Category: Dark Age of JRPGs

Lost Power (The Dark Age of JRPGs)
The Makai is ruled by a number of demon lords, each vying for higher status on the food chain by …

Fantasian (Dark Age of JRPGs)
Among the early Japanese RPG scene, Xtalsoft’s Mugen no Shinzou series is well known for combining the exploration of Ultima …

Paladin (Dark Age of JRPGs)
Paladin (or “The Paladin“, as written in-game) is an early action-RPG released by Bothtec in 1985. Various Japanese sites indicate …

Riglas (Dark Age of JRPGs)
Most RPGs of the 80s utilized an overhead view or a first person perspective, while a select few (such as …

Weird 2 (Dark Age of JRPGs)
I thought a game named Weird 2 would be an interesting game to cover for this column…but nope! It’s actually …

Mugen no Shinzou (Dark Age of JRPGs)
I promised we’d meet Xtal Soft again soon, didn’t I? Mugen no Shinzou (“Heart of Fantasy”) is actually their first RPG and …

Courageous Perseus (Dark Age of JRPGs)
Hey, this is the first game in this series where I actually saw the end of it! Mostly because it …

Danchizuma no Yuuwaku (Dark Age of JRPGs)
Japan being Japan, you knew it was only a matter of time until the first “erotic” game would show up …

Panorama Toh (Dark Age of JRPGs)
If you thought Dragon Slayer was Falcom’s first RPG, you guessed wrong. Well, admittedly it’s a bit of a stretch …

Some More Games We Cannot Play (Dark Age of JRPGs)
Greetings! The above is actually the cover for Dragon and Princess, which we already wrote about, but we couldn’t find …

Do Dutch Wives Dream of Electric Eels? (Dark Age of JRPGs)
Most computer RPGs in the early days (and even in the modern era) are based around some fantasy or swords …

Dragon & Princess, The (Dark Age of JRPGs)
The Dragon & Princess ドラゴンアンドプリンセス – PC-88, FM-7 (December 1982) When people think of Koei nowadays, the first association …

Some Games We Cannot Play (Dark Age of JRPGs)
Alright, before we can go on with the regular program, here is one issue that we need to deal with …

Seiken Densetsu (Dark Age of JRPGs)
No, this has nothing to do with Square’s popular Mana series, despite the identical Japanese title. This one was actually …

Dungeon (Dark Age of JRPGs)
Koei’s final RPG for 1983 follows the classic Ultima formula closer than any of the other games shown thus far. …

Ken to Mahou / Sword & Sorcery (Dark Age of JRPGs)
Last week I didn’t get to do another entry unfortunately (although I technically didn’t announce this as a weekly column …