 Hello and welcome to part 3 of my Super Famicom RPG series for role-playing games that were only released in Japan, but have since received fan-made English translations that make the games playable today. If you haven't seen parts 1 and 2, I recommend checking those out. I cover everything from Bahamut Lagoon to Final Fantasy V, from Live to Live to Star Ocean. A lot of great games there. If you're unfamiliar with this series, I try and create a kind of video Wikipedia, so to speak, with each game. So I'm just hitting the main bullet points, like gameplay, story, and whether it's worth checking out or not. To start with here, I know I said at the end of the last episode that I'd be taking a look at the Romantic Saga Super Famicom trilogy, but the first two games don't really have reliable English patches, it doesn't appear that they're entirely finished. So I wasn't able to get very far. I should mention the first game does have a remake on the PlayStation 2. However, Romantic Saga 3 is perfectly playable. You pick from eight different characters, you can recruit tons and tons of other characters for your party. In various towns throughout the game, water mages, pirates, merchants, it's a cool feature. From there the game is as non-linear as it gets, everything from the story to the characters to the battles. Unfortunately, I get the feeling that this game doesn't translate very well, because I was really confused as to what to do or what was going on outside of the opening scene. And then there's issues like having a very limited amount of items you can carry, that's just flat out annoying and really shouldn't be an issue in a game made in 1995. Characters level up individually instead of collectively, that's both good I guess and annoying depending on how you look at it. I should mention that this is actually the sixth game in the series, there were two on Super Famicom and three on Game Boy, that were released in the US as the Final Fantasy Legends series, all of which I like more than this game. There's a lot of open-ended functionality to the Romantic Saga 3, but I'm never sure why I'm doing something or where I'm going, and based on what I've read from fans of the series, I'm not alone in thinking that. And it's not just from not playing the other games in the series, the game's just kind of a mess. There's non-linear, and then there's just a lack of focus. This comes across as the latter. To be honest, there are a lot of other Super Famicom RPGs I'd rather play. Next is the mega popular Shin Megami Tensai series, which got to start with three games on the Super Famicom, the first in 1992, the next two in 1994, and all of which have imported or remade entirely on everything from the Game Boy Advance to PlayStation Network and the Wii U. Anyway, this is open-ended, non-linear gaming done right. Starting with the first game, you're a kid growing up in Tokyo who has a series of dreams that feature some crazy imagery. You wake up in modern-day Japan, but everything seems off. Your neighborhood has been sectioned off because of a murder spree. Eventually, what you see in your dreams starts to become a reality, and that's just the very tip of the iceberg. The presentation of the story in this game is excellent. You really feel like you're entering another world when you play this game. Yeah, the graphics are really low-fi, but the music goes a long way, and the overall mood presented here is always a bit creepy. As for the gameplay, it's a first-person dungeon crawler with turn-based battles similar to Arcana in the Wizardry series. You go around collecting demons, which is kind of trial and error at first, but soon you can pay them to join your party and fight for you, and eventually even fuse them together to create stronger demons. The battles are pretty typical for the time, but this game is big on exploration more than anything else, so if you're like me, and you constantly feel compelled to check every little nook and cranny, then you'll be rewarded by playing Shin Megami Tensai. It should be noted that this game is hard as hell, though, so be prepared for that. Next, there's the sequel, Shin Megami Tensai 2, and immediately you can tell the graphics haven't upgraded, but the presentation and gameplay remain very similar. There's a lot of improvements here. The demon negotiation system is a lot more flexible, and there's a lot more variables and unpredictability, and the controls overall are just more intuitive and user-friendly. The R button brings up the auto map, for instance. As for the story, the game takes place several decades after the first game ended. I don't want any spoilers here, but I'll just say that things ended very badly in the first game to the point that people left for an encapsulated city called Tokyo Millennium that's been built over the remains of Tokyo. You play as Hawk, a guy who has no memory of his past, and the destiny of the world lies in his hands. Again, this is excellent open-ended storytelling with a ton of possibilities. These games remind me of games like Terranigma and even Chrono Trigger, where you keep playing just to see what happens next. This series really understood what it was at its core, to the point that the same developers Atlas even created Shin Megami Tensai IF, the third and last game of the series on Super Famicom. This game is, as the title says, a what-if scenario, if things had happened a bit differently. Unfortunately, there isn't an English patch for this game that's been finished, but I just thought the idea of the game was really cool. Anyway, the first two games do have English patches and are well worth checking out. The gameplay and the story are unique for the era and hold up pretty well. Next is Energy Breaker, developed by Neverland, who also created the Lufia games for Super Nintendo. This is a change of pace, though, as it's mostly a tactical RPG. However, it is similar to Lufia in that you can explore freely and often find tons of hidden items all over the place. The battles, however, are unlike any game I've played. To start with, you have balance points that you use anytime you want to attack, move on the grid, or use items. And if you take damage, you have less balance and consequently less flexibility. There are also convenient items you can find that help you learn spells by allocating the right points to fire, wind, water, and earth elements. What, no