/vr/ - Retro Games

>Moryo Senki Madara

By Konami, based on a Manga license unknown to me, but the double page ad for this game was all over Japanese magasines at the time of release. The story failed to catch my interest and felt like you had to know the original work to fully enjoy it.
Great soundtrack using the same soundchip as Castlevania 3, there are even several world map themes.
Good graphics with Konami's trademark huge characters, lot's of great looking graphical cutscenes.
Combat is turned based, but top down and semi automatic: you can pause the action at any time to input commands for the next turn(s). Characters/enemies move around the screen to attack. For a semi-automatic system, there is a surprising amount of tactic involved and battles often get exciting.
Sprites are small during combat, but you get a graphical view of the enemies Dragon Quest style before battles which I appreciated a lot (they knew the impact of such graphics on the player, vs their small sprites during combat which rarely looked menacing)
Until the late game and revive item/spell, you do NOT want any character to die. You have to go through hell to get them back AND they will lose all their gear and items.
The game can get really brutal in difficulty, at least until you figure out a couple of tricks (one involves grinding the physical and magical attack power stats easily and quickly, the other involves protective spells).
Seasons change with time on the overworld map, a couple of events are tied to it.
The game is fairly long too. Exploration and dungeons get more complicated and interesting as the game goes on, perhaps a bit too many floor pits and teleporters in the late game dungeons.
In some ways, it felt like this game paved the way for Lagrange Point.
[cont]