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CD-ROM Journal
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EphemeralEnigmas
@EphemeralEnigmas

This week's game is Little Master: Raikuban no Densetsu, a monster-focused strategy RPG brought to you by some of the people who would go on to make Okage: Shadow King. If you're familiar with Majin Tensei, this is essentially like that but cuter and simpler!

I have a particular interest in NES and Game Boy era RPGs as someone who always likes to encourage people to explore beyond the small handful of RPG franchises people know about. There's a lot of interesting ideas and design buried in old RPGs that proves how diverse the genre can be and Little Master is a good example of that.

As a strategy game, Little Master is, perhaps literally, as simple as it gets. All you can do is move and attack; there aren't even items or spells or equipment to worry about! The story is also barely even present, offering nothing more than a basic "rescue the princess" motive. However, Little Master establishes an identity for itself precisely by omitting these things while focusing more on a revolving door of party members and a cute look that's atypical for the genre. Both its design and look encourage those who are normally intimidated by the genre to give it a shot, and the lack of mechanical depth made the designers compensate with a focus on objective variety, whether that's rushing to a target or working your way through a teleporter maze. I made the Majin Tensei comparison before, but this game actually predates that one, which is surprising when you notice how similar they can be!

It's a game that can easily grate on one's nerves with its overly large maps, entirely too small level cap, and luck-based occurrences like instant kill critical hits, but there's nothing else quite like it on the Game Boy that I can think of (Another Bible or Super Robot Taisen, maybe?), which is pretty dang impressive when you consider the size of its library.


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in reply to @EphemeralEnigmas's post:

Never heard of this one before, seems pretty cute! Also kinda funny to me how Zener Works, this same developer, went on to develop Spin Six for DSiWare years later, a game in Nintendo/Creatures Inc.'s Chee-Chai Alien franchise which features similarly goofy-looking little guys.

Zener Works really does have a knack for making cute and/or goofy little guys, don't they? When I was looking into them, I saw that Spin Six game come up and had never heard of it before. Didn't realize it had a connection to Nintendo and Creatures like that, so that's good to know! Definitely one to check out sometime, I think!