Mitora's Rudra no Hihou Review

Email the author: Mitora

"Rudra no Hihou" (or "Rudra's Treasure") is perhaps one of the best, yet forgotten RPGs that Squaresoft has ever made. Wanna know why? Well, let Mitora explain why.

STORYLINE: Mmmmmm, very, very interesting. Former deity heroes and mystical beings at one point in time fought the chaos beings from the sky and thus, the creation of Heaven and Earth (or DaiChi in the game). But however, the chaos beings cannot be destroyed forever,they will return, so the deity heroes create some Rudras, which are the guardians of living creatures. Four creatures, Water Sprite, Danan Espers, Anthropomorphic Lizard people and Gigantic beings all had their fair share, but have failed and the survivors of the four species are forced to hide from the world. Hence, humans appear, but the world was not the same. Humans have pumped in so much nuclear energy that it is starting to contaminate life on the planet. However, four brave souls notice the evil things that is going on in the world, and must make their own teams (some are non-human) to go and save every thing on the world from contamination and evil beings wanting to kill everything off. Very interesting eh? Even though the anti-nuclear pollution and anti-racism messages are repeated, they still do not ruin the game. And to top it off, all of the four characters has his or her own storyline you can play out and you can check out what other characters are doing while you play their quest. Sweeeeeet!

CHARACTERS: Very interesting characters in this game. Everyone and everything seems to be well-balanced on character development. But the thing that ticks Mitora off is the fact that the bad guys have all their own special techniques, but the heroes don't. Instead,the heroes have their own weapon(s).

GRAPHICS: For a Super Famicom game, the graphics are pretty dang good. From the spells you get to write out to the boss/enemy drawings. They even capture the heroes portraits pretty well at the beginning and ending of the game. Oh, speaking of, the character designs were done by Keita Amemiya, who is also a popular Asian movie director and producer, as well as an artist. Geez, I wish the people who did this game would do more games as good as this, sigh!

GAMEPLAY/CONTROL: The innovative thing about this game is the "KotoDama" or Word Essence system. The KotoDama system is where you get to literally write out your own spells. You can spell what ever you want and it'll give you a special elemental spell. Or better yet, when fighting a boss, check out which spells he/she is casting and write it down, so you can get rewarded with a powerful attack. Okay, okay, the KotoDama system does take some getting used to at first, but once you get used to it, it's a cinch. Plus, very easy game control.

FUN: Oh ho, be prepared to be dragged away from your family and social life for a few hours, because it seems like once you have played this game, you can never put it down. From Spell-creating to interesting characters, Rudra no Hihou has it and it will suck you into it's world.

CHALLENGE: HARD, especially to those who need to learn Japanese. Don't expect to master this game in a couple days, that's all I have to say. Anyways,Rudra no Hihou is a game that I would recommend to those who are getting sick of RPGs now-a-days, or to those who just want an interesting and innovative RPG to keep them busy for weeks.

WOULD MITORA PURCHASE THE GAME: Hee hee, I already did ^-~ !