NFOpocalypse

[ Superior ] Epic Legendary

There are only so many variations to the Platforming model, but when the market was saturated with this genre, we gamers were treated to every possible iteration. Whether they were inserting RPG elements like in E.V.O. or pushing the model to its limit like in Kid Chameleon, developers built some amazing experiences from the “Platformer” scaffolding. One game that demonstrates this particularly well is Enix’s Hack-and-slash platformer\City-building Sim ActRaiser. And so, let’s ROMinisce.

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Superior [ Epic ] Legendary

Final Fantasy Tactics and Disgaea brought the Tactical RPG to non-Japanese gamers, but the genre obviously predates these landmarks.  With Fire Emblem establishing the genre only years prior, Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen had a virtually blank slate to work with.  Like the band whose songs the series’ titles pay homage to, this classic is both enduring and incomparably brilliant.

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Superior Epic [ Legendary ]

We might be used to the idea that SquareSoft can take something like the Disney universe and make a full-fledged role-playing experience out of it, but Kingdom Hearts does not come without precedent.  Before Paper Mario, before Kingdom Hearts, and before Rare unhitched its wagon from Nintendo, there was today’s ROMiniscing feature: Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars.

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[ Superior ] Epic Legendary

Any SNES\Genesis\TG-16\Neo Geo gamer can opine about the long list of games that never made it to the North American and PAL region markets, but how many can name one that never made it into the Japanese?  And with Action RPGs having their origins in Japan, wouldn’t you be surprised if this game fit that bill too?   Well then get surprised, because today we ROMinisce about exactly that: Secret of Evermore.

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Superior [ Epic ] Legendary

Being a creative medium, a fresh idea like Spore is well-received in the game industry (even if it’s tantamount to a five-part minigame).  Long before YouTube was flooded with “Creature Creator” penis-monsters, evolution was the focus of a now obscure 1993 title published by Enix known as E.V.O.: Search for Eden.  Combining Platforming with Role-Playing, creationism with evolution, and science with mythology, this classic game remains distinct and downright fun.

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In the last decade video games have gone from being something nerds did instead of meeting the opposite sex to that thing almost all people do instead of meeting the opposite sex. While video games have become possibly the largest entertainment industry in history, they have also gained some of the most sickly parasites of all. I speak, of course, about hack critics. While you are playing a game to enjoy it’s deep mechanics, gorgeous art, or complete lack of either, your critic counterpart is busy picking big words from a thesaurus so he can shit on your favorite new title. The OBRR is the line in the sand, and I stand on one side armed with poor grammar and crude language. Watch where you step.

Let’s start this off with the most obvious fart-sniffer on the whole goddamn Internet

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Don’t you just love that nice alliteration? But the crassness and vulgarity of this article’s title captures the essence of it perfectly. Sometimes when a series moves forward, the hardcore fans bitch and moan because the game isn’t exactly like it was before. Fuck Fallout fans. Fuck them so hard.

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Another Atlus game in the Shin Megami Tensei series (and spinoffs), Digital Devil Saga is bizarre. I don’t mean the regular kind of bizarre, which is what Persona 3 or Final Fantasy X might fall under. Digital Devil Saga is downright creepy in its employment of the surreal, creepy, and extraordinary elements of its plot. Perhaps the biggest element of this insane aesthetic is in the fact that you consume your defeated enemies. Not only that, but the enemies you defeat used to be human. So, in essence, Digital Devil Saga is about cannibalism.

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To put this into context, I tend to go through phases when playing videogames. It normally goes along the lines of first-person shooter, American RPG, Japanese RPG, Strategy RPG, Turn-based Strategy, Real-time strategy, and then repeat at FPS. This is just how I function as a gamer. There’s individual games within those genres that I always play, and there’s some genres that are always good to play at any time. For example, I always play shoot-’em-ups. I always play Team Fortress 2. And when it comes to Japanese RPGs, I always play Persona 3.

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One of the more interesting Pokemon spin-offs, there were actually two Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games before the two I’m focusing on in this article; Red Rescue Team on the GBA, and Blue Rescue Team on the DS. The second pair, both DS games, are Explorers of Time and Explorers of Darkness (sometimes collectively called Mystery Dungeon 2 since they’re the second set). Please note, I never played the first two, mainly because I had no idea what sort of games they were.

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