The Dark Heart of Uukrul

Made as the pet project of Ian Boswell and Martin Buis, it was released in 1989 by Broderbund - a company not exactly known for RPGs.  It got good reviews from magazines, but bue to a lack of marketing on Broderbund's part, it sold less than 5,000 copies and largely fell into obscurity for many years before eventually seeing a rerelease on GOG in 2020.  I can certainly see why it retained enough of a following to get one too; while it is a pretty standard dungeon crawling RPG, it shows a lot more polish than many of its contemporaries.  It has a fully-featured automap that even allows the player to add custom notes to specific spaces, and a surprising amount of detail is given to descriptions and prose found within the dungeon, so the puzzles feel natural and well-designed rather than like irritating guesswork.  Combat feels like the '80s Ultima titles, though with a bit more polish - each round is broken up into a movement phase and then an attack phase where the party takes actions, and each sprite has quite a few animation frames.  Character creation seems to take inspiration too - while you must have a party comprised of one of each class (Fighter, Paladin, Priest and Magician), you answer a series of unique personality questions to determine their starting stats.  The spell system is given a lot of thought too, with your magician and priest needing to acquire the rings of specific gods/circles of magic to cast certain tiers of spells, and then know the correct prayers/words to use in order to invoke them.  (The gods are temperamental, though, and may refuse to aid priests or even damage them if they invoke too often).  Even little touches like the health bars that go up and down as you take damage or heal it are clever touches, as is the experience system; each character gets a different share, though it's weighted toward getting kills in combat.  There's a lot going on for a 1989 game, and it's kind of a shame it didn't get more attention in its day; thankfully it's got a new lease on life with the digital age, so it's one to check out if you enjoy these types of games.

Developer: Digital Studios Limited
Publisher: Broderbund
Released: 1989
Platform: Apple II, PC

 

Ghost of Yōtei

The sequel to the hit 2019 game Ghost of Tsushima, though storywise it has no direct connection; instead it's set in rural Japan in the 1600s and follows Atsu, a mercenary on a quest of revenge against her family's killers, the ruthless Saito clan.  Gameplay-wise it remains very similar to Tsushima, though many new elements are added.  One can disarm enemies now and throw their weapons to inflict heavy damage on others, and by completing some sidequests you earn the aid of Yōtei's wolves in battle.  You also utilize a wider variety of melee weapons, including dual-wielded katanas, a yari and even a kusarigama, adding more variety to battles.  You're also afforded more leeway in how you approach all the game's missions, as you can defeat five of the main antagonists in any order.  Side-stories are also better paced and less monotonous than the first game's in general, and and optional objectives have more variety, from hunting bounties to dueling ronin.  Basically, if you enjoyed the first one, this is a more polished and fun version of what you got the first time around; as someone who had a great deal of fun in Tsushima, it can only be a good thing to me.

Absolutely gorgeous-looking game, too.

Developer: Sucker Punch
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Released: 2025
Platform: PlayStation 5

Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution

 This one has a bit of an odd story behind it.  It began development in 2002 as a followup to the first Shantae game on Game Boy Color, but was shelved when WayForward wasn't able to secure a publisher.  Many years later Matt Bozon streamed the unfinished prototype to see if fans would be interested in seeing the game get a wider release, and positive reception led him to dust off the twenty-year-old source code, polish and finish the game and finally release it, both as a limited-printing Game Boy Advance cartridge and an enhanced digital version across modern platforms.  So while it's the sixth game to be released, it's the second game in the chronology.  Fittingly it feels much like Risky's Revenge, though with a slightly different gimmick - you cross through doorways that take you between foreground and background layers, and there are large actuators you can hit that rotate the foreground and background to change the layout of the levels.  Transforming is also considerably quicker (you just hold down the button and press a direction), and each of your forms also gains several upgrades throughout.  With all that on the table, it's more Shantae - charming Zelda-likes with a solid (and often risque) sense of humor and some very polished gameplay and animations, and more of that format is never a bad thing in my book.

Developer: WayForward
Publisher: WayForward, Limited Run Games
Released: 2025
Platform: PC, Switch, Playstation 4, PlayStation 5, XBox One, XBox Series, Game Boy Advance