 It's just about impossible to talk about action role-playing games without getting into an argument about what an action RPG is. Here's a quick distinction a surprising amount of people miss. Action implies real-time combat. Games like Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, Mario RPG, and the like are turn-based role-playing games, while the action genre includes games like Secret of Mana, Illusion of Gaia, and Shadowrun. Also, since role-playing games include experience points and stats, I'm not going to include games like Link to the Past. SuperDerek said it best, some games are more RPGs than others. It's a spectrum of sorts, and Link to the Past, Actraiser, Legend of the Mystical Ninja, and such do not place far enough on the RPG spectrum to make this video. Yes, there are tons of games with action elements and role-playing elements. Hell, we could split hairs until we decide freakin' Sterling Sharp and in football is an action RPG, so let's not get bogged down on that. Let's just take a quick look at the most RPG-ish action games, so to speak, going in alphabetical order. And the Super Famicom games I'm including all have English patches. If I skip to that game, it means there's no English patch available. Now, this is a perfect example of what I mean by action RPG, Alcahast. It was only released in Japan, but it's hack and slash beat-em-up mechanics from a top-down viewpoint, unlocking new areas as you find items and defeat enemies. It's a simple structure, you need to go in this cave so you gotta find the air mask. Once you get that, then you need a torch to see, then you need ice boots to walk over lava, you get the idea. There's five allies you can find and partner up with that complement your sword attacks with magic, which is great. What's interesting here is that the point system isn't for experience points or levels, but for continues, so that's a bit different. Alcahast is a short playthrough, but it's well worth playing today for its simple and straightforward nature. Brainlord is definitely more of an adventure title than an RPG, but in my opinion, there are enough RPG elements here for it to place on this video. Brainlord stands out because it's a puzzle-heavy game. Sure, there's only five dungeons, but holy crap, they are huge, so you'll definitely get your money's worth with this one. There's the usual upgradeable weapons, armor, and magic here, but there's also these jades you collect that contain fairies which fly near you to help you out with enemies. There's nine total, all with their own special ability like water or lightning, and they level up on their own when they collect these blue spheres. Brainlord can get frustrating, but its positives outweigh the negatives, and it's worth checking out. Brandish, on the other hand, is much more of an acquired taste. Right off the bat, the game's idea of movement is a little off-putting, like why can't I move to the left or right? What the hell is happening? Turns out this one is actually a first-person overhead dungeon crawler, and the room itself rotates around you. It's tough to get used to, but you can at least switch an option from lateral to rotate, and that allows you to freely move sideways which helps with combat. All the typical RPG fix-ins like weapons, armor, magic, and item management are here, and the story is actually pretty good with your hero trapped in a sunken castle being chased by Alexis who's pissed that you killed her master in a previous adventure. The skittish combat and disorienting movement is too much to get past though, but if you can get used to the bizarre way this game is laid out, then Brandish is okay, but I wouldn't recommend this one. Brandish 2, the Planet Buster, only came out in Japan, and it's a little bit better than the first game. The story is just as good, picking up right where the last game left off with our hero picking up a sword so powerful it can destroy an entire planet, and Alexis is still after you, come hell or high water. The level design is a bit better here, and it definitely helps to have a map in the lower left corner. The combat is pretty much like the first game, just more polished. So yeah, if you dig Brandish, you'll dig the sequel as well, but if you didn't, then I'd stay away. Now here's a really weird one, Chaos Seed Feng Shui Chronicles, another one that only came out in Japan. This is like an action RPG combined with Sim City in a way, sure all the action RPG stuff you'd expect is here, and some of the sprite animation is really spectacular looking, but your party is tasked with healing a dying planet, and to do that you have to create a dungeon with the appropriate Feng Shui so to speak. I compare it to Sim City because the rooms you build all react and feed off of each other depending on their element, shape, or placement, the same way residential areas will only grow in the right areas or how industrial areas thrive when placed next to airports and seaports, that sort of thing. This is not an easy game to get into, it's pretty complicated stuff, but it's definitely worth checking out if only because there's nothing else like it. Yet another Super Famicom exclusive is Crystal Beans from Dungeon Explorer. That's right, the same dungeon explorer from TurboGrafx 16. It's pretty much just a visually retooled version of Dungeon Explorer 2, and the gameplay and structure is similar to Gauntlet. There's 8 characters, each with a different class, ranging from Fighter, Wizard, Priest, you get the idea. This is a fun one, I especially like the shoulder buttons automatically being assigned healing and magic potions so you don't have to deal with a menu. You also get to control how you level in a particular way, when you