Sword Dancer - A fighting game RPG released in 1992 for Japanese PC's (PC-98 Paradise)

[@CptJistuce]

First thought: It's like Tales of Phantasia before Tales of Phantasia! Second thought: Okay, wow, they are a lot more dedicated to the fighting game bit than Tales was.

[@EdmondDantes224]

Man, I relate so hard to the woes of running old PC games, since MS-DOS games here in the states often have the same exotic mixes of compatibility issues and needing fan-made patches and drivers in a lot of cases. Truly, East and West are not all that different.

[@Kingshadowac]

Always fun seeing RPGs combined with something very different, I still Enjoy the Mario Golf RPG on the GBC to this day.

[@xnamkcor]

Metal Walker has Billiards-based battles.

[@skins4thewin]

Agreed! The Camelot developed Golf & Tennis games for the portable systems are fantastic! I really need to give them another play sometime.

[@CoolxBreese]

I'm playing through Mario Tennis GBC on the Nintendo Switch!

[@skins4thewin]

@@CoolxBreese Wait... That game wasn't released as part of the online service was it?

[@goranisacson2502]

​@@skins4thewin It has! Both Mario Golf and Mario Tennis for GB Color was released this March.

[@lhfirex]

Between this and the Farland Story reviews/episodes, I've come to really enjoy TGL's sprite work.

[@Nemo2342]

I love seeing these early attempts to mash up RPGs with other games, and this was a real treat to learn about.

[@Unquestionable]

I always get a little thrill of seeing a game being set up on this channel, of going through the user disk creation and tweaking things to get an optimal performance. Funny as in my personal life I really dislike having to mess with setting more and more as I age. Also was funny to get a call out of how much the title looks like a PC-88 game outside of the fights as that my first thought as well. Gotta say Sundays are always much better any time a new episode drops, gives motivation to face the work week.

[@chazmaru9583]

Those behind the scenes segments on how you get to run the games are always appreciated. Very insightful about the inner workings and hurdles of each computer. Really shows the value of reviewing these games on actual hardware compared to emulation.

[@BasementBrothers]

...or the difficulty. :) This game seems to run perfectly on every emulator I've tried. No need to do anything fancy, just boot the disk images. Runs perfectly. Damn me and my need to play everything on real hardware...

[@tylerlacor8116]

It’s a nice touch to use real hardware, really takes home the feel of the game.

[@drowningin]

Adds to the excitement of getting a new game and what you did to get it running. It’s a great style for the videos as opposed to have it running already

[@chazmaru9583]

Slightly surprising that this was not ported by anyone to the SFC, given the trends of the time and the popularity of both genres on the platform. TGL ended up releasing two Farland Story games and Super Variable Geo themselves on the machine much later, in 1995.

[@Issabellmoondew]

Omg that King Diamond reference was awesome and hilarious❤!

[@aaronko3480]

The amount of work it takes just to get the game functioning properly is so indicative of what PC gaming was like in the early days.

[@BasementBrothers]

For sure it took me a lot of experimenting to get it right. Would have been much easier if my PC-98 were closer in specs to what it was intended to be played on.

[@kiticanax1421]

People tend to forget the reason why Steam became so dominate.

[@CoolxBreese]

@@kiticanax1421 And why Nintendo dominated with the NES around the same time as the PC-98. Grab your cartridge, blow on it if you have to, pop it in, press power and have fun.

[@CMKarm]

The Agadil bit killed me! Well done sir

[@weirdoregonian]

Wow I want sheet music included with all my games please. Having that in the instruction book is fun.

[@justincastro8964]

King effin Diamond… didn’t know you were a connoisseur good sir. Great reference

[@BasementBrothers]

You know it!

[@willkelmanpenapena3551]

Blessed with PC-98 Paradise sundays 🙏

[@TheSocialGamer]

Hello Basement Brothers, I wanted to personally thank you for your content in general. Great storytelling, amazing quality visuals, and very in-depth with information. I appreciate you and I can't wait to see what else you have coming down the pike.

[@Novapoid]

What a charming game I once again never heard of before. I wish more RPGs tried to incorporate fighting game mechanics to their battle system; before this one here I only knew of Tobal for the Playstation. I also really appreciated the amount of cutscenes this story had: adding your narration to those it made for a compelling experience. Overall it just makes me sad that these kind of games are long forgotten and there's nothing quite like them. For every Ys or Zelda installment I end up enjoying, there's a ton of J-rpgs that have an atmosphere that doesn't cut it for me.

[@zeliardforty-two4692]

When I hear “fighter RPG” I think of ‘Legend of Legaia’ for PS1, so it is neat to hear about an earlier titles that tried the same idea

[@tempatempo3805]

Legend of Legaia was so weird... in a fun way

[@Andreopimentel]

You should check the "tales of" series

[@zeliardforty-two4692]

@@Andreopimentel been told too and definitely on a list! Love hearing about unique RPGs

[@Bloodstar-o7]

Both of Legaia and Tales of Phantasia came to mind, glad to see they were already mentioned here! I haven't played much of Tales, I just know my brother had the GBA port. Summon Night: Sword Craft Story is a GBA game I have played though with a similar style. It's a simple RPG but it was fun for what it was. You get to make your own weapons and theres different styles of weapons.

[@jayjasespud]

Legaia is just turn-based with a cool mechanic. The early Tales games, up to PSone, are more accurate comparisons.

[@RndStranger]

Namco's Keru Naguuru was a fighting game RPG that came out in 1989, so they beat Sword Dancer there. Sigma's Hissatsu Doujou Yaburi beat it to shelves by a three days, but you have to stretch the RPG genre a bit to say it's a fighting game RPG; there's no argument that Keru Naguuru isn't blending those genres. Maybe there's something older than those two, there's always more when it comes to games, but those are the oldest I know of.

[@liamconverse8950]

Rent a Hero for Mega drive in 1991 followed a similar format. The fighting in that nes game is more like karate champ than Street fighter 2 though which is basically the prototype for 2d fighting games

[@fiskburk2908]

My man Rnd here?? thats a surprise, love your daily famicom series man

[@RndStranger]

@@fiskburk2908 I love anybody taking the time to drill into Japanese games that didn't get international releases.

[@BasementBrothers]

Good calls. I googled a lot for "fighting game rpg" before making that thumbnail... Adding to @liamconverse8950's comment, I'm almost hesitant to call anything prior to SF2 a "fighting game" at all... though that's really pulling teeth there. Then again, though Sword Dancer does have obvious inspiration from SF2 (Hien's flash kick), it's hard not to also call the fighting in it little more than glorified Karate Champ with a couple special moves. I don't know... It gets really murky here... Thanks a lot for watching, btw!

[@BigBangBlitz]

Moebius is not really up to quality of these though it certainly preceded them. It's a 1985 strategy game with action segments in the side scrolling style.

[@SuperSupersoda]

This channel is amazing. Every time I see a new video, and every time I watch it right away, I keep thinking the same thing, over and over again, "there is no way that this channel should even work, it reviews old Japanese games in English, for a western audience, that those western viewers never got to play, but for some reason, this channel works and is amazing."

[@BlackArtistik]

Dark Savior for the Saturn feels somewhat close to this as a concept, as battles were done 1-on-1 a rudimentary fighting game style system.

[@Andreopimentel]

So this was Tales of Phantasia Spiritual grandfather

[@GELTONZ]

Huh. When I think "Fighting Game RPG" I think of the Tales games, ESPECIALLY the 2D ones that came out after Tales of Phantasia. In many ways this game looks like a precursor to those even if it's unintentional. Finding a comment mentioning two more fighting game RPGs is also a delight.

[@napoleonfeanor]

These Japanese home computer games are really another world. One day, I need to play some of those with English translation in a ... high seas way.

[@pixxellie]

Just discovered your channel. Really happy to see such awesome detailed coverage of PC98 in English. Subscribed!

[@0x44_]

These older games have such great ideas.

[@chasonlapointe]

Honestly this looks like a lot of fun, and that Abigail reference cause me to snort my Doctor Pepper.

[@TexasHollowEarth]

Abadil got a nice kunoichi style going on in this game. I like her design alot 😎👍

[@Apexcasket]

hahaha I was not expecting the king diamond part!

