Armed Dragon Fantasy Villgust (NES)

So, Villgust is a big franchise, that's probably mostly known among English-speaking fans for the two episode OAV from 1993. I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think the original incarnation was a combination of a tabletop RPG with a series of randomly packaged keshigomu figures. So, of course, the videogame versions of it (there's this one and another one on SNES) are also RPGs. Though this version attempts to make things a little more interesting by having real time action battles.

 

How that works is that you walk around the maps and get into random battles like in pretty much any other traditional videogame RPG, but when the battle starts, the enemies will be split into small groups, and each member of your party fights one of those small groups. This is done in a little single screen platformer-style area, and you can walk, jump, and attack, and some characters can also learn and equip magic spells, which you cast in a very traditional NES action game way: pressing up and attack together. It's pretty fun though the balance between the enemies' strangth and your party's is never quite right: when you first enter an area, the enemies will be very tough, but after only one or two level ups, they'll quickly become trivial wastes of your time, rather than an actual danger.

 

Unfortunately, that's not the game's biggest problem. That comes in the form of a particularly egregious case of 8-bit RPG obtusity. More precisely, talking to the right people in the right order is compulsory in order to advance through the game. You might easily fight your way through the dungeon near the town, but until you've spoken to the person in town who tells you that that dungeon is where the boss is, the boss just won't be there, and you can't get any further. The game has a fan translation, but I was still regularly consulting guides as I played, because there's just no in-game indication of exactly who the magic game-advancing NPC is. They all mostly say pretty generic borderline meaningless NPC lines, too.

 

Despite all its flaws, I did actually enjoy the few hours I played of Villgust. However, despite that, I think the flaws are too glaring to allow me to recommend anyone else play it. I guess there are some people out there who do actually enjoy that whole "talking to everyone multiple times is compulsory" thing, so those people should have no problem with it being such a big part of this one. As for everyone else? Don't bother.