Anearth Fantasy Stories--The best RPG for the PC Engine

[termis]

http://www.mobygames.com/game/turbografx-cd/aurora-quest-otaku-no-seiza-in-another-world/screenshots

Can't say I've ever seen it...  But interesting title.  Aurora Quest: Otaku's Constellation in Another World?

[runinruder]

Pack-In Video has no place in this thread.

AQ does look pretty neat, though. 

[SignOfZeta]

http://www.mobygames.com/game/turbografx-cd/aurora-quest-otaku-no-seiza-in-another-world/screenshots

Can't say I've ever seen it...  But interesting title.  Aurora Quest: Otaku's Constellation in Another World?

Hm...I've been wondering about the FC version of that game. This makes it look really interesting.

[Tatsujin]

how you guys play all those RPGs? I mean, even if you're familiar with the japanese language on a level may be of a 8 years old japanese child (like me), it's still so hard and frustrating to struggle through such games. respect is due.

I don't find it to be that difficult to play Japanese language RPGs from back then. It usually doesn't even take that much longer than an English one due to all the time I save by skipping text I can't read. I know my kana and very very few kanji, but I have almost zero working knowlege of the language. Certainly not that of an 8th grader.

Now, playing something like Final Fantasy XII would just be torture, but RPGs from back in the day were all pretty simple. The boss you need to kill is probably sitting at the end of the only dungeon you have access to at the time, etc. Just talk to every single person every time you enter every town and kill anything that moves. You can't really do the "wrong" thing, so just try every thing.

The first Japanese language RPG I ever finished was Startling Odyssey 2 for PCE. I got hella stuck at the point where you need to get the orihalcon and make your ship warp between all those towers. Back then there was no GameFAQs.com so I did the only think I could, I called the phone number on the back of the box. Rayforce was pretty cool about it and helped me out. They asked me pretty much the same question you did though on the phone, "How you play game you don't know kanji?", or something like that.

Nowadays there is a nonstop flood of RPGs in English, but back in 1993 or so if you wanted to play more than one RPG a year it was Japanese or nothing. Nowadays I just play Super Robot Wars in Japanese, and that's about it.

i understand. but the essential question is whether it does really bring some fun with to struggle through such games without getting any content of the storyline, jokes, conversations etc. which all those games are mainly based on..?
sorry for that question, since i never really went into RPGs anyway. neither in japanese nor english/german language.

[Black Tiger]

The character you play is determined at the beginning of the game. You are dropped off as a baby in a basket in front of a church. What you do is press the action button to "cry" to choose which people will adopt you. For instance, if you wish to play as a wizard, wait until an old man with a dog walks by then cry. He will then take you and raise you himself. If you just lay there and don't cry at all, eventually someone from inside the church will come out and find you and raise you as a monk. Pretty cool huh?

Other than the weapon you carry and some stats, the choice you make really only affects the game play until you turn 15 and leave the first town. After that most of the game is the same no matter which character you are. In fact, the game is fairly linear in that you must first "go here" and "do that" before you can move on to the next area.

Before reading this, I tried the game again and just happened to wind up doing this scenario, where as the first time I tried the game I was raised by Sister Maria in the Church.

I recorded some simple gameplay as wandered my way to adulthood and uploaded it to YouTube-


I actually once started a walkthrough for it, but decided to wait until I'd finished it at least once because of the non-linear nature I'd read about. I may someday attempt a full walkthrough now, detailing each of the adoption quests.

i understand. but the essential question is whether it does really bring some fun with to struggle through such games without getting any content of the storyline, jokes, conversations etc. which all those games are mainly based on..?
sorry for that question, since i never really went into RPGs anyway. neither in japanese nor english/german language.

I've actually been emotionally moved, drawn-in and laughed my ass off at more Japanese RPG's than English. Especially a game like Kabuki den, which excells so well that I believe it communicates more to me than some blander RPG's after an even blander translation.

I also used to watch a lot of Japanese animation without subtitles and never had trouble enjoying it.

[GUTS]

I just like the gameplay of old RPGs, sometimes the stories were nice but mostly they were pretty simplistic stuff that I couldn't care less about so being in Japanese isn't a big deal as long as it doesn't hinder my progress too much or too often.

[Tatsujin]

i see. it's like a 4 years old brat having fun with "looking" at mickey mouse comics or so

[Black Tiger]

i see. it's like a 4 years old brat having fun with "looking" at mickey mouse comics or so

Kinda, except that 90% of the dialogue in anime when I watched it regularly consisted of the same common words and phrases, just like a stereotypical hollywood blockbuster. "You okay?", "Damn you", "I'm gonna kill ya!", etc...

Aside from the large vocabulary(for a gaijin) I developed, I also taught myself katakana playing Snatcher, later learned hiragana and picked up the common kanji symbols/words from playing so many Mickey Mouse games.

A good (real) comic can tell the whole story with pictures alone. Like how animation and live action films are storyboarded. It's the same with games.

I just like the gameplay of old RPGs, sometimes the stories were nice but mostly they were pretty simplistic stuff that I couldn't care less about so being in Japanese isn't a big deal as long as it doesn't hinder my progress too much or too often.

