"Jaseiken Necromancer" - Turbografx-16/PC-Engine
AKA - 邪聖剣じゃせいけんネクロマンサー
I'm reminded while playing this just how hard it is to read Japanese when you barely speak it and all the kanji are taken out so that it all just runs together as a bunch of kana. I'll do my best. Please leave a 'ganbatte' in the comments. Thank you.
Up at the castle, or whatever, the old man inside informs us that before the King died, his final words were that he wanted to find that damned Necromancer sword. Our new old friend (his name is Gimul) asks if we'll employ our strength and courage to fulfill that wish and destroy the demons which are attacking the town (and world, I guess).
Then Gimul marches out thecourtesans potential allies to our cause, of which we're allowed to have a party of 3 only (including the hero), because we need to leave 3 people to protect the palace in our absence.
The Japanese Wikipedia says that "Romina" is important for the end-game because she can do high level spells so we'll take her. It also says "Lime" is the most important character in the game because she's balanced, can use weapons and attack magic, and is good throughout the game. So we'll take her too.
So, outside of the village we jump into our first battle and-- holy crap!
This is awesome! I really like the sprite idling animations, this is extremely rare for 1987! What a good looking game, already. I'm genuinely impressed.
So anyway, let's transition to a more high-level overview of the game for the sake of fulfilling the purpose of this blog: If you've played Final Fantasy (the first one) you're probably in-tune with most of what's going on here.
Armor, weapons, and spells all have to be purchased with gold in this game like the first FF title, and leveling mostly serves as a stat boost. It seems like some of the monsters in the first area are designed to prepare you for the leveling up loop and not let you wander too far off the reservation...
The Japanese guide that I started following once I got away from the first town and got my butt handed to me said that this was a game where you could 'feel yourself getting stronger as you upgraded equipment', which is a descriptive phrase for a game I've never heard in English, but I totally know what it means. Like: equipment upgrades are so dramatic when you acquire them that the sense of progress is palpable.
After just giving two of my characters a better weapon I was already feeling unstoppable.
Unfortunately, this feeling quickly faded as I realized that Jaseiken Necromancer was going to be one hell (heh) of a grindfest. Enemy difficulty ramps up quickly in this game, and this wasn't helped by the fact that I picked a 'late-bloomer' type character for my team who was mostly useless for the beginning of the game.
Once poison enemies had been introduced to the game, progress was becoming slow and frustrating. I was having a hard time grinding or progressing because most enemies in the area were heavy hitting and gave status effects, even though I had upgraded my gear to the max possible before arriving in the area.
The appearance of enemies in groups of 2 or 3 necessitates the use of magic spells which target full groups instead of individuals, because when you target a group, you can't decide which one you're actually going to hit. Which can lead to you eating some extra hits if you can't quickly kill a group.
After playing this game for something like 6-8 hours and getting to about the fifth town, and level 15 with my hero character, I decided to stop playing. This is for a couple reasons:
This game has a "fear" mechanic which means that every time a character dies (or for other reasons that apparently nobody knows), your characters become more and more likely to randomly run away from battle. I was dying left and right for awhile because I was just playing absent-mindedly, and I fear for how much worse that will get as time goes on because of my poor play up to that point.
The other reason is that this game is insanely grindy. I wondered if maybe I was doing something wrong, but this seems a pretty common complaint about the game anywhere on the Japanese web I looked. One of my favorite Japanese game websites, @wiki, which has a catalog of games that they rate from good to "kusoge," mentions that the pathway through the game is essentially heading to the next town and grinding until you can afford all the best gear, then going to the next town.
As much as I used to like JRPGs, I don't have the time or patience to do that right now, but I might revisit it one day-- who knows?
Like most RPGs, there's a bit of a learning curve, but if you've played a Final Fantasy game, especially an old one, you have most of the basics. Some things in the game are poorly/not at all explained. For instance, it's difficult to tell the difference between what kinds of items things are (is this thing called "teal pelts" a piece of armor...?) and for spells you'll have no idea what they do because they're just made up words-- unless you read the manual or use a guide.
Like many JRPGs too, there are hidden items that have pretty much no hints in the game, apparently, so if you want those you'll pretty much have to use a guide.
----- Introduction -----
Alright, here's the part where my blog stops functioning. I'm not sure I have the cojones to actually play a significant portion of, and review, a Japanese only RPG without even a fan translation. I'm definitely about to wear my dictionary out a little, but we'll see what happens.
