Niahak's Place

Just today, Koei’s classic “Uncharted Waters: New Horizons” was released on Virtual Console.  I can think of few other games that would incite me to write an update.  UWNH is a great game, being open-ended, stats-and-menu-filled, and incidentally very rare.  It’s a standout even among Koei’s crop of SNES games, and sure to please any RPG/strategy gamer with a taste for trade and piracy.

I wrote more about Uncharted Waters here nearly three years ago.  My, how time flies.

Since my last update, I have played through the first two Valkyrie Profile games; my review of the second is here.  Brief summary: better feel than the first game, slightly worse pacing, more cool revenge subplots.  Closer to the Norse roots than the original as well.

I am now around 20 hours into Suikoden Tierkreis.  I was doubtful for the first five hours or so.  Now I’m thinking it may actually be as good as Suikoden V, although its combat is more painful and less fun.  Definitely the DS game with the most production value I have played.  Reasonably good voices, fantastic music, and colorful dialogue – I highly doubt the DS will get a better RPG and the very thought saddens me.