[@chrisbg99]

Really liking your stuff. This video popped into my suggestions and since I had nothing else I was planning on watching so I clicked and have spent the last few evenings watching random videos from your backcatalog. Like the dives into consoles and platforms I am only vaguely aware of with games I am not all that familiar with. Even if I'll probably never play them, expanding my overall knowledge of all sorts of gaming is always enjoyable. And you do a good job of keeping it interesting with some funny cutaway gags to break up things.

[@Conan_the_Based]

Ooooh. One of Chemool's first games. I mostly know him for his phenomenal work on Briganty : The Roots of Darkness. Speaking of which, Briganty video when? :D It's remarkably close to this one in terms of action-RPG.

[@raziyatheseeker]

Fighting games, RPGs and sword dancers? Three of my favorite things. Though I suck at the former, and the most latter is more like a ninja I suppose. The game modes in fighting games with light RPG elements are usually pretty fun for me, so glad to see them as early as this one. And it's surprising to see this was TGL's first title! You're entirely right about the context of having a fighting game of some sort on a computer back in '92. Cool that they had not one, but two fighting game spinoffs of the original, let alone a proper sequel. Cool that the checkpoints are forgiving too, especially for the jumping segments. I always like having the ability to reduce and avoid random encounters, so the forgiving checkpoints seem a good alternative. It's also a nice touch that the princess has multiple outfits in cutscenes, compared to her combat bikini armor as a party member.

[@tjams3]

Interestingly, the composer Yuko Hikino (maiden name of Yuko Anzai) stayed close with some of the other former TGL staff, and she did a lot of music for Kazue Yamamoto's projects at Studio E.Go! in the late 90s and early 00s. She also did a few tunes for Farland Saga on Windows.

[@Nukle0n]

Nice 486 Overdrive. And yea on old IBM-clone PC games it's also a help to disable the cache sometimes, helps slow down the system in the right way for certain old games that don't expect 16kb of Level-1 Cache.

[@BasementBrothers]

Yeah, on this game the 486 cache seems to be the only real issue. In fact if you disable it, I'm pretty sure you don't even actually need the "trapfm" command at all.

[@tommylakindasorta3068]

This series epitomizes why KZbin is such an amazing platform for deep dives into niche topics. Keep up the great work!

[@ggbetz]

I think I'm more excited about TGL games on this channel than konami/capcom. Hopeful we will review all of their games Looking forward to SD2!

[@LunaticSlave777]

Always a treat to see a new episode PC-98 Paradise! Thanks you for your amazing work & keep em coming!

[@pokehybridtrainer]

Heck of a mix so early in gaming. Not enough mashups like this.

[@Patrick-bn5rp]

Ever play the Tales games? The earlier ones had a lot of FGC influence. And there's actually an in game recurring enemy called sword dancer.

[@KenDarrels]

I love to hear that you were reminded of an itch, since my favorite of your videos are all about top-down JRPGs. The others are must-watch as well, but those ones feel the coziest to me 🤗

[@weebnerdgaming4908]

Very interesting. This game was before Tales of Phantasia.

[@notyoursavior78]

Interesting idea for a game, While it's not a 1v1 fighter when I think of fighter rpg I was thinking of LIttle Ninja Bros for the NES. I don't really comment on these videos because a lot of times I just don't know what to say anymore. But it has been very interesting to see footage of all these old Japanese pc games that I would have never seen if it wasn't for this channel. Before I would just goof around on Gamefaqs and learn about some old games that way but even then, I never went looking at the NEC PC stuff for some reason.

[@error4159]

The King Diamond drop was epic

[@owlbear4928]

The King Diamond part killed me 😆

[@deathstinger13]

its always weird growing up with MIDI music being the bottom scale, lowest file size stuff you can find(so most of what you'd download before high speed internet became commonplace), and then getting into retro games where for a time, MIDI was the top of the line musical format, to the point where you'd often have to buy a separate module for it

[@MegiddoRain]

My favorite Fighting Game RPG is Dissidia Final Fantasy, and it's sequel Duodecim. It's a real shame what Square did with the series when they had gold on the PSP

[@napoleonfeanor]

Alucard....the were-monkey

[@moemlm]

cant wait for the sword dancer 2 review, thanks for the video

[@MisterFael]

When I saw the title, I thought of something like Legend of Legaia or King of Fighters: KYO

[@drowningin]

I love the artistic borders of old games, and how the actual game window was just a small portion of the screen. It oozed so much style, and can set a mood of the game in your mind. I do think we lost something as things became more uniform. I remember in Red Baron 1 or 2 they made the window look like the inside of the WW1 planes

[@BasementBrothers]

In old games, the borders were usually there to minimize the actual gameplay area and speed up performance. They'd might as well make the borders/HUD look cool then I guess.

