Gaming off the Beaten Path

It's been a long time coming. A LONG time. But it's finally here. A character that deservers, nay, needs to be the star of his own game has finally received his just desserts. It's been more than 30 years, but Ultros finally has his own game! I mean, it's right there in the name! Final Fantasy VI's resident octupus, the true breakout star of that legendary game, is finally a leading man (or leading cephalopod, as it were). I can't wait to dive into what I am sure is going to be a tentacle-riffic adventure! But, hey, wait a minute...where's all the stuff from the world of Final Fantasy VI we all know and love? No Serpent Trench, or opera house, or colosseum or anywhere else Ulty likes to hang out? And what about the other characters from the game? Where's Terra? Or Edgar? Or Sabin? Or anyone? Why are there bugs everywhere? And why is everything neon? I'm starting to think that I've been mislead. In all seriousness, this week's game has, unfo...

Last week, we took a look at Far East of Eden Zero, a fan translated game that stood absolutely no chance of ever being localized for Western markets based on its themes and story. But what about its gameplay? I think before I get into the details of the combat and other systems, I need to talk about something I glossd over last week; the graphics. FEOEZ very well could be the single best looking game on the SNES (or I guess the Super Famicon), and that's not an exaggeration. These are some of the best 2D sprites I've ever seen and it was legitimately shocking how much detail they were able to get into some of these assets. If you told me this was an early 5th generation game, I probably would have believed you. The story is largely told through cutscenes, which feature some incredible images that have a surprsing amount of movement to them. Overall, the game looks great and it sounds ok too, that was definitely one of the bigger positives here. I will say some of the gameplay...

It's time to dive once again into the world of fan translated JRPGs. A lot of these came from the end of the 4th/beginning of the 5th generation and a good portion of them are from series that never left Japan. That's not true of all of them, of course. Many of the early Shin Megami Tensei games have never been officially released in the United States and for a long time the only way to play Star Ocean or Mother (Earthbound Beginnings, if you will) was through a translation patch. But a lot of these games were never translated because the franchises they are a part of just aren't a thing in the West, or at the very least weren't at the time of release. That's not the only reason games didn't get ported, but it's a big one. It really is wild how many RPG series' exist in Japan that we just never think about, even to this day. And this week's game sort of fits into that category. Because while it's a major series in Japan, it hasn't had a sing...