Bahamut Lagoon

"Front Mission with dragons and magic!"

Another Squaresoft goodie that didn't get find it's way outside Japan. Bahamut Lagoon is a strategy game where you control units of warriors (knights, heavy armors, warlocks, priests and the like) each accompanied by a dragon.

Unlike games like Final Fantasy or Front Mission where people join your army/group along the game, most of the characters are there already in the beginning of the game. You can freely arrange the people in the units to your liking but a group with a knight, an assassin, a wizard and a priest isn't really fast, effective, tough or good in casting spells so it's better to have the groups consist of just one (or in a few occasions, two) unit type. You also get to assign the dragons for whichever unit you like, so there's a lot of freedom in assembling the units.

There's also a unique point which every Squaresoft game has to have, in Bahamut Lagoon it's the feeding system. The dragons have got different attributes like the elemental attacks (fire, water, poison (hardly an elemental) etc.), strength, constitution, intelligence and mutation and a few others. Now when you feed your dragon something, it raises a certain stat. The dragon changes it's form whenever it gets better in something, like when you give it an Icebrand (an elemental sword) it gains some skill in water/ice based spells. When the dragons are really, really powerful most of the are the size of almost half a screen and are sooo cool looking that most games made nowadays don't have art like that.

Anyways, on with the review:

Graphics (10) : It doesn't get much better than this on the SNES/SFC, the battles which are just like the Final Fantasies' put any other ''Just keep hitting A to kill the enemies''-battles in shame. All the manga-type sprites are abundant in color look even better than Rudra no Hihou. The background art and the landscapes look excellent too. Nothing to complain about.

Sounds and music (8) : Nowhere near Seiken Densetsu 3 or Tales of Phantasia but the musics are cool and do their job to keep you in a fighting-mood. The battle and boss themes are kinda aggressive and make you wanna smash your enemies into heaps of gore and intestines. The sound effects are your usual thud, slash and boom, nothing that good but hey, who needs anything more in a game like this?

Gameplay (9) : The usual square-by-square movement style works really great in here. The menus are clear and easy to use and there's a lot of them. The battles go by smoothly. If you're playing on an emulator, the fastforward key will surely come in handy because there's a lot of animation in this game which can make battles last for hours. Do yourself a favor and get a good chair, you'll be sitting infront of the game for a looong while.

Storyline (9) : I can't say much about this without revealing any of the plot, but it revolves around the Kahna dragon squad fighting the evil Granbelos empire. Some romance and sudden twists are ofcourse present. There's well over 30 characters that all their part in the plot so that's a lot of dialogue. The game's very straightforward and linear so you will be just reading a lot of text there. Good thing that it's interesting otherwise this game would be a real bore! The game focuses mainly on Byuu the Crossknight, Princess Yoyo, Sendack the Warlock, Matelight the Palace Armor and a few others that join or fight against your army later on. A kick-ass story!

Replay value (7) : Just like Front Mission. You'll be playing it over again for a few times, because there's some hidden treasure and the optional subquests (My God, King of Pain's dungeon is the hardest scenario in any game I've ever played!! Those damn Overlords blasted the &¤%! outta my units when I first tried that dungeon! The main storyline never changes (well, there's Mist to get in your army) so it might get somewhat boring the third time over.

Overall (9) : It's not a straight 10 because there's things that could've been done better (that annoying squeek that you get to hear a million times because it plays whenever you move the cursor in a menu for example) but nonetheless it's something that every console game should atleast try. When BL gets translated for the emulators I'm sure it will get the attention it deserves. IMHO probably the best strategy game for the Super NES/Famicom.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/27/01, Updated 01/27/01