Review by: Richard T. Keefe III

Farland Story - Strategy RPG

This is an old series dating back to the Super Famicom days. I believe this particular volume appeared originally on the new NEC FX machine (whatever happened to that big dog - their franchise title, Far East of Eden. appears on the Saturn).

There are two modes, the overhead strategy map where you move small characters around, and the battle scenes. The strategy map is very basic with mediocre graphics that are on par with games like Super Robot Wars - small characters, flat map, some towns, mountains, and lakes. The battle scene graphics are much improved over the Super Famicom series. These are one-on-one fights with your character at one end rushing down to attack the enemy at the other end of the screen. The drawing is excellent with the characters having that "high gloss" rendered look with nice looking spells and animated attacks.

Overall, this is fun strategy game along the lines of Feda and Shining Force. This is no Dragon Force with all its depth and graphic wonders. This is straight up strategy. Move your characters around and beat on the enemies until you get to the boss. Good game.

Dragon Master Silk - Dungeon RPG

This is an anime dungeon RPG with cute cartoon girls as your main attack party. The game seems to take place almost entirely in a dungeon setting which is not my favorite environment for an RPG. A little variety of scenes would have helped this game.

The dungeon graphics are fair. The walls are not as good as Shining the Holy Ark, Personna, or Bastard. They are strictly mediocre polygons that reminded me of 16 bit technology. The monsters, on the other hand, are well drawn and appear directly in front of you just like in Holy Ark. That's where the comparison ends because the attacks are pretty basic with pictures of your characters on the bottom of the screen making faces as they attack.

Overall, it is an average game that could have been done on less sophisticated equipment. The automap helps guide you through the dungeons and if you like that environment it might just the game for you while waiting for Sega and other nameless companies to come out with the really top quality RPGs the Saturn is capable of.

AnEarth Fantasies Story - RPG

This is a remake of one the last PC Engine ( Turbo Duo) games published in Japan. It is (once again) an average RPG with not much new to tell you that 32 bit tech is under the hood of your console. To be honest with you, I played it on the PC Engine and except for a little color enhancement, I can't tell much difference. The music seems to be the same sound track with all of the 16-bit limitations. I played it before for about 12 hours and put it down.

The game involves a typical hero walking, talking, and searching through towns and then going out to a battle area in search of the boss of the particular scenario. The cool feature in towns is that you can search almost every piece of furniture and the doors will open like in the last two Dragon Quest games. This keeps your attention for awhile. The town graphics are 16 bit which is fine but ...................

The outside is done on an overhead map where you move your character to different spots on the map and are transported to the next scenario.

There are hardly any battles in this game. They are done in the side-to-side view like Final Fantasy but I believe I have had a total of 10 fights in 8 hours of play. Pretty amazing!

Overall Impressions of the Latest Releases:

None of these games are up to the standards set early by Magic Knight, Shining Wisdom, Blue Seed, Lunar, etc. I really don't know what is going on. I believe that all three of these games could have been done on the Super Famicom. They are all playable and have their good points but we have taken a serious step backwards with these titles (throw Pantila Story in here too). Let's hope this is just part of the winter lull otherwise we Saturn owners are in serious trouble. With the recent release of Castlevania and Vandal Hearts by Konami on that other system, the quality line has been moved way up and I really think the Saturn could be the machine to put out really great RPG's. Keep hoping!