Mystic Ark (Super Famicom, 1995)

Time for a classic Super Famicom RPG that never made it over here, like many great RPGs of the mid-90s. This is the game that would have been known as The 7th Saga II, had it gotten a North American release. It fixes many of the problems of the original game, and lets you have a three (!!!) person party. It wasn't far off from a NA release either, considering Nintendo Power covered it and played it up as on the way here.

Legend says that this was one of Enix's better efforts of the 90's. Thanks to the folks at Dynamic Designs (formerly Magic Destiny), we eventually got a fan translation of the game. If Lennus 2 was any indication, it'll be a great translation. Hell yeah, I'm excited for this.

Originally posted over 2013-2014, now remastered for 2025

Star Fox 2 (Super Famicom, 1995)

 

Everyone knows the story by now. This is the missing link between the original and Star Fox 64, and never made it out of Japan. Much like Earthbound Zero, the game was finished, but just didn't get published, so it was easy for Nintendo to dig it up and put it on their modern classic consoles. I'm playing it on Switch Online, and this is the first time I've ever played it in complete form. Even the complete form seems kind of incomplete though, lul.

Dragon Quest VI (Super Famicom, 1995)

 

DQsmas continues with me bringing back DQ6 from the dead. I never finished covering the original version so it's my one remaining loose end in the first six games of this series. Covering it the same time as the remake was an experiment and it didn't work out great for the original. Regardless, I'm re-editing the first 60-70% or so that I did, then covering the last 30-40%. Let's go.

I've never been that crazy about this game and definitely put it in the bottom half of the series quality-wise. I've only played the SFC version once before, in 2001, so it'll be interesting to revisit it after all this time. This version never got an official US translation (all of the US releases were based on the remake) so I'm playing it on the same fan-translation from 2001.

Romancing SaGa 2 (Super Famicom, Nintendo Switch, 1993/2017)

 "And lo! Even as he laughed at despair he looked out again on the black ships, and he lifted up his sword to defy them. And then wonder took him, and a great joy; and he cast his sword up in the sunlight and sang as he caught it. And all eyes followed his gaze, and behold! upon the foremost ship a great standard broke, and the wind displayed it as she turned towards the Harlond. There flowered a White Tree, and that was for Gondor; but Seven Stars were about it, and a high crown above it, the signs of Elendil that no lord had borne for years. And the stars flamed in the sunlight, for they were wrought of gems by Arwen daughter of Elrond; and the crown was bright in the morning, for it was wrought of mithril and gold."

Parodius (Super Famicom, 1992)

From the makers of Gradius, a game that will change the way we look at shooters! Also, what's going on in this box art? Is that octopus on meth?

(Originally posted in 2014. Reposted for reasons)

Kirby's Dream Course, Kirby's Avalanche, Kirby's Star Stacker (Super NES, 1994/1995/1997)

 

That's right, today we get a 3-fer with some more Kirby spinoff puzzle/sports type games that I checked out over the weekend. Not going to actually finish any of these, but I'll get a gander at them. Never played this trio before this, so they're all new to me. First up is the fairly popular Kirby's Dream Course from 1994.

Live-a-Live Remastered (Nintendo Switch, 2022) Pt 1 - Prehistoria

 

Got a pretty sweet 2D-HD remake thing goin' on here. After how good the SaGa Frontier remake was, I had high hopes for this one. It still shows its age, but it's worth a play. They fixed some of the issues the original had, and the new visuals are great.

Going to be a bit more concise with this remake since the original had a massive amount of posts. One scenario : one post. It's different enough to be worth covering all over again. It even got an "RPG of the Year" nomination which is pretty awesome. Then Elden Ring rolled over it like the HK tank rolling over the skulls in the Terminator movies, but Live-a-Live was there. It was there.

Dragon Quest V (Super Famicom, 1992)

 

It's the Fifth Day of Christmas, and the actual day, which sounds like a good time for a 5 game. Today on DQV, we go back in time. Way back in time.

Live-a-Live (Super Famicom, 1994)

The next Super Famicom RPG that I'm going to cover is the relatively-unknown Live-a-Live. In the vein of the SaGa games, this one has a bunch of characters to choose from. The difference is that rather than each of them playing all the way through the same game with slightly-to-moderately different scenarios, in this game they all have a chapter of their own before converging at the end. It's most comparable to Dragon Warrior 4, but the way you can choose the order of the chapters puts a new spin on things. It's almost episodic. You can't really go wrong with mid-90's Square, so let's get to it.

