xerd no Densetsu 1, 2 (JP): relatively straight-forward rpgs, mostly notable for a spectacular soundtrack. all japanese and i don't think there's any translation out, sorry...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlyUEDgQSO8
Ultima: Runes of Virtue II: a huge departure from the old-school crpgs, but RoV2 is something special, with a lot of clever dungeon design that makes clever and surprising use of its most ordinary components.
http://www.dessgeega.com/ultimarunes.html
Mysterium: an unusual first-person dungeon crawl that revolves around slowly learning adn employing its unique alchemy system.
Great Greed: goofy parody rpg with really snappy combat due to button-mapped commands rather than menu selection.
Sword of Hope 1, 2: combination of adventure game and rpg; neither is stand-out amazing but the mix is interesting.
would like to talk about the rolan's curse, monster maker and aretha series, but i just haven't logged enough time on them to say much.
For some reason, the Game Boy wasn't a great system for RPG's. That being said, there are two that you didn't list that I've been meaning to check out: Bomberman Quest and Gargoyle's Quest.
Is there some reason you're not interested in GBC games?
Gargoyle's Quest! How could I have forgotten it? It isn't *totally* an RPG, BTW--or at least that's not my memory of it. It's kind of part RPG, part action game. Still, very much worth checking out, IMO.
Oh, and I've never heard of Bomberman Quest. It's really an RPG? Anyway, I'll check it out!
I don't know why I'm not all that interested in GBC games, to be honest. I guess it's just because I'm really interested in the OG GameBoy hardware at the moment, and it only plays OG GameBoy software, so ...
That said, maybe I'll turn my attention to the GBC once I've burned through the regular GB :)
Revelations: The Demon Slayer (Last Bible)
A Shin Megami Tensei spin-off that plays like Dragon Quest.
Cave Noire! How could I have forgotten it? It's the only one of the games you've mentioned here that I do own, by the way. Not sure why I haven't written about it yet, as its packaging is great--as is its gameplay (from the little I've played so far).
Anyway, I'll do my best to check out the others you've mentioned here soon--Mysterium, especially, as it keeps showing up while I peruse eBay and Yahoo Auctions Japan :)
Ah, yes, now that you mention it I've seen box art for this one at various points in the past. Sounds like an interesting one!
I don't know a whole lot about Bomberman Quest, but according to Wikipedia it "is an action role-playing game". So that could mean anything from a Zelda clone to something with actual stats and levels.
Oh, and oops, it turns out it's GBC, not regular Game Boy.
they should be pretty cheap pickups, except for complete copies of the xerd games. it took ages to find them boxed, especially the first, so good luck if you go after them.
i still remember the ebay search string i used, in an attempt to catch all possible spellings:
(zerd,zard,xerd,xard) (gameboy,"game boy",gb) -wizardry
my experience with legend of the river king was about ten minutes of trying to figure out why every single fish got away. :U
lufia: tlr is a great one though, didn't realize gbc games were in the running. there's honestly not a whole lot else to consider, though, unless you like diving into a big ol mess of confused attempts at pokemon. grandia: survival kids is an rpg if you squint hard enough, parallel trippers is neat but surprisingly hard, i've never played the gbc star ocean, and gbc crystalis is complete garbage so save your money (or at least emualte first to know what you're getting into).
Ah, yes, the joys (not) of coming up with creative search queries while looking for obscure-ish games on eBay -- I know them well!
Thanks, sharc! And, really, I would say GBC games are mostly not in the running at the moment. Maybe in the future, though...
Hmmm, your comment looks fine to me?
RPG that comes to mind is Sword of Hope and Sword of Hope II from Kemco.
Thank you, Rene -- I appreciate it!
Ooh what game is that?Is it Pokèmon animal crossing pikmin or another game?(I'm cool with it if you say rated E 10+ or T)
;)
It freaks me out to think Gargoyle's Quest was nearly 25 years ago, but I still remember the code to appear in the first town with 9 extra lives stockpiled: FD8Y-KKUV.
I'd say Link's Awakening for sure. The GBC version on the 3DS Virtual Console is very nice if you want to go that route.
