My Top 3 Games of Heisei

If you're a piece of weaboo trash like me then you'll know that on May 1st the era of Heisei is coming to an end and it will change to Reiwa.  If you aren't a piece of weaboo trash and don't know what that is the name of the era in Japan changes when the emperor changes.  This effects the Japanese calendar so right now the year is Heisei 31 but as of May 1st the date will change to Reiwa 1.

I saw a tweet that said that Japanese gaming magazine, Famitsu, asked 7000 people what their top 3 games of the Heisei period were.  Heisei started in 1989 so that's a huge pool of games to choose from.  The top 3 for them was Chrono Trigger, Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Nier: Automata.  So of course like the self important little shit that I am, I'm going to tell you my top 3 games of the Heisei period.

#3 Hotline Miami

This entry could have been one of so many things.  It could have been Undertale, it could have been ANY Shin Megami Tensei game, it could have been Dragon Quest 11.  Ask me tomorrow what my number 3 would have been and I promise you it will change, I just can't really pick with great certainty.  The game that sticks out in the front of my mind right now though is Hotline Miami.  Released in 2012 (Heisei 24) it was a violent, retro style half action half puzzle game that had you don an animal mask and mow down men in white suits.  It was fast, frantic, fun as hell and became one of my core speedrun games for a long while

If you've not played it then please give it ago.  Great gameplay, great soundtrack and great style.  It's cheap on Steam so don't dilly dally, go buy it NOW

#2 Shadow Hearts

Shadow Hearts is a sort of unique JRPG released in 2001 (Heisei 13) on PS2.  It follows the adventures of half Japanese, half Russian protagonist Yuri Hyuga as he travels across Asia and Europe in an attempt to stop all manner of nightmare creatures and an English gentleman from doing all manner of unspeakable things.  The games most interesting point was its "Judgement Ring" battle system, every time you did ANYTHING in a fight you had to play a sort of little timing mini game that would decide the outcome of your action.  Miss the ring and you'd fail your attempt but get right near the edge of the hit zone and you'd be awarded bonus damage/healing or, lets say if you were using a stat-up item, a greater increase to that stat.  The game also had a sanity system where if your characters fought for too long the stress of battle would cause them to go berserk and you would lose control of them.

Yuri also had an ability to fuse into one of about 21 demons to aid you in battle, all with really cool abilities.  If you REALLY knew what you were doing you could get some secret demons too that would essentially break the game and make you an unstoppable power house.  Getting them was a challenge but when you pulled it off the reward was very much worth it.

It also has a sequel, Shadow Hearts 2: Covenant which is also worth playing but nothing quite beats the charm that the first game had.

#1 Panzer Dragoon Saga 

I mean, I gush about this game a lot, did you really think it could be anything else for me?  Released in 1998 (Heisei 10) for the Sega Saturn, Panzer Dragoon Saga is easily one of the best RPGs I've ever played in my damn life and almost nothing has come close to besting it.

I could go at LONG length about why this game is so good but instead I'll just link my playthrough of it and you can see it for yourself

I'm also learning how to speedrun it currently so drop in the stream to see my progress with that.

If you can play it for yourself you ABSOLUTELY should.  Don't question me, just do it.

---

Of course, 1989 to 2019 is an extremely long time so I'm sure almost everybody will have a different set of 3 games that mean a lot to them.  If you feel like telling me your top 3 then let me know, maybe you'll really love something that I've not heard of and I can find a hidden gem that I missed during my youth

The January Retro Game Hunt

First of all, sorry I've not posted anything in the last couple of days.  On Friday I was busy and on Saturday I was sick with a hangover.  I was planning to make these Game Hunt things a series of videos, except my camera is complete arse so I'm hoping to get a new one, or at least a spare battery very soon.  So for now, here is the stuff I bought in text and picture format.

So just in case you missed it, here was the video with the initial 4 games that I purchased with my FC Dual system.

Except there's been a few more purchases since that video was uploaded, so allow me to share them with you

The first two I'm listing were actually donated to me by a friend, so big shoutouts to him.  First up we have Xevious!

I don't think there is anyone who doesn't know what Xevious is.  Released in 1983, Xevious is one of the big grandaddies of the whole scrolling shooter genre.  Great little game, fun way to kill an hour or so at home.  Sure, there are tons of better shmups than Xevious, but if you're in that retro mood then you can't go wrong with this one.

The second game that was donated to me was an RPG

Drakkhen is a game I know very little about.  In fact, I hadn't even heard of this game until yesterday, and for a mere 250 Yen what do I have to lose really?  From what I have read on the Wikipedia article, it's a port of an Amiga game and it's a 3D RPG where you wander around a big world and do missions for dragons....or something.  When I popped it in there was a cleared file with maxed out guys with the best equipment and I couldn't really figure out what the fuck I was doing so it's the kind of game I'm going to have to sit down with and properly figure out.

Next up is a strange space themed game called Daiva

Sorry about the picture being sideways, no matter how much I fuck with it, it keeps coming up sideways.

Anyway, Daiva is some kind of strategy space thing.  I couldn't really figure out what the fuck I was doing in the 5 minutes I gave to test it out, but it looks like you have to fly around a map and take over all the other planets and destroy all the other enemy ships or something.  I could be totally wrong, yet another game I'm going to have to spend a long afternoon with.

Then there is battle commander.

Yet another one that is just sideways for no reason, fuck my camera.

I have no idea what the fuck this game is aside from being some kind of strategy game.  I fired it up and as soon as I got in game, BAM!, wall of fucking Kanji, so it's on the pile of long afternoon games like Daiva and Drakkhen.  As far as I can tell it's some kind of Gundam game...or it least has giant robots in it and I know fuck all about Gundam so this one is really going to take some time to get going with.

Finally, the best find of the month!

Once again, fuck camera etc.

Chrono Trigger!  Do I really need to say any more than that?  Chrono Trigger for 350 yen (that's £2!).  Popped that sucker in and played it for a few hours, great RPG, absolutely classic.  There was also a file already on there from the previous owner with some really high level characters on it, so it was fun to muck around in that file as well.

So there you have it folks, that's all the retro stuff I got over January.  I'm not really going to have time to do another retro shop which is why this post is coming a little early but next time I hope to get this in video format.

Also let me know if there is anything I should look out for!  I'm hoping to get a PS2 in the next few weeks so I can start buying PS1 games!

(Just as a side note, yes, the price stickers do come off easy, I'm just lazy)