Turn-based tactics games have arguably never been bigger. In 2022 alone we had Triangle Strategy, Mario + Rabbids: Sparks Of Hope, Marvel’s Midnight Suns and Tactics Ogre Reborn, to name just a few, with Fire Emblem Engage squeaking out this January. You’d be forgiven for thinking it was one of the most popular genres on the planet. But it hasn’t always been that way. Go back to the early Nineties, long before even Final Fantasy Tactics or XCOM had debuted, and a decade before Fire Emblem first came to the West, and the genre was virtually unknown. That is, except for one shining example.
The series made its debut in 1991 with the release of for Mega Drive. This Sega-published dungeon crawler was the brainchild games before going independent. Working under the name Sonic Software Planning, they collaborated with Climax Entertainment to create , which took the formula and presented it from a new, novel viewpoint; the first-person perspective.