Oh by the way, "Jaseiken" is a combination of some kanji, my dictionary says:
聖剣 - (seiken) - "holy/sacred sword"
邪 - (ja-) - "wicked/injustice"
So I'll tentatively say it means something like "Evil Sacred Sword Necromancer!" Wow, what a terrible title for English.
The English Wikipedia page for Jaseiken Necromancer tells us very little. However what we can get is that it was developed and published by Hudson Soft (they sure have been busy on the PC-Engine!) and the music was composed by someone named Jun Chikuma. It seems her main contributions throughout the years have been on Bomberman titles, though I notice she did Faxanadu on the NES which I also quite like and look forward to playing again for the blog.
The Japanese Wikipedia page tells us that the game took advantage of the PC Engine's color capabilities to reproduce art influenced by H. R. Giger, like creepy monsters and cool blood effects, and that the game had the catchphrase, "don't play alone at night!"
Apparently the game is also hard as balls and contains a bunch of secrets that are hard to figure out because there are no tips in the game. Goodie! I seriously doubt I'll play the whole game anyway, but if I'm having fun I'll look up a walkthrough to continue if I have to.
Let's see what it's like:
Oh by the way, "Jaseiken" is a combination of some kanji, my dictionary says:
聖剣 - (seiken) - "holy/sacred sword"
邪 - (ja-) - "wicked/injustice"
So I'll tentatively say it means something like "Evil Sacred Sword Necromancer!" Wow, what a terrible title for English.
The English Wikipedia page for Jaseiken Necromancer tells us very little. However what we can get is that it was developed and published by Hudson Soft (they sure have been busy on the PC-Engine!) and the music was composed by someone named Jun Chikuma. It seems her main contributions throughout the years have been on Bomberman titles, though I notice she did Faxanadu on the NES which I also quite like and look forward to playing again for the blog.
The Japanese Wikipedia page tells us that the game took advantage of the PC Engine's color capabilities to reproduce art influenced by H. R. Giger, like creepy monsters and cool blood effects, and that the game had the catchphrase, "don't play alone at night!"
Apparently the game is also hard as balls and contains a bunch of secrets that are hard to figure out because there are no tips in the game. Goodie! I seriously doubt I'll play the whole game anyway, but if I'm having fun I'll look up a walkthrough to continue if I have to.
Let's see what it's like:
 |
| Well you're just a handsome... character, aren't you? |
----- Playthrough -----
When you start the game up, you're instantly greeted with some creepy music, and this talking head who lays out the backstory for you. I warn you ahead of time that my Japanese is terrible and key elements will get lost, but it goes something like this:
A long time ago, there was a constant battle raging between god and demons/the devil. After awhile God got real sick of their crap, and decided to forge a weapon (the Jaseiken Necromancer), to attack the demons with. He beat 'em up and in-between the two worlds, "heaven," and "hell," he created the "surface world," which presumably is where we are.
So with that bit of mangled lore at our backs, we open our sails to the wind.
From the nearby guards we learn that the ruler of the land is dead and everyone in the village is freaking out, and the guards want us to go to the palace and check it out right away-- so I guess that's our motivation, here. Also, apparently we're known for being a hero and killing demons, so that's kind of like, our thing.
A long time ago, there was a constant battle raging between god and demons/the devil. After awhile God got real sick of their crap, and decided to forge a weapon (the Jaseiken Necromancer), to attack the demons with. He beat 'em up and in-between the two worlds, "heaven," and "hell," he created the "surface world," which presumably is where we are.
So with that bit of mangled lore at our backs, we open our sails to the wind.
 |
| Time to start talking to everyone who will listen. |
From the nearby guards we learn that the ruler of the land is dead and everyone in the village is freaking out, and the guards want us to go to the palace and check it out right away-- so I guess that's our motivation, here. Also, apparently we're known for being a hero and killing demons, so that's kind of like, our thing.
 |
| This guard seems to just be drinking himself blind in the corner which is the kind of go-getter attitude I like to see. |
I'm reminded while playing this just how hard it is to read Japanese when you barely speak it and all the kanji are taken out so that it all just runs together as a bunch of kana. I'll do my best. Please leave a 'ganbatte' in the comments. Thank you.
Up at the castle, or whatever, the old man inside informs us that before the King died, his final words were that he wanted to find that damned Necromancer sword. Our new old friend (his name is Gimul) asks if we'll employ our strength and courage to fulfill that wish and destroy the demons which are attacking the town (and world, I guess).
