Old Squaresoft rpg's you (probably) never played.

I really love the 16-bit Squaresoft era, it was the golden age in many ways. The art direction still had not gone over-the-top to what it is now; main characters didn't look all the same, all male characters were not overly-feminized, and there was much more of a grounded fantasy look. These things are completely subjective of course, but when I think of modern jrpg's I usually think of something like this:

But I digress. There are still plenty of 16-bit era RPG's I haven't played, so I decided I am going to play and review some of the lesser known Square ones. I plan on doing a blog review of each of these titles, letting you know if they are worth playing or not. The game I am currently playing is 'Rudra no Hihou', or Treasure of the Rudras.

Treasure of the Rudras:

One of the last Square games released for Super Famicom, never made it outside of Japan but a fan translation was finished in 2006. It's an interesting game, you literally create your own Spells/Special Attacks by naming them via a text editor. Different syllabols give different effects, 'ig' for example is a basic fire attack. Then later in the game you learn that 'lus' makes a spell hit all enemies, therefore you can make 'iglus'. But any word can give an effect, there are literally thousands of possible combinations - and yes, filth words do actually have effects. There is also a real day/night cycle that counts down the number of days you have left until armageddon hits. Full review coming in a few weeks.

Treasure Hunter G:

The last game released on Super Famicom. Also never made it state side, but thank fan translations again. Don't know much about it yet except it has a more strategy-rpg combat system with fairly impressive visuals for a 16-bit game.

Romancing SaGa 3:

I'm probably in weird minority of actually liking SaGa Frontier 1+2. Having never played the previous titles, this is the game I'm probably looking forward to playing the most. But it will also probably be the most time consuming. Unique combat system + can see enemies in the world similar to Chrono Trigger. Also fan translated.

Bahamut Lagoon:

An RPG based on the Bahamut lore that you probably recognize from the Final Fantasy series. Never released outside of Japan, big surprise.

I hear that FFX's story is very similar to Bahamut Lagoon's.

Treasure of the Rudras seems interesting.

There are modern JRPG's that stand out. Persona 4, SMTIV, and Bravely Default are worth looking into.

I have dabbled in a few of these RPGs but I've never seriously played any of them. Out of the four games you have listed I'd be the most interested in playing Treasure Hunter G since it was one of the earlier titles developed by Sting, a company who has made a lot of cool stuff. Thank the heavens for fan translators or else none of these games would be accessible to English speaking fans. Good luck on your reviews.

Whenever I think of modern JRPGs I usually think of awesome handheld titles such as the previously mentioned Bravely Default or Fire Emblem Awaking. Also I'm not sure if I would use Final Fantasy XII as an example of a "modern" JRPG, it is over 8 years old after all.

I've actually played all of those games, although I didn't get very far in any of them. Here's another great SNES RPG that most Squaresoft fans probably never played:

Live-A-Live:

Also never released outside of Japan, this is an epic that starts off kind of like Romancing Saga 3, with a choice of multiple characters, each with their own story perspective. However, each character is from a different place and time in history (prehistoric times, ancient China, feudal Japan, medieval Europe, American Wild West, present day, near future, space age), and they all eventually cross paths through time-travel. In other words, it's kind of like Romancing Saga 3 meets Chrono Trigger, although it was released before both of them.

I've played a few hours of Treasure of the Rudras and thought that it was a pretty good game. This reminds me I should go back and finish it at some point.

Final Fantasy Legends games I remember being nigh impenetrable when I was younger.

Holy shit there is a Tom Sawyer RPG by Square. I never knew that. Predictably, its pretty racist.

I wouldn't really disregard modern JRPGs, the SMT series is awesome and FFXII despite some rather questionable character designs was a really good game. Also don't forget Dragon Quest VIII, such an amazing game.

On the Japan-only topic: This ain't a 16bit or Squaresoft JRPG but I'd suggest trying out Sweet Home for Famicom, it's by Shinji Mikami (Resident Evil guy) and it is an awesome blend of RPG, puzzle and horror game with perma-death.

@bambamcz said:

Can you elaborate on this? I didn't particularly enjoy FFXII. I thought the story was really boring since I have very little interest in large scale war stories that incorporate politics. But I don't remember any of the characters being outlandish or anything.

I thought FF12 was pretty solid. Vaan and Penelo were typical dreadful FF characters (Hope in FF13 looks exactly like him and that other annoying girl fits Penelo's slot. Yea I didn't like 13 at all). But I thought the rest of the characters were pretty great.

The story was fairly dull. Also no airship overworld stuff. FF10 was where that went downhill. Wasn't that big of a fan of the License Board. I guess the Zodiac version of the game is better but I never played it.

But man the rest of the game made up for all that. Combat was a great compromise between the classic turn based and something with a little more freedom and higher pace. I also thought the Gambit system was fun toward the end game. The world was big and awesome. Soooo much stuff to do in the game even after completing the story. I prefer the traditional cutscene/single attack form of summons but at least this system was better than how lame they were in 10. And they still had some amazing looking special moves. Great music.

Other stuff but now it's time to eat wings!

Romancing SaGa 3 was awesome. I beat it about 10 years ago without a guide when I was still in High School. It was very time-consuming and I got stuck several times because it's open world and there's a lot of events and whatnot that aren't triggered until you talk to X npc or do Y thing. It was still a lot of fun and felt like a real accomplishment when I got to the end. The last boss fight was HARD! He got stronger as the fight went on and then put out an aura that did damage to you every round in addition to his attacks AND you had a time limit. If you didn't kill him fast enough, game over.

I didn't like Bahamut Lagoon very much. I didn't get very far in that one. The little bit of story I saw was largely uninteresting to me and the gameplay didn't do much for me either.

Treasure Hunter G seemed pretty cool from what I remember of it. It's been a long time since I've played it. I honestly don't remember why I stopped or much of anything else about the game, story-wise. I suppose that itself is an indication of how much impact the game left on me. Pretty much all I remember was the combat system was unique and honestly, pretty cool.

Thanks for the heads up, @video_game_king! :D

I mean, uh, @luxer!

I remember the SaGa games, but the others I didn't get to play. I like many modern JRPGs, but I certainly hold that era's JRPGs in high regard.

Romancing SaGa 3 fooled me by having an art style in the vein of FF6, but its so slow and the fighting is just no fun. I remember liking Treasure Hunter G at the time, and Live a Live (one I thought you would have mentioned here) was interesting just because of how different it was