This interesting 2006 release is based loosely on the story of Joan of Arc and her struggles against the English occupation of France during The Hundred Year War of the 15th Century.
Jeanne d’Arc is a cutesy fantasy adventure with magic and tactical combat sections (in the style of Ogre Battle and Final Fantasy Tactics), developed by Japanese video game developer Level-5.
Superfrog is an Amiga-based platform game, developed by Team 17 and first published in 1993, although this CD32 conversion followed later, in 1994.
The Temple of Elemental Evil [ToEE] is a licensed Dungeons & Dragons RPG that was first released in 2003 by Atari. It is based on the Greyhawk campaign setting and uses the D&D 3.5 edition ruleset.
One look at The Temple of Elemental Evil and you’re going to think: “Baldur’s Gate“… Because it very much looks and plays like that particular game. That said: the game does have some heritage in the Fallout series, because Tim Cain (the lead designer on the original Fallout games) was also director of this.
Konami‘s Frogger was released into video game arcades in 1981 and was an instant hit with gamers.
The basic premise of Frogger is to guide a hopping frog over a road and a river, to reach a safe haven on the other side.
Initially released for the Super Nintendo in 1995, Chrono Trigger is another top quality level-grinding RPG from those masters at Square – this one about a group of adventurers who travel through time to prevent a global catastrophe.
Known in Japan as Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru, this intriguing monochrome adventure game was developed by Nintendo and Intelligent Systems and released on the original Game Boy in 1992.
While it never got a release outside of Japan, a fan translation into English was released in 2011, finally making the game playable for non-Japanese-speaking gamers.
This superb homebrew (unofficial) Frogger, by Hokuto Force, was published (for free of course) around Christmas 2015 for the Commodore 64.
It’s basically a playable beta – a demo really, but it’s a damn good piece of coding, and echos the classic arcade game remarkably well. Certainly better than any Frogger I’ve ever seen on the C64 before!
It’s fantastic to see people still coding decent games for this great machine.
A notch above “Monkey Tennis” in terms of great ideas, Ninja Golf was dreamt-up and released for the Atari 7800, way back in 1990.
As an idea: Ninja Golf is not a bad one. Mixing golf with beat ’em up elements sounds like it could be fun.
Where this game falls down, though, is in the playability stakes. Ninja Golf is too repetitive and not really playable enough for my liking. Little actual skill is required – outside of the golf segments. The fighting sections are slow and uninteresting. The golf sections are basic at best.
Atari should have given us a decent game with Ninja Golf, but in the end we only got a mediocre one. As far as I’m aware: Ninja Golf didn’t appear anywhere other than the Atari 7800 either. Surprise, surprise.
More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninja_Golf
E.V.O.: Search for Eden was a wonderfully original Role-Playing Game back in 1992, when it was first released, and is still quite original now, nearly three decades later.
E.V.O.: Search for Eden is basically the story of the evolution of life on earth, and within which you take the form of various historical creatures – fighting it out for survival, and gaining experience points. And, when you’ve accumulated enough EXP, you can then evolve into something bigger and scarier. Which you ultimately need to do because E.V.O. contains some tough boss fights.
Evolving better jaws or horns, or scaly armour is only half the trick. The other half is knowing how to fight the various other creatures. The boss battles, for example, don’t require you to hit them a lot of times, although getting those hits in does require some degree of strategy. Luring a shark in, so that it hits its face on a cave wall, allowing you to bite it while its stunned, is just one example.
Some people might find E.V.O. a bit boring, but I’m not one of them. I’ve played it and enjoyed it many times over the past thirty years.
I remember playing and reviewing this game back in 1993 and loving it then. Playing E.V.O.: Search for Eden now is still great fun. The atmosphere generated by the game is unique and relaxing, and the action is absorbing. Eating your way up the food chain is a different kind of fun.
More: E.V.O.: Search For Eden on Wikipedia
The third and final game in the Mother series, Mother 3, was released in Japan only in 2006 for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance.
Nintendo published the game, with development by Brownie Brown and HAL Laboratory – directed by Nobuyuki Inhoue and written by series creator Shigesato Itoi.
The story of a young boy (called Lucas) with psychic abilities, Mother 3 is another party-based level-grinder with endless random combat and nice typography.
Mother 3 was a critical and commercial success in Japan when first released, although Nintendo didn’t even bother with a North American or European release, which is strange considering that EarthBound (aka Mother 2) got an official translation.
Anyway, it didn’t really matter because translation groups soon hacked the roms and gave us the full game in English, unofficially.
Mother 3 is arguably the best game in the entire Mother trilogy. All the characters and enemies are better developed and drawn in this game, and also the game mechanics and menus benefit from previous experience. There’s a real sense of quality in every aspect of the game and the subtle satire helps the story from going stale as you progress. Combat is as mesmerising and as challenging as ever, and the enemies are just as weird as we’ve come to expect in a Mother game. Barking.
Otherwise, Mother 3 is essentially the same great game as one and two, only with all the details changed and the graphics, animation and sound enhanced. 🙂
More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_3
