Valhollian #BestOfSaturn

While 1998 was the death knell for the Saturn in the West, the East saw well more than 200 releases, including Datt Japan’s strategy RPG Valhollian. Set in a medieval land between the Balt and Lafalue nations, you are Rey Brightforce, and you and your small force are about to be embroiled in a war for the future of the entire continent.

This is a very no-frills SRPG — there are no towns to explore, story exposition is kept to cutscenes in-between battles, and a basic shop to buy supplies is also available after each chapter. Those aside, it’s straight-up grid-based strategy battles. You’ll control each character in your party one at a time, before your overall turn ends and the enemy has a chance to strike. If two characters on your team are compatible enough, a two-against-one combo attack is possible, dealing much more damage.

The real hook here is that every single attack — player or enemy — is followed by a counterattack, which changes the strategy quite a bit. The battles are challenging and the visuals are splendid, with enough variety of characters to keep the proceedings interesting.

To help with the language barrier, Paul Met, Aishsha, and Pennywise executed a devastating combo attack to deliver an English patch in 2020. Very nice indeed.