defeat a boss you can wait for the crystal to change color, with each color representing a certain stat, so that's kinda cool. This is also a great multiplayer game as you might guess, so yeah if you're looking for a Gauntlet style game, check this one out. Drakken was originally made for the Amiga and Atari ST, but unfortunately the Super Nintendo port came very early on in the system's lifespan and the resulting game is a complete mess. It's extremely limited as you might guess, the combat has you set the behavior of each of your 4 party members in the lower right corner on the screen, but by the time actual combat starts, they just kinda scurry out there and act on their own, helplessly flailing away at enemies. And sometimes you run into unwinnable battles, even within the first 10 minutes of the game. The first person exploration is a neat idea, but the execution is cumbersome. If you're gonna play Drakken, don't do it on Super Nintendo, it's awful. However, if you wanna play a game similar to Drakken, but execute it much, much better, you can play its follow-up dragon view, titled Super Drakken in Japan. Its story is independent of its predecessor, but this one maintains the same first person exploration, and it allows you to avoid battles, which is nice. The battles themselves transition to a 2D beat'em up viewpoint. There's dungeons, hidden areas, magic spells, upgradable weapons and armor, and some interesting enemy design. The key thing with Dragon View is that they got the combat right. This is a great blend of RPG experience and stat building with some good old fashioned hack and slash beat'em up action. This game is well worth checking out. Evo's search for Eden is probably one of the most polarizing games on this list. On one hand, the concept is way ahead of its time. You start out as a fish in the ocean, eating anything that moves, and then you get presented a menu, where you can pick and choose which aspect of your character you'd like to upgrade, whether it's your tail for speed, jaws for power, scales for armor, you get the idea. On the other hand, the combat here is extremely monotonous. You just eat stuff. Having said that, though, the addictive quality Evo has going for it is you just want to see how your character evolves as it goes along. I would say the best way to play this one is with an emulator using save state, so you can always flip back to the last point where you leveled up and experiment with what works for you and what doesn't. Evo is a really interesting game and I do recommend it, but I can see how it's not for everyone. I've talked about Front Mission Gun Hazard a lot on this channel. It's my pick for the best Super Famicom game to never leave Japan because it's a great blend of strategy, combat, and story that's all paced very well. There's mech customization here, allocating stats to certain areas depending on how you want to build your mech or wanzer as the game refers to it, and the battles are just plain fun. Of course, it helps that the game looks and sounds amazing as well, so yeah, Front Mission Gun Hazard might be the best game on this entire list, you just gotta play it for yourself. Holy Umbrella Dundera no Mubo is a story-driven action platformer with some RPG stuff thrown in. You defeat enemies and earn coins to buy health meter upgrades or other stuff that increases your offensive or defensive stats. The story has you playing as a kid running home from school in the rain who finds an umbrella that transports him to another dimension full of all kinds of wacky characters and weirdness. You visit towns to talk to people and find out whatever you can about how to get back home. The platforming here is pretty slow paced, but the story is what carries this one. This is a bizarre playthrough, it's pretty dang short, but it's good for a laugh or two, so I'd recommend this one. Illusion of Gaia, or Illusion of Time in PAL regions, is made by Quintet as part of the quote-unquote trilogy they made along with Soul Blazer and Terra Nigma, although all three games are standalone adventures. The thing that makes Illusion of Gaia stand out is the dungeon design, which takes advantage of your character's ability to switch between two and later three forms. To advance your stats in this one, you simply defeat enemies in clear areas to collect jewels which boost attack, defense, or health. You can't really skip anything, so this game is very linear. My one nitpick with this one is the story. Someone else said it better than I could, saying whoever translated this one just didn't get the story. And yeah, I found it tough to shake that vibe. But still, Illusion of Gaia is a solid game with some great level design. Next we have two Capcom arcade ports, the beat'em ups Knights of the Round and King of Dragons. And of course, these are beat'em ups first and foremost, but there is a leveling system here that can vary depending on how your points get divvied up. For instance, in Knights of the Round, if you split every treasure chest for maximum points, you'll level up quicker. In the case of King of Dragons, leveling up increases your health and weapon range. King of Dragons is much faster paced with 16 short levels while Knights of the Round has only 7 longer levels. But both are great games with some fantastic visuals and great soundtrack. Kuso Kagaku Sekai Gulliver Boy is based on an anime and never left Japan, but the game is pretty good. It's similar to Secret of Mana in that each attack has a timer, so you have to wait between attacks, and of course you can upgrade your attack as you progress. But what makes this one fun is that you can switch between different characters with the X button. Now that's handy. This is a worthwhile