Alundra

The debut game of Matrix Software, a company that would later work on remakes and side-games in  several prominent franchises like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest and Professor Layton, and would produce a few hits of their own.  Alundra was a modestly successful "Zelda-Like" on the Playstation, putting a heavy focus on puzzles and personal interactions with a village of NPCs who are attacked in their dreams by demons.  Alundra himself has the ability to enter their dreams and vanquish these demons, saving them from their fates, and uncover the truth of what's really happening on the island.  It also carries a rather dark and heavy mood overall, which was a pretty stark contrast compared to the Zelda games but it became a hallmark of the Playstation in its early days.  This is aided in no small part by some talented sprite work, smooth animation and strong, moody music from Kohei Tanaka; mostly known for anime soundtracks but also for games like Just Breed, Sakura Wars and the two Gravity Rush games.  It's not quite as well-refined as a good Zelda, though - dungeon puzzles often aren't intuitive (and indeed, there were many times I wasn't aware there was even supposed to be a puzzle in a room until I checked a guide), combat is somewhat cumbersome and tends to drag since every enemy soaks up tons of hits before dying, and treasures earned from solving puzzles often just reward more healing items, which you can only carry a limited supply of anyway (often just one of each), so if you're not using them up almost constantly it can be a chore to backtrack and retrieve them later.  It also only had a few months to shine before Ocarina of Time hit the scene, setting a high standard for not just future Zelda games, but 3D action-adventure titles in general.  Matrix Software and Contrail tried to compete with a 3D adventure of their own called "Alundra 2" the following year, but its clunky controls, disconnected storyline and lackluster presentation spelled the end of the series.

Developer: Matrix Software
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment, Working Designs, Psygnosis
Released: 1997, 1998, 2007
Platforms: Playstation, Playstation Network

The Granstream Saga

Quintet never really got their footing back after Terranigma was passed up for a North American release; they hung on for a few more years, taking another crack or two at the RPG limelight, but eventually gave way to making mediocre budget titles before fading into obscurity.  Granstream Saga was an attempt to bring their usual style of grim-themed RPGs to a new generation, but it struggled to make headway among other juggernauts of the time (most particularly Final Fantasy VII, released the year prior).  This probably wasn't helped by its extremely restricted design -  the game is almost entirely linear with no chance to deviate from the set story path (even level gains are all pre-scripted events) and the combat is focused entirely on repetitious one-on-one duels, so it lacks the epic scale of other contemporary RPGs. Somehow it feels both high-budget and low-budget at the same time, with a lot of high-quality animated cutscenes, well-rendered environments and decent VO for the time, though the 3D animation is rather stiff in comparison and a lot of elements are depicted only through text rather than as onscreen events.  Unlike most lackluster RPGs, though, it recognizes its own shortcomings, providing a relatively brisk experience (15-20 hours) that doesn't overstay its welcome too much.  Granstream might hold some appeal for fans of games like Illusion of Gaia, Terranigma and Soul Blazer on the SNES, but it certainly doesn't outshine any of them.

Developer: Shade
Publisher: THQ
Released: 1998
Platforms: Playstation 1

Mega Man Legends

The second spinoff of the ever-popular Mega Man franchise was a very different turn, going from a 2D linear action game to a 3D open-world story-driven experience set in a very different universe from the earlier games; seemingly an intended competitor to the highly successful Ocarina of Time on Nintendo 64.  But does Mega Man Legends prove to be a worthy adventure, or do the PS1's limitations simply bog it down?

Mega Man began in the '80s and quickly became a fan favorite franchise, with five sequels on the NES alone and numerous spinoff series in subsequent years that took it in all sorts of different directions - from open-world action titles to choose-your-own-adventure games to card-collecting RPGs.  It's mostly fallen off in recent years save for the token compilation rereleases, but the dozens of games and spinoffs the franchise has spawned continue to have a strong fan following to this day for their formulaic, yet effective design and charming scenarios.

Mega Man Legends got attention for being the first series spinoff to debut on the Playstation, as well as the first Mega Man branded game to make the leap to 3D; not an easy thing for many fans to swallow after no less than seventeen previous games stuck to a 2D format.  It was another spinoff game too, seeming to take place in an entirely separate universe from Mega Man and Mega Man X, which led many to question why they didn't just make a new IP instead. 

Upon starting up the game, you quickly learn that it doesn't follow the Mega Man format very closely at all; there's no Robot Masters to fight, special weapons are assembled from parts and upgraded with money (dropped by defeating enemies) rather than through boss battles, and in true RPG fashion, MegaMan starts off with rather rudimentary equipment that you gradually upgrade over the course of the game; said upgrades are built from parts (including your helmet), purchased or found as the adventure goes on.  Even your basic mega Buster is pretty weak at first, gradually being upgraded with parts that improve its specs - Attack, Energy, Range and Rapid - which fit into two slots (later upgraded to three). 

Another thing you notice immediately is the very awkward control setup the game uses.  As it was built for the original Playstation before analog controls became standard, it uses a similar awkward "Tank Control" setup to the Resident Evil games - you turn left and right via the shoulder buttons, move forward and back with Up and Down on the D-Pad, and can sidestep via Left and Right.  Fortunately, this can be made slightly less awkward via the Options Menu, which allows you to sidestep via the shoulder buttons and rotate via the D-Pad, but it still feels a bit off, especially if (like me) you played Ocarina of Time on the Nintendo 64 beforehand.  Aiming is similarly awkward; like OOT you can lock on to your enemies, but bafflingly you cannot move while locked on at all, which leaves you very vulnerable to attack.  Fortunately your shots will automatically hone in on enemies that are centered on the screen even as you side-strafe, so there is little reason to use the lock-on save to occasionally hit an enemy above or below you.  Because of the digital controls, jumping is awkward too - you basically jump straight up or forward a fixed distance with no in-between.  Thankfully there isn't a lot of precise platforming in the game, but it is annoying when that comes up.

Where the game does shine, though, is in its presentation.  The game goes for an anime-esque presentation with colorful visuals, a striking style of design and characters that manage to be surprisingly distinct and expressive despite the low-poly aesthetic.  While there are no pre-rendered FMVs, there are quite a lot of cutscenes with full voiceover (which is surprisingly good for the time) and even some solid motion-captured animation for all the characters in them.  The Bonnes - recurring antagonists with an antihero bent - are easily the show-stealers, with some downright hilarious scenes and great acting every time they're onscreen - they even got their own spinoff game later with "The Misadventures of Tron Bonne", and Tron also appeared as a playable character in two of the Marvel VS Capcom games, so I'm definitely not the only one who thought so.  Even the music is quite nice - while nothing amazing, it's fitting, distinctive and catchy, though oddly most dungeons don't have it and simply utilize ambient noise instead. Basically, it feels like a good late '90s anime in video game form, so that keeps you playing through the gameplay frustrations.

There are quite a few of said frustrations throughout to be sure.  There are some pretty abrupt leaps in difficulty even early on - you go from a pretty easy starter dungeon straight into three consecutive missions topped off with boss battles, which is a pretty awkward way to start off any game, let alone one where you've had little chance to learn the mechanics and upgrade your character yet.  Normal enemies take similar leaps too - you go straight from weakling bots that die in only a few shots to gigantic monstrosities that take dozens of hits and will constantly knock you around, all requiring that you defeat them through long periods of circle-strafing or heavy subweapon fire.  Weapon upgrades can also be extremely expensive, requiring you to grind money for long periods of time to afford them.  There is also at least one instance where you can save in a place before another series of difficult boss battles, potentially making the game unwinnable if you don't have the parts on hand to defeat all three of them back-to-back.

