Bahamut Lagoon

"It's a shame it was never released outside of Japan."

Bahamut Lagoon is a Strategy-RPG from Square. The game was released in the old days of the SNES. Too bad it never reached the U.S and Europe. By that time, Square also didn't release Seiken Densetsu 3 outside of Japan. The RPG-market just wasn't as big as it is today.
Thanks to Dejap, Bahamut Lagoon is now translated and can finally be played in English on emulators.

Gameplay - As previously mentioned, this is a Strategy-RPG. This time, however, there's a twist. In this game you can control dragons as well as your troops. I felt this was something new and interesting. One thing that annoyed me, was that you didn't get to control them like your other party-members. Instead, you give them commands. For instance, if you command them to "Go!", they'll attack the enemies, regardless if they fly right in to the middle of ten enemy-units. Say "Come!" and the dragon will remain close to you and attack nearby enemies. If you command it to "Wait!" it'll stay back and don't attack at all. After having played for a while, I felt that the A.I of the dragons weren't all that great. At times they were blocking an enemy I wanted to kill off with my party-members, and at an other time they weren't using the most effective attack. Also, one time, a dragon used an elemental attack on an enemy, which the enemy absorbed. Controlling the dragons just isn't as smooth as I expected it to be, but it's enjoyable anyway. After a while, you learn how to command them to your advantage. You can also feed your dragons to make them stronger and change into more powerful forms.
The battles flow like a regular Strategy-RPG. You move around on a grid. First you command all your units and then it's the enemies' turn to do the same. If you attack the enemy head-on (not by magic), a battle ensues. It is played like a battle in Final Fantasy. You can choose commands like, Attack, Skill, Defend or Items, for the characters in that unit. It's not Real Time so you'll have unlimited time to think about what to do.
Generally the battles are a little on the slow side. Some of them could take you over an hour to finish. It gets a little repetitive at times, but if you like these kind of games, I think you'll see it through to the end.
The game is also very linear. One battle per chapter and then you move on to the next chapter. Of course you get to visit towns and walk around the airship, occasionally. However, most of the time you're in battle with the enemy.

Story - In the beginning I found it hard to get to grips with all the characters. There are quite a few of them. The amazing thing is that each one of them has their own personality. The dialogue is well-written and at times it can be witty. The flow of the story is very good. You want to know what happens next. You play as the main-character Byuu. He's the captain of the Kahna Dragon Squad. Along with your friends, you set out to rescue princess Yoyo from the evil emperor Sauzer. I won't spoil what happens later on but let me just tell you that the plot is deeper than you may think in the beginning. It has a lot of unexpected twists and turns to make it really interesting and exciting to follow.

Graphics - For a SNES game this is really good. As said before, it was released in 1995, and so, game companies have had the experience of working with the SNES for quite a while. This shows and it's easily one of the prettiest games to feast your eyes on when playing on the SNES.

Sound/Music - The music is nice and fits the mood. But it's just too repetitive for it's own good. I got really tired of the battle music. I think they had a little too few tracks throughout the whole game to make it really interesting. The music, being good the first and second time you hear it, may start to get on your nerves after having heard it for the fifth time.
As for the sound-effects. They are nothing really special. Just the usual sounds you hear when you hit an enemy or use a spell.

Replayability - This game took me around 30 hours to finish. I didn't bother with the side-quests or raising my dragons to max-stats. When you've finished the game you can play it through again with all your items and stats of the dragons intact. There's a side-quest called the Hard Dungeon, which is as the name suggests, hard. On a second play-through you'd be much more prepared for that onslaught. I didn't feel any urge replay the game just for one dungeon. If you want to complete everything, replay is a must.

If you find the cartridge and can understand Japanese I'd buy it. As it is now, just download the rom and see if you like it. If you've ever played a Strategy-RPG before, you know the basics. Those who dislike this genre won't come to like it just because of this game. But if you're like me and love these types of games, it's definitely worth a play-through.

My rating: 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/25/04