playthrough, albeit very short, and I should warn you that to get this game to work you have to patch it twice, once with the English patch and then once again with a fix. Lagoon is one of those games you always see going for $6 or $7 at a used game store. You pick it up thinking, hey, how bad could it be? Then you see how obnoxiously intuitive the game is structured, you see how generic the story is, and worst of all, you see your primary attack, which looks like you're waving a toothpick around. Okay, I've been pretty hard on Lagoon over the years. There are definitely worse games out there, but this one is pretty flawed. It's got its redeeming qualities like the soundtrack, but in this case, you get what you pay for. Now, compare Lagoon to something like J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings Volume 1, and it looks pretty dang good, because Lord of the Rings is freaking terrible. The game is structured as a series of fetch quests, very slow fetch quests, getting all the members of the Fellowship one by one, and the simple gameplay execution here is so bad, especially the computer AI that controls the rest of your party. Granted, this game is four player compatible if you have a super multi-tap, but dear god, why would you make three other people suffer through this dreck? The dungeon design is just one long boring maze after one long boring maze. Definitely avoid this one. Here's kind of a weird one that never left Japan. Noigir, Umitokaze, Nokodu. This is a slightly more lighthearted story of Duke, the son of a king who's been banished from the kingdom and is trying to win back the people's good graces. It's a shortened linear playthrough, but it's decent enough. The thing is, this isn't your typical hack and slash gameplay. You have to sit back, watch the enemy patterns, and pick your spots. Plus all the typical RPG stuff is here like upgradeable weapons and armor, and your character can jump which is handy. But overall, this game is just okay. Secret of Evermore is another game I've been pretty hard on over the years, because of the dungeon design that features nothing but long boring mazes, because of the flea market segment that's a complete and utter mess, and because of the lousy hit detection. But I will say this game has a lot going for it. It has an atmosphere that no other 16-bit game even comes close to. The art direction, the soundtrack, and the oddball story are all unique, not only within the SNES library, but in any game ever. I still have not found a game that looks or feels quite like this one does, so while Secret of Evermore does have some big flaws, I still think it's worth trying out to see if it's up your alley. Secret of Mana is similar in that it's got some major strengths, like the art direction, music, sound design, and story structure, but it's got some big time flaws too. Most notably that the game pauses when you use magic, which is pretty silly. And the fact that you have to be so close to the edge of the screen to get it to scroll, making it easy to unknowingly bump into enemies. Still, I think the strengths of Secret of Mana outweigh the weaknesses here, and I think the two key things here are how the game slowly reveals more and more of its world the more you play, before finally showing off the enormity of what you have to accomplish. And oh by the way, this game is multiplayer for up to three players, which makes this one a lot of fun. Secret of Mana is what I refer to as the most flawed classic on the Super Nintendo. I think it's well worth playing today, but it's not without its hang-ups. And that brings me to the sequel, Sekinden Setsu 3. Unfortunately, this one never left Japan officially, but man, oh man, this is one of the very best games the Super Nintendo ever produced. It's hard to sum this one up in just a paragraph, because there's so much here. There's six characters, three different story arcs, a class system featuring all sorts of different roles you can play, a new and improved combat system which is a blast to use, and some of the best visuals and music you'll ever see on a Super Nintendo game. This game is a true adventure to play through, and even after you play through it once, there's still a lot more to discover, so play this one any way you can. Shadowrun is an action RPG that's completely different from any other game on this list in every possible way. For one thing, the game utilizes a point-and-click combat system. Some people may not like that, and it's definitely something you gotta get used to for better or for worse. But Shadowrun has so much going for it, from the cyberpunk motif to the game structure which puts you as the player in control of how the story is told, and since you have to investigate each keyword and piece together the clues yourself, to the music which sounds unlike any other game I've played. Yes, the Genesis version of Shadowrun is also great, but the Super Nintendo Edition is well worth playing. There's not another game like it on the system. Next we get into the Kuniyokun series, which is best known on the NES in North America for games like Renegade, Super Dodgeball, and of course River City Ransom. The series continued on the Super Famicom in Japan with Shodai Neketsu Kohan Kuniyokun, and yeah, it looks a lot like a 16-bit version of the more popular River City Ransom, but it's actually a sequel to Renegade, where you play as Kuniyo on a high school field trip to Osaka who gets involved in gang warfare. Man, I wish my high school field trips were that exciting. For every flunky you defeat, you get experience points that add to strength, speed, and defense, while learning new special moves and picking up equipment dropped by enemies. This game is