Originally Posted in 2014

Dragonball Z Legend of the Super Saiya-jin, Part I - Saiyan Saga

This is the fabled "Dragonball Z RPG" for the Super Famicom, and I'm playing it.

My friend Morgan was right when he told me that this game is bad. It's really bad. This game is so bad that the soundtrack consists of three songs. It's the worst RPG I've played since Tecmo Secret of the Stars.

ORIGINALLY POSTED JUNE 2011

Seiken Densetsu 3 (Super Famicom, 1995)

The aptly-named Legend of Holy Sword 3 is the final part of our Mana journey, at least until the remake comes out. This is something I wanted to cover on here ten years ago. Now that it's got a Switch port, better late than never.

Dragon Quest III (Super Famicom, 1996)

The third game of the series got a bunch of remakes over the years, re-releasing on multiple systems. The original 1991 NES version is a classic, and it also got a Game Boy Color version later on that I want to take a look at. One remake that never saw the light of day in the U.S. is the 1996 Super Famicom version, and that's the version I'm playing for this installment. The visuals of this version were more or less repurposed for later phone versions of the game, as well as the phone versions of the first two. So we owe a lot to this one particular remake.

Rockman and Forte (Super Famicom, 1998)

Time to return to the Mega Man series and cover another classic. This one was released in Japan at the tail end of the Super Famicom's lifespan, too late to get a localization here since the Super NES was getting phased out well before 1998. It eventually got a portable release (as Mega Man and Bass) on Game Boy Advance years later, but I prefer the SFC version.

For a long time this game was incorrectly labeled "Mega Man 9" on the internet, but this isn't the case. It's more of a Mega Man 8.5, a fusion of elements from the seventh and eighth games. ...maybe that makes it 7.5? It also features a surprise guest. You'll never guess who it is: Forte, aka Bass. In any case, let's check it out.

Dragon Quest II (Super Famicom, 1993)

Time for the second half of the Super Famicom remake double-header. To put it bluntly, I don't like this game as much as the first. It makes heavy use of mountain ranges to constantly block you off from exploring the overworld at your leisure, so it loses a lot of the open world feeling... even though it is, technically, a pretty open game. Aside from that, the game seems poorly-balanced in general. But if you like fighting baboons on the overworld for 80% of the game, it's a good time.

Regardless, it's fun in a classic sense, and this version has improved graphics. Let's get to it. And if you haven't, check out my posts on the NES version of the game.

Dragon Quest (Super Famicom, 1993)

 

Time for the original Dragon Quest. Wait, didn't I cover this game already? Yes, but I covered the English NES version, Dragon Warrior. This is the Super Famicom remake that came along later. It's awesome.

Front Mission (Super Famicom, 1995)

Front Mission is a once-daily SRPG for the Super Famicom that may lower blood pressure. It never got an American release because Squaresoft and Nintendo were dicks because of localization costs or something. We did get later games in the series over here, but according to nearly everyone on the internet who has played this series, the first game is the best of the lot. I tried Front Mission 4 and couldn't stand it, but I did enjoy Gun Hazard. Let's see what the original brings to the table.

Front Mission: Gun Hazard (Super Famicom, 1996)

This is the sister game to Final Fantasy VI, in a weird way. Kind of like how Zone of the Enders is a sibling to Metal Gear Solid 2. It's an action game that constantly feels like the RPG it's related to. And it's pretty good.

This post is intended to be a fairly quick synopsis of the game. Not going to go very in-depth on this one, because to do so would take a lot more posts. I didn't take very many screenshots as I played it, but I took enough to make use of what I have. The good news is that this will have far fewer spoilers than the usual post since I'm not getting into much depth. In particular, the last quarter of the game will go entirely unspoiled.

Dragonball Z: Hyper Dimension (Super Famicom, 1996)

The best of the side-scrolling 90's DBZ games is, without a doubt, this one. The Super NES in 1996 was a vastly different system than it was in 1991. I don't know if any other system had graphics improve so much over its lifespan.

Dragonball Z Super Butoden 3 (Super Famicom, 1994)

Time for the weakest game in the trilogy. It's kinda fitting, given that the Buu Saga itself is weaker than the rest of DBZ.

Dragonball Z Super Butoden 2 (Super Famicom, 1993)

The next game in the series is most definitely Gohan's game. He's the star here, and the whole story mode revolves around him. That said, look at Gokou back there trying to steal all of Gohan's thunder.