/vr/ - Retro Games

I'm gonna post a couple essential RPGs and then I'll move on to games you can actually play without knowing Japanese.

Ningyo no Rakuin is a strategy RPG developed by the elusive and largely forgotten Highwaystar. It's a bit like Lost in video game form. While on a vacation trip with his girlfriend, a high school student's plane crashes into a mysterious island with a native population that seemingly performs human sacrifices. Him and some other survivors will have to fight their way out of this predicament in turn-based, grid-based, isometric SRPG battles.

The odd thing about this game is that it combines a somewhat mundane and down-to-earth scenario with the traditionally fantastical combat of SRPGs. Characters move along the grid and attack each other with weapons or more esoteric means. The combat stages are very basic-looking, but the character portraits are nice, there's frequent fully-drawn story scenes, and the story is pretty great. The fights themselves can drag on because some enemies are only vulnerable to weapons, and weapons are few and far between, but in general it's not so bad as to bring the game down.