The game was released for the Sega Mega Drive in 1991. Although the Mega Drive was considered one of the finest 32-bit consoles of the era, it was never a big seller compared to rival consoles like the Sega Genesis or Nintendo's Virtual Boy.
Gameplay
The game has some similarities to Squaresoft's Final Fantasy IV and Toei Animation's Dragon Quest IV. The game features a variety of characters, many of which have their own quests. The game also features large 2D maps instead of 3D dungeons in the style of Final Fantasy IV. Unlike most recent Final Fantasy games, the player is given the freedom to choose the type of character that he or she will play as. The available characters can be changed at any time, unlike the rest of the series, and are presented as icons, rather than sprites. These icons can be selected either on the fly, or from an available menu.
To play the game, the player must load a saved game by pressing Start.
Gameplay involves a series of fights with enemies of varying difficulties. Some fights can be avoided by various tactics, such as using a strategy called "Bargain", which consists in entering the battle with an item that has a low price but high effectiveness, thus avoiding a loss of time.
Instead of walking around the game map to advance the story, some areas feature a magic system. Certain characters will provide the player with magic spells as rewards for certain actions.
The game also features two sub-quests, which grant the player characters magical items for quests that are encountered later in the game.
The player is able to perform raids, which are special missions fought with a party of four characters. The amount of experience points won from defeating the enemies depends on the quality of the monsters' hit points, making them more difficult for players to defeat. Once this experience is gained, the player will obtain a character's level, and gain access to new spells and weapons.
Reception
On release, Famicom Tsūshin scored the Sega Mega Drive version of the game a 27 out of 40.
References
External links
Category:1991 video games
Category:Action role-playing video games
Category:Fantasy video games
Category:Japan-exclusive video games
Category:Sega Game Gear games
Category:Sega Mega Drive games
Category:Square Enix franchises
Category:Square Enix games
Category:Sega video games
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