 Right off the bat, TenGuy Machio's Zero, or Far East of Eden Zero, a JRPG made by Red Company, hits you over the head with this frickin awesome intro – with incredible looking art design, some great inspiring music, and some truly fantastic sprite work – with a ridiculous amount of detail. How is it that this game is able to put forth visuals that almost look like they could be an early Saturn or Playstation title? because this is one of only three Super Famicom games to utilize the SPC-7110 expansion chip, a data decompression chip that allows developers to put a lot more stuff onto a cartridge than they normally could, and this spectacular-looking game is the result. However, unfortunately, that chip also explains why this game was never localized in the West, because, number one, that extra chip made this game just a tad more expensive than other games, and number two, extra space means extra text, and holy crap, this game has a ton of text in it, which means that any sort of English translation would have taken a very long time, and seeing that this game was released in December of 1995, you can understand why publisher Hudson was already looking to fifth-generation consoles at that point. It wasn't until 2017 that we got an English patch for this game thanks to folks like Buu, Tom, and DDS translation, and apparently this patch was 15 years in the making, and I can believe it because, like I said, good god this game has so much text in it, it makes the Golden Sun series blush. The story here starts out in the land of Japan, which is divided up into six kingdoms. The successor to the king of the dragon kingdom is being selected by what's referred to as the Eternal Flame, and the flame surprisingly selects this younger dude over his older brother, which pisses him off so badly he opens the gates of hell and allows himself to be possessed by a demon lord and takes over the world. Ew, shoulder siblings, am I right? Meanwhile, your character, Higan of the Fire Clan, is told by his grandfather that he is to become the fire hero and save the world from the tyranny of the demon world and all that good stuff. I should mention quickly that this is actually the fourth game in a series that started in 1989 on the PC Engine CD-ROM, but you don't need to play those games to get the story here. In fact, the story itself isn't really the hook of this game. I mean, in terms of narrative, there's really nothing that's all that staggeringly original, but the sheer depth of dialogue, characters, and NPCs here is pretty dang impressive. This game really does have a golden sun vibe, and that seemingly everyone in this game has a million things to say, which is both good and bad. It's good because it definitely makes the game immersive, and it does a great job establishing a lived-in world, but it's also kind of annoying because as that old saying goes, there are certain people where if you ask them what time it is and they tell you how to build a clock tower, well, every one of those people are in this game somehow. Still, TenGuyMacchio Zero does have some other interesting quirks that were definitely original for the time, and the game should get full credit for taking advantage of all the extra space the expansion ship provides. For instance, there's what the game refers to as a personalized live game system, or in other words, the time in your real everyday life matches the time in the game, so if it's 8 AM for you in reality, it's 8 AM in the game as well. Some stuff might not be available to you depending on what time it is or even what day of the week it is, like shops might not be open or special items might be out of stock, and what's really cool is that this game has festivals that happen on certain dates in certain locations, so it's almost like you have to create a schedule for yourself to make sure you don't miss anything. It's not a new idea for games in general, but this is one of the first games to implement this system, and it's pretty crazy to see in a Super Famicom game. But unfortunately, other than that, this is pretty much just your typical role-playing game. You've got random battles, equipable weapons and armor, experience points for leveling up, shops where you can buy stuff. Really, the only big difference between the combat here and, say, the Dragon Quest series is that you don't learn spells or techniques through leveling up, but instead by finding hermits that will teach you stuff. There's really nothing all that unique when it comes to the usual RPG combat formula here, which again can be a good thing and a bad thing. Yeah, it's kind of the same old same old, but hey, that's all some people want. Not everyone wants crazy mechanics you see in other Super Famicom games like Energy Breaker. Sometimes the typical turn-based combat is like comfort food, nothing wrong with that, but I do understand if you get a bit burnt out on this sort of thing because the encounter rate here is, sadly, pretty bad. It's not as bad as stuff like Breath of Fire, but it's still a lot to deal with. I almost get the feeling that the combat here is de-emphasized by design because the game's strengths here are found in other areas and they're pretty obvious. There's the aforementioned time and date system, and there's also the graphics and music which are both incredible. The soundtrack for this game is something like 4 hours long, but what's really crazy is the amount of detail in the art design. Believe it or not, there are no palette swapped enemies in the entire game. Every enemy is different, and that's definitely something no other 16-bit RPG can claim. And like I said, this game's world feels very established and filled out. There's quite a bit of exploring you can do, and there's all sorts of wacky stuff, like being able to raise your own pet. Yeah, you can't bring it with you and it doesn't really do anything, but it's something you can do, I guess. Still, I do wish the story and the characters were more interesting. Sure, the world itself is cool, but the story is paint-by-numbers, save-the-world type stuff, and there's hardly any character progression at all, despite there being thousands of words of text here. Add on to the fact that this is a very grind-heavy game and the fact that this is one of those games where you have to check everything. All the pots, dresser drawers, every spot and every house could have an item, and after a while it just gets kinda dull. The TenGuy MacQ series would continue onto other platforms, and this would be the series' only entry on Super Famicom, but yeah, TenGuy MacQ Zero may not have a whole lot of originality, and it may not be all that unique, especially in terms of story and combat, but it executes the basics well enough. It falls far short of matching titles like Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy VI, or even other Super Famicom games that weren't localized like Live Alive, because those games had distinct stories with real character arcs, whereas TenGuy MacQ Zero feels like the same old same old. Again, that can be good enough for some folks that are just looking to scratch that JRPG itch, and this will definitely get that job done considering the incredible graphics and music, but just keep your expectations in check, because bigger doesn't always mean better. Alright, I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.