Games in this post:
-Dungeon Master-
-Super Fire ProWrestling-
-Lord of Darkness-
-SD Gundam Gaiden: Knight Gundam Monogatari: Ooinaru Isan-
I'm just going to stop acting surprised at the time lapse between posts. Soon it will be more of a shock if I can get to two of them close together. Turns out, working on multiple posts at once doesn't help writers block at all. Anyway, December 1991 continues, and so do the games that most people won't remember at all. Let's start with one that I actually played a fair amount of when I was younger, shall we? Oddly, These games all use portraits for their characters, in some cases the portrait is all you ever see.
Dungeon Master - Get out your graph paper
Developer:
FTL Games
Publisher: JVC
Released:
12/20/1991 (JP)
June 1993 (US)
Dungeon Master is a game that garnered much critical acclaim and is considered a timeless classic by many in the PC gaming crowd, but this port to the SNES was just snuck onto the system with very little fanfare. As far as ports go, It's fairly well done. Graphics are similar between the different versions, but I personally think the SNES is the best, especially for the character portraits. Speaking of portraits, that's all you ever see of your characters. Dungeon Master is a First person RPG where you choose four champions to create a party and delve to the bottom of a dungeon in order to stop your stereotypical evil wizard from destroying everything. Story rarely matters in this type of game, but the unique portraits and gear always made me wish I knew more about them. You only know they were adventurers that came before you and are now trapped in the paintings.
Gameplay wise, Dungeon Master is the definition of old-school RPG. Grid based movement, loot finding, spell learning, monster killing, trap springing and the need to make a map are all there. I imagine a lot of people who only had consoles were surprised by the challenges in this game. With limited monsters to kill, and a food and water supply to keep track of, it's not a game you can grind levels in to improve. Difficulty spikes are steep and sudden, and you can quickly find yourself in an un-winnable situation, having to start over even after hours of playing. Combat is quick and brutal. You need to be aware of your location or you can easily be surrounded or backed into a dead end, and you need to enter commands quickly because the monsters won't wait for you to make up your mind.
If you're up to the challenge, Dungeon Master is a good example of a game type rarely seen on 16 bit consoles, or any console for that matter. I'm not sure why it wasn't released stateside for a year and a half after the Japanese release, An odd decision considering it's a very western RPG.
More info, and buying options:
My Grade: B+
Worth Playing Today: Yes - You can find the maps online, but you know you miss graph paper.
Super Fire ProWrestling - A Japanese version of an American sport only released in Japan
Developer: Human Club
Publisher: Human
Released: 12/20/91(JP)
Ah, wrestling games, the odd mix of sports and fighting. Super Fire ProWrestling is the first of a series we'll be seeing a few more times down the road. For some reason it was never localized, although I'm sure it would have done well. Pro wrestling was very popular in the early 90s, and this game was released before any WWF games were released. There is a mix of characters, including some who are very obviously based off of American stars from that time. Since the menus are all in Japanese I can only guess that there is a standard mix of options and game types. I'm really only interested in getting to the later RPGs that have had translations done for them, so I'm OK with breezing past games like this with a minimum amount of playing time. I did get into a match, playing as the Hulk Hogan look-alike, where I was quickly beaten. I fared better in a second match, where I was able to hit the opponent... once, and also sent him into the ropes... once. That match ended after I was caught in a choke hold I couldn't escape from for no less than 30 seconds. It was also the end of my career in Super Fire ProWrestling.
More info:
My Grade: N/A
Worth Playing Today: There are bigger and better versions of this.
Lord of Darkness - Final Fantasy style messed up naming
Developer: Koei
Publisher: Koei
Released:
12/21/1991(JP)
Dec, 1994(US)
Lord of Darkness is the first game in the Nobunaga's Ambition series. Ambition is an appropriate term for this game, as they cram an awful lot of data into what is one of the earliest appearances of this genre on consoles. Oddly, this game wasn't ported to the states until 1994, after we'd already seen ports of the second game. This caused Americans to think this was a sequel rather than the original, and explains the need for a different name.
When you begin the game you have two scenarios to choose from. The gameplay is basically the same in either. You have a map showing the various territories, and turns cycle to each one. When the turn comes to a territory under your control, the game switches to a management screen with a horde of options based around military, economy, and diplomacy. Lord of Darkness is a slow game with a steep learning curve. You need to spend resources wisely from the very start or you will be in trouble later in the game. Battle takes place on the third and final screen type you'll see in this game, where there are a few different unit types on a grid based battlefield. I've always had trouble getting into this series, and this first game shows it's rough beginnings with the sparse graphics and clunky interface. Character portraits are the high point graphics-wise, and the sheer number of options given the player is commendable this early in the SNES life-cycle. I'm interested to see how the series evolves.
More info, and buying options:
My Grade: C
Worth Playing Today: No
SD Gundam Gaiden: Knight Gundam Monogatari - FF4 world + DQ battles + Gundam = Why can't I read Japanese?
Developer: TOSE
Publisher: Angel
Released: 12/21/1991 (JP)
We'll finish this post with another import RPG with no translation to English. I'm not personally a Gundam fan, but the world graphics remind me a lot of Final Fantasy IV, and the battles are done in a Dragon Quest style, so it's one of those games that makes me wonder if I would like it. A translation was started but seems to be abandoned and I couldn't get the IPS file claiming to translate the menus and items to attach properly. A lot of the battle commands are buried a few menus deep, so making progress was very difficult. Maybe I'll start keeping track of the games which I most wish had come to the US. Spoiler alert, the top one will be Seiken Densetsu 3.
More info:
My Grade: N/A
Worth Playing Today: Probably... Maybe?
Thanks as always for reading. There's only one more post to do for 1991. Hopefully I'll get to it sometime between now and the next 3 months. Maybe I'll do an extremely late game of the year selection for 1990-91. Until then, let me know what you think in the comments, and God bless.
