Home on the RNG

With Jeff nowhere to be seen, Russ and Rachel talk about one of their favourite series, the original Mass Effect Trilogy.

Join us as we look back on the last nine games we played, and discuss the highs and lows.

Games discussed:

Live a Live

Grandia

Breath of Fire II

Final Fantasy V

Final Fantasy Adventure

Robot Trek

Final Fantasy Legend III

Dragon Quest III

Quest 64

A visit with a friend of mine who grew up gaming, and worked in a retro video game store.

Check out Jamie's art for sale at goldenbatstudios.com

Quest 64 (Holy Magic Century in Europe, Australia and New

Zealand, Eltale Monsters in Japan) is a single-player role-playing video game

developed by Imagineer and published by THQ. It was released for the Nintendo

64 in 1998 and was the first role-playing video game released for the system in

the United States.

After Quest 64's moderate financial success, a sequel was in

consideration by the developer Imagineer. However, only the sequel's story was

revealed before it was ultimately cancelled. Imagineer released two other

related games for the Game Boy Color: Quest: Brian's Journey and a maze game

called Quest: Fantasy Challenge.

Like anything, the jRPG genre has evolved over time. Let's talk about some of the aspects of jRPGs that have changed as this genre has aged.

Dragon Quest III: The Seeds of Salvation, titled Dragon Warrior

III when initially localized to North America, is a role-playing video game

developed by Chunsoft and published by Enix. It is the third installment in the

Dragon Quest series and was first released for the Famicom in Japan and later

for the NES in North America. The game saw an enhanced remake for the Super

Famicom in 1996 and the Game Boy Color in 2001, and a port to mobile phones and

the Wii in 2009 and 2011. A version of the game for Android and iOS was

released in Japan on September 25, 2014, and worldwide as Dragon Quest III: The

Seeds of Salvation on December 4, 2014. It was the first time the game was

given an official English subtitle.

In this side quest, the guys tackle a difficult question. What exactly is a jRPG? There's so much grey area in the genre, especially now when every game seems to have "RPG elements", so the conversation is more about "what sort of games can you expect us to review on this podcast?"

Final Fantasy Legend III, known in Japan as SaGa 3: Jikuu no

Hasha, is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the

Game Boy. The third entry in the SaGa series, it was released in Japan in 1991

and in North America in 1993. A later edition released in North America in 1998

through Sunsoft. A remake for the Nintendo DS was released in 2011 by Square

Enix, remaining exclusive to Japan. The Game Boy version was later ported by

Nintendo Switch and released worldwide by Square Enix in 2020.

The game's narrative follows a group of warriors as they

fight a god-like being in the past, present, and future. During gameplay, players

explore the different time periods, fighting in turn-based battles and raising

character power through a combination of experience points, skill leveling, and

material-based character classes.

It's been several years since this project began, let's see what constant exposure to new jRPGs has done to the guy's lists of favourite games. This episode is a bit longer than normal, just because there are so many games to talk about.

Robotrek, known in Japan as Slapstick, is a role-playing

video game (RPG) for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). It was

co-developed by Quintet and Ancient and published by Enix in both Japan and

North America in 1994. Set on the fictional planet Quintenix, the game puts the

player in control of a budding robotics expert who is the son of a famous

inventor.

As its Japanese name implies, Robotrek was intended as a

humorous game. Designed to appeal to a younger audience, Robotrek's main focus

is on allowing the player to raise up to three robots which are built from

spare parts that may be found, gained through battles, or generated by the

player by means of the game's item combination system.