Gemfire is a turn-based medieval strategy game developed and published by Koei. It was first released for the NES/Famicom in 1991 and given an updated Super Nintendo release in 1992.
The NES and Super Nintendo versions are essentially the same game, but the SNES version has updated graphics and sound.
Gemfire is a fantasy, turn-based, conquest/strategy war game developed and published by Koei for the NES/Famicom and first released in 1991. It is known as Royal Blood in its native Japan and was called Gemfire for its North American English language release.
The game is similar to the classic Defender of the Crown, in that the aim is to dominate a map of territories that are occupied by opponent’s castles and armies.
King’s Field IV was developed and published by FromSoftware in Japan in 2001 for the PlayStation 2. It was later released as King’s Field: The Ancient City in North America in 2002, and in Europe (as simply King’s Field IV) in 2003. It is another first-person RPG and is the fourth and final game in the King’s Field series.
King’s Field III is the second sequel in FromSoftware‘s classic first-person RPG series and was first released in Japan in 1996. It was published in North America by ASCII Entertainment under the title of “King’s Field II” (because the original King’s Field was only released in Japan).
For my money, King’s Field III is the best of the three PlayStation King’s Field games, with larger, more interesting environments, and a bigger scope than the previous two games. The graphics are still borderline laughable, and the controls are still cumbersome, but the gameplay has evolved reasonably well in the space of a couple of years.
FromSoftware‘s King’s Field II was initially released in Japan in 1995 and it is another first-person RPG with open world exploration, dodgy graphics and challenging combat. It was later published under the title “King’s Field” by ASCII Entertainment in North America and Sony in Europe in 1996, which does cause some confusion as the western titling ignores the actual first game in the series. For clarity: the official English language “King’s Field” is actually King’s Field II – the sequel.
With Elden Ring currently wowing gamers I thought I’d take a look at the series that began FromSoftware‘s journey into the action RPG genre, and that would be King’s Field – released in Japan only in 1994 for the Sony PlayStation – and, to be honest, it couldn’t be any further removed from Elden Ring in terms of presentation…
I’ve played a lot of RPGs in my time, and I would go so far as to say that it’s my favourite genre of video game, but King’s Field came as a bit of a shock to me. Yes, King’s Field was an early 3D RPG on the PlayStation, releasing the same year as the PS1 was launched, but it post-dates Ultima Underworld by two years and is archaic in comparison.
South Park: The Stick of Truth is a – gasp – turn-based RPG based on the popular South Park animated series. It was developed by Obsidian and published by Ubisoft in 2014. It was co-written by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, co-creators of South Park, and is a hilarious level-grinder with tons of detail, loads of quests, graphics that are identical to the TV show, and all the voices that South Park fans have come to know and love (most provided by Stone and Parker).
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was developed and published by Nintendo for the GameCube and Wii in 2006 and is an unusual, beautifully-produced game with stunning visuals and evocative gameplay. It was the final first-party release from Nintendo for the GameCube.
Twilight Princess features involving, varied, and ever-evolving gameplay, with a more mature-looking Link in the title role (possibly in response to criticism of its predecessor, 2002’s The Wind Waker, due to its cartoony, cel-shaded graphics). The story involves Link trying to stop Hyrule from being engulfed by a corrupt parallel dimension called The Twilight Realm.
Continue reading The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, GameCube
The Kristal is an obscure British adventure game based on an un-produced theatre play written in 1976 (called “The Kristal of Konos“), developed by Fissionchip Software and published by Addictive Games in Europe and Cinemaware in North America. The fact that Cinemaware picked up The Kristal for distribution in the US and Canada is a surprise in itself, as that kind of thing didn’t happen very often back in 1989 when this game was first released.
Pokémon Black Version 2 is a direct sequel to Pokémon Black Version (and White Version 2 is a direct sequel to White Version), and was released for the Nintendo DS in 2012 by The Pokémon Company. It was again developed by Game Freak, and takes place once more in the Unova region.
The story this time is set two years after the events of Black and White and the criminal organisation Team Plasma have returned as ‘Neo Team Plasma‘, and the player must once again thwart their plans to rule the world.
