Magical Vacation is a GBA RPG, developed by Brownie Brown and published by Nintendo, in Japan only, in 2001. An English fan translation is available for the game, but it’s unfortunately not yet complete. That said: the majority of the game has been translated, and it’s absolutely worth playing because this is such a beautiful adventure!
Tag Archives: Monsters
Phantasy Star Gaiden, Game Gear
Phantasy Star Gaiden is a handheld RPG, released only in Japan for the Game Gear in 1992. The game was developed by Japan System Supply and is a short, non-linear spin-off from the main Phantasy Star series. A fan translation patch makes the game playable to non Japanese-speakers.
Godzilla: Monsters Attack, Game Gear
Godzilla: Monsters Attack on the Game Gear was only ever released in Japan (as “Gojira: Kaijuu Daishingeki“) in 1995, but a fan translation thankfully makes the game playable to non Japanese speakers. Surprisingly, this is a turn-based strategy game, and not an action game or a beat ’em up.
The Addams Family, TurboGrafx CD
The Addams Family for TurboGrafx-CD was developed by ICOM Simulations, Inc. and first published by NEC Technologies in 1991. It does not follow the template of all the Ocean ports of this game. It instead does its own thing entirely and takes advantage of the audio streaming from the CD by adding lots more sound and speech. Which gives it a distinctive “talkie” feel.
The Addams Family, NES/Famicom
Developed and published by Ocean Software for the NES in 1992, The Addams Family is a cute and spooky platform game based on the 1991 Paramount film of the same name, directed by Barry Sonnenfeld.
The NES version follows much of the standard Ocean template for most of the game and it very much has its own look and visual style, and a few unique features of its own.
Anteform, PC
Anteform is a tiny, futuristic RPG, written for the PICO-8 development platform, and was first released in 2019. It uses the same game engine as Minima and was written by the same guy, Feneric (aka Eric W. Brown). It’ll run on Windows, Mac, Linux and Raspberry Pi.
Minima, PC
Written for the PICO-8 development platform and first released in 2018, Minima is a miniature version of the early Ultima games and runs on Windows, Mac, Linux and Raspberry Pi. It’s a tiny RPG with exploration, a scrolling overworld, first-person dungeon crawling, turn-based combat and movement, and NPCs to talk to.
Melkhior’s Mansion, PC
Another superb tribute to Ultimate‘s isometric adventures, this one called Melkhior’s Mansion. It was created by BitGlint Games and could be described as an “isometric Atic Atac“, although there is definitely more to it than that.
Brian Bloodaxe, ZX Spectrum
Described as a game with “primary imbalance“, by publisher The Edge in 1985, Brian Bloodaxe is a strange platform game that tries to have a laugh at the expense of everyone – you; itself, and the genre of platform games it belongs to.
Ultima: Runes of Virtue II, Game Boy
Developed by Origin Systems and published by FCI (North America) and Pony Canyon (Japan), in 1993, Ultima: Runes of Virtue II is the sequel to Ultima: Runes of Virtue, although in reality it is more of a remake than a sequel.
