 When I make videos about Super Famicom role-playing games that never left Japan, I try and highlight the weirder ones that the powers that be at the time may have thought were just too weird for Western audiences, stuff like Chaos Seed, Energy Breaker, and Dark Half, just to name a few. But in the case of something like Emerald Dragon, this is just a plain old good story, with good dialogue and some interesting and entertaining characters. I can only speculate why it was never officially translated, but thankfully we can enjoy the great work of Translation Corporation who provided a fantastic translation here. You play as Atrushan, a young dragon who notices a shipwreck with one survivor, a little girl who can't remember her name or where she came from. She's given the name Tamron, and she's treated like a younger sister to the dragons. Time passes, Tamron grows older, and naturally she wants to find out about her past and return home. There's two problems with this, one is that there's a demon army running loose causing all sorts of chaos, and two is that Ishban, Tamron's home, is cursed to dragons. So Atrushan and all other dragons for that matter can't exist there, or at least not without some help. After breaking off his horn to give to Tamron so she can use it to call him whenever she's in trouble, Atrushan unveils a silver scale that enables him to change into human form to find her, three years after she left to find her home. The story progresses from there, where Atrushan runs into all sorts of characters like princes, priestesses, drunkards, archers, sorcerers, and so on. And they're all represented brilliantly by some fantastic and expressive pixel art that comes with each dialogue box, and that little touch really goes a long way in giving this game a lot of personality. Anyway from there, in order to defeat the leader of the demon army, you must locate what are called the Emerald Graces that will give you the power to summon the magic of the Emerald Dragon, and there's a couple other twists later on that you'll discover for yourself. The story in Emerald Dragon is well done because it feels like a lived in world, and events unfold organically, nothing feels too forced, it didn't feel like there were too many wasted moments, and one aspect that really helps is the chat function. Similar to what you see in the Dragon Quest series, you can do this anytime you're stuck or you forget what you're supposed to do, and it brings up a dialogue sequence between your party. It's rarely just a dry statement like oh we should go here. There is always some life to the interaction, it's really well done. I guess that's the best way to describe the story, the flow, and the characters of the game. Everything's got some life to it, you're not just lifelessly grinding or shuffling from place to place. One thing that may turn people away from Emerald Dragon however is the combat system. Yeah, there's the usual world map with random battles, finding weapons and equipment and chests and buying it in shops and all that, but in combat you only control Autrushan, everyone else in your party is AI controlled, and that's kind of a bummer. The combat is kind of interesting though, it's a top-down view where you move around on a large grid, the more steps you take, the more your range shrinks, represented by the highlighted area here, and the more your range shrinks, the less powerful your attack, represented by the bar up top. You attack by simply running into enemies just like in the old East games. So yeah, the battle graphics here aren't exactly Breath of Fire 2 or even Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, it's pretty low-fi, but it is at least something a little different. Yeah, it's a big let down here that every other character in your party is AI controlled, and in addition the only characters that you can level up are Autrushan and Tamron, but to the game's credit the AI isn't that awful, the characters aren't as reckless and stupid as they are in a game like Dark Half, plus Autrushan can turn back into a dragon for some cool spells, and he learns a new one for each Emerald Grace you obtain. In another nice touch, each character does a different scream when they're attacked. That's an unexpected touch I don't think I've seen in any other SNES or Super Famicom game. It's nice that the AI isn't stupid, but they might be too good here. Sure it seems frustrating that you don't get to choose one to use a healing spell, but they heal constantly, so that's not a problem, and that made the battles really easy. I was coasting through this game, and you only get a game over when Autrushan dies, so really all you have to do is make sure he doesn't get surrounded, and just move him out of harm's way, and you'll breeze right through this one. I should mention of course that Emerald Dragon was ported to the Super Famicom, the game originated on the PC 8801 and PC 9801, and also got versions made for the X68000, MSX2, and much later the PC Engine CD and Super Famicom. The PC Engine CD version is said to be the definitive version of the game since it comes with great looking cutscenes and voice acting to compliment the story, but there hasn't been an English translation made for that one yet. So, if you want to play Emerald Dragon, you're probably better served playing the English translated Super Famicom edition. I enjoyed this one, there's some impressive pixel art, the music is very good and fits the game well, I liked the story, the world, the characters, and I like that there's little bonus side quests here and there, like the casino and the arenas you'll find in certain towns. What really stands out though is the sharp dialogue, thanks to the people at Translation Corporation. This is one of the rare games where most of the time it actually feels like it's how real people talk, so kudos to them. Emerald Dragon isn't perfect though, the battle system is something a little different but the combat gets boring because through so much of it you're just sitting there watching. I confess I used the fast forward button on the SNES 9x emulator a bit on this one, so yeah I wouldn't think of Emerald Dragon as among the ranks of the best role-playing games the SNES has to offer, but it's certainly a worthwhile playthrough if you want to scratch that JRPG itch.