Article: This game is set in a fantasy world that resembles feudal Japan. Long time ago, the first deity, the Emperor of Light, created two gods - from the darkness, the Ocean God, and from the glittering moon, the Mountain Goddess - and sent them to build a world out of the chaos. The Ocean God poured rain over the chaos and created seas and oceans; the Mountain Goddess created the Earth. But the Ocean God became evil. He built a huge tower, which connected Earth and Heaven, and thus the world of men and the world of gods became merged, and the path for demons to invade the Earth was open.
Somewhere on an island called Mamoshima, there lives a young warrior apprentice called Jin. One day he goes to the nearby village, but when he returns, he finds his house has been burnt down by demons, and his sister kidnapped. Remembering the tale of the Ocean God his sister told him when he was a child, Jin realizes he has to find a way to the tower of the Ocean God in order to free his sister. Together with Wokuu, a cute little creature who was human once and wishes to regain her true form, Jin begins the journey.
Bushi Seiryūden is a RPG with an unusual combat system. Whenever player-controlled characters encounter a monster, the standard top-down perspective switches to side-scrolling, where the opponents attack each other. The battles are in real-time, but are divided into turns (calculated by the number of moves). Before each battle, a number appears on screen which indicates the maximum number of turns the player is encouraged to finish the battle within. If the player manages to stay below the maximum they receive special energy units called "magatama". Depending on the amount of magatama collected during the game, some scenes will change, and the endings will be different.
Here's a deep cut. Bushi Seiryuuden: Futari no Yuusha ("Warriors of the Blue Dragon Legend – The Two Heroes"). Developed by GameFreak in 1997, shortly after Pokemon, it never got released in the West due to coming out so late in the Super Famicom's life cycle. As is often the case with late gen releases, though, it pushes the limits of the hardware, looks great, and has refined gameplay systems.
Bushi uses three different primary views: a Link to the Past style overhead view for walking around, a side scrolling view for combat, and a first person perspective (with a moveable camera) for interacting with NPCs.
From the same artist behind Pokemon, Ken Sugimori.
LttP-style overworld.
Resting at the bonfire to replenish health!
Turn-based side-scrolling action combat where you need to anticipate the enemies' attacks and navigate terrain.
Clearly a gem lost to the West, though a few savvy people have mentioned it on GAF occasionally in passing over the decades. It's now fully fan translated in English, ripe for checking out.
One of the only English reviews out there:
