Indie January! Again!
Like last year, I played a few free indie titles from Itch marked as “Role Playing”. Like last year, it led me to games that are not RPGs, but that were made on the RPG Maker engine, but they were nice experiences and I decided to include them. Did I have more luck this year? Let’s find out.
Yuletide - a RPG Maker Christmas
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, folks! To end 2023 with a true Christmas review, and to write something in December, I found a nice little title on Itch.io, as it’s hard to find titles that revolve around these holidays elsewhere. The only title I recall is Cthulhu Saves Christmas, from the guys at Zomboid games. Does it deserve your attention during the most wonderful time of the year? Let’s find out.
Summoner - almost there
I first played Summoner (or The Summoner) at a friend’s house at the time of the PlayStation 2’s launch (yes, I’m old). I remember enjoying it but never got a copy for myself after that. So now, more than 20 years later, I finally finished it. Was it worth revisiting? Let’s find out.
Kyūyaku Megami Tensei: Megami Tensei I - II - A great sequel
So to wrap up the spooky month of October I bring to my readers the second title on the Kyūyaku Megami Tensei: Megami Tensei I - II collection, the remake of Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei II. Is it a good game or at least, better than its predecessor? Let’s find out.
Kyūyaku Megami Tensei: Megami Tensei I - II - Not a great start
It’s October, so I’m legally obligated to play a game with horror elements. This months game is Kyūyaku Megami Tensei: Megami Tensei I - II, the remake of Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei I and II. Will their updated forms be more palatable then their original counterparts? Let’s find out.
Deep Sky Derelicts - it’s not Darkest Dungeon in space
In need of a Darkest Dungeon fix, I decided to try Deep Sky Derelicts, our first roguelike deck builder turn-based RPG! (I love genre-bending!). It resembles Darkest Dungeon on a first look, but do they have more similarities than art-style? And more importantly, is it a good title? Let’s find out.
Remnants of Isolation - enough for August
I played Darkest Dungeon for the majority of July until I left that masochistic grind. However, I didn’t do it because the game feels unfair and its RNG is infuriating. No, I stopped playing because I am one of the fortunate few who has random crashes so severe that a computer reboot is necessary. I believe it’s a hardware related issue, since even on Linux (I’m using Pop!_OS) I have the same results, although less frequently. In the future, I’ll give it another go on the Playstation 4. Otherwise, it’s a great game that deserves its success.
As August drew closer, I looked for a title to write about that was both short and less well-known. Out of desperation and lack of time, I resorted to my comfort zone: RPG Maker games. While browsing my Steam library, I found a short game called Remnants of Isolation. Is it a hidden gem? Or at least, a good title to sdpend a few hours? Let’s find out.
Cosmic Star Heroine - a great western JRPG
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Introduction
This month’s game is a more current title rather than the next iteration of a 42-year-old franchise.
Cosmic Star Heroine is a JRPG created by Zeboyd Games, a two-man studio that also created Cthulhu Saves the World. The game was first released on PC and PlayStation 4 on April 11, 2017. It was ported to the PlayStation Vita and Nintendo Switch a year later, with releases on April 24, 2018, and August 14, 2018, respectively. Finally, Google Stadia received its own port of the game on April 1, 2021.
Development time was longer than you normally see from Zeboyd Games, taking four years instead of a few months. To help finance the game’s production, the makers launched a successful Kickstarter campaign on October 1, 2013, which lasted 30 days. It earned a total of $132,689 out of a $100,000 goal.
The game scored good reviews during its launch, with a more enthusiastic response from the indie and RPG communities and publications.
So, is it a good throwback to a bygone JRPG era? Let’s find out.
Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap - A genuine remake
Introduction
After a few months hiatus (and many hours in Subnautica, one of the best games I ever played) I’m back with a title that was on my radar since I watched its launch trailer a few years ago: Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap, developed by Lizardcube, the French people responsible for Streets of Rage 4, and published by Dotemu. The title was released in 18 April 2017 for PlayStation 4, Xbox, and Switch. In 8 June 2017, the game was released on PCs. It also has ports for iOS and Android.
The game is a remake of the 1989 game Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap, which was originally developed by Westone Bit Entertainment and published by Sega for the Sega Master System (SMS) in 1989. If you don’t remember them for their other games, it’s because they are mostly known only by the Wonder Boy franchise. Ryuichi Nishizawa, series creator and one of the founders of Westone, took the role of director, designer and main-programmer on the SMS and Game Gear versions. Shinichi Sakamoto, a composer and sound designer who primarily worked on previous Westone games, provided the original score. Also worked on the game Takanori Kurihara, also on programming duties and Hiromi Kurihara, responsible for the art design.
The studio behind the remake, Lizardcube, was founded in Paris in 2015, and is a two-men team comprised of Ben Fiquet, responsible for art and animation, and Omar Cornut, responsible for the technical aspects of the production. Cornut is an administrator and active member at SMS Power, a website dedicated to the preservation of Sega’s 8-bit consoles history, media, and software. They have a lot of information about these systems, rare dumps, and even development resources.
Cornut is also the creator of the Meka multi-system emulator. It pays homage to Meka Dragon, Dragon’s Trap first boss. It was a well known emulator in the early days of emulation, and still is regarded as a very good piece of software thanks to its debugging tools, ability to emulate obscure peripherals, and exotic games. But, even if it still receives updates, there are more user-friendly options available if you do not require its unique components.
Thanks to his knowledge on the SMS, Cornut was able to dump a copy of the game and reverse-engineer it to better understand how it works and ensure that no aspect of the game was missing. After finally analyzing and understand the game’s code, he was able to recreate the “feeling” of the original. That means that timings, physics, and reactions appear unchanged, even though there are changes to the physics, as the game now runs at 60 FPS, whilst the original runs on half of that, a widescreen aspect ratio, and so on.
Lizardcube’s dev blog is a wonderful read if you have the time and want more details about the remake’s creation
The original Dragon’s Trap game garnered high scores from many publications of the time, even being considered the best game of 1989 for a Sega console by Electronic Gaming Monthly. The Game Gear version was also well received, getting a score of 7.5 from Beep! Mega Drive, a Japanese magazine dedicated to Sega consoles. The remake was also well received, with high scores in many publications, and a Metacritic score of 79 for the Nintendo Switch and PS4 ports, and an 80 on the Xbox One.
So how the remake fares? Let’s find out.
Indie January!
For January I got a few indie titles available on Itch that had the “roleplay” tag. Some are real RPGs, other not so much, but all of them are very enjoyable, short titles.