Tag Archives: Turn-Based

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Game Boy Color

Let me say: I’m no fan of Harry Potter. I haven’t read any of the books or seen any of the films. But I do like this Game Boy Color game…

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Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Game Boy Color

Before you skip the page, just a second while I quantify something… This game – and its successor, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – are both really good games… Even though they are based on something that I don’t care about. Harry Potter. I haven’t read the books (and I do like to read), and I haven’t seen the films (and I love films). Harry Potter just doesn’t interest me… But I do like both of these Game Boy Color Harry Potter games. They are fun RPG/level-grinders, with turn-based combat and Zelda-like adventure sections. They have good interfaces and lots of interesting items and spells. They are different.

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Dragon Warrior, NES

Developed by Chunsoft and released for the Famicom by Enix in 1986, Dragon Quest was a landmark moment in video game history.

Dragon Warrior is the American NES release of Dragon Quest, translated into English and tweaked here and there (I say “tweaked here and there” but the US version had battery back-up saves and the Japanese version used password saves, so there was a big difference there), and released by Nintendo in 1989. These grabs are from the later North American English language release.

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Defender of the Crown, Amiga

The Amiga version of Cinemaware‘s classic Defender of the Crown is both beautiful to look at, and great fun to play. Actually, pretty much every version of Defender of the Crown I’ve played has been great, but the Amiga version is probably the most well-remembered. It was also the very first version of Defender of the Crown too – all the other versions followed later.

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Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals, Super Nintendo

I was going to add a Final Fantasy game to our Super Nintendo special this week, but – you know what? – Final Fantasy on the SNES is messy, because of all the US and Japanese title discrepancies, so… Instead I’m going to pick this: probably my favourite turn-based level-grinder on the Super NintendoLufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals.

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Mother 3, Game Boy Advance

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.

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EarthBound, Super Nintendo

This 1994 cult classic Super Nintendo level-grinder was originally titled “Mother 2” in its native Japan – later changed in English-speaking territories to EarthBound.

This was due to the fact that no one outside of Japan had seen the first Mother (released in 1989 on the NES) and the bigwigs at Nintendo of America worried that it might confuse people.

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EarthBound Zero, NES

This classic NES game was initially released in Japan in 1989 under the title of Mother.

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Shining In The Darkness, Megadrive/Genesis

When I first played Shining In The Darkness – a 1991 party-based Role-Playing Game for the Sega Megadrive/Genesis, developed by Climax Entertainment and published by Sega – I was ready to dismiss it, because of the unattractive, ‘cartoony’ graphics, the clunky interface, and the generic script. But after some determined play – admittedly: in an emulator, and using quicksaves – it became apparent that this was no ‘throwaway’ level-grinder. It was in fact something quite special…

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Doomdark’s Revenge, ZX Spectrum

Sequel to Mike Singleton‘s classic fantasy war game Lords of Midnight, Doomdark’s Revenge is much bigger and more complex than its predecessor, although essentially it still follows the same style of play as the original – with unique, turn-based movement and tactical combat.

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