This is a really good game. After LONG break periods, I finally came back and beat this game. I think the reason why I was having trouble before, was that I was just barreling through areas in search of the next save point without grinding. In my last 3 hours, I took care and grinded a few levels before every boss encounter. Once I did this, boss battles became a cake walk (on normal difficulty that is a ha ha). As a long time fan of the Ys series, I'm happy to finally say that I cleared one of the games. Casual players may find this game repetitive, but I personally love this game play loop. The responsive nature of the combat is very addicting, and it makes grinding feel less like a chore and more like playing a game and having fun. Very very good game. If there's anything I'd critique, tho, it was that the flying enemies and bosses in the later levels were somewhat difficult to hit due to the angle of the camera, but I made do, and so will you. I also like Oath In Felghana better, it uses the same engine but has more varied locales with a cooler story.

Falcom please step your game up and make more games with this engine. Legend of Xanadu remake when??

Really really good Pengo clone. Marking it so I don't forget.

Update (May 20th, 2023):
Every time i try to write a longer review, I end up going back into the game and playing it all over again. It's a very, very good game. PLAY IT. However, there are two big problems that stop the game from being an all time great. Those are
1. The puzzle sections. Slide puzzle sections happen after you finish all the levels in a world but before the boss fight of that world. These totally ruin the flow of the game. You're used to these really fast and high reaction time Pengo levels, then suddenly you have to solve a slow, calculated puzzle. Although you can wait and inspect the puzzle for as long as you need to without pressing anything, that doesn't change the fact that you have to change your whole mind set while playing them, and they feel very out of place. If you fuck up the puzzle, you have to restart the level at the expense of a lost life. If you lose your lives, then you start the whole world over again. Not very fun, especially after you feel you're doing well. You'll either get these puzzles right away, or you'll spend a long ass time figuring it out. I wish they didn't make this a mandatory part of the game. After the first two worlds, the puzzles become randomly selected from an unknown list of them, meaning you can't simply remember what you did the last time you reached the puzzle section.

2. Those fucking frogs. The frog enemies are almost impossible to touch. They jump all over the map. Worse still, the map is absolutely covered in blocks that you can't easily get rid of. WORSE STILL is the little timer, that makes the enemies slowly get more hostile as time drags on, making them EVEN HARDER TO HIT. Not a poggers part of the game, I only cleared it once, then got filtered to high hell by the puzzle it decided to give me.

As far as I can tell, you don't need any Japanese to play this. BUT those two points can be quite frustrating if you're not ready for them. Other than that, the game is perfect. Even more so on real hardware. Play it play it play it

Played at my local arcade with a friend. It was around 10pm, we were burnt out on Marvel vs Capcom and Golden Axe: The Revenge of Death Adder. Looking for a place of refuge, we happened upon a darker corner of the already dimly lit Barcade, and between two space age leather chairs sat the cocktail-style pong cabinet. It was the only machine in the house priced at a single token, and you could tell it was old because it was also the only machine in the house that had an old label for ten cents instead of the customary 25 or 50.

I mean we all know that pong is already a pretty good game right? But something about that vibe of finding it in it's own little void after the busy intensities of more modern games, retreating to the old and worn down knobs and the ominous white glow of the CRT. You could feel the game's age when the screen had to align itself once you put in the quarter.

I hope I'm not coming off as too pretentious right now, but that was a fun and memorable moment. Even though everyone's played pong, it still felt like we found something special that day.

Oh, and I totally kicked his ass too.

If you like arcade the original arcade game, and you enjoy intense, repetitive arcade games in general, this is a great game. If not, you probably won't like it much. I wish it had battery save instead of password save for the story mode, and I also wish the story mode had slightly more meat to it, but it's still very fun. Many have spoken highly about how good this music is, but the music just hits different when actually playing the game too. It's almost intoxicating, and gets you craving for that pixel blood-lust this game totally delivers on. Would recommend for arcade fanatics!

The music in this game is beautiful. This is the first hexagonal game I've played, and i have to say it was great. i feel like i need to read a guide (I tried the manual, it was not much help), to get a feel for all the transformations you can unlock, as well as all the spells you can do (and how to do them??), as that's not explained in game. But the actual game loop is very compelling! Gem of a game.

Things I learned from my one 8 hour battle on a small island:
- try not to let your mobs die, as once they get enough exp, they level up and transform into way stronger versions of themselves.
- the amount of bases you take defines how many mobs you can get, tho if you lose a base, you won't lose a monster if it's already summoned
- maybe take some notes as to the terrain you're on, only certain monsters can cross the plains, mountains, jungle, and ocean. usually related to their types. winged monsters can fly over the whole mountains, water beasts can't travel on land but can go all over the ocean etc
- some of the beasts have weaknesses to certain types, and i think it attacks might change based on what angle you're hitting the enemy from. somebody needs to make a type advantage chart