Ancient Roman: Power of Dark Side
released on Dec 31, 1998
A PS1 RPG with 3-D models and pre-rendered backdrops, Ancient Roman was released in 1998 by Nihon System, but exploded into internet infamy in the late 2010s as word of the game began to spread through Japanese gaming circles. It is now widely considered to be one of the worst RPGs ever made by Japanese retro gamers.
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better music than persona 5
One of the worst game I’ve ever played, but also one of the most entertaining.
Everything that can be wrong in a JRPG is wrong here, from the story, characters, battle, magic, shops, equipment, all of it, is wrong in one way or another.
The story is as mundane as it can be, I won’t go into spoiler but most of the plot moves because of sheer coincidence, even party member joining your team feels like a coincidence, you learning about the main plot of the game is also a coincidence, and you learning how to resolve said main plot is a coincidence.
Some part does require the party to take action, but more often than not they will go investigate something or ask someone about something, then the thing they’re investigating or someone they’re asking gives them nothing at all. Then they regroup, ask a certain NPC and will be told completely unrelated things that they have to do, and then they forget about the last thing they want to do. But somehow this unrelated thing will turn back and become related to the main plot.
A lot of plot points are forgotten, even characters.
Sometimes there will be a CGI cutscene with voice acting. The model, animation, and voice acting of this cutscene is so bad that I can’t help but laugh every time it happens.
As said before, party members joining you feels like coincidence. The first 3 starting characters, Kai, Mishiria, and Burk (Bark?) are from the starting village. But the other 4 you met on the way, without much fanfare.
Fara, you met her when looking for a castle. She decides to join because she likes Kai, I guess.
Mina, an elf you met in an elf town (I forgot the name), she joins you to atone for her mistake of almost killing Fara. She is the one with the most plausible reason to join you.
Sarina, a female knight you saved from a monster, she joins you because it is apparently too dangerous for her to travel alone (not like it’s less dangerous for her to join you).
Baroa, a sailor you met in a port town, at first I thought he was just there to sail your ship, but turns out he is a permanent party member.
None of them get any kind of development, they stay the same character from beginning to end. I don’t think I know much about their motivation apart from wanting to save the world or something. Now the real kicker is that… all of them are actually the chosen ones, unless I mistranslated the story (my Japanese isn’t that good).
There’s also no variation in between characters' playstyle, they are only different in stat but how they play is the same with each other, except for Mishiria who is a mage. Every party member can cast magic, they all have the same magic, but it doesn’t really matter because physical attack is way stronger and faster than magic.
Shops and Equipment regressed to NES/SNES, heck even some SNES games gave you information on what the Equipment will do. In this game, apart from who can equip the equipment, no information will be given on the shop screen. All you can do is just buy the most expensive item and hope that it’s better than the one you just got from the dungeon. This problem doesn’t just exist in the shop screen, your equip screen also doesn’t give you any indication on what equipping stuff will do to your stat, you have to memorize your previous equipment stats, and the new one and then compare them.
Thankfully this isn’t much of a problem because most things you find in a dungeon will be better than things you can buy in the shop.
I saved the best for last, the battle. The battle, from start to finish, will have no change. All you will do 99% of the time is use physical attacks, even on boss fights. You might need to heal once in a blue moon, but boss fights end in 1 or 2 turns anyway you might as well just heal on the menu (which is faster). Heck, I beat the final boss in only 2 turns.
Now the best part of the battle is the attack SFX, this is genuinely my favorite part of the game. It is so loud compared to the rest of the sound in the game, so out of place, and so goddamn bad it baffles me every time even after I sink hours into the game.
The plot twist is that this came out 1 year after FF7, and they even have some similarities, like the 3 dudes in battle, character model being different in and out of battle, Burk is literally Barrett without a gun.
There are some more flaws that made this game even better but I don’t know where to put them. Like how the game feels so choppy and probably runs lower than 30 fps in some parts (even though nothing much is going on on the screen).
The dungeon being confusing where you can and not go, combined with the fact that screen transition is broken because sometimes you have to go back and forth on the edge of the screen for the game to move you to another screen (I think the collision detection is just too small for the screen transition).
