While I wouldn’t call myself a Pokémon fanatic, I do really enjoy the games because they are so well made, and because I love level-grinders. Pokémon Pearl (and its companion, Diamond) is considered by many as one of the best games in the series, and people still love to play it now.
Compared to previous generations, Pokémon Pearl has lots of new features, and compared to later generations: the series hasn’t yet started to collapse under its own weight.
The follow-up to the classic PS2 game Dragon Quest VIII is another fine level-grinder, with cheerful, colourful graphics and mesmerising gameplay. Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies was developed by Level-5 and published by Square Enix on the Nintendo DS in 2009.
Getting straight down to it: Dragon Quest IX (nine) is similar to the previous game in the series, but with a few fundamental changes…
Developed by Johnson Voorsanger Productions for Sega and published on the Megadrive in 1991, Toejam & Earl is a cult collect ’em up starring two alien rappers who have crash-landed on Earth.
This 1983 release from Imagine Software is one of the earliest examples of a Real-Time Strategy game ever made.
It might not look like much, but Stonkers is an important game, and designer/programmer John Gibson probably never even realised it at the time.
Legend of Mana is the fourth game in the Mana series. It was once again directed by Koichi Ishii and was published by Square on CD-ROM for the PlayStation only in 1999.
Battle Command is a classic Amiga tank game, developed by Realtime Games Software and published by Ocean Software in 1990.
Pokémon Ruby Version – released the same time as Pokémon Sapphire Version – was developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo in 2002 in Japan and 2003 everywhere else. It is known as a ‘third generation’ Pokémon game.
Conqueror is a 1988 release from Superior Software, designed and programmed by Jonathan Griffiths. It’s a 3D tank game that was released as a sequel to Zarch – and it uses the same game engine.
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.
Probably the best conversion of the classic Mitchell Corporation arcade game, Super Pang was released for the Super Nintendo in 1992. It was developed by Capcom and is arguably even better than the arcade original.
The King of Grabs 