Released in Japan in 2000 as Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past, this PlayStation exclusive JRPG was re-titled as Dragon Warrior VII for its North American English language release in 2001. It was developed by Heartbeat and was the last Dragon Quest game to be published by Enix, before merging with Squaresoft in 2003 to form Square Enix.
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Dragon Warrior III, NES
Dragon Quest III: The Seeds of Salvation was developed by Chunsoft and published by Enix in Japan in 1988. It was translated into English and released as Dragon Warrior III in North America in 1992, some four years later.
Dragon Warrior II, NES
Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line was developed by Chunsoft and published by Enix in Japan in 1987. The localised English version of this game was released as Dragon Warrior II in North America in 1990.
Alien 8 Retrospec Remake, PC
I’m sorry to say this because I love what Retrospec tried to do with this 2008 remake of Ultimate Play the Game‘s classic Alien 8, but the end result is unplayable, infuriating and flawed.
Knight Lore Retrospec Remake, PC
Some Retrospec remakes are very good, but occasionally they get it wrong and put something out that doesn’t really work. Knight Lore and Alien 8 are two Retrospec remakes of Ultimate games that just do not work as well as the originals.
Pentagram, Commodore 64
Ultimate Play the Game‘s isometric platform adventure, Pentagram, was never officially released for the Commodore 64, so fans took it upon themselves to convert it themselves, some thirty years after its original release. This port was released in 2017 by Rod & Emu.
Pentagram, MSX
Pentagram was released for the MSX in 1986, and it’s not really an Ultimate game, in truth, because it wasn’t written by the original Ultimate team; it’s a US Gold game. It’s not a bad game, though, even though it doesn’t have the flair or humour of an authentic Ultimate game.
Alien 8 MSX2 Remake, MSX
This 2009 homebrew remake of Ultimate Play the Game‘s classic Alien 8 was created for the MSX2 by Manuel Pazos and Daniel Celemin. The graphics have obviously had a serious make-over and look beautiful, but the gameplay seems to be the same as the original, with noticeable (some might say “game-crippling”) slowdown.
Alien 8, Atari 8-bit
This Atari 8-bit homebrew conversion of Ultimate Play the Game‘s Alien 8 was created by Fandal, Miker, and Emkay in 2013. It wasn’t written from scratch, though; it was ported from the BBC Micro version (according to various sources online), but unfortunately it doesn’t play as well as the Beeb version. It has a fundamental flaw that completely ruins the game…
Alien 8, Commodore 64
This homebrew conversion of Ultimate‘s classic Alien 8 was released for the Commodore 64 in 2020. The original game was only ever officially released for the ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro, MSX, and Amstrad CPC, but never for the C64. And the ironic thing is that this conversion is arguably the best version of Alien 8 out there.