To the rpg fans: How good are the chinese mega drive rpgs compared to the usual suspects (shining force, phantasy star and even rentahero since it's been translated)?
I used to love these things and even went as far as looking all over before I got someone to hack Barver Battle so I could translate it. Now it's being repro'd left and right. But regardless, I can give my insight here. In general, all of them had a bunch of care put into them and really are just as good as any licensed games. I would separate all Chinese RPGs on the Genesis into three levels. First there's the great ones. Beggar Prince IMO is the #1 most original and my most favorite. Was my first Chinese RPG too, before it was translated to English and released. Still counts though as a Chinese game regardless. Next, I'd say Shui Hu Zhuan (aka Tiger Hunter Hero Novel) stands out to with the second hugest production value in terms of its assets. That one is similar to Shining Force. And then Feng Shen Ying Jie Chuan, another Shining Force strategy rpg that's mostly like Shui Hu Zhuan again but still as good. Great graphics. All three of these I feel are the greatest quality Chinese RPGs on the Genesis. Then right below that level you have the "moderately good but somewhat flawed" RPGs. Barver Battle Saga has rich colors and generally works well, but then you realize it copies a lot of assets (aka lazy dev team) and also is a little too linear. Still very good, though. Ya Se Chuan Shuo uses the exact same engine but seems a little older. It still holds its own, but unlike BBS it uses an overworld map that gets repetitive when everywhere starts looking the same. Feels like it has less soul than Barver. Less variety for sure, but still good. Then there's the more mediocre ones that are still OK, but really lacking. I'm talking about the only two left I haven't listed, namely Legend of Wukong and Tun Shi Tian Di III. Both have the same issue: they both center on getting into fights too much for their own good. Wukong is definitely the worst in this regard. The enemy encounter rate just ruins it. Tun Shi Tian Di III has graphics that surpass Wukong and are definitely very "Chinese," akin to what Shui Hu Zhuan does. Just for that alone you feel like going ahead to find out what more eye candy you can find. But the whole game is "go from one boss battle to the next", with too many enemy encounters along the way. Encounter rate isn't as bad as Wukong, but still not any better. Its one of those games you play more for how it looks rather than if it's really fun or not. That's all of them, as far as I recall. Hope that helps!
If your looking into Chinese RPGs i highly recommend checking out the MS-DOS PC exclusives like Flame Dragon Knights (I cannot fathom to how much times i'd recommend this very RPG to!) and many others that tons of rpg fans had never heard of before! If you like i can send you a few that has that sorta Super Nintendo/Super Famicom style look and very enjoyable in my opinion.
I remember trying to get into Taiwanese DOS gaming before and Flame Dragon Knights was one of the most recommended ones. All the rips on the net I could find had copy protection that could be bypassed with a specific code that only someone with the original manual could get by, though. I should try looking again when I have free time. This thread covered a lot of Taiwanese games with some RPGs in there too, I belive.
Actually, there are copies out there that has the copy protection removed like one for example if you check this fansite here: http://www.fdfans.cn/ and then goto the flame dragon knights 1 page and on the right corner with the icon of a computer screen is where you download it Btw, the game also has a android & apple iphone port release! which is great for those that wanna check it out quick and it's free!
I certainly didn't expect the first answer to be such an in depth reply, and so quick. Impressive. I should mention that I don't know chinese, so the games have to be translated. Now I know Beggar Prince and Brave Battle Saga (that's what the chinese are calling it now) are. So is Legend of Wukong. Never heard of Shui Hu Zhuan until now, however there's only youtube videos of a beatemup with this title..? Oh, thanks. I'm asking about chinese rpgs on the mega drive because there aren't that many rpgs, in general, on the platform. I know that some of them look really good (I'm thinking of you Barver Battle Saga), but I don't know anything about their gameplay value. Never the less, thank you for sharing. The more you know the better, I always say! (I don't but I agree with it)
Oh whoops my mistake, i thought you meant any Chinese exclusive rpgs in general sorry about that. But, if your seriously interested in looking into more Mega Drive Chinese exclusives in video form you should checkout Low Score Boy's A'Can F-16 System in-depth type of video on YouTube plus he also shows a few couple of those MS-DOS exclusives I'd mentioned ;-)
It's not Chinese piraters calling it Brave now. When me and Djinn translated the game we correctly changed the titlesreen to say Brave instead of Barver, which is clearly what they were going for. And now all reproductions you see reflect that. Shui Hu Zhuan is this one here. Shui Hu Feng Yun Zhuan is the beat em up, similar title but different game. I was going to translate Ya Se Chuan Shuo after Barver Battle, but ended up losing contact from Djinn who was the hacker and things ended there. I had an offer from a certain company doing their own boxed releases now to do a translation for them, but they seem to have recently gone with another translator or something? So I dunno what's going on there, but I imagine you'll see a release someday.
Ah, I was thinking that it probably was a case of the engrish. But also I thought it could be some english word that I've just never heard of. That tiger hero novel looks really good, thank you for the link and the knowledge. Appreciate it. Too bad about Ya Se Chuan Shuo, it certainly wouldn't hurt the (inernational) mega drive to have one more RPG. Seeing as how you can count all the RPGs for it with ten fingers (wth SEGA?!).