That's awesome, Igor! Also, I really, really have to buy (another) copy of this game and go through it again soon. I loved it as a teen, but sold my copy--along with all of my other GameBoy games--at one point and haven't played it since :(
I definitely need to give Link's Awakening a proper go sometime soon. I started it once a year or so ago, but didn't make it very far before some other games stole my attention away from it. I definitely liked what I played of it, though, so there's no question I'll go back to it at some point.
It's more like Pokemon than anything else, although that's not completely accurate either. Also, it has a healthy dose of Dragon Quest in it, if that makes sense.
Thanks for the follow-up, Jess! I'll have to give the sumo platformer a look--and Square Deal, too.
As for Mole Mania: I've been aware of it for ages and just recently picked up a copy of the Japanese release. I'll write about it soon, I assure you :)
No problem!
I am going to break your 'must know if they're top notch' rule, but because your list is pretty great, here are some that I've seen around, but not tried yet:
・The Oni Series
・Shantae (GBC)
・Survival Kids
・Wizards and Warriors
Shame, any other system and I could tell you a million hidden Japanese-language gems, but most of the GB ones seem to have been released stateside. There's a million Poke-clones out there, (robo-ponkotsu, for example), but not sure how they stack up. Only ever heard good things about Survival Kids, though.
Hello again, A-Lx! Thanks for the suggestions, even if you can't completely vouch for them. I've definitely seen lots of copies of the Oni games during my eBay shopping sprees. I have no idea if they're bad or good, though, unfortunately. Same with Robot-Ponkotsu. Like you said, though, I've heard good things about the Survival Kids games, so maybe I should give one of them a look.
Hello there, sorry for OT but i just want to ask :
I am just getting into importing and all that, so
what are some of your favourite ebay shops for imports?
Thanks, and sorry for little bit of engrish :)
Hey there, casino12! Thanks for the comment :) Also, your English is great--please don't worry about it at all.
As for your question, I'd say I do the bulk of my eBay buying via Hit-Japan and yamatoku. I'm also starting to get into Yahoo Auctions Japan, sadly, but that can be a much dicier situation than using North American eBay (due to extra costs and all that).
Does that help?
Yes, thanks.
I did now about hit-japan, but no about yamatoku - looks great to(and cheaper :).
Yahoo Auctions definitely looks interesting, but it can be expensive if you aren't from Japan(mainly shipping, game are often cheaper). + there is that language barrier.
Thanks for quick answer.
Yamatoku can be strange. Many games there go for cheaper than they would elsewhere on eBay, while others go for more. It's all about knowing about how much a game is worth and not going past that limit, IMO.
Also, yamatoku's shipping charges can be pretty high, so watch out for that!
As for Yahoo Auctions, if you don't live in Japan, you HAVE to use a proxy service for bidding, shipping, etc., and a LOT of extra charges can come into play as a result.
Given that, I'm only using YAJ to buy games I can't find anywhere else at the moment -- or games that are so cheap the extra costs don't matter much.
Do you have any experience with combined shipping from hit-japan? I want to buy two CIB gameboy games. Do you have any idea how much can the shipping be in this case?
Oh, boy, I honestly can't remember, as it's been a while since I've bought more than one game at a time from Hit-Japan. If memory serves, though, they'll decrease the shipping a bit but not a ton. So, I'd still expect to pay a fair bit (of shipping) for those two games, I'm afraid.
BTW, that's my big complaint about Hit-Japan at the moment--they REALLY hit you with the shipping fees :|
For me FF Legend III seems like it builds off all the great things about the original 2 and tweaks some of the annoying battle mechanics of the originasl. It blew my mind has a kid I feel like there's so much packed into that little cart.
There's the cyborg/robot and beast/monster upgrade system and getting parts and meat is a lot more common so you can have a blast making a party filled with pixies and rabbit mages if you want. lol Also, there's a time travel mechanic that has you go through the past, present, and future of the world kinda like Chrono Trigger. Like you might plant a seed in the past and then travel to the future and it'll be a huge tree. Additionally there's also an underwater world for each of the time lines that you can explore and there's a whole other world you eventually travel to. It's a really cool blend of sci-fi and fantasy with a lot of customization! Another useful thing I'd wish they added to more old school RPGs is your characters can jump! So if an NPC is randomly walking around and blocks your one square exit path, you can just leap over them! lol
But If you liked Legend 1 and Legend 2 I'd really recommend the third installment!
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