The NES was the birthplace of two of the biggest RPG franchises that are still alive and healthy today. Square hadFinal Fantasywhich started in 1987 and Enix hadDragon Questwhich started earlier in 1986. They were rival franchises for a time until the two companies joined up to create an RPG giant.
The early entries on NES are a bit archaic, but the core principles went on to create legends likeFinal Fantasy 7andDragon Quest 11. What about the non-Dragon Questand non-Final Fantasygames on NES from Square and Enix though? Are there any? If there is, are they worth caring about today?
8The 3-D Battles Of WorldRunner
Groundbreaking Graphics, Simple Gameplay
The 3-D Battles of WorldRunnerhad an impressive design at the time for an NES game from Square. Players would run on a semi-3D field as if they were going into the screen. All they could do was run, jump, and either speed up or slow down their trajectory.
This was important to jump past big gaps in levels or to dodge enemies which were countless. This changed during boss battles as thingsturned into a Shmupbefore reverting back again.
7Door Door
The Reverse Knock Knock Game
Door Doorwasa puzzle platformerfrom Enix, and it was never released outside of Japan. There is an English patch for it although it’s simple enough that one shouldn’t need a translation. Now, it’s hard to tell what players are supposed to be in the game as the protagonist looks like an anthropomorphic iceberg or perhaps a deformed mouse.
Whatever the hero is doesn’t matter as they have one power: closing doors. Running past a door will open it and players had to trick enemies into going inside so that they could lock them up behind a closed door.
6Hanjuku Hero
A Whimsical RPG
Square Enix has a lot of current tactical masterpieces under their belt including classics likeFinal Fantasy TacticsandTriangle Strategy. Before all this, there wasHanjuku Herowhich is another Square game originally. It never left Japan and there are no complete translations which is a shame as it is hard to understand without one as there are many menus.
Battles start in real-time as soldiers scroll around a world map, looking for castles to overtake or soldiers to fight. Once an enemy is found, an automatic battle will play out. There’s a silly edge to everything and things only get weirder in the series from here, but that’s a topic for another day.
5Idol Hotline: Nakayama Miho No Tokimeki High School
An Early Collaboration Between Nintendo And Square
Many think that one of the first collaborations between Nintendo and Square wasSuper Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. Before that, there wasIdol Hotline: Nakayama Miho no Tokimeki High Schoolwhich was an early dating sim.
It even featured music from Nobuo Uematsu who handed most of the early music in theFinal Fantasyseries. While this was also a Japan exclusive, fans have painstakingly gone through the trouble of translating this one. It was assuredly no easy task too as there is a lot of text to go through in this high school dating romp.
4Just Breed
Going Beyond Strategy
Just Breedwas an Enix game, exclusive to Japan, and yes there is a fan patch. It’s one of the most elaborate games on this list and one that Enix fans should check out. It wasa tactical RPGbut instead of going through a variety of maps in each mission, players slowly worked their way across the world map town by town.
This mission style was different but the combat should feel familiar to players as heroes could move, attack, use spells, and so on. It’s a shame this wasn’t released globally because fan outcry could have prompted Square Enix to make a sequel by now.
3King’s Knight
A Shmup With RPG Elements
King’s Knightmay not sound like a familiar Square game, but its cousin,King’s Knight: Wrath of the Dark Dragon, should. This was the game Noctis and his companions were obsessed with duringFinal Fantasy 15. Square Enix even released it on mobile platforms as a meta move for fans.
This original game started players out as a knight and it was a Shmup. If players died, they went on to a new level with a new character. After the knight, there was a wizard, a Godzilla-looking creature, and a thief. Obscure as it is, this game was released in the West officially.
Crashing Is More Fun
Rad Racergot an official release outside of Japan as well. It’s simple even for a racing game as players started with a snazzy red car and had to drive along a beach course. They only had a certain amount of time to reach a checkpoint before the car stalled out.
While it’s another impressive game graphically on the NES for the time, it’s not that engaging. Perhaps the coolest thing about it was the wild crash physics it had even when hitting the tiniest of signs on the side of the road.
Square’s Tom Sawyerwas based on the bookThe Adventures of Tom Sawyer. It’s odd then that a Western property got an exclusive in Japan although if fans got to see how certain races were depicted, well, it makes sense why it remains trapped there.
Controversies aside, the game was a turn-based RPG that started with Tom, but he gained companions along the way. It had a traditional leveling up system but the combat was not flashy or magical, unlike aFinal Fantasygame. It was more grounded and silly,kind of likeEarthBound. There is a partial translation for this but it’s nowhere near complete.
