Dragon Slayer is a series of role-playing video games by Nihon Falcom. The first Dragon Slayer game is an early action role-playing game, released in 1984 for the NEC PC-8801 and ported by Square for the MSX. Designed by Yoshio Kiya, the game gave rise to a series of sequels, most of them created by Falcom, with the exception of Faxanadu by Hudson Soft. The Dragon Slayer series is historically significant, both as a founder of the Japanese role-playing game industry, and as the progenitor of the action role-playing game genre.
Tactical role-playing games, also known as strategy role-playing games and in Japan as simulation RPGs, are a video game genre that combines core elements of role-playing video games with those of tactical strategy video games. The formats of tactical RPGs are much like traditional tabletop role-playing games and strategy games in appearance, pacing, and rule structure. Likewise, early tabletop role-playing games are descended from skirmish wargames such as Chainmail, which were primarily concerned with combat.
Langrisser is a fantasy tactical role-playing video game series created by Masaya Games. The main development team is Career Soft, first as Team Career within Masaya Games for the first three games and then as an independent studio for Langrisser IV and V. The series has a fantasy-Germanic setting, but draws on religious concepts like ditheism and sword worship for historical context. The series was originally released for Sega platforms during the 1990s, with the first two installments originally made for the Mega Drive, followed by third through fifth installments for the Sega Saturn. Ports and remakes were also made for other platforms such as PC Engine, Super Famicom, PC-FX and PlayStation during the same period.
Majin Tensei is a series of strategy video games published by Atlus. It is a spin-off from Atlus' Megami Tensei franchise, and began with 1994's Majin Tensei. Since then, four further titles have been released: Majin Tensei II: Spiral Nemesis (1995), Ronde (1997), Majin Tensei: Blind Thinker (2007) and Majin Tensei: Blind Thinker II (2008). The player navigates a field seen from a top-down or three-quarters perspective as a human character, and battles demons; they can also recruit demons, and fuse multiple allied demons to create new, stronger demons.
Dungeon Explorer is an action role-playing video game developed by Atlus for the TurboGrafx-16 and originally published by Hudson Soft in Japan on March 4, 1989, and later in North America by NEC on November 15 of the same year. The first installment in the eponymous franchise, the game is set in the land of Oddesia, which has been overrun by an alien race and where players assume the role of one of eight main characters tasked with recovering the Ora stone to kill the alien king Natas. Co-directed by Kazutoshi Ueda and Yōsuke Niino, the title was created by most of the same team that would work on later several projects such as entries in the Megami Tensei series. Though it was initially launched for the TurboGrafx-16, it was later re-released through download services for various consoles.
Langrisser II is a tactical role-playing game for the Sega Mega Drive console. It is the sequel to Langrisser, and was never released outside Japan. Langrisser II was remade for the Super Famicom by Masaya as Der Langrisser, which featured multiple paths through the game, greatly reduced difficulty, and reworked graphics. A PC-FX port, Der Langrisser FX, was also released, featuring animated cutscenes. It was later compiled with the first Langrisser for the PlayStation as Langrisser I & II , and then given a script edit and new branch of the Imperial path in its Saturn remake as Langrisser: Dramatic Edition. A Windows 98 port of the game was released in Japanese, Chinese and Korean; it features redrawn, high-resolution graphics, but a vastly trimmed-down soundtrack to fit the confines of a standard CD. A full remake of Langrisser I & II was also released in 2019 on both Sony PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch and on PC in 2020, featuring new graphics and BGM.
Langrisser IV is a tactical role-playing game developed by Career Soft and released by Masaya Games for the Sega Saturn on August 1, 1997. It was later ported to the PlayStation on January 28, 1999. Langrisser IV is the sequel to Langrisser III, which has never been released outside Japan. There is a fan-translated English patch available for the PlayStation version.
Langrisser V: The End of Legend is a video game in the Langrisser series, and is the sequel to Langrisser IV. It has never been released outside Japan.
El Viento is a 1991 platform game developed and published by Wolf Team for the Sega Genesis. It is the first in a trilogy of games, which includes Earnest Evans and Anett Futatabi.
Megami Tensei Gaiden: Last Bible is a role-playing video game series developed by Multimedia Intelligence Transfer, Sega, and Menue, and published by Atlus and Sega for multiple platforms. The first game of the series, Revelations: The Demon Slayer, was released in 1992; this is the only title in the series to have been released in English. After The Demon Slayer, two sequels and five spin-off titles have been released. In the main series titles, players explore the game world and fight monsters in menu-based battles; players can also attempt to recruit monsters to their party, and can fuse two allied monsters into a single new one to try to get stronger monsters. The spin-off title Another Bible is a turn-based strategy game, while Last Bible Special is a role-playing game controlled from a first-person perspective.
Anett Futatabi is a side scrolling, beat-em-up video game developed and published by Wolf Team for the Mega CD hardware add-on for the Mega Drive. It is the final in a trilogy of games that also includes Earnest Evans and El Viento. The game was released only in Japan in 1993.
While the early history and distinctive traits of role-playing video games (RPGs) in East Asia have come from Japan, many video games have also arisen in China, developed in South Korea, and Taiwan.
Hardcore Gaming 101 is an online video game magazine founded by Kurt Kalata. Kalata established the site after graduating college, when he noticed the overabundance of game strategy guides, and felt that someone should create more books about gaming history. In its formative years, Hardcore Gaming 101 focused especially on games from Japan. The site has become known for its in-depth coverage of classic games and the history behind them.