okay, it definitely has the feel of an early Super Nintendo game, the controls certainly could have been implemented better, but overall it's pretty decent. Bear in mind there's also Shin Neketsu Kohan Kuniyo Tachinobanka, which is in the same series, but is actually a prequel to River City Ransom. And that game doesn't have any RPG element, but if you're looking for a game like this, that's a bit more polished, and with a more detailed and darker story, then you're better off going with that game. Soul Blazer is made by Quintet, published by Annex, and it's the first game as part of the quote-unquote Annex Trilogy of Action RPGs, although again, each game is its own standalone adventure. Soul Blazer is one of my favorites on this list, I like how you can crank through just a section of a dungeon, go back and save, and that part of the dungeon will stay cleared out. That structure works hand in hand with how the story is told, since with each enemy layer you destroy, you unlock another part of the cursed village you're trying to save. Throw in a unique soundtrack and some interesting boss fights, and you've got a game that's held up really well over time. If you've played Illusion of Gaia or Terra Nigma, but you haven't played Soul Blazer, definitely check this one out. Star Ocean may best be known for its games on PlayStation PS2 and PS3, but the series got its start on the Super Famicom in Japan, and it's one of the most ambitious 16-bit titles ever made. This game is so huge it needed a decompressor to handle the massive amounts of sprite data, so it's one of the two Super Nintendo games utilizing the SDD-1 ship, along with Street Fighter Alpha II. Star Ocean may look like a turn-based RPG on the surface, but it's kind of a hybrid between turn-based and real-time fighting. There's four characters in your party, but you only control one at a time. The story has you desperately looking for a cure for a disease that's turning people into stone, only to find out that the disease was made by design as a biological weapon by an alien race. What's really interesting here, though, is the private action mechanic, which allows your party to split up and gather information independently, and potentially unlock side stories. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. If you're looking for an action RPG with a ton of depth, you've found it with Star Ocean. Next is Super Ninja Boy, the Super Nintendo sequel for Little Ninja Brothers for NES, and if you didn't know any better, you might think this is an NES game, too. It's an early SNES title, and it shows. It also has that early 16-bit RPG encounter rate where you can't go more than three steps on the world map without being sucked into a random battle. To the game's credit, however, it's structured like Zelda II, where random battles are side-scrolling sections where you can approach it like a beat-em-up, punching and jumping your way through, or you can use items in special moves like fireballs. But yeah, I actually prefer the NES game to this one. It is two-player, but there's a password system instead of a battery save, which is kind of a pain, so keep that in mind. Similar to Star Ocean, the Tales series actually started on Super Famcom in Japan with Tales of Fantasia. And also similar to Star Ocean, the battle system in this game is a hybrid of turn-based and real-time action, and you only control one character. But where it differs is that it plays out on a scrolling 2D plane, and the combat focuses a bit more on elemental attacks and conventional JRPG strategy. The story has you playing as a party of four, locking away a powerful sorcerer into two magic pendants. Time passes, the pendants fall into the wrong hands, and evil people attempt to revive them. You get the idea. The big selling points for Tales of Fantasia are the visuals and sound. This game looks freaking great, and the soundtrack is fantastic, and even features a song with vocals. Terranigma is the third game of the aforementioned Annex Quintet trilogy, and it's the best game of the three. This is a standalone adventure that plays similarly to Illusion of Gaia, so if you like to the combat and structure of that one, you'll enjoy this playthrough. But what makes Terranigma stand out from not only its contemporaries, but all other games is its story. I've said it before, this is the kind of game where the story will stick with you well after you play it, and it's got one of the best endings to any 16-bit game ever. So it's worth playing all the way through for that reason alone. Terranigma was only released in PAL regions, so you gotta play this one any way you can, but it's definitely one of the very best games on this list. We go from serious to lighthearted with The Twisted Tales of Spike McFang. This is another classically structured top-down action RPG with leveling, experience points, and upgradeable magic, but what makes this game stand out are its cartoony atmosphere complete with some great pixel art. It's bright, colorful, and expressive, and it's also a good pickup and play game that's easy to get into right away, but make no mistake, this game can get really tough. Still, what you see here is what you get, not a lot of nuance or detail, so if you're looking for a lesser-known action role-playing game that's a pretty tough challenge, but still easy to pick up and play, then here you go. Next, we get into the Ultima Super Nintendo games. Well, Ultima 6 is actually a turn-based role-playing game, but Ultima 7, The Black Gate, and Ultima Runes of Virtue 2 both count. Starting with Ultima 7, this is an obvious case where if you really want to play this one today, you're much better off playing the original incarnation in DOSBox or something