 That's struc— Back in the late 90's, the first fan translation for a Super Famicom game I ever saw was for Final Fantasy V. That project helped inspire a slew of other translation projects as we move into the 2000s for games likeASHSTRATE romanceang saga 3 and secondinsetsu 3. Notice how all of those are square soft games And that's no coincidence, of the 100's of Super Famicom games that were never translated to English, why not start with translating square soft RPGs? I mean, the ones that did come over at the time were pretty frickin' great. Yet in that group of early translations, AlkaHest got lumped in somehow. It was only published by Square, it was developed by Hal Laboratory. That's right, the same people who made the Kirby games, they made a top-down action RPG too, and it never came over from Japan, and it's a pretty dang good game, too. I remember playing this one in high school on an early version of the Z SNES emulator. AlkaHest comes across as an amalgamation of a bunch of action RPGs and top-down action games, among other things. I get a big Soul Blazer vibe from this one, but it's also got elements from games like Magic Sword, Illusion of Gaia, and Secret of Mana. I compare it to Soul Blazer in particular because of the enemy design and the wonky hit detection that works both with you and against you. I mean, okay, I wasn't exactly aiming for that enemy, but that works. The most obvious parallel with Soul Blazer, and Illusion of Gaia for that matter as well, is the way you unlock new areas the further you progress, hitting these blocks that send you zipping around to otherwise unreachable areas. The gameplay here is really satisfying because it's so simple. Press Y to attack, C enemy, kill enemy, enemy go boom. Hold Y for a charged attack, run in any direction by double-tapping the D-pad, and hold still without pressing anything to use your shield. In addition to that, right away within the first section of the game, you get your first companion, a magician named Garstein, who complements your sword attacks with projectiles. Press the X button and he'll unleash a full-screen attack. However, those can only be used when you have an appropriate number of SP or special points. There are five alleys you partner up with throughout the game, but unfortunately, Alka has to still single-player only. Still, the companions here are handled kind of like in the game Magic Sword. They just stick closely to you and use their unique ability when called upon. To be honest, you're really only going to be using Princess Elixir to heal during boss battles, and it doesn't really matter who else you use the rest of the game, although once you befriend the dragon goddess Nevis, I mean, it's hard to turn down fighting alongside a dragon. That's pretty dang cool. Meanwhile, the story is exactly what you'd expect from a game like this. It starts a thousand years ago with some swordsman hero guy sealing away a powerful demon named Alkahest with the help of Earth's four powerful guardians. Fast-forward to present day and the seal is about to be broken, only this time there's a lackey-involved named Babylon that you have to deal with. You play as Alan, the new swordsman hero guy, and you start the game getting your ass kicked before getting bailed out by one of the four guardians. It gives you a sword and a shield and tells you to meet it inside the cave, but that's not that easy because the air in there is unbreathable, so you gotta find the air mask. Once you get that, you need a torch to see, a hammer to smash boulders, and ice boots to walk over lava, and you proceed from there. Nothing too complicated, just find this item that unlocks this part of the game, and so on and so forth throughout eight stages and boss fights. Eventually you earn guardian abilities in tandem with your sword attack, and you can flip between them using the L and R buttons, but you can only use them if you have enough MP. Another thing that makes Alka Hest a bit unusual is that the leveling system is tied to continues. That's right, the number in the top right that says next, that's not to level up, that's just to earn your next continue. There's even a password system here. So yeah, this game is structured just like an arcade dungeon crawler, but combined with adventure and action RPG elements, like earning better weapons and armor while managing your MP and SP, there's a lot going on here. But unfortunately that leads me to this game's biggest flaw. There may be a lot going on here, but Alka Hest is over before you know it. You can beat this game in just a few hours. It's definitely not the easiest game. It can be challenging and pretty dang frustrating at times, but this game was just too short. A sequel at least would have been nice, but it's not out there. Otherwise, Alka Hest gets all the other stuff down just fine. The visuals here look great, and the music fits the action perfectly. Each track has a sense of urgency behind it that I really like. So yeah, Alka Hest is a big melting pot of a ton of different styles while still being a simple and accessible game that anyone can pick up and play, and that's a really tough trick to pull off. I would recommend this one to anyone that loves top-down action games like Soul Blazer, Secret of Mana, or even stuff like Smash TV. And I would also recommend it to people who are into arcade beat'em ups who are looking for something with a little extra. One thing I should say is that the English patch for this game is very old, and the game needs to be patched twice, once with the original patch, and once with a fix. Otherwise the password system will not work. But yeah, Alka Hest is worth your time. It's a fantastic blend of a ton of different gameplay elements, yet it doesn't overcomplicate anything. It's still a simple pick-up-and-play action game.