heart? Captain Planet would be very disappointed. Anyway, this system reminds me of the spell learning system in Treasure of the Rudras. It's the same kind of idea, and it's really well done all the same. Another interesting feature is that you can choose your mood when talking to people, although I'm not sure that really does a whole lot. In the story, you play as Myra, yet another character who's lost her memory. But after seeing a fortune teller, she's off on a quest to search for her identity when she runs into a cast of characters that recruit her for help on various other quests. The story builds nicely, and there's all sorts of insinuations about the knowledge of science versus faith in God, which would probably go a long way in explaining why this game was never released anywhere else, which is a real shame. Because Energy Breaker is fantastic. It's right up there with Treasure of the Rudras, Live-A-Live, Bahamut Lagoon, Psychon Tensetsu 3, and some of the best games I've looked at on these videos so far. It helps that the English patch is also really well done. Go check this one out. Next, we've got Front Mission and Front Mission Gun Hazard. The first game in the series has much more of a strategy slant, and it calls to mind the Shining Force series and Final Fantasy tactics. You control mech robots called Wanzers, and they're equipped with hand, shoulder, leg, and body components. And leveling up depends entirely on what you use the most. For example, if you prefer close range attacks like I do, you'll learn various weapon or targeting techniques. That's all well and good, but what's really annoying about this game is that you have to equip each mech robot one by one, and that takes forever. There's a lot of variety in the battle maps, but not much variety in the towns, unfortunately. But yeah, this game is time consuming, even for a strategy RPG. The story here feels huge and very much lived in, if that makes sense. There's two superpowers fighting for territory in a neutral area. Captain Lloyd Clive is set up and ambushed by the enemy while making it look like he betrayed his own people, and that leads to him getting discharged from the military. A year later, Clive gets recruited to join a group of mercenaries, and you go from mission to mission to find out the enemy's true motives. I really do enjoy the story here, but again, this game is so time consuming, so just be wary of that. I have to mention that there's an English port for the DS that came out not too long ago, and that adds a brand new scenario, which is pretty cool. The Super Famicom sequel, Front Mission, Gun Hazard, is one of the best games I've ever looked at for one of these lists. This game is like if Cybernator or Metal Warriors were in action RPG. There's all sorts of different mechsuits, weapons, and upgrades that you can equip as you gain experience and level up. You also have people fighting alongside you in real time, kind of like Secret of Mana, and you can program their tendencies and instincts to a certain extent. It should be noted that the game is very linear, and that might turn some people off, but the game is far from boring. As you can see here, the game is absolutely gorgeous, and the soundtrack is just awesome. Both Umatsu from the Final Fantasy series and Mitsuda from Chrono Trigger contributed to this soundtrack, so you know it's good. This game pushes the hardware of the Super Famicom maybe more than any other game I've ever played. The story here isn't anything new. It's the 21st century, Earth's resources are running out, schemes are hatched by evil governments to hoard what's left, and rebellions are formed, wars are fought, you get the idea. Obviously the gameplay here is the hook for a game like this, but Front Mission Gun Hazard is like a dream game. Do you love running gun games like Cybernator? Do you love action RPGs like Secret of Mana? Then get this game. Last there's the two Cyber Knight games. The first game is a direct port of the original 1990 PC Engine game. I haven't been able to play that, just the Super Famicom game. This came out really early in the Super Famicom lifespan, and it shows. As you can tell with the graphics and sound here, the game isn't bad though, but it is hard to describe. It reminds me of the first Front Mission game, where you can equip tons of different stuff all over your robot. This game is frustrating more than anything though. True to the early 90s, the encounter rate in this game is ridiculous. The battles are really slow, so this game is pretty frustrating. You gotta be pretty hardcore into RPGs to get into this one. For the battles, there's two life meters, one for your pilot and one for the mech robot, and you can cure and repair both. It's mostly typical console style RPG battles with a couple strategic elements thrown in. This is a game deep in options and customization, but a lot of it can be pretty confusing, and the battles can take forever. In the story, you're being chased by some space pirates, and in a desperate attempt to get away, you end up at the edge of the universe, and you and five others commandeer these modules to fight your way back to Earth, and on your trip back, you stumble upon other planets and missions. There's a couple interesting ideas in the gameplay here, but again, this game is not aged that well, and you really gotta be hardcore into RPGs to dive into this one. In the sequel, Cyber Knight 2, you've returned to Earth only to find it taken over by a military dictatorship and you're thrown in jail. The second game improves on the first in just about every way, better graphics, sound, music, and a more streamlined battle system. If you played through the first Cyber Knight game, but didn't like it much, I recommend checking out the sequel instead. It's a lot more cleaned up and straightforward and better paced. The only really annoying thing here is the intro is really long and serves as kind of a game demo showing what the battles are like, instead of, you know, letting you play the freaking game yourself. Also, you can't heal during battles. That's pretty dumb. But there's plenty of positives here too, like going outside of your modules similar to Metal Warriors. This is a fine game. It's still a flawed game, but its flaws can be easily forgiven. Alright, there you go. I hope to do another one of these videos soon. Thanks for watching. Have a great rest of your day.