Albion

A rare RPG offering from Blue Byte, a German company mostly known for city builder and strategy titles.  Albion is a game clearly inspired by early '90s Ultima with its top-down view, mouse-driven interaction and a heavy focus on NPC dialog (almost to a point).  It even works in a few elements of Ultima Underworld with its towns and dungeons navigated in a first-person perspective.  Unlike Ultima, though, there's no real opportunity to indulge in your evil influences - you just get a scolding if you try to steal anything, and there's no opportunity to kill NPCs except in scripted battles.  The game rewards puzzle solving with experience points, which is a nice contrast to most RPGs of the time that only reward inventing excuses to kill as many things as possible.  Despite predating it by over a decade the storyline bears a strong resemblance to James Cameron's Avatar, right down to the catlike alien race that lives in harmony with nature and the central conflict between the capitalistic aliens (humans) and the natives being remarkably similar.  Or 1992's Ferngully if you prefer, though sadly there's no singing Tim Curry to liven up the stock plot and characters.  Combat is turn based affair set on a grid, utilizing melee weapons, magic and firearms; though ammo for those is remarkably rare and should probably be saved for especially tough enemies.  Progression through the game is also very linear, with little opportunity to explore freely and no real player choice other than being able to choose your party composition for some key events. This can be problematic at times, too - if you're simply too low on resources to overcome a particular combat challenge and have no way to get more, you can be forced to reload a save several hours back, or even restart entirely.

Albion is a pretty forgotten game nowadays, and for good reason - it's not especially memorable other than its unique and bizarre visuals.  Nothing about it is particularly bad, but not a lot really stands out either; it's pretty much the textbook example of an average '90s CRPG.  Maybe worth a look if you're into seeking out amusing obscurities, but I'd readily recommend playing through plenty of other '90s RPGs before this one.

 

Developer: Blue Byte
Publisher: Blue Byte
Released: 1995
Platform: PC

Deltarune (Chapter 5)

I'm always reluctant to play the latest chapters of Deltarune.  Not because they're not great (they definitely are) but because they're over with so quickly and I'm always left wanting more of these wonderful adventures.  In a way, though, I'm also glad they're as short as they are - you just know if this franchise was being released by a giant corporation they'd demand it be some super dry open world game with tons of collectibles and fifteen times as many fights; not because it benefits the story in any way, but because they need to fill out some publisher's arbitrary length quota.  In addition to a fantastic and imaginative game designer, Toby Fox continues to be one of the most instinctively clever, funny and charming creative talents out there.  His characters are consistently unique, memorable and funny; even when they're meant to be intentionally obnoxious they still get a ton of laughs from me.  They also manage to be surprisingly touching during the more dramatic moments, which is no small feat considering how outlandish the whole scenario and many of the designs are.  The game mechanics continue to surprise too, with Chapter 5 working in puzzle-platformer elements and even a clever parody of Phoenix Wright's trials during one memorable combat sequence.  All that, plus the consistently beautiful 2D art (even a full-blown anime sequence at one point) and fantastic music make this yet another memorable entry in the episodic adventures of Deltarune.  I'm still hooked, and the months or years it'll take to bring this story to its conclusion are going to pass really slowly.

Developer: Toby Fox
Publisher: Toby Fox, 8-4
Released: 2026
Platform: PC, macOS Switch, Switch 2, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4

Earthbound Beginnings Remake

A fan project that began life nearly two decades ago and finally saw a release in 2026.  Earthbound Beginnings Remake (part of the Earthbound Collection project) is a modification of 1995's Earthbound, utilizing that game's engine and quality of life improvements (with a few of its own, like a run button and buying multiple items at a time) to recreate Earthbound Beginnings' world and gameplay.  Sometimes to a fault - the game's difficulty is still quite uneven, with some downright difficult enemy-packed areas, overly strong attacks and debilitating status effects hampering you seemingly every step of the way.  It definitely still feels like a punishingly hard NES game as you play it.  There is clearly a lot of care put into the presentation too - the sprites are faithfully recreated from the original game and given a 16-bit facelift, and while some music tracks are modified or carried straight from Earthbound (including the unused haunted house theme), others are recreated expertly in its sound font.  Despite a few rough edges, this is a high-quality project and well worth a look for any serious Earthbound fan.  It's also very easy to play - there's an online patcher on their website, so all you have to do is provide an unmodified ROM of Earthbound and then run it with an emulator or flash cart of your choice.

Developer: Earthbound Collection Team
Publisher: Earthbound Collection Team
Released: 2026
Platform: SNES