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Data East is a company most known for their arcade games, but like many Japanese developers, they made sure to get in on the lucrative role-playing game market of their home country. They would start their flagship RPG franchise all the way back on the Famicom, and this series was called Heracles no Eiko or Glory of Heracles in English. The series, as of 2021, includes six total games with five of them being in the main series and one of them being a spin-off released for Game Boy. The first four main titles would see two releases on Famicom and Super Famicom each. Data East would go bankrupt in 2003 and a chunk of their staff would end up at a developer called Paon at the time, now called Paon DP after a merger in 2015. Paon would buy the rights to some of the Data East properties, with Glory of Heracles being one of them. The fifth main game in the series, Heracles no Eiko: Tamashii no Shomei, would be developed by Paon with assistance from Studio Saizensen, known for developing Umihara Kawase and Code of Princess. Heracles no Eiko: Tamashii no Shomei would be published by Nintendo and release for the DS in 2008 in Japan. This would also be the first and only game in the franchise to see a release outside of Japan, being released as Glory of Heracles in North America in 2010.
Continue reading Glory of Heracles
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Dragon Quest V is one of the most important role playing games to ever be released. Despite this, it has been a near unknown outside of Japan. Enix struggled to establish any sort of long term foothold in the North American gaming market. They were a bit more successful in Europe, enough to keep the doors open through the mid-90s. Translating RPGs is a long, expensive process, and Dragon Quest was the company's flagship series. The first four games on NES were all localized and released, but the process likely started too late. Japan got to see the full, natural evolution of these early Famicom RPGs, while the Western games were jumbled. They released a few years after their initial release as well. Japan originally saw the first Final Fantasy releasing two short months before Dragon Quest III. In the timeline of Western releases, Final Fantasy actually beat Dragon Quest II to market. Being a full game behind made Enix's games look that much weaker once they released internationally.
A big promotion with Nintendo Power got a lot of copies of the first Dragon Quest game circulated in North America, but the sales of each subsequent game in the series just fell. The later games in the series were also hurt, since they were released after the Super Nintendo's release. The early games in the series were like building blocks, introducing more core mechanics with each subsequent game. By the time that Dragon Quest V was getting ready for release, all these pieces were in place, and the focus on telling the personal story of the heroes became even more prevalent.
Continue reading Dragon Quest V: The Lost Masterpiece
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Suikoden Tierkreis was the second Suikoden game made by Konami for a non-Sony system and was the first to be released outside of Japan. The first, Suikoden Card Stories, was released on the Game Boy Advance (Japan exclusive) and is basically a retelling of Suikoden II as a trading card game. Though I have no idea what I'm doing in that game due to the language barrier, I do know what's going on in Tierkreis. Tierkreis was the first Suikoden game released since Suikoden V on the PS2, and was anxiously awaited by fans of the series, since there was about a three year gap between these releases.
Continue reading Psychotic Reviews: Suikoden Tierkreis
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