[@ariowirawan16]

That's really simple but charming story Such interesting title

[@pizzakidd]

That run animation bro @5:34

[@f_t_b2238]

It's interesting that games that try to split between a sidescroller for battles and other type of interface for everything else always tend to have speed or sound related problems. The Screamer has that similar "battle speed" issue, and I feel like the first War of the Dead game has it also (although that could just be my setup). Even the much later Quest for Glory IV has it, which feels like it was copying from either this or a game that imitated it, or had the same idea later on. Thanks for a runthrough of ERCACHE, it's always hard to puzzle out "was this behaving as intended back then, or.......?"

[@barry-allenthe-flash8396]

I've been a huge fan of the fighting RPG subgenre ever since I played Tobal No.1 and actually got quite addicted to those random dungeons in that game, lol. Ever since then, I've loved learning about attempts at fighting RPGs before and after, and I have to say, I'm genuinely shocked that this has nothing to do with Micronet's "Revengers of Vengeance" (a.k.a Battle Fantasy in Japan) on the Sega CD. Conceptually and artistically, it seems very similar. Another fascinating find from the Basement Brothers channel. Thanks for sharing!

[@JeromeDoyle]

those midis of the soundtrack are actually fantastic.

[@InverseMidas]

Fantastic video, as always! Random observation: Alucard bears a striking resemblance to Char Aznable from the 'Char's Counterattack' era.

[@Umqualquerporra]

I subscribed a long time ago, hit that bell and watched every video, but I was still on the fence about this so-called channel. It needed more. It needed something to spice it up. King Diamond.

[@Catkeeper]

I would've killed for this had I known it existed back in the late 90s, at the time I was just introduced to RPGs thanks to Final Fantasy VII and Breath of Fire III, and was already a massive fighting game fan, especially of Street Fighter Alpha 3 and its World Tour mode. I wanted a game that mixed the overworlds of Breath of Fire and fighting gameplay of SFA3 that I was coming up with my own ideas for a full game that's still pretty solid in my memory today, but there really wasn't a clear path as to how to make something like that back then, at least at my school here in the UK. I hadn't heard of Sword Dancer before this video, so thanks for the introduction! Now sure I'll get around to playing it any time soon but it looks so cool. The character designs remind me of Dragon Quest in the best way, and the main character even resembles Ryu from Breath of Fire which is an added bonus. Would be great to see these games revived to modern systems, and the Switch has been getting a small number of PC-88 titles lately, so maybe it's not to unlikely for 98 games in the future. Great video too! Keep it up!

[@zachfutv9986]

I designed a game just like this. It was Beat down on ps2. Essentially turns into tekken when you collide with an enemy in the overworld.

[@EdmondDantes224]

Also incidentally, still one day hoping you cover more anime-based games... particularly Ranma. I promise I will not bring that one up again, but I do think those would garner an easy audience since fans of the various anime would be interested. I know that Slayers video is my most-watched one (and it actually got me reading the light novels again).

[@Belgand]

Fascinating! I've been thinking about this exact same idea for decades now, wondering why nobody had ever attempted it. Little did I know it had actually existed the entire time.

[@lancelnce]

Thanks, now I get to know one more game I didn't know it existed

[@HikekuraLastWarsmith]

Would it be right to assume the "Tales of" saga takes some ideas from this game?

[@MoJaKF]

Love your vids!

[@HighPriestFuneral]

This does look like a fun idea! As the last part of the video rolled it was rather sad to see that all of the program revisions never made it into where it would have helped the most... the game with the story mode, but you did tease that they gave this another try with an ALttP like system and another crack at a fighting game RPG. That should be a fun time too!