Then Gimul marches out the
 |
| Woman in dress, woman in potato sack, and the three emerald armor power rangers. |
The Japanese Wikipedia says that "Romina" is important for the end-game because she can do high level spells so we'll take her. It also says "Lime" is the most important character in the game because she's balanced, can use weapons and attack magic, and is good throughout the game. So we'll take her too.
 |
| Everyone stand back, demon exterminators coming through. |
So, outside of the village we jump into our first battle and-- holy crap!
 |
| Jesus Christ, is everything going to bleed like that when it dies? |
This is awesome! I really like the sprite idling animations, this is extremely rare for 1987! What a good looking game, already. I'm genuinely impressed.
So anyway, let's transition to a more high-level overview of the game for the sake of fulfilling the purpose of this blog: If you've played Final Fantasy (the first one) you're probably in-tune with most of what's going on here.
Armor, weapons, and spells all have to be purchased with gold in this game like the first FF title, and leveling mostly serves as a stat boost. It seems like some of the monsters in the first area are designed to prepare you for the leveling up loop and not let you wander too far off the reservation...
 |
| Well, that took about 15 seconds. |
The Japanese guide that I started following once I got away from the first town and got my butt handed to me said that this was a game where you could 'feel yourself getting stronger as you upgraded equipment', which is a descriptive phrase for a game I've never heard in English, but I totally know what it means. Like: equipment upgrades are so dramatic when you acquire them that the sense of progress is palpable.
After just giving two of my characters a better weapon I was already feeling unstoppable.
 |
| Yaaarrrrrouuuu! Taste my revenge! |
Unfortunately, this feeling quickly faded as I realized that Jaseiken Necromancer was going to be one hell (heh) of a grindfest. Enemy difficulty ramps up quickly in this game, and this wasn't helped by the fact that I picked a 'late-bloomer' type character for my team who was mostly useless for the beginning of the game.
Once poison enemies had been introduced to the game, progress was becoming slow and frustrating. I was having a hard time grinding or progressing because most enemies in the area were heavy hitting and gave status effects, even though I had upgraded my gear to the max possible before arriving in the area.
The appearance of enemies in groups of 2 or 3 necessitates the use of magic spells which target full groups instead of individuals, because when you target a group, you can't decide which one you're actually going to hit. Which can lead to you eating some extra hits if you can't quickly kill a group.
 |
| Fenrir Squad, Represent! |
After playing this game for something like 6-8 hours and getting to about the fifth town, and level 15 with my hero character, I decided to stop playing. This is for a couple reasons:
This game has a "fear" mechanic which means that every time a character dies (or for other reasons that apparently nobody knows), your characters become more and more likely to randomly run away from battle. I was dying left and right for awhile because I was just playing absent-mindedly, and I fear for how much worse that will get as time goes on because of my poor play up to that point.
The other reason is that this game is insanely grindy. I wondered if maybe I was doing something wrong, but this seems a pretty common complaint about the game anywhere on the Japanese web I looked. One of my favorite Japanese game websites, @wiki, which has a catalog of games that they rate from good to "kusoge," mentions that the pathway through the game is essentially heading to the next town and grinding until you can afford all the best gear, then going to the next town.
As much as I used to like JRPGs, I don't have the time or patience to do that right now, but I might revisit it one day-- who knows?
 |
| You'll have to wait to get your jewels back until another time, water spirit lady. |
----- Review -----
How long did I play?
About 6-8 hours.
Did I beat the game?
No.
Innovation:
Does the game show anything not yet seen on this system/ever before?
Well, this is the first RPG on the PC Engine! So sure! The other thing of note here is the games' macabre, H. R. Giger influenced art style. Apparently they even used one of his paintings in the game with his permission, which is pretty cool. According to @wiki, this style was pretty unprecedented in RPGs, at the time.
-----
Intuitive Design:
How easy is it to intuitively understand the game?
Like many JRPGs too, there are hidden items that have pretty much no hints in the game, apparently, so if you want those you'll pretty much have to use a guide.
-----
Gameplay / Difficulty:
How rewarding does playing the game feel?
Well, the game definitely rewards grinding, because when you level up your equipment, you really feel a lot more powerful in that area. Unfortunately, I don't think this is what people want from RPGs anymore (it's not what I want from an RPG, in most cases...) so the game just ends up feeling a bit like a drag. Every area I went into for the first time felt really unfairly stacked against me, but by clinging onto dear life by a thread I was eventually able to start making money grinding again once I leveled up some more, and get that necessary equipment