Its the same with me, I loved RPG's as games back in the day, still love 'simple' "old school" RPG's and can't get into most of these cutting edge hi-tech RPG's where you don't even equip anything. But when a game like Kabukiden takes it a step further, it's just that much more enjoyable.

[runinruder]

I was also amused and touched by Kabuki Den.  And I've thoroughly enjoyed exploring Neo Metal Fantasy's massive labyrinths and solving Anearth's intricate puzzles.  And I don't need to be fluent in Japanese to appreciate Xanadu II's beauty, Emerald Dragon's score, Manji Maru's scope, Xanadu's level of difficulty, Blood Gear's action, Madou Monogatari's charm, Dragon Knight II's atmosphere, Brandish's ingenious stage design, Efera & Jiliora's abstract setting, Cosmic Fantasy 3's refined play mechanics... and Astralius' shark level.     

There are plenty of elements besides story that can immerse you in an adventure.

[Keranu]

http://www.mobygames.com/game/turbografx-cd/aurora-quest-otaku-no-seiza-in-another-world/screenshots

Can't say I've ever seen it...  But interesting title.  Aurora Quest: Otaku's Constellation in Another World?

Thanks for the link, looks to be another cool looking obscured RPG. The PCE is loaded with these.

I just like the gameplay of old RPGs, sometimes the stories were nice but mostly they were pretty simplistic stuff that I couldn't care less about so being in Japanese isn't a big deal as long as it doesn't hinder my progress too much or too often.

Its the same with me, I loved RPG's as games back in the day, still love 'simple' "old school" RPG's and can't get into most of these cutting edge hi-tech RPG's where you don't even equip anything. But when a game like Kabukiden takes it a step further, it's just that much more enjoyable.

Same here. I was playing my bro's game of Final Fantasy X recently and when I got into a battle, I was just clueless what to do. I see all these options and I ask "Can't I simply just choose between fight, magic, item, and run?" My opinion still goes by the rule of simplicity = good.

[Joe Redifer]

My opinion still goes by the rule of simplicity = good.

Agreed.  I become disinterested when stuff like mixing potions and whatnot is involved.  I really hated Sword of Sodan.  In fact I usually am not a big magic user in RPGs, especially these days.  Thanks to the pile of crap that was Final Fantasy 7, every time you cast a spell in a modern RPG it takes twenty to thirty minutes to sit through the flashy colors and other stupid-looking things that appear on the screen that make Japan-o-nerds cream their jeans.

[Emerald Rocker]

Yeah, Sword of Sodan would have been cool if not for the potion-mixing aspect.

[Black Tiger]

My opinion still goes by the rule of simplicity = good.

Agreed.  I become disinterested when stuff like mixing potions and whatnot is involved.  I really hated Sword of Sodan.  In fact I usually am not a big magic user in RPGs, especially these days.  Thanks to the pile of crap that was Final Fantasy 7, every time you cast a spell in a modern RPG it takes twenty to thirty minutes to sit through the flashy colors and other stupid-looking things that appear on the screen that make Japan-o-nerds cream their jeans.

What I didn't 'get' with modern FF's, was how the summons would always animate with the exact same camera angles in 3D. What's the point of rendering it in 3D, if it's always going to be at the same angle? Why not just use fmv, or static bg's with extra good realtime 3D characters for the entire fight? I'd still skip over them after the first few times, if I managed to play through a modern FF.

Synthesizing in place of rare equipment drops has ruined PSU and I had no interest in learning crafts when I experimented with FFXI. Its not so bad to have tacked on lame systems when they're only tacked on and not mandatory. I wasn't too happy with having to spend so much time blacksmithing equipment in the Saturn Shining games.

[FM-77]

What I didn't 'get' with modern FF's, was how the summons would always animate with the exact same camera angles in 3D. What's the point of rendering it in 3D, if it's always going to be at the same angle? Why not just use fmv, or static bg's with extra good realtime 3D characters for the entire fight? I'd still skip over them after the first few times, if I managed to play through a modern FF.

Makes a lot of sense to me. Cutscenes doesn't take up as much space as videos, and the resolution is higher. Grandia II, for example, uses video files for all magic effects and it looks really bad, since the videos are really low-res (because otherwise they wouldn't fit on the disc).

[Black Tiger]

What I didn't 'get' with modern FF's, was how the summons would always animate with the exact same camera angles in 3D. What's the point of rendering it in 3D, if it's always going to be at the same angle? Why not just use fmv, or static bg's with extra good realtime 3D characters for the entire fight? I'd still skip over them after the first few times, if I managed to play through a modern FF.

Makes a lot of sense to me. Cutscenes doesn't take up as much space as videos, and the resolution is higher. Grandia II, for example, uses video files for all magic effects and it looks really bad, since the videos are really low-res (because otherwise they wouldn't fit on the disc).

The PSX FF's were already on multiple discs, because they didn't shy away from mixing in fmv. But they still should've made more than one angle for the summons' since you're basically spending half the game looking at the same non-interactive animation.