For my money: THE best game on the Sega Megadrive/Genesis.
Sega‘s very own level-grinding RPG franchise comes to full fruition in this fourth instalment of the Phantasy Star series, first released in 1993.
Continue reading Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium, Megadrive/Genesis
I can’t write about the other Shadowrun games without mentioning the Sega Megadrive/Genesis game, first released by Sega in 1994.
This classic Super Nintendo action adventure was developed in Australia in 1993 by Beam Software. It was published by Laser Beam in the UK, and Data East everywhere else.
Shadowrun: Dragonfall is a 2014 indie release from Harebrained Schemes, set in the Shadowrun universe.
The developers tried to continue the success of the Shadowrun console games of the early ’90s, and in many respects succeeded.
Considered by many to be the best game on the Sega Saturn, Panzer Dragoon Saga is a level-grinding RPG set in a world where people fly dragons (so God knows why it is called “Dragoon” – other than bad translation!).
It was first released in 1998 and was in development for two years.
Baten Kaitos Origins is a prequel to Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean, but released after the first game, by Namco in 2006.
Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean is a brilliant Final Fantasy-style, level-grinding RPG, initially released by Namco on the Nintendo GameCube in 2003.
Continue reading Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean, GameCube
Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete is a superb party-based, level-grinding RPG, first released on the Sega Saturn in 1996 (as Lunar: The Silver Star), and brilliantly remade for the Sony PlayStation in 1998.
Continue reading Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete, PlayStation
This incredible “indie” dungeon crawler absolutely drips atmosphere and is bloody terrifying in places! It’s a heck of a challenge too…
Legend of Grimrock plays very much in the mould of Dungeon Master, and other first-person, tile-based RPGs, but it does it so much better than almost all of the others.
The second of two ground-breaking Ultima Underworld games made by Blue Sky Productions (later to become Looking Glass Technologies) and Origin Systems.
Labyrinth of Worlds, first released in 1993, again features a very early (and successful) attempt to create a Role-Playing Game with a fully-explorable 3D environment. Both this – and its predecessor, The Stygian Abyss – were developed concurrently, and were a significant leap forward in terms of software technology at the time.
Continue reading Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds, PC
The King of Grabs 