[@BasementBrothers]

Ah, you mean an updated version of the original Sword Dancer RPG but with improved battles? Yeah, they never did that, but now that you mention it that would be pretty awesome.

[@momamario]

When I played Tales of Phantasia as a kid, I thought to myself "oh, it's like an rpg where the random encounters are a fighting game!!". Obviously that has never quite been true, but the series has moved even further away from that idea. I guess I've just been looking in the wrong place this whole time.

[@gustavo555tani]

After watching 16bit sensation and watching your reviews, I finally understood how BASED the PC-98 was.

[@KaoruMzk]

The first thing that came to mind when you said Fighting Game RPG was actually Tales of Phantasia. The game had a ring which let you input FG commands to use your skills and it was awesome, you had access to all your moves at once instead of being limited to just 4 at the time. It's a bit disappointing that later entries in the series dropped this idea.

[@pantsuteam]

Because motion input aren't suitable after tales 3D coming out, it's even worst when tales of bersia drop the Artes button and side scrolling movement

[@KaoruMzk]

@@pantsuteam From Symphonia to Vesperia they could have implemented it fairly easily, as those games are 2.5D. It's really only a problem with Graces and the games that copied its battle system.

[@ZeroWalker26]

Awesome video as always. But I do say the combat remind me of Tales of Phantasia side scrolling action ish combat.

[@aftermarkgaming]

A Kids in the Hall reference? In my PC 98 review?!

[@BasementBrothers]

Not the first time! I used the line "This is the real party, Chris" from Brain Candy in two PC-88 Paradise videos. I know one of them was Xak 1...

[@OMPeaRetro]

I'm torn here, I just got my copy of this. Do I watch the video, or wait? Yeah, I think I'm going to watch.

[@alexchrist1020]

A dancing sword...yeeeah a dancing sword

[@TexasHollowEarth]

I'd have played the shit outta this series, had it been ported to the TurboGrafx-16/TGCD. I was a huge Ys fan + an avid fighting game player. NEC should have tapped their vast Japanese PC library for sure-fire hits on their popular (in Japan) console. Thanks for this one and I look forward to a video on the great-looking sequel 👍👍

[@BasementBrothers]

Well, TGL did port some of their games to the PCE: Steam Hearts and Advanced V.G. But unfortunately they didn't port all of them. Would have been cool to see more.

[@iansmith8783]

King Diamond! :D

[@jacethomas5562]

Thats.. a dancing.. sword.. I see.

[@Bloodstar-o7]

sus

[@Mamiya645]

Not spoiling, but man I quite liked that. What a neato game. I consider the Yakuza series a fighting-rpg evolution (until 7) and this inspires my daydreaming for a VR game project.

[@ytmhcubed]

Great video, as always!

[@zed-xr4353]

Fighting game and RPG are definitely two genres I would not expect to combine. 😅

[@borrellipatrick]

Ehrgeiz on Playstation the only example I can think of 🤷‍♂️

[@espfusion]

As far as RPGs that transition to action oriented segements for battles go there are earlier examples (like Zelda 2 or Willow on NES) but it's fair to say this is more explicitly like fighting games. I wonder if this had any specific influence on Tales of Phantasia?

[@cloudtx]

Nice work man! It must have been a lot of work to get the game going but it was a pretty entertaining ride. I have to say though, I was initially amazed at the game for having the guts to kill off so many of the main cast but to just bring them back in the end is so cowardly lol. I hate when they do that in stories.

[@BasementBrothers]

Yeah, same. Dead characters should stay dead. It's even worse when they don't really explain how they survived.

[@cloudtx]

@@BasementBrothers Preach it man! I agree 100%. Great work on the channel btw. Keep up the good work!

[@karasushiro2636]

Somehow, this makes me think that Sword Dancer inspired Legend of Legaïa. I'm probably wrong tho and it may just be coincidental. Thanks for the video! I'll sub to your channel to discover more awesome games :)

[@drumcanjones]

Fighting games and RPGs are such a natural fit it makes you wonder why there haven't been more over the years. When you're playing a fighting game you're playing dozens of battles and grinding your skills up anyway, so it only makes sense to track all that grinding and make number go up as well. SF6 just feels like what every fighting game single player should have played like all along instead of plain arcade or pointless survival modes. Also holy hell, PC-98 gaming looks like a fucking nightmare. Good thing I'm not interested in vintage hentai games.