Mega Man Legends is a relatively short game, clocking in at about eight to ten hours for a first playthrough - slightly more if you make a point of doing all the side content and minigames.  There is a fair amount of things to do not strictly related to the main quest - numerous characters will give out side missions and rewards once you complete them, and though there are not many dungeons in the game, each has quite a bit of hidden treasure to find, both in chests and hidden in various holes in the walls (which can be a bit hard to spot at first, as they don't look much different from the normal wall textures).  Minigames include a TV game show where you burst balloons, kick balls at targets or maneuver through obstacle courses with your rollerskates, and there are two difficulties to unlock after you finish the game; strangely, you're required to beat the game on Hard mode to unlock Easy mode.

All in all, Mega Man's leap to 3D isn't the smoothest, but far from the worst I've seen (and still leagues better than Mega Man X7 on the Playstation 2 - a game I've gone on record as saying is worse than the infamous DOS Mega Man games).  Its gameplay is rather awkward, clunky and weirdly balanced and the overall short length a bit offputting, but the strong presentation, captivating characters, interesting (and surprisingly detailed) setting and quite a lot of customizable weapons and pieces of gear make it a standout title regardless.  It's one I would love to see get a remake with some extra content and quality of life improvements, but as Capcom only seems to care about Monster Hunter, Street Fighter and Resident Evil these days, it seems increasingly unlikely to happen with each passing day.  Still, if you can find a copy, Mega Man Legends is worth a look as a flawed, but charming and quirky new spin for a fan-favorite franchise.

Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Platform: Playstation 1, Nintendo 64, PC, Playstation Portable
Released: 1998, 2001, 2005, 2015
Recommended Version: The Nintendo 64 port (released as "Mega Man 64" per the platform's naming trend) offers surprisingly little improvement over the original PS1 version; while it does look a bit sharper owing to having antialiasing and less polygon clipping, it suffers from a worse draw distance, choppier framerate and significantly lower audio quality, though it does surprisingly retain all of the voiceover from the PS1 release.  The analog stick isn't utilized well either; you still move and turn "tank control" style with it, which is pretty awkward.  There is also a PC version which runs a bit smoother and at a higher resolution, though it has some problems of its own - it's a straight port of the PS1 game, even retaining the same (redundant) messages about needing memory cards to save.  It also lacks many of the lighting effects of the original and the music doesn't loop properly (it's just stored as low-quality .wav files on the disc, which does at least make it upgradable or even replaceable).  Grab the PS1 version if you can; it's available both physically and as a digital download on the PS3/Vita store.  The PSP version is also worth a look (and bundled with 2 on the same UMD), though it's only available in Japanese.

Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven

Released five years after Might and Magic V, the sixth entry in the series represented a major overhaul for the franchise in a number of ways.  But does it successfully prove a more captivating experience while staying true to its roots, or was this just the beginning of the end for Might and Magic?

By 1998 DOS was pretty much on its way out and Windows gaming was becoming the new norm.  As were 3D graphics and faster-paced RPGs in general.  Might and Magic was a highly-acclaimed series in its time, but by the fourth and fifth entries it started to wear out and ramp up into ridiculous territory.  This was especially true if one played the extra storyline at the end of 5 when installed on top of 4 - Levels and experience points were handed out like Halloween candy, stats easily reached into the hundreds (HP and MP into the thousands) and combat became rather arbitrary as a result - you either took enemies out in one or two turns or they did the same to you.

So, when Might and Magic VI came out, it was little surprise that a lot would change in its five years of development.  It was the first in the series to be made exclusively for one platform (Windows, which had come to dominate the market by that time), it featured 3D graphics, CGI full-motion-video cutscenes and performance-captured actors for many of the characters, and most surprisingly, it ditched the grid-based movement of its predecessors in favor of more realistic open world roaming not unlike Ultima Underworld or Elder Scrolls, even allowing the player to switch freely between turn-based mode (for more granular options in combat) or free-form action (better when wandering and quickly taking out much weaker foes).  Progression was better thought-out too, with more evenly-distributed stat boosts and equipment throughout and most spells scaling with skills, rather than levels.

New World Computing didn't stop there, of course.  They also took the game's long development as a chance to streamline a number of mechanics, implement a more intricate skill system (again, seemingly drawing inspiration from Ultima Underworld or Elder Scrolls) and dial the general heights for statistics back to a more reasonable scale.  The most prominent example of this is seen right away - your party size is now four (no more, no less) and all characters are now human - there is no longer a selection of playable races.  Not that it made a major difference in the earlier games, but it's a bit of an odd omission after 5 games with it.  One can also bring aboard up to two "hirelings" that grant the party various benefits, though they never fight directly - they take an up-front payment and a percentage of all gold found in exchange for things like repairing magic items for you, boosting skills as long as they're present, or making travel faster.

Classes, skills and equipment are reworked here too, and generally make more sense.  The game returns to Might and Magic 1's selection of six classes, though the Robber class is gone (replaced by the Druid) and its skills are worked into the general skillset, freeing up a slot for a more capable fighter or caster in their place.  Each class starts with two innate skills and two more of the player's choice, and more can be learned throughout the game by paying various trainers throughout the world.  Leveling up and using certain items (Lucky Horseshoes) now grants skill points, which the player can spend from their stat menu to bolster their skills.  Weapons and armor types also now have associated skills, with extra points giving not just bonuses to hit or damage, but other benefits once they reach certain thresholds.  Axes, for example, get bonus damage once you reach Master rank, while Spears will give bonus Armor Class at Expert and Maces will have a chance to stun an enemy at Master.  Similarly, armor is now simplified into four types (Shield, Leather, Chain and Plate) and get benefits of their own - boosting Armor skills will reduce or eliminate their speed penalties, while boosting the Shield skill will double or even triple the amount of protection shields provide.  Sells are now broken up into nine different disciplines too, though each class only gets access to a handful - Druids, Archers and Sorcerers use elemental spells (further divided into Fire, Wind, Water and Earth), while Paladins and Clerics get Clerical spells (broken up into Body, Mind and Spirit).  Two especially powerful schools called simply "Light" and "Dark" exist too, though they only become available late in the game and only a pure Cleric or Sorcerer respectively can access them.

Of course, being a more open-world type of game and de-emphasizing combat to a point ensures that not all skills are based around it.  Other skills do things like identify items, adjust prices in shops to your benefit (a very useful one to get early on and improve throughout the game), give bonus HP or MP, disarm traps and open locks, and a personal favorite - you can finally repair items in the field! (A very welcome addition after Might and Magic 3 and especially 4/5.)  The game now has something of a reptuation system as well, though it doesn't affect affect as much as you'd expect - it only seems to be important for learning and mastering Light and Dark magic.  Obviously, doing bad things (like killing innocents) will lower it, while donating at temples or completing quests will raise it.  It will also slowly decay over time as you rest, so if you're going for a higher level you can't afford to do waste too much time.  One can also beg, bribe or threaten NPCs for information or quick cash at a cost of reputation, though the Diplomacy skill reduces the loss.  There is something of a crude alchemy system in the game too - finding plants and using them on empty potion bottles can create a potion for later use.

So, did Might and Magic 6 prove to be a successful reinvention of the series?  I certainly think it did.  The grid-based system of the series served it well, but with RPGs becoming more realistic and immersive after the advent of games like Ultima, it was only natural that New World Computing had to up their game too to stay relevant.  They did just that, with five years of development time being put to good use - the franchise's sixth game feels more realistic and immersive in design, yet manages to keep the light-hearted dungeon-crawling feel mostly intact despite this.  It looks great for the period, it plays immaculately well even today, and yet is still deep enough to prove a challenge for fans of old-school dungeon crawling, with tons of side-quests and subtleties to its design that will keep you coming back for multiple playthroughs.  Might and Magic needed a major overhaul to survive in the gaming landscape of the late 1990s, and Mandate of Heaven was just what it needed. 

