Anyone who knows me or pays a sliver of attention during my reviews knows I have a fixation on a certain NES action RPG/shooter, which shall remain nameless aside from its initials, TGL. The more I think about some of the things the game attempted/pulled off, the more I wonder why the hell more decent attempts at a sequel haven’t been done.

It’s always been a distant, lesser dream of mine to have a hand in the creation of a successor to the throne. If not an (un)official sequel, then at least a game that pays tribue to the holy trinity of exploration, shooting, and uh… robot chicks. I get needlessly fired up whenever I hear of something in the works that even faintly smacks of influence from TGL, probably too much so.

Lunar Knights has come about the closest so far. Even then, I think the shooting segments with the Diebuster-like rocketships are a little goofy and awkward- the stylus control means you can’t steer and fire at the same time, and the enemies are so damned repetitive up until you reach the recurring, near-comical boss. (Nya!) Still, it’s a great little game and a little more engrossing in play style than…

Sigma Star Saga. It might’ve been unfair of me to review the game in the style of a grizzled detective grilling someone like a fraud. It had some great points, in particular the weapon customization system which brought a touch of Gunstar Heroes into the proceedings. Unfortunately, while the story was pretty engrossing and graphics big and detailed, the overworld/exploration scenes were pretty damned dull and didn’t make use of your weapon combos, and the shooter segments had a tendency to gimp you with a random ship and inability to swap out those weapons in flight. Better luck with Super Shantae DS Advance, chief.

I haven’t played Scurge: Hive yet, but it kind of puts me in mind of the game as well in that it involves a solitary female soldiering her way through a colony full of contagious mutants. I guess in a way that makes it more properly similar to something based on Alien, or a Metroid title. I’m hesitant to really play it since it has isometric perspective hopping puzzles, which reeeeally made Solstice for me. The fact it comes in fundamentally identical DS and a cheaper GBA release kind of makes my eyebrow raise.

I’ve kicked around some ideas for said successor game, of course. As someone who’s never finished an RPG Maker project, though, I have no clue how much progress I could actually make on my own as far as designing GIANT, INTERCONNECTING MAZES and skin o’ the teeth shmup levels. If anyone’s interested in hearing more later on, feel free to drop a comment or something.

Oh yeah. And it turns out the spam problem is exclusive to the Yggdra Union review for some reason, possibly because the title is in reference to labor unions. Whatever.