[@lostxj]

Early PC users in Japan seemed to have a seething hatred of good frame rates.

[@BasementBrothers]

If they could easily make the framerate higher on these machines I think they would have. :) Haha, thanks for watching!

[@xnamkcor]

Does Tales of Phantasia count as "Fighting" since the battles are side scrolling? Maybe Granstream Saga?

[@marktreerng]

This seemed like a really interesting game, thanks for sharing! I guess there's no english translation? Not so often for these older titles I'd guess, but would love if there were.

[@BasementBrothers]

In general PC-98 games don't have English patches, but a surprising handful of them do. Unfortunately this isn't one of them. Retroarch and other means of automatic onscreen translation are getting very good lately, though, I hear.

[@djnekroman]

Always enjoy a Basement Bros video... But a King Diamond reference gets an automatic "like" no matter what.

[@NuageMH]

This looks actually fun

[@Evilriku13]

hey Basement Brothers, gotta ask, did you catch the news about Mystic Warriors: Wrath of the Ninjas getting a comfy 7,99USD home console port around 7 months ago? Because it got rereleased faithfully for the switch and PS4! It also features the japanese version in it where the bosses aren't overly HP spongy compared to the NTSC/american version! Also the slowdown can optionally be disabled which was apparently a thing in multiplayer for it. I saw that the first video of your channel was about that game being played on what seems like an actual arcade machine, and was asking if you would like to do a review of that game now that you can capture the footage optimally etc.?

[@piotyrholbion]

I need to know, whose the third basement brother!?! Theres 3 in the logo!

[@BasementBrothers]

Sturat. You can hear his voice in some of the old "BB Reviews" videos.

[@piotyrholbion]

@BasementBrothers did he finally be quiet down there, which is why hes not in videos now?

[@BasementBrothers]

He doesn't have much time to work on the channel, but I'm sure his voice will be featured in something on this channel again someday. Nowadays he takes mostly a behind-the-scenes role checking the videos.

[@riggel8804]

This makes me want tobpick up Samurai Showdown RPG for the Neo CD. I was playing through it a few months back when my save file got corrupted. The game didn't blow me away but it was fun and different. Are you ever going to review it? I know it never got a North American release but there is an English patch. You probably could play it on original hardware. I'm not sure how the Neo CD does with burned games...

[@BasementBrothers]

My brother is reviewing all the Neo Geo games in order, so unfortunately it will still be a long time before he gets to Samurai RPG. He's playing it with the English patch on his NeoSD flashcart on AES I believe.

[@riggel8804]

@@BasementBrothers Hah cool. I thought that was you doing the neo geo reviews. You two sound alike. Thanks for getting back to me

[@madson-web]

IDK this game seems very cool. It looks it did mostly well in what was trying to do

[@burntyper]

Excellent content

[@pablozambrano16]

this reminds me of rent-a-hero for mega drive

[@chewgokugin]

We eventually get tales of destiny for playstation for rpg/fighter

[@falsebaroness]

Think you may review CRW: Full Metal Jacket , the Mech Strategy series that came before Front Mission?

[@darktetsuya]

wow you know its bad when the game has its own command in the ERCACHE utility, haha. seems like an interesting mashup! part RPG, part fighting game and a little bit of platforming, definitely don't see that combo every day! (at least for me, not since Revengers of Vengeance on SEGA CD)

[@Monhamd1000]

It deserves a recent remake!

[@BlahNetworkBro]

Nah I was like half watching this and I looked up and blud is wave dashing with setsuna 😂

[@Ephidiel]

well done episode

[@goranisacson2502]

It's a rather rudimentary plot with fake-out deaths and the gameplay seems a bit stiff to somebody who's used to modern games... but man, if I played it back then I'd be so impressed with what they did. Though I also notice they didn't make any definitive decision on which possible romantic couple became canon... even back then they knew to keep things ambiguous to not upset people who'd prefer one option or the other, I guess.

[@otastar4887]

You should definitely check out this old pc game waxworks

[@phillipmitchell2254]

Game looks like a mix between Ys and Crystalis