SOL MOONARGE- Oh hell yeah, this game was great. It definitely needs to be added to the list of games that are easy for non-Japanese speakers to play through. The game is just plain fast, it's a nice change of pace from most of the archaic old RPGs of the era. There's a fast walk button, everything loads really fast (with one exception I'll get to in a minute), and the battles are ULTRA fast. There is literally no loading at all when you get in a battle, it's like playing a cartridge game. Plus if you get tired of holding the I button down during battles, there are like 8 or so auto battle options you can play with (I didn't figure these out, they all seemed to do the same thing for me but I'm sure there is some benefit to them). You can even target 1 or all enemies with any weapon or magic just by pressing up, no need for specialized weapons or magic. The dungeons also offer quite a bit of variety with some of them taking place in a side-scrolling view with some cool puzzles.
The graphics are also pretty amazing for the most part. The main over world graphics are just ok, but the dungeons are nearly all really, really cool looking with tons of detail and some nice effects. The cinemas also use some great effects and are pretty awesome. Even quite a few of the enemies in the game are really nice looking and HUGE, plus all the bosses have some great animations and weird attacks that look cool. Overall the game leaves a great visual impression and if it wasn't for the mediocre over world graphics I would say it hangs with some of the best looking RPGs of the 16bit era.
There are a few bad points, although considering how awesome and well done the rest of the game is, they are basically just slight annoyances that really stand out because of how great everything else is. The first is the incredibly high encounter rate, which isn't a pain for most of the game, but once in a while you run into an area or dungeon where every f*cking enemy has to use an attack that hits ALL your characters so you sit there waiting for the god damn attack to finish just to have to see it again and again. Also, enemies get the first attack about 80% of the time, seriously. It really, really gets irritating a few times where you play as one character and the enemies have status altering effects (one tower in particular the enemies can put your guy to sleep, it took me a few tries to get out of there alive). The only other real problem is that getting in and out of your ship later in the game has a weird 5 or so second delay where the game has to load something. I have no idea why since the graphics are the same, but I assume it's maybe loading in the sea based enemies or something. You will do a lot of entering/exiting the ship for about 3-5 hours of the game, so it gets really irritating sometimes. Also, I found that magic was completely worthless outside of healing spells.
I'd say this is one of my favorite PC Engine RPGs now, it was fun as hell, easy to play, FAST as f*ck, and incredibly well put together. I'd definitely recommend spending the $30 or so it goes for. It took me about 25 hours to beat, although I think I left it on for a few hours one day so that might be a little high.
There are a few parts where you might get stuck, here's a quick rundown of all the places I got stuck-
-Early in the game you have to read some graffiti on the wall to the right of the bed in the princes room in Itch castle (the first castle in the game). You can't see it so just get in the bed and press against the right wall and search.
-You have to visit the thief tower a second time to retrieve the treasure you couldn't get the first time, this takes place after you get blasted into the sky by Silver.
-In Ain village (the one that is in a mountain that you must pass through to get to the mountain dungeon) there is a lady shopkeeper on the top left of the village that you must talk to from the side after you beat the mountain dungeon.
-In Neo Raputo there is a secret door behind the Sultan that you can only enter at night when the Guard is gone. Just press up against the wall and you'll pass through.
-In the Dimension Dungeon (cave above the town where the people are ghosts and only come out at night) you have to equip the rainbow goggles to see the hidden chests/warps.
-There is a small island in the middle of the map that doesn't show up on the map where the Ghost Ship will be cruising around after you beat the Dimension dungeon and get all the treasures.
