 There were a lot of Super Famicom games that were never localized in North America, many just because they might have been seen as just too dang weird at the time. There's stuff like Energy Breaker that involves allocating balance points and resource management and all sorts of complicated weirdness. There's Chaos Seed which sees you try and feng shui the earth, and there's Maju Uo which is just plain messed up. You could say the same about Dark Half, a strange but unique game that has no problems delivering you right to the slobbering mouth of hell. I mean just look at this cover here, that is cool as hell. Dark Half is a turn based RPG where you play out two storylines at the same time. You alternate between playing as Rukyu, who's pretty much Satan, and Falco. No not that Falco, or that Falco, but he's the latest and greatest savior of humanity. You play out each storyline in alternating chapters. Rukyu is generally just evil and pissed off all the time while Falco is, uh, well you know, he's there too. There's the usual stuff like having a world map and walking into towns and random battles and all that. The same difference between the two storylines is in the combat system. The turn based grid format is the same for both, but Rukyu recruits other enemies into his party and in the process gains additional magic. The big problem here however is that Rukyu's allies are all AI controlled and they are idiots. They approach at bad angles and use the magic that their opponents are clearly immune to. Geez no wonder this guy is so evil and crazy, surrounded by incompetence. Falco meanwhile has the usual good guy storyline path where he runs into other party members, but you can also recruit mercenaries and that's pretty cool. The Falco party's abilities and magic spells improve by winning battles and such, but in addition Falco also has to harvest rays of light or hope from the bodies of Rukyu's victims as he passes by. Both Falco and Rukyu are bound to what's called a soul meter in the upper left that you have to keep stocked. Falco does this by selling artifacts, and Rukyu does it by eating souls. This meter drains with every step your character takes so you gotta be efficient and you can't explore too much. If it hits zero for either character it's game over. I love that a game like Dark Hap has the balls to try something like this where you play as both the hero and the villain, it's great how one storyline affects the other. You can eat this dude's soul with Rukyu, or you can leave them alive for Falco to interact with. That part of it is really cool, but there's a bit of an imbalance here. The villain's storyline is great and after playing all these different JRPGs over the years it's a lot of fun to play as someone cartoonishly evil. But on the flip side the villains battles kinda suck, you're usually just sitting there watching and bailing out your idiot AI controlled allies. Conversely the hero's battles are a lot more interesting, but his storyline is just the same old stuff, and I wanted to just fast forward and get to Rukyu's story. Anyway, I don't think I'm spoiling too much by saying that the game leads to an end game showdown between the two characters, that should be obvious to everyone, right? So while certain parts of the game may be a drag to sit through, I was determined to get to the end and see which one of these characters would prevail. Another interesting tidbit is that this game is made by West1, the same people behind the Wonder Boy and Monster World series, and it's their only game made for the Super Famicom. It's funny just how dark and twisted this game can get, but meanwhile they're cranking out colorful and cheerful looking stuff like Monster World 4. Sadly I don't think Dark Half reached its full potential in terms of visuals or music. I mean the music is okay, the backgrounds and sprites are a little bleary, maybe even deliberately so, but considering this was made late in the console's lifespan in 1996, its contemporaries like Lufia 2, Bahamut Lagoon, and Fire Emblem 4 were running circles around Dark Half. The presentation isn't bad, don't get me wrong, it just feels a bit like a missed opportunity. So yeah, Dark Half is unique to say the least, and I think it's worth checking out if you're tired of the same old JRPG stuff. The cause and effect balancing act between the two storylines is really cool and gives the game a lot of replay value, but you might get bored and frustrated with managing the Soul Meter, solving the game's numerous puzzles, and dealing with the dumbass computer AI. There's also some really heavy themes going on here that I don't want to spoil. I'll just say this game gets dark as you might expect, but it's dark for both sides, which is something I was not expecting. Dark Half isn't perfect, but it's still a worthwhile playthrough, if only because there's not another 16-bit JRPG like it.