Status ailment is not being shown in combat unless you realize that your character has stopped attacking, for instance, if your character is petrified or charmed, you can still pick their command but they won’t do a thing.
Everything that can be wrong in a JRPG is wrong here, from the story, characters, battle, magic, shops, equipment, all of it, is wrong in one way or another.
The story is as mundane as it can be, I won’t go into spoiler but most of the plot moves because of sheer coincidence, even party member joining your team feels like a coincidence, you learning about the main plot of the game is also a coincidence, and you learning how to resolve said main plot is a coincidence.
Some part does require the party to take action, but more often than not they will go investigate something or ask someone about something, then the thing they’re investigating or someone they’re asking gives them nothing at all. Then they regroup, ask a certain NPC and will be told completely unrelated things that they have to do, and then they forget about the last thing they want to do. But somehow this unrelated thing will turn back and become related to the main plot.
A lot of plot points are forgotten, even characters.
Sometimes there will be a CGI cutscene with voice acting. The model, animation, and voice acting of this cutscene is so bad that I can’t help but laugh every time it happens.
As said before, party members joining you feels like coincidence. The first 3 starting characters, Kai, Mishiria, and Burk (Bark?) are from the starting village. But the other 4 you met on the way, without much fanfare.
Fara, you met her when looking for a castle. She decides to join because she likes Kai, I guess.
Mina, an elf you met in an elf town (I forgot the name), she joins you to atone for her mistake of almost killing Fara. She is the one with the most plausible reason to join you.
Sarina, a female knight you saved from a monster, she joins you because it is apparently too dangerous for her to travel alone (not like it’s less dangerous for her to join you).
Baroa, a sailor you met in a port town, at first I thought he was just there to sail your ship, but turns out he is a permanent party member.
None of them get any kind of development, they stay the same character from beginning to end. I don’t think I know much about their motivation apart from wanting to save the world or something. Now the real kicker is that… all of them are actually the chosen ones, unless I mistranslated the story (my Japanese isn’t that good).
There’s also no variation in between characters' playstyle, they are only different in stat but how they play is the same with each other, except for Mishiria who is a mage. Every party member can cast magic, they all have the same magic, but it doesn’t really matter because physical attack is way stronger and faster than magic.
Shops and Equipment regressed to NES/SNES, heck even some SNES games gave you information on what the Equipment will do. In this game, apart from who can equip the equipment, no information will be given on the shop screen. All you can do is just buy the most expensive item and hope that it’s better than the one you just got from the dungeon. This problem doesn’t just exist in the shop screen, your equip screen also doesn’t give you any indication on what equipping stuff will do to your stat, you have to memorize your previous equipment stats, and the new one and then compare them.
Thankfully this isn’t much of a problem because most things you find in a dungeon will be better than things you can buy in the shop.
I saved the best for last, the battle. The battle, from start to finish, will have no change. All you will do 99% of the time is use physical attacks, even on boss fights. You might need to heal once in a blue moon, but boss fights end in 1 or 2 turns anyway you might as well just heal on the menu (which is faster). Heck, I beat the final boss in only 2 turns.
Now the best part of the battle is the attack SFX, this is genuinely my favorite part of the game. It is so loud compared to the rest of the sound in the game, so out of place, and so goddamn bad it baffles me every time even after I sink hours into the game.
The plot twist is that this came out 1 year after FF7, and they even have some similarities, like the 3 dudes in battle, character model being different in and out of battle, Burk is literally Barrett without a gun.
There are some more flaws that made this game even better but I don’t know where to put them. Like how the game feels so choppy and probably runs lower than 30 fps in some parts (even though nothing much is going on on the screen).
The dungeon being confusing where you can and not go, combined with the fact that screen transition is broken because sometimes you have to go back and forth on the edge of the screen for the game to move you to another screen (I think the collision detection is just too small for the screen transition).
Status ailment is not being shown in combat unless you realize that your character has stopped attacking, for instance, if your character is petrified or charmed, you can still pick their command but they won’t do a thing.