Seiya Monogatari: Anearth Fantasy Stories

Japanese RPG is one of the most conservative video game genres. Even though Turbo CD (PC Engine CD) had an exceptionally rich library of high-quality RPGs, nearly all of them were quite traditional. "Seiya Monogatari" is notable in several aspects. It has high replay value, because the game's hero can have four different life stories - depending on when exactly he cried when he was just a baby (this is naturally controlled by the player). Also, not only does the game get rid of random battles, but even regular battles are rare - the game is much more about exploration than about fighting thousands of enemies. There is also no traditional "leveling", so the outcome of the battles depends on strategy, not on level grinding. Add to this a typically Japanese touching story, lively characters, sweet graphics and music, voice acting and anime-style cut scenes that made Turbo CD games so appealing - and you'll get one of the great classics of the genre, unfortunately nearly unknown outside of its homeland.

Leveling Down: The Story of Hentai RPGs

Our resident expert Unicorn B. Lynx tackles a much-overlooked games genre: Hentai RPGs. An elephant in the room, never shown on our frontpage, but buried deep down into the search engine, the history and highlights of the genre are dissected. Unicorn B. Lynx distils the essential gameplay that made its mark, to weed out the titles that are important and need to be played, and not just for the pretty pictures.