Post by Jo Musashi on Apr 18, 2007 19:52:59 GMT
My GOTW pick is one of the SMS's bestest action/adventure titles: SpellCaster!
It was released just after my SMS-playing friend completed Phantasy Star, so for months we called it the "unofficial PSII", until the real PSII was released on Genesis. I instantly like SpellCaster more than Phantasy Star because of the side-scrolling elements. It was easier to understand the combat at the time, although now I prefer PS. SpellCaster also has many, many dialogue screens that use "menu-action" similar to those old Sierra computer text adventures. Although it can be somewhat frustrating at times to work through these because you mostly (always?) have to do things in a specific order to get results to progress, they are a cool element overall to the game and give it an RPG-like feel. The storyline is awesome, involving some ancient Japanese mythological themes, there's futuristic technological stuff, you get to visit the Underworld, and along with the side-scrolling, Sega even threw in an overhead shooting level! This game really has elements of a several genres and does them all well. Side-scroller with boss fights, RPG/text adventure, and shooter. The music is eerie and great, the graphics are awesome (especially the stills in the text scenes, and they're even intereactive). The controls are a little sluggish but then again, so are 75% of the 8-bit titles out there. I believe Mystic Defender on Genesis was developed from the same character and/or storyline: Legend of the Peacock King (correct me of wrong, not entirely sure). I recommend this as a Master System title that needs to be played through at least once, if not several times! Except the pyramid level
It was released just after my SMS-playing friend completed Phantasy Star, so for months we called it the "unofficial PSII", until the real PSII was released on Genesis. I instantly like SpellCaster more than Phantasy Star because of the side-scrolling elements. It was easier to understand the combat at the time, although now I prefer PS. SpellCaster also has many, many dialogue screens that use "menu-action" similar to those old Sierra computer text adventures. Although it can be somewhat frustrating at times to work through these because you mostly (always?) have to do things in a specific order to get results to progress, they are a cool element overall to the game and give it an RPG-like feel. The storyline is awesome, involving some ancient Japanese mythological themes, there's futuristic technological stuff, you get to visit the Underworld, and along with the side-scrolling, Sega even threw in an overhead shooting level! This game really has elements of a several genres and does them all well. Side-scroller with boss fights, RPG/text adventure, and shooter. The music is eerie and great, the graphics are awesome (especially the stills in the text scenes, and they're even intereactive). The controls are a little sluggish but then again, so are 75% of the 8-bit titles out there. I believe Mystic Defender on Genesis was developed from the same character and/or storyline: Legend of the Peacock King (correct me of wrong, not entirely sure). I recommend this as a Master System title that needs to be played through at least once, if not several times! Except the pyramid level
but it looks like that's the best on the SMS.