Developer: New World Computing
Publisher: The 3DO Company
Platform: Windows
Released: 1998
Recommended Version: N/A

If you're playing on a modern system, I recommend getting the Grayface patch.  Among other things, it allows you to scale up the game window, utilize mouselook and remap interface keys to your choosing.  That, and a number of other useful tweaks, can be found on the PC Gaming Wiki page for the game.

If you also don't like the slow miss-heavy pace of the game, check out the fan mod called " Chiyolate Fun & Balanced Mod", which makes the enemies more durable, but easier to hit, overhauls the loot system and keeps the difficulty relatively balanced while tightening up the pacing.  Great mod!

Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together

The original Ogre Battle was a novel combination of real-time strategy and RPG elements with plenty of replay value owing to its random elements and multiple endings. Tactics Ogre, first released a few years after, continued that philosophy but changed the combat up into a turn-based tactical system.  But does it prove to be a worthy sequel to a cult classic, or does it simply pale in comparison? 

Ogre Battle was a low-key hit on the Super Nintendo; though released in very limited quantities (reportedly only 25,000 copies were released in North America), it won acclaim for its open-ended design, numerous endings and the sheer amount of customizability the player could have for units - not just equipment and class, but they could recruit virtually every unit they came up against in the game to their party.  From dragons to zombies to vampires to werewolves to the Pumpkin Mage, you certainly weren't wanting for options.

Tactics Ogre, later released on the Super Famicom and Saturn, wouldn't see a western release until several years later, when Atlus once again released it in very limited quantities on the Playstation.  While a well-received game among fans and critics, it was overshadowed by Square's Final Fantasy Tactics (another Yasumi Matsuno creation) coming out the same year.  In fact, the series wouldn't get much mainstream attention until more than a decade later, getting a high-quality PSP remake several years after Square bought out Quest and Yasumi Matsuno made several other games under their label (including Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy XII).

As the name implies, Tactics Ogre trades in the real-time strategy gameplay of the original Ogre Battle for a turn-based tactical combat system.  Battles are also smaller in scale, with skirmishes of 6-12 units on either side duking it out until one remains or a win/lose condition is met (such as defeating a particular unit).  A few unique elements are present, though.  A notable one is that mages don't start with full MP and gradually decrease over the course of the battle; quite the opposite, in fact.  Their MP actually starts at 0 and will slowly regenerate over the course of battle, so if you want to get in spells early, using items is a must.  One can also recruit numerous special units, enemy soldiers and even monsters to their army, though with some restrictions - only two "large" monster units can be in the player's fighting force at a time, and those who directly oppose a player's alignment or reputation will be much harder or even impossible to recruit.

As in the original game, Tactics Ogre's narrative is one that is left in significant part up to the player.  The story does branch out at several points depending on the player's choices, and there are several distinct story paths for the later chapters branching from key choices in preceding ones.  Reputation plays a major role once again - individual units in your army may agree or disagree with your decisions or grow to like you less if you let them fall in battle, and if you become too unpopular with them, they may leave your army entirely.  As mentioned above, others will will be harder to persuade to your side or even refuse to join you outright depending on previous choices, and these of course play into the ending too, showing more scenes or alternate outcomes depending on your choices throughout (though considerably fewer in number than Ogre Battle's 20+ possible ends).

Character customization is once again a huge part of the game, and there are certainly no shortage of options in Tactics Ogre.   Almost any character can utilize basic classes like Soldiers, Wizards and Beast Tamers, but once stat and alignment requirements are met, stronger classes like Dragoons and Terror Knights become available, having unique and powerful abilities and often complementing other units (Warlocks can power up Golems, for example).  Earning new spells (especially ones that sync up with a character's elemental affinity) is also a challenge, and the PSP remake adds another layer to this in the form of Tarot cards - as in the original game, collecting one will raise (or lower) a character's stat, and they can be used as items in battle to grant temporary positive statuses on an ally or negative ones on an enemy.  A new Rogue class is also present in this version - a strong, but rather fragile unit that can turn cards into traps for enemies to spring, and disarm traps on the field to gain more cards.  Figuring out which cards affect which stats, and having appropriate units collect them, quickly becomes essential in this version.

As in most of Matsuno's games, learning the ins and out of the mechanics are mandatory to succeeding in the game.  The difficulty quickly ramps up, with many fights even early on being all but unwinnable unless you've spent a significant amount of time honing your team (particularly ones where you have to defend a single vulnerable unit from death throughout).  This is further enforced by the fact that the AI is almost too good - enemies will do their best to target highlighted characters (costing you the mission or a potentially useful recruit for future battles), mages always target your weakest fighters, and if left alone for any period of time, injured units will retreat, heal themselves and leap right back into the fight.  This might be the only strategy game I've seen where the enemies will try to win by sheer attrition.  This is mitigated to a degree in the PSP version, which allows the player to rewind up to 50 turns in battle, though they were smart enough to disallow "scumming" with this feature - rewinding after a blocked hit and picking the exact same move again will always have the same result, so it's not as abusable as you may believe.  Still, it's also a good idea not to rely on this too much, as fights will only get harder and just barely scraping by in each one with repeated rewinds will make winning in the final stretch of the game all but impossible.

Tactics Ogre, like all of Matsuno's works, is one that shows a love for storytelling and the mechanical elements in every facet - the narrative is a dark and complex one, the gameplay pulls no punches with its difficulty, and it's a very deep, complex experience that will require a lot of experimentation and fine-tuning to find your niche in.  Still, it's an ordeal you're glad to undertake because it's all so well-done; his passion shines through and gets you invested in the world he's weaved, ensuring that you want to puzzle out a road to success and see your way to all of the possible story paths and endings it has to offer.  Definitely not an ideal choice for beginners to the genre, but those who want to see an intricate tactical experience and some finely-detailed lore and worldbuilding will find a lot to enjoy in Tactics Ogre.

Developer: Quest, Square Enix
Publisher: Quest, Riverhillsoft, Atlus, Square Enix
Platform: Super Famicom, Sega Saturn, Playstation 1, Playstation Portable, Switch, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, PC
Released: 1995, 1996, 1998, 2010, 2022
Recommended Version:  The 2022 rerelease ("Reborn") is a marked improvement over the previous versions, adding in voiceover, revamping the UI and overhauling the leveling system so that individual characters - not classes - have levels, which greatly cuts down on grinding.  The level is capped but will gradually increase as the story goes on (plus you can still train up weapon/magic skills in training battles), and you also earn and equip skills more organically in this version, not having to grind a ton of TP to unlock everything.  Bump that version up half a star.

Breath of Fire III

After two low-key cult classics on the SNES, Breath of Fire, like many other Capcom franchises, made the jump to the Playstation platform in 1998.  But does it provide enough of the series' unique charm to help it stand out in a sea of other huge RPG names, or does it just get pushed into the background and forgotten once again?

Breath of Fire as a series has always had a dedicated following for its traditional yet imaginative design, but unfortunately that never really translated into raw sales.  Developers for the series have even gone on record as saying that while they enjoyed making the games and they've almost always gotten a positive reception, they've also never really been profitable for Capcom; hence why the franchise has been virtually unheard of since the turn of the millennium.  Probably the closest it ever came to mainstream success was in the Playstation era, where it was among many RPGs to ride the genre's newfound wave of popularity kickstarted by Final Fantasy VII.

