The most underrated RPG to emerge on the Nintendo Entertainment System ever!
GAMEPLAY ~
This game is shown in 3rd person view (or god-view) and the controls are very basic, with jumping, slashing and shooting as your basic commands. There are also some puzzles, but nothing too extreme.
You control the Hero who can choose upto 3 different classes for this adventure, each with their own benefits! Warriors had the better fighting skills, but lacked at magic consumption from your rod. Magicians could fire from the rod like it was a machine gun, but his sword became a useless dagger and you pose NO threat in battles. An finally the saint, its the midpoint between the two, but ahs several more uses later in the game.
You fought in two different battle styles.
One is the turn-based battle made popular by games like Dragon Warriors, and the other is the overworld battle similar to Legend of Zelda. You get a hell of allot of characters thought the adventure, but they show their usefulness in the turn-based battles. In those battles you can choose different formations to battle stronger enemy forces that maybe weak against that certain form. At the end of the world you must face the demon and rescue the prison they keep guarded. You would think that the boss battles would be in a turn-based encounter, when really they were in the LoZ battle style.
An lets not forget you can time travel! Each level has 2 different timestamps you must visit to correct the damage done by the evil wizard!
STORY ~
An evil wizard captures the Princess (who's name we can't spell or pronounce) and entraps her in limbo. You as the descendent of a great warrior must travel the 5 different worlds and rescue the Princess before any more damage is done to the time-stream... wait... I think that last part is wrong. Anyway, rescue princess... be wizards... we got it.
GRAPHICS ~
I can't believe this game ran on an NES engine!
The world was mostly a green rug with some trees planted on it with some still water featured around. The towns as well had the green carpet, but there were several villagers and building entrances to explore with a variety of merchants and casinos to delve into.
The overworld enemies sorta looked like Native Americans (in Arabia?) with the addition of some bugs and leaping Zoras! The turn-based battles had still life enemies who flashed when they attack, and lets not forget your partners, who were as well still images, but looked cool just standing there! The magic was kinda lame, with "seal" turning you into a can of tuna, but if you can't enjoy some comedy in your games, than why are you even playing games?
MUSIC ~
Eh, some music was good. The Temple of the Magi was the most memorable tune, as well as the turn-based battle music. The overworld tune was kinda repetitive, but once those Indians appeared, it was actions from than on!
REPLAYABILITY~
Each stage had it's own secrets to uncover and several teamates to locate. But once you move onto the next world, anything left behind is left behind. So unless you want to collect every last thing, you need to do it in once shot, so the initial replay isn’t very high, since most of the teamates are quite useless besides the essential "story" characters. An lets not forget the always terrible "password" access... another title doomed by this attempt to save money.
OVERALL ~
If you like RPGs, and own an NES emulator, try the Magic of Unpronounceable ROM!
It might look a bit dated but if you cherish strong creative ideas and overall excellent gameplay you won’t be disappointed with this "before it's time" game!