SuperSabin

Tonight, I'm going to do something unique, I will be writing in this blog, reviewing a game I am just getting into. The game I will be going over is an Action RPG called Xak III, the system I will be reviewing it for is the Turbografx CD (A.K.A PC Engine CD).

Xak III is the final trilogy to a series called Xak (if the title wasn't obvious enough). The entire Xak trilogy was only released in Japan but they have been fan translated. Xak III stars a male protagonist by the name of Latok/Ratok who is a Duel Knight. A Duel Knight is, from my understanding, a knight who serves under the Kingdom of Duel. In the past two games, Latok has successfully defeated two demon rulers and only one remains.

In the world of the Xak series, the world has been split into three different sections: The fairy world, the demon world, and the human world. The world was split to protect the races from the threat of the demons. Coming back to Xak III, Latok is asked to join a knight and his companions into battle to protect a kingdom that is in trouble called the Farland Kingdom.

Unfortunately for them, they are too late, just about all the soldiers and servants have been wiped out. Latok and his team storm the castle killing off the demons that roam the place. When Latok reaches the throne room, he encounters the demon general, Zoma Dizae, who has killed the King and his daughter. Latok faces off with this beast and wins the fight after a long struggle.

Latok picks up some words from the dying general after the fight and returns to the camp site to learn what the words have meant and to put a stop the demon leader. The quest begins from that point, gameplay is top-down, hack-and-slash like the zelda games and you get characters in your party. Like every rpg, there is treasure hidden throughout the game to find, you buy items, weapons, and new armor as you progress to different towns and kingdoms throughout the game.

What makes this game really neat is this game has cutscenes with voice overs which hold up really well even for today. Another amazing thing about this 16-bit cd game is that the game sprites are well animated. You see people flip, fall to their knees, bend over. Given this might have been done in other 16-bit games, but this game made it feel pretty realistic for its time.

Last thing I want to cover is the soundtrack. The music is really good, each track is nice to listen to (some of them are meh though). Other than the not-so-good tracks, most of it are pretty good and memorable.

Overall, I think this game is worth checking out, there is a Japanese import on ebay, amazon, and other online stores that offer Turbo CD games. If you can understand Japanese you're good to go, if not, there is a translation patch around if you google it. There are even youtube LPs if you rather watch someone play it through, I hope you enjoyed my Xak III review!