along those lines. But the Super Nintendo port here is surprisingly competent, but it's also very different from the original version. Ultima 7 was a groundbreaking game for PC featuring tons of new stuff, but the SNES version had to be scaled back quite a bit, despite being released two and a half years later. For instance, there's no party system and the game is a lot more streamlined instead of open-ended, and the story is also censored big time. This is a perfectly decent game for Super Nintendo. It's just limited, a bit dry, and kind of boring, and you can do much better. It's a classic case of something that would have been passable at the time, but playing it nowadays is pretty pointless. Then we have Ultima of Runes of Virtue 2. The first Runes of Virtue was an original made for the Game Boy, and it's unrelated to the rest of the Ultima series. This is a follow-up that was ported to the Super Nintendo, and there's varying results here. It's a puzzle-heavy adventure game with your typical role-playing game elements featuring four different characters you can play as, which sounds great, but unfortunately, this is one of those games where it doesn't really matter who you pick to play as, since everything kind of evens out halfway through your playthrough. There's also not really an experience point system here, since you only level up when you complete a dungeon, so it's kind of pointless to fight enemies in the first place. Again, just like the Black Gate, this game is pretty dull and has some serious flaws like the difficulty, and while this game isn't necessarily bad, you're much better spending your time with something else on this list. Here's another PC port in Zack the Art of Visual Stage, made all the way back in 1989, but ported to the Super Famicom in 1993 where it stayed in Japan. This is pretty typical as far as action RPGs go, but I give this game credit for having a different look and feel than any other game on the list. The combat is a little weird, however, because you have to start out fighting extremely defensively, because even after being hit, enemies are constantly charging toward you, so you have to sneak in and attack, back off, sneak in again. It can test your patience, since most action RPGs are just go in guns blazing like Rambo. Once this game gets going though, it's pretty good. I think Zack the Art of Visual Stage is worth checking out, especially for the lively soundtrack, which really carries the experience. This game isn't anything spectacularly original, but it's good for what it is. Finally, we finish off with the Ease series, and just to clear something up, yes, that is the proper way you pronounce Ease. You know how I know that? Because the voiceover from the TurboGrafx 16 CD version of Ease Book 1 and 2 says so. Anyway, Ease 3 Wanderers from Ease for Super Nintendo is a hit or miss game. It takes a 2D side scrolling viewpoint, and it has a great soundtrack, but it's the kind of game where if you don't take 20 or 30 minutes to grind every so often, you will not be able to make any progress. It's kind of annoying. If you're willing to overlook that, it's a solid game that's similar to stuff like Faxanadu on NES. Yeah, you might think that's a bad thing to compare it to an NES game, but while this one isn't exactly gigantic in scope, it's a perfectly good playthrough, and from a story perspective, don't worry about this being the third game in the series. You can still enjoy this one as is. Ease 4, Mask of the Sun, Never Lift Japan, and it's not to be confused with Ease 4, The Dawn of Ease, and this is a pretty well-told story where your hero, Adol, receives a distress call in the form of a message and a bottle, goes to investigate and realizes he's gotten himself into something bigger than he imagined. Also, this is a case where there's lots of callbacks to previous games in the series, so it does help to have played those before this one. The combat here is pretty polarizing. Some are gonna hate it, since you're seriously just, uh, running into enemies? What? It goes back to how Ease books 1 and 2 worked, for better or for worse. It's all about getting your timing and positioning correct, and at times it almost plays like a shoot-em-up because of the quick reflexes required. So yeah, Ease 4 is another hit-or-miss game that you'll either love or hate. Ease 5, Lost Kevin, Kingdom of Sand, goes back to traditional top-down adventure combat, where you're hacking and slashing with swords and such, and this time around, Adol is investigating a desert city that vanished, and once again, he ends up down a rabbit hole after uncovering something sinister. The star of the show here is the Magic System, which allows you to mix and combine elements to create brand new spells. Very cool. This game may be different than the other Ease games, but it's still a quality playthrough, and if you found this one too easy, there's also an expert version floating around out there that you can try out. Wow, you're still watching this? Alright, well, sticking with strictly North American releases, if I had to pick the best games on this list, I'd go with Secret of Mana, Illusion of Gaia, Soul Blazer, and if you want something different, go with Shadow Run, and while Terra Enigma may have been PAL region only, that one is definitely worth seeking out. If you include Super Famicom Japan-only games, then I gotta throw in Seiken to Tetsu 3 and Front Mission Gun Hazard as must-plays, with Crystal Beans from Dungeon Explorer being a fun, under-appreciated game that not many know about, and if you wanna get really weird, then you gotta check out Chaos Seed. And I wanna thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your Thanksgiving. Cheers.