Obscure Games You May Not Have Heard Of - Episode 9, Dragon Force
Wow this game is HUGE
The Sega Saturn is a graveyard for so many great games, and so many good RPGs. This will probably not be the last one I mention. But continuing on my quest to tell people about games more people should play because THEY’RE GOOD PLEASE PLAY THEM, we got Dragon Force for the Sega Saturn!
Full disclosure, this game is MASSIVE. I can not cover everything about it here, and I shouldn’t. It’s a game you’ll want to experience all the twists and turns in yourself. But I also haven’t fully beaten this yet, let alone done all the campaigns (my save was accidentally erased and I haven’t gotten back to it). But it’s so awesome I really need to share it anyway.
Released in 1996 by Sega, Dragon Force was originally developed by a company called J-Force, a company formed of Wolf Team devs. They’ve made a bunch of games you’ve never heard of, but Wolf Team are the team that made the Tales Of games, so you HAVE heard of where they came from. Unfortunately, J-Force went bankrupt before finishing Dragon Force, and the game was picked up by Sega and then published in the US by Working Designs.
That name might have made some of you shutter. Working Designs… were terrible. They published lots of amazing games and basically ruined them. They either added fucked up translation stuff (making one character in Popful Mail a Hans and Franz reference cause they found the skit THAT funny), fucked up difficulty (Their PS1 port of Silhouette Mirage is basically unplayable) or both (again, Popful Mail). However, they seem to have chilled a bit for their Saturn games, and I didn’t notice anything bad about Dragon Force, thankfully.
So what’s it about? Well, Dragon Force takes place in the fantasy land of Legendra (creative name), and as the anime opening so clearly shows, it was a bountiful land made by six goddesses that was suddenly beset by SATAN. Sorry, Madruk. But he’s Satan. He and his Demon hordes invade the world and start wreckin’ shit, until the sacred dragon Harsgalt showed up and fought him. After a fierce 1000 day battle, Harsalt sealed satan Madruk into a deep sleep, that would last until the Eight Legendary Heroes would rise and be able to stop him.
And that’s where our story starts, centuries later, with the world split into several different kingdoms that you can choose from! And there are a lot, Eight of ‘em, the eight legendary heroes and all. And these aren’t like, just “choose your character” and then it’s the same game. No, these are very distinctive campaigns, each with their own fleshed out stories, each with many characters (each leader gets 5 generals at the start), and each with unique events they go through. This game is FUCKING THICK, there is SO MUCH to it.
You got Highland Kingdom, the kingdom of knights and stuff. You got the Fandaria Empire, its emperor declaring war on the rest and plunging the continent into war, because he wants to conquer the world, typical stuff. You got Palemoon, the elven kingdom. You got the Izumo Nation, an isolationist nation that’s our “totally not Japan”, you got the Bozack Nation, a democratic jungle nation, the Topaz Nation, a theocracy headed by the most ripped man you will ever meet, the Tradnor Kingdom, the tiniest kingdom, headed by mages and with a small demigod child as its ruler, and the Tristan Empire, my personal favorite, because its leader is “THE BLACK KNIGHT OF MASKED DEATH”, an edgy ruler hellbent on revenge against the Empire, and it turns out she’s a girl and literally no one knows this except her closest generals (this isn’t a spoiler, you learn immediately). That’s fuckin’ sick.
Again, I want to reiterate, each of these campaigns is very different. You are on the same map, and you are obstensibly all doing the same goal of “conquer all the continent”, and the campaigns kinda converge once you gotta fight Satan and all that, but they’re each worth playing and experiencing for their own stories alone. And these campaigns will take you a long time. Like 20-30 hours long. So imagine doing that for EIGHT CAMPAIGNS. You could play this game until the end of time.
So what’s it play like? Dragon Force looks all the part a JRPG on first glance, the opening cutscenes and lots of dialogue gives that energy, but it tries to do its own thing. Wildly enough, the closest game I can compare it to is OGRE BATTLE, MY OTHER FAVORITE RPG. God I love Ogre Battle. Anyway, you have three major things you do. First, you manage your commanders, manage their skills and level them up, manage the units they command, and manage your kingdom as a whole. You will administrate things around your kingdom, from the strengthening of forts, to honoring generals with awards and extra pay (this will both allow them to have more troops and also keep them from deserting you, yes your generals can desert you if you mistreat them), convince captive generals to join your side, or have your people go hunt for items.
The second gameplay style is kinda like a big real time strategy deal. You have a giant world map, with all kinds of units wandering it, and cities and fortresses dotting the map. You need to command your units to conquer all this space. It’s a lot of space to conquer, and it is slow going, but I never got bored. And depending where you go and who you interact with, more of the story and lore is fleshed out. Ostensibly, again, the goal is to conquer the capitals of all the other leaders, all while not stretching yourself and your units too thin so that your defense lines are broken, as you’re attacked from all sides.
And finally, you got your battle screen. Combat occurs on this long side scrolling map, with each force on each end. You can command your units with preset attack patterns and then just… let ‘em rip, watch ‘em go. It’s a really cool art style, and I love the way this looks while in action. While your units are attacking, your leader can use magic skills and spells to effect either army. It’s got a lot of that Ogre Battle energy to it again, you kinda don’t directly control your units, and while you want them to bumrush the general cause that’s what wins you the battle, they have a bit of a mind of their own.
A few more fun things about combat. When combat starts, you get the option to fight, or talk. You can TRY to peacefully work things out with the opponent. This very rarely works, but can be invaluable. If you try and things don’t go well, you’ll be at a disadvantage, but you can convince enemies to join you or abandon sieges this way!
Another fun thing is that each leader will have different units that they command. You can mix and match, but each unit has their strengths and weaknesses. The manual has a chart, which is SUPER useful, and you’ll need to look at it. A lot. Of course, skill and levels of a general helps a lot, so even if you go against troops you’re strong against, nothing is ever guaranteed.
All in all, that’s Dragon Force! I don’t want to spoil any characters specific stories. I’ve only played a little bit of Teires, the Elven campaign, and a lot more of Junon’s, the BLACK KNIGHT OF INFINITE DOOM or whatever. I have so much more of this game to play, myself, it’s quite intimidating.
While the Saturn didn’t do…. well, Dragon Force is extremely beloved by those who played it on the console, and it’s considered one of THE RPGs to play, right next to Grandia and Panzer Dragoon Saga. It got ported to the Playstation 2 many years later in 2005, sadly only in Japan, but with some updates and ugprades. Dragon Force also scored a sequel on the Saturn, near the end of the console’s life… again, only in Japan, but this one has a translation!! I haven’t touched it much yet, myself, but it looks like a lot of the same energy, and I’ve heard good things.
Starting up a new RPG is a lot, especially on the Saturn. Especially Dragon Force because lol this thing takes up 80% of your save data on your Saturn. Seriously, the save for this thing is god damn massive, you need a save pack just for this thing alone. But speaking of the Saturn, we also need to talk about princes. Yes. This game goes for fucked up prices. I’m talkin’ like 400 dollars fucked up. Or if you speak Japanese, like 20 bucks for an import (this also helps your avoid Working Designs, which may be a good thing). God, the Saturn after-market is depressing. At least emulation is getting better, so what’re you waiting for? Check this one out!