Sure enough, Breath of Fire III's first outing on the system really strove to set itself apart from its 16-bit counterparts in a number of ways.  While still set in the same world as the first two games and retaining many of its key themes, the game saw a definite visual upgrade, utilizing an isometric perspective with 2D sprites on 3D-rendered backgrounds, and quite a lot of animations for each of its characters - Ryu in particular has a nice touch in that he gradually grows more confident over the course of the adventure, starting with a weak failing sword swing and gradually moving his way up to becoming a real swordsman after some story beats.   Surprisingly, it also did not utilize a separate "combat screen", instead having the map screen shift slightly with all of the players' characters and enemies becoming visible on the map itself, making the game feel a bit more realistic and immersive.  It did of course play a bit more slowly than the first two games, with noticeable loading times for many special moves and transitions to and from combat, as well as a frequent encounter rate in general; not the worst example of such in this era of gaming, but it definitely feels slower than many other RPGs on the platform.

Breath of Fire always sold itself on having a distinct and memorable cast of characters and abilities thereof, and 3 certainly is no different there.  Each character has their own ability that are used in various puzzles and opening hidden paths.  Rei can pick open locks, for example, while Garr, being by far the largest character, can push heavy objects the others cannot.  Each also plays very differently in combat, getting a variety of spells and vastly different stats; for example, Momo has a powerful bazooka weapon, but it tends to miss a lot, so equipping her with items to boost her accuracy is generally a good idea.  Rei is speedy but not particularly strong, while Ryu is a well-balanced character physically but has relatively low MP.  Throughout the game, one can offset many of these weaknesses (or accent a character's strengths) by training under a Master.  Masters are found throughout the game and will influence your characters' stats as they level up, and can even grant some extra abilities they wouldn't learn normally; using them wisely throughout your journey is key to success, especially early on.

Another interesting addition are "Skills".  Essentially, these work like blue magic or Enemy Skills in the Final Fantasy series, allowing you to learn moves when you're hit by them while using the Defend command.  Also like blue magic, many of these skills are built on specific stipulations like dealing more damage to specific enemy types or having extra effects based on the user's stats (such as having damage based on the Agility stat, rather than Strength).  A lot of these end up being surprisingly useful, so it's worth it to feel out what new enemy types can do (and take the occasional turn to defend so that you can attempt to learn their skills for yourself) rather than mindlessly blasting through everything in your path.

Another iconic element of the series - Ryu's dragon morphs - returns as well, and like many other things in the game, it has seen a substantial overhaul and puts emphasis on player customization (perhaps an apology for the very watered-down version from Breath of Fire 2).  Throughout the game, one will find a plethora of "Dragon Genes".   Up to three of these can be mixed and matched when the Morph command is used, and the result will be a dragon with the properties of all three.  Some affect stats, generally raising some while lowering others, while some change the dragon's elemental property to one of the five elements in the game (Fire, Ice, Electricity, Shadow, Light).  Certain combinations will also unlock larger and more powerful forms that get big-time stat multipliers, so it's well worth it to experiment with combinations of genes throughout the game.  Interestingly, one gene in particular (the Fusion gene) even retains some elements of the Fusion mechanic from the first Breath of Fire, allowing Ryu to combine with one or more party members to create a powerful new hybrid form.  This definitely ends up being one of the game's most interesting mechanics due to the sheer number of forms you can create, and as mentioned, it's a massive improvement over the first game and especially the second's dragon mechanics.

Of course, Breath of Fire III also doesn't skimp on side-content.  A small management sim exists in the game in the form the Faerie Village, where the player can assign tasks to faeries in order to influence the growth of their town, unlocking benefits like shops that stock rare items, minigames and a sound test.  Fishing returns as well, letting the player catch fish that have a number of different effects, as well as tracking the largest of any given type they've caught.  Saving outside of towns is now possible too via the "Camp" option, which opens up a screen allowing the player to interact with party members and rest at their leisure.

The game does have some glaring weaknesses, though.  The soundtrack is one; it's not painful to listen to by any means, but it feels bizarrely out of place - less like something you'd hear in an epic world-spanning fantasy RPG and more like something out of a Windows 95 desktop game.  The whole time I played my mind went racing back to various casino/card games I played on my PC in the '90s, and a few tracks in particular sound like they'd be more at home in a casual "software toy" game like Simcity or SimAnt.  A definite contrast to the first two, especially the hard-rock sound that Breath of Fire II brought to the table.  Still, it doesn't ever ruin the mood, so I can't say it's a serious flaw - just a very bizarre choice.

More serious problems fall on the game's overall pacing and generally asinine design elements.  The game feels oddly restrictive at times, roping you from one locale to the next with no real opportunity to break away and explore freely - not really a good thing with the aforementioned Master system and you wanting to maximize your characters' abilities.  Dungeons get very tedious before long owing to the frequent encounter rate and significant loading associated with attack animations.  You're also presented with a lot of instances of just having to stop and talk to everyone and search everything before you're allowed to progress, and even then, if you don't have the right character in your party you may not be able to - you'll have to exit town, swap them in, then come back to advance.  Minigames - none particularly fun other than fishing - also pervade the experience and are often necessary to progress, with two in particular being especially annoying - having to time a button press to the exact moment a meter peaks (slightly off and you waste an item; run out and you have to go back to town to buy more) and a particularly irritating rope-pulling minigame where you have to mash a button when prompted and stop exactly when told; one mistake on your part (or your computer controlled partner's part) and you get to restart the whole thing.  They clearly wanted to take a page from Final Fantasy VII here, and while FF7's minigames generally weren't amazing, they at least weren't aggravating to endure like these.

Breath of Fire III was the game that put the series on the map for most fans, and I can certainly see why.  It brought the franchise into a new console generation in style, keeping its interesting mechanics, characters and overall setting intact while taking advantage of the extra CD space to provide a good-looking game with some innovative elements.  Being able to customize one's party via Masters, Skill learning and a huge pool of Dragon morphs are pretty cool innovations, while its story and a plethora of hidden secrets and optional content keep die-hard players coming back for more.  It was one of many RPG franchises playing second fiddle to the juggernaut that was Square, but that didn't stop Breath of Fire III from doing its best to stand out.  Or being the only game in the series to get a port to the PSP platform years later.  It's got some uneven difficulty and pacing problems and its overall slower, more methodical design makes it feel a bit more dated than most prominent PS1 RPGs, but an interesting piece of history nonetheless; worth a look if you can track it down.

Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom, Infogrames
Platform: Playstation 1, Playstation Portable, PSN
Released: 1998, 2006, 2016
Recommended Version: Both the PS1 and PSP versions seem to be more or less the same, though the latter is presented in a wider aspect ratio and has slightly tuned up visuals to match the more powerful hardware of the platform, though the tradeoff is slightly longer load times.  The PSP version also seems to have slightly higher odds for luck-based elements (stealing, learning skills, etc), but this may just be luck on my part.  The PSN version is a port of the PSP version.

Final Fantasy Tactics

Final Fantasy Tactics marked a bit of a departure for the series, being more of a turn-based tactical warfare game than a typical Japanese RPG.  But does this step away from the norm pay off in the end, or does this army just march right off a cliff?

Final Fantasy Tactics came out in the wake of Final Fantasy VII's success on the Playstation, and marked the first real off-shoot of the series proper.  While there was little connection between the existing games save for similar themes, gameplay elements and some story tropes, Final Fantasy Tactics marked the franchise's first attempt at establishing a cohesive, recurring world.  It laid the framework for the "Ivalice Alliance" series that several following games would also take place in - Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy XII, and FFT's own sequels would take place in the Ivalice universe as well, telling their own stories but adding to the contiguous lore and history of the world Tactics established.  Little surprise, then, that this world was the brainchild of Yasumi Matsuno, who previously made his name with the Ogre Battle/Tactics Ogre franchise of games - complex real-time strategy and turn-based tactics games that took place on a complex historical backdrop and often had extremely in-depth mechanics and numerous endings to unlock.

As one can expect from that, FFT is quite a bit more complex and involved than a typical Final Fantasy battle system.  As in most turn-based strategy games, the battlefield itself plays a large role in one's tactics for a particular mission - trees in forests can block arrows, water slows character movement (and makes characters more vulnerable to lightning spells), cliffs and tall walls can be difficult or even almost impossible to traverse, and fields often have a number of traps - from poison needles to damaging spikes to ones that can even cause characters to lose a level when stepped on.  Even small things like the direction a character is facing or the distance between the makes a significant difference in strategy - targets are often easier to hit from the side or back, and casting spells or using abilities at long range often makes them take longer to execute, meaning the enemy has a chance to move aside and avoid it entirely.  The twelve Zodiac signs play a significant role in strategy too, with some signs being more 'compatible' with others and character attacks or spells having more or less effect as a result.

The core gameplay is definitely on par with the likes of Matsuno's Ogre games, but the design of the narrative itself is still concretely Final Fantasy in structure.  There is still only a single linear story path and ending, and the few character choices you're given ultimately have little impact, mostly just altering a single mission objective (such as having to save an NPC or simply defeat all foes on the map).  Side missions do exist, though these rarely take the form of battles proper - instead, you simply assign a few of your units to go on an away mission for a set period of time (typically 7-14 days) and after they return, they will gain some AP, money and report back on the result of the mission.  These do at least afford a way to earn "treasures' that are call-backs to previous Final Fantasy games (such as finding a "Black Materia"), though these are just small easter eggs and not actually usable items.

In similar fashion, the job classes one can utilize are very much based in Final Fantasy lore.  The Knight class can equip heavy armor and weapons and break enemy equipment, White Mages cast healing magic, Black Mages cast destructive magic, Oracles and Time Mages serve a more supportive role, and so forth.  No story events are required to unlock particular classes, though one must attain certain Job Levels in lower classes to attain higher ones - sometimes more than one.  For example, the Archer class can only be enabled after reaching the third Job Level as a Knight, while the Samurai class requires Level 4 Knight, Level 5 Monk and Level 2 Lancer to be acquired first.  Similarly to Final Fantasy 5, one can also pay AP to acquire particular skills from a class, then carry them over to another once they change their job.  Going beyond even Final Fantasy 5, though, there are a total of four extra slots to equip abilities to - a secondary command list, a Reaction command, a Passive command, and a Movement command. This makes for all sorts of interesting possibilities, from Monks who can equip heavy armor to Lancers who can teleport to Summoners who have a much shorter charging time due to equipping the Time Mages' Quick Charge ability, letting them devastate the battlefield much more effectively.  As in Final Fantasy 5, this quickly becomes the most interesting element of the game, allowing for some truly powerful (and at times, hilariously broken) combinations.

"Broken" could also aptly describe Final Fantasy Tactics on the whole, with many instances of uneven difficulty, particularly in the later stages.  Some of the more infamous battles in the game happen back-to-back, and should one be under-equipped or not have enough resources to brute-force their way through the coming fight, they may be forced to roll back to a previous save or, in worst case, restart entirely.  The late game also gets particularly unbalanced, with each battle quickly becoming a 'clash of the glass cannons' - whoever lands the first hit will usually defeat their opponent in a single blow, and winning battles becomes more a matter of speed than any actual tactical clout.  Even the game is seemingly aware of this, handing you extremely powerful characters and pieces of equipment to give you a fighting chance against what is to come.

But in spite of some lacking balance and a questionable translation, Final Fantasy Tactics is a very fun and memorable game.  Its dark storyline pulls surprisingly few punches and has quite a few moments of genuine horror and shock.  Its characters are complex and morally ambiguous in many cases, and its world lore and storyline is a genuinely interesting one to get immersed in.  FFT's gameplay, while far from the best-balanced in the series, is inspired and fun throughout, always providing a challenge that makes you want to keep playing rather than give up in frustration, and finding the various quirks of the job system and customizing your characters just right often allows you to do just that.  It may not be the series' most polished game, but pound for pound, it may just be its most entertaining.

Developer: Squaresoft
Publisher: Square, Sony Computer Entertainment
Platform: Playstation 1, Playstation Portable, PSN, iOS, Android
Released: 1998, 2007, 2011, 2015
Recommended Version: I am partial to the original PS1 release personally, as I felt that the War of the Lions enhanced ports were lacking in several areas.  Notably having a lot of lag at times, poor sound quality for some effects (particularly summons and bigger spells) and a translation that feels downright cringe-worthy, with copious amounts of purple prose and stilted dialog.  The PS1 version is available on PSN as of this writing while the PSP, iOS and Android versions are all ports of War of the Lions.

Pokemon Gen 1 (Red/Blue)

Every global phenomenon has a humble origin, and Pokemon's was two little games released on the Game Boy almost a decade after its launch and well after most people had forgotten it existed.  But do the origins of one of the best-selling video game franchises of all time still hold up, or are they simply overshadowed by other, similar games and later entries in the series?

Pokemon is a franchise that needs no introduction; after all, it is one of the most popular multimedia franchises of all time, ongoing for nearly twenty-five years and showing no sign of stopping.  It's had manga tie-ins, several long running anime series, a live-action movie, every type of toy and merchandise imaginable and its video games have sold over 300 million copies worldwide.  It's a little crazy to imagine that it all began with two humble games on the original, green-screened Game Boy.

In 1995 Game Freak released Pokemon Red and Green, the latter of which was released as Pokemon Blue in other regions in 1998.  Put simply, it was quite a sight for the original game boy, providing a lengthy and compelling RPG experience with a staggering amount of content.  Not only was the base game a thirty-some hour endeavor in itself, but the game's sheer amount of optional content and huge variety of monsters to catch and play around with (151 in all) gave it even greater longevity and replay value.  Moreover, one could not catch all of the monsters in a single game; one would have to trade with at least one other player who owned the other version if they wanted to complete their Pokedex.  This in turn encouraged players to purchase Link Cables; not just for that purpose, but for pitting one's team of Pokemon against an opponent to find out who the better trainer is.  Basically, it combined elements of a collection-fest, an RPG and a competitive two-player experience under one roof, and as a result has enjoyed significant longevity for both casual RPG fans and those into competitive gaming.

I never got into the competitive aspect of Pokemon myself, but being relatively new to RPGs at the time and starved for a quality Game Boy RPG after playing through the Final Fantasy Legend trilogy, Pokemon naturally caught my attention.  And managed to keep it for almost 86 hours, as it would turn out; I quickly got hooked and ended up trying to complete my Pokedex, which resulted in a lot of exchanging rumors, scouring every area for clues, and farming minigames until I finally had everything.

Of course, the act of catching Pokemon is almost a minigame in and of itself.  You start out with just one, but after a few quick story events, you're then given a handful of "Pokeballs" and set out to capture everything in your path to bolster your party and overcome tougher trainers on the path to the end.  But even after paralyzing, freezing, inflicting Sleep status and dropping HP to a sliver on any given Pokemon, capturing still isn't guaranteed; far too many times to count would they slip out of a capture anyway and leave me frustrated as I'd used my last ball and had to go purchase more.  Doubly so since money in the game, unlike many RPGs, is largely limited; there are only so many trainers to defeat and so much money to earn before the endgame, and from there, the only way to earn more is to challenge the final gauntlet (the Elite Four) again and again, which can take about an hour per attempt.

The luck element doesn't just end there, though.  A handful of minigames are present too, and completing these is required to get many Pokemon that can't be acquired through other means.  First is the casino in Celadon City, where one must grind a whopping 9,999 coins to acquire a Porygon (reduced to a more reasonable 6,500 in Blue); even if you're lucky enough to get the randomly-picked "hot" machine that almost always gives a payout, you'll still be sitting there for many hours to get that many coins.  But more frustrating is the Safari Zone, which has the player either throw rocks or food to distract a pokemon, then try to catch them with the special Safari ball, all the while hoping they don't flee and ruin the whole attempt.  This gets especially frustrating when one also considers the low chance of even seeing, let alone acquiring, some monsters - Chansey, Tauros and Scyther/Pinsir all have a very low chance of appearing, and if they flee, it can take many attempts before the player encounters them again.  Needless to say, I ended up save-scumming quite a lot here.

The monster customizing aspect was another major element of the game that drew in many of its fans, and it isn't hard to see why.  While the breeding aspect wasn't introduced until the next generation (and opened up a whole new world of possiblities in itself), the semi-randomized stats of Pokemon, as well as being able to customize their move sets via Technical Machines (TMs), lent quite a bit of a strategic element to the game.  As did the fifteen Pokemon types, each of which had their own strengths and weaknesses.  Grass types were strong against Water, Ground and Rock types, but weak to Fire and Ice, for example.  Rock types resisted Normal attacks and devastated Flying types, but fell quickly to Grass and Water types, while Fighting types dealt extra damage to Normal and Rock types but were vulnerable to Psychic and Flying types.  Naturally, the idea with customizable movesets was to compensate for these weaknesses to a degree; teaching your Lapras Blizzard, for example, might just allow it to stand up to a bulky Grass type, while Explosion proves to be a useful tool for taking down particularly annoying wall Pokemon at the cost of one of your own.  Unfortunately, most TMs were limited to a single instance per game, which meant that if you wanted a particular move on more than one monster, you usually had to buy another copy of the game, transfer your monster over, learn it, and then trade it back.

This element was not without some problems, though, particularly as some types have very lackluster pokemon (like the Bug type, which is virtually useless beyond the first Gym battle) and others simply dominate.  A good example of the latter is the Psychic type, which is vulnerable to Bug and Ghost types; the first is problematic enough owing to the aforementioned weak Pokemon in that category, but every Ghost type in the game (all three of them) are dual Poison types, which gives them a weakness to Psychic attacks.  Moreover, owing to a glitch Ghost type attacks actually did no damage to Psychic types at all, making them useless for their intended purpose.  Pair that with the fact that the most prominent Psychic type in the game (Abra and its evolutions) has a move that allows it to heal itself basically for free, and this makes Sabrina (the Psychic-themed Gym Trainer) and her gym a very frustrating ordeal to get through.  Worse still, the game's uber-Pokemon, Mewtwo, is a psychic type that can heal himself and use almost any other move in the game too, making him a bulky tank that is virtually indestructible, save perhaps by another Mewtwo.  It's rather telling that they had to introduce a whole new type (Dark) in the second generation to attempt to balance out Psychics, and why Mewtwo and other "Legendaries" quickly became banned from competitive play.

Still, while my interest in Pokemon has long since faded, I can't deny that the first generation was a game-changer in its time.  The sheer amount of content it managed to pack into a cartridge for the humble Game Boy was nothing short of staggering, and it led the way for even more sprawling and ambitious games to come.  My favorite games in the series wouldn't come out for a few more years, but Red and Blue will always be the ones with the most distinct memories in my mind.

Developer: Game Freak
Publisher: Nintendo
Platform: Game Boy, 3DS Virtual Console
Released: 1998, 2016
Recommended Version: The Virtual Console version is a direct port of the Game Boy games, though with the ability to store one's Pokemon in the Pokemon Bank (via a separate app and subscription service).  However, nowadays I would recommend playing the remakes for the Game Boy Advance, titled Fire Red and Leaf Green, which have support for importing Pokemon from other games as well as a much more polished presentation and better gameplay balance overall.

Panzer Dragoon Saga

Team Andromeda's swan song for the Sega Saturn, Panzer Dragoon Saga was an ambitious cinematic RPG built to rival the likes of Final Fantasy VII; however, it was doomed to obscurity in the west owing to Sega's decision to only sell the game via mail order in extremely limited quantities.  But did the Saturn faithful find a game that was worth a quest in itself to acquire, or is this buried piece of gold really just an overhyped chunk of pyrite?

Panzer Dragoon was one of the most heavily touted titles among Sega Saturn fans, having great atmosphere and story for a relatively simple rail shooter with some severe technical limitations (most notably a very low frame rate that often fell into single digits during larger boss encounters).  Even fewer appreciated its sequel, which continued the storyline and added massive technical improvements, with many considering it a title to rival the likes of Star Fox 64.  Fewer still had the chance to appreciate the franchise's third entry, as Sega only released it via mail order and, despite completely selling out within hours of launch, adamantly refused to do more than a few short printing runs.  As a result, the game's English version is now almost impossible to find without shelling out large sums of cash.  Even those who know Japanese face hurdles, as the Japanese version of the game has some sort of lockout that prevents it from being played on an American system, even with an Action Replay or similar devices that work for nearly other game in the system's library.

It's all a bit of a shame, really, as Panzer Dragoon Saga is quite an experience to behold, expertly combining action elements into an RPG narrative.  One strange artifact of this is the game's interface, which is carried over from the series' rail shooter origins - opening chests and interacting with almost anything is done by locking on and "shooting" it, whether on foot or riding your dragon mount.  This actually threw me at first as you don't travel through caves by simply flying into them - you lock on and shoot the cave, which cues a cutscene of your character flying in, then the game transitions to the next area.  Strange for sure, but you'll adapt to it pretty quickly.

It is also clear from the start that this was intended to be the Saturn's big RPG title, geared up to compete directly with Square's Final Fantasy franchise.  The game is lavishly produced, with every line of dialog featuring full voiceover (in Japanese with English subtitles) and quite a lot of FMV footage to carry key story scenes - indeed, it's only after roughly 30 minutes of animation that you get to any actual gameplay, and when later cutscenes come up, they tend to go for quite a while.  Thankfully the game does allow you to skip nearly every FMV and in-engine dialog scene you encounter, so you aren't stuck watching them over and over again if you die on a boss that happens to be after one.

Saga is a standout game in its aesthetic design, too.  Unusually for the time, the game doesn't consist of simple 3D models on flat 2D backgrounds, or even vice versa; Andromeda instead opted for full 3D environments and character models, and they actually look quite amazing despite the Saturn's limited hardware capabilities - deep canyons, flowing waterfalls, rippling lakes with fish swimming beneath the surface, odd metallic architecture, a giant desert with flowing sands, and bizarre but elegantly-designed machinery and fauna are just a few of the many sights to see.  All of this is further compounded by compounded by a moody score that adds tremendous atmosphere to the environments, fully immersing the player in a dark but beautiful fantasy world totally unlike anything else on the platform.

Of course, one of the big stumbling blocks for "cinematic RPGs" was that the gameplay tended to suffer, as the experience quickly became more about showing off overlong, flashy animations than providing a smooth gameplay experience.  Panzer Dragoon Saga thankfully hits no such issue, elegantly combining a movie-like presentation with a fast pace and a surprisingly strategic bent.  At a glance, combat is somewhat similar to Final Fantasy's ATB system, with the player able to build up to three "charges", then spending said charges to fuel their attacks or "Berserks" (spells). Normal attacks come in two flavors - the rider can fire his gun at a single target for more focused damage, or the dragon can fire homing lasers at random targets - useful against groups, though the lack of precise aiming means it isn't something you can always rely on.  Berserks work like typical RPG spells, dealing elemental damage, deflecting attacks, restoring HP, and other useful abilities.

Two unique elements come into play in combat, though.  First is that the player can freely move their dragon around the enemy formation with the D-pad, coming to stop in either in front of them, behind them, or to either side.  They want to do this because enemies have much more dangerous attacks when the player is in certain zones (marked in red on the radar), and in others, the enemy may only be able to use weak attacks or even not be able to attack them at all (marked in green).  However, enemies can also force the player to move to a disadvantageous position, and the player's charges will not fill while they are in the process of moving (by their choice), meaning that maneuvering  too much will leave them unable to take actions.  Many enemies also have weak points that can only be attacked from certain angles, often requiring the player to put themselves in a disadvantageous position to exploit them; however, if they are relatively conservative with their movements and charging, they can easily move into range and unleash a battle-ending assault before the enemies have a chance to retaliate.  Taking minimal damage and using moves as little as possible keys into another part of the game's strategy - the ranking system.  Simply put, the more efficiently you defeat enemies, the better your Rank, and the more experience and money you will earn.  Enemies will also not drop items unless the player gets a Great or Excellent rank, so figuring out how to effectively defeat even mundane foes is a key element of the game.

Another element of strategy comes toward the end of the first disc, allowing a surprising degree of customization for one's dragon.  The player is granted the ability to freely adjust their stats, balancing between Attack and Spirit or Defense and Speed.  Not only this, but tweaking these stats will dynamically change the dragon's appearance, which is quite a cool sight to behold on the Sega Saturn.  Moreover, this also affects the dragon's growth - tending toward one stat with more than 150 points will change the dragon's form to Attack/Spirit/Defense/Speed, while remaining relatively centered will keep them in Normal mode; this affects what Berserks they will gain as the player levels (with Normal granting random Berserks from all four camps).  Each form also grants abilities that cost no BP, but can be activated by spending three bars - Normal form regains HP, Spirit regains BP and Agility cures all status effects, to name three of them.  This adds an element of strategy to battles too, as the player can dynamically adjust their dragon's stat balance mid-fight so that they can, say, push their Attack power up during a relatively safe moment, then move their points to Defense when a boss is about to use a big attack.

It took me many years to finally get the chance, but after playing the game, there is no doubt left in my mind why Panzer Dragoon Saga is the definitive cult classic RPG for the Sega Saturn.  With its excellent presentation and atmosphere, an innovative combat system that is equal parts cinematic and strategic and an enthralling narrative reminiscent of a good anime series, Panzer Dragoon Saga is a hidden gem.  Not just for the Sega Saturn, but for role-playing games in general, remaining surprisingly faithful to the series' action-game roots while adding a grandiose, movie-like feel to rival any of Square's hits on the Playstation.  Sadly, its stifled release and prohibitively high prices on the second-hand market quickly made it into a game very few western gamers will get to experience on its native hardware, but those that do are in for a treat that fully shows off the kind of magic the Saturn - and '90s-era Sega developers - were really capable of.  It truly is a shame that their corporate masters were too busy selling empty hype and making consistently terrible business decisions instead of flaunting their developers' tremendous talents.

Developer: Team Andromeda
Publisher: Sega
Platform: Sega Saturn
Released: 1998
Recommended Version: N/A

Baldur's Gate

To many PC gamers of the late '90s, Baldur's Gate was one of the games that put BioWare on the map and helped push Dungeons and Dragons games into a new generation of the gaming consciousness.  But does BioWare's breakout game stand the test of time, or is this one adventure that's best left as a historical curiosity and little else?

Dungeons and Dragons is certainly nothing new when it comes to the world of video games - having been around longer than the medium itself, there have been numerous D&D inspired games from the very beginning.  Games like Ultima, Wizardry, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy and Might and Magic all drew heavy influence from the game, and it of course inspired a franchise of games in itself.  Probably the most prominent of these for most of the 1980s was the "Gold Box series" by Strategic Simulations, which effectively carried over the rules of the tabletop game while also engrossing the player in a long-running narrative that spanned four games and even a toolkit that allowed players to build their own adventures in the engine.  Others soon followed, including the Dragonlance series, the Eye of the Beholder games, and even the first graphical MMORPG ever made, Neverwinter Nights, released in 1993.

BioWare acquired the license in the mid-90s and threw their own hat into the ring with Baldur's Gate in 1998.  Baldur's Gate, unlike many of its predecessors, aimed to provide a true "role-playing" experience by giving the player freedom of choice and multiple ways to complete almost every objective put before them.  This, aided with a dense narrative, developed characters with a complement of voiced dialog (with no shortage of big names like Jim Cummings, Jennifer Hale and Grey Delisle) and a very large number of sidequests, made for a game that provided quite a lot more content and variation than most RPGs before it.

Baldur's Gate was also quite an impressive game on a presentation front.  Like many games of the era, it took full advantage of the CD format to provide not only a lot of gameplay content, but a strong graphical and audio presentation.  Music is in typical quality for the format, lending a strong orchestral feel to the combat and some nice atmosphere for the towns.  Visuals in the game, unlike many RPGs of the era, were also not tile-based, instead utilizing prerendered backdrops and fully animated 3D models for the characters, giving it a more fluid feel overall.  Key scenes are also conveyed through computer-generated FMVs which, while laughably dated by modern standards, were quite a sight to behold in the late '90s.

In terms of gameplay, Baldur's Gate is somewhat more of a mixed bag, however.  Advanced Dungeons and Dragons rules are painstakingly recreated in the Infinity Engine, for both good and ill.  This, paired with the game's low level cap (89,000 experience in the base version, 161,000 with the expansion installed) proves to be a point of frustration on several fronts.  Many classes that truly shine at higher levels, such as Mages, prove to be nearly useless for a large portion of the game, getting to cast only a small handful of spells and then becoming dead weight until the party rests again.  Even the latter proves problematic, though, as one has to make the ever-infamous THAC0 rolls to hit anything, which start at a very high base and grow lower (requiring lower rolls) as their level decreases - thus, many of the early game fights become a frustrating affair of standing toe-to-toe with each enemy you run across and hoping you hit them before they hit you too many times and kill you.  Experience is divided evenly amongst the entirety of the party, which, when paired with the overall low experience gains most enemies give, ends up making leveling an extremely slow and arduous process.  Some spells like Hold, Confuse, Horror and Charm also last an obnoxiously long time, usually persisting until long after the fight ends and forcing the player to wait long periods before getting to quicksave.  In the worst possible cases, allies can even run off randomly into another encounter while under the influence of Fear or Confusion and get slaughtered, forcing the player to reload and lose several more minutes of progress than they normally would.

Worse, the game also falls into the trap of making fights atrociously difficult in its late stages, which can boil some encounters down to either pure luck or basically having to "cheat" to succeed.  Two prominent examples in my mind come during an ambush where the player must defend some officials from hasted, high-leveled doppelgangers who resist all spells and beeline straight for their quarry, with an instant game over occurring if they die; I spent well over three hours here alone simply trying every spell, wand and strategy at my disposal to get them to survive long enough to give me a fighting chance, only eventually winning out by pure luck.  The final battle is just as much of a pain, with the villain flanked by numerous high-level mages who cast spells well beyond what the party can, flooding the screen with webs, confusion, fireballs, Malisons, and all sorts of other ridiculous effects that the player has basically no means to resist, all whilst the main baddie (a very high-level, magic-resistant fighter) is running around landing highly damaging attacks with every swing and the room is littered with booby-traps that only unleash more pain on the party.  The only recourse I found here was to stealthily pick off the guy's mages from a distance with fireballs and Flaming Oils before the fight even began, then have one Hasted character serve as a diversion while the rest pelted him to death with Magic Missiles and flaming arrows.  It felt completely unfair and is probably not at all what the developers intended, but it was either that or get slaughtered in an endless barrage of status spells and fireballs, so I saw little recourse in the matter.

In the end, Baldur's Gate is a Dungeons and Dragons game with a particularly insidious GM at the helm, throwing everything nasty they can think of at the player and all but forcing them to abuse quicksaves and various bugs and exploits in order to succeed.  Even then, though, they'll still have to reload many times as their main character gets unavoidably killed by a cheap shot and brings the game to an immediate end on an extremely frequent basis.  Some may applaud it for that - I did at first too - but games like Shadowrun, Oblivion, Skyrim and Fallout: New Vegas would later serve as proof positive that western RPGs could do just as well without rigid and arbitrary dice rolls dictating every facet of the game experience, or nearly as many instances of a single one meaning the difference between life and death.  So while I do applaud the game's narrative and eye for detail, I don't find it a particularly fun title to revisit today.  Its sequel fares somewhat better, having cut down the effect time of many spells and the higher level of the setting lending less "save-scummy" feel to the proceedings, as well as adding many more gameplay options, but I see little reason to come back to OG Baldur's Gate 1 these days.

Developer: BioWare, Black Isle Studios, Overhaul Games
Publisher: Interplay, Atari
Platform: PC, iOS, OSX, Android, Linux
Released: 1998, 2012, 2013, 2014
Recommended version: The 2012-and-on rerelease "Enhanced Edition" updates the game into the Baldur's Gate 2 engine, allowing for a much greater number of class choices, reduced spell durations on many effects (most prominently Charm and Sleep) and a much less cumbersome interface.  This also for higher resolutions, adds in some new characters and a new, alternate story mode called "the Black Pits", which mostly just amounts to increasingly difficult combat challenges and little else.  There's also a new expansion called "Siege of Dragonspear" that bridges the story between 1 and 2.  These new additions are of somewhat uneven quality, but the updated engine alone makes it a considerably smoother experience than the original release, as well as one more befitting modern standards (the original game could only run in 640x480 or 800x600 fullscreen mode).  All in all, a much better experience today; add an extra star for that version.

Fallout 2

Fallout 2 is the followup to the highly acclaimed 1997 PC classic, addressing some of the first game's shortcomings and bringing a massive amount of new content to the table.  But does Fallout 2 prove to be just as much of a successful role-playing experience, or is this the archetypal sequel that tries to do too much too quickly?

Released one year to the day after the first Fallout game, Fallout 2 was an archetypal sequel in many respects.  Still set on the west coast of a post-apocalyptic United States, it retained many of the familiar elements of its predecessor - mutated animals, random encounters, and numerous landmarks of the setting, as well as the same engine.  However, there was significantly more to see this time - the number of visitable locations on the map had nearly tripled compared to the original game's, and the amount of NPCs, quests and character dialog in the game had expanded nearly tenfold.  Indeed, almost every location the player can visit, rather than having one overarching quest and a handful of smaller ones, now has at least a half-dozen quests to complete, and not all are as easily broken into "good or evil" choices as in the first game.  One prime example of this is New Reno, where the player can ally with any of the four major crime families in the city (or none at all).  Others are more morally ambigious, such as helping Vault City force out the ghouls running a damaged and dangerous power plant in nearby Gecko, or repairing the plant and letting them maintain their independence.

Some other common complaints from the first game were addressed as well.  Recruitable NPCs now had customizable AI, with the player able to specify conditions for when to heal themselves and what types of weapons and tactics to use in a fight.  They could even now be equipped with different types of weapons and armor (up to and including power armor), making them viable even into the late stages of the game.  Weapon types are now more balanced, with Big Guns now being a viable (though still costly) choice and even Small Guns now having viable options in the later stages of the game.  Advanced in CGI also ensured that the few animated cutscenes in the game were now of much higher quality, with much less "plasticy" characters and environments and much smoother animation.  Some skills were given more of a practical use, as well - the formerly pointless Outdoorsman skill now aids with avoiding random encounters (allowing the player to skip them if they make a successful roll) and helps with finding rare Special Encounters that grant rare and powerful items.  Another example is the Skilled trait, rather than a fairly pointless (and minimal) boost to all skills, it now grants five extra skill points per level, and the longer wait between Perks is significantly less devastating for reasons detailed below.

Fallout 2 has more of a clearly defined progression to its story, with the player all but forced to go from one story-relevant area to the next in a linear fashion, lest they try to stray from it and encounter enemies much higher than their current level (and usually die).  Indeed, incremental equipment upgrades from town to town are all but necessary to survive the trip to the next for much of the first half of the game, and even then, an unlucky random encounter can put a character with a pistol in a matchup with enemies touting automatic shotguns, resulting in a game over.  As in the first game, frequent quicksaves and reloads are an integral part of the experience.

Despite this focus on balance in the early stages, the game puts much thought into higher-level play as well.  No longer is there a hard level cap at 24; instead, the player can theoretically gain as many levels as they want (up to the game's hardcoded time limit, at least) and the skill system has been tweaked to match.  The maximum for all skills is 300% now (up from 200), and at certain milestones, the cost increases - raising one point beyond 100% now costs two skill points, beyond 130% costs three, 150% costs four and so forth.  Powerful perks like Better Criticals, Slayer and Sniper now have substantially higher requirements as well.  Players can still become massively powerful, but these changes ensure that this remains an option best kept for the end of the game, and does not allow them to quickly max out their weapon skills and breeze through encounters as in the original Fallout.

One change to the game that remains universally controversial, however, is its overall mood.  While the original Fallout had an overall dark tone with a few tongue-in-cheek elements reminiscent of a comic book plot, Fallout 2 very much plays up the humor aspect of the franchise.  Frequent pop culture references creep into the dialog and the game as a whole, running the gamut from video game references to movie lines to parodies of celebrities like Mike Tyson, Bruce Lee and Tom Cruise.  Not to say that the game has no real atmosphere or interesting themes - it definitely does in its stronger moments - but elements like these mostly serve to make Fallout 2 a much sillier experience than the original game, particularly when it starts to break the fourth wall (such as providing the player with a magic 8-ball that provides in-game clues, or the game over screen mocking the player for not saving frequently enough).  It's an enormously fun game to experience and explore, but there are frequent instances where one gets the impression that Black Isle wasn't taking the experience all that seriously.

In the end, Fallout 2 is a standard but largely successful sequel, taking what made the original game great - its open-ended storytelling and dense design - and providing a lot more of it.  Some may find the humor and frequent pop culture references distracting, but for those who can roll with the punches, deal with some occasionally frustrating challenge, and laugh at the game in spite of itself, Fallout 2 is a lengthy and highly replayable quest that will keep you engrossed for many, many playthroughs.

Developer: Black Isle
Publisher: Interplay Entertainment
Platform: PC
Released:  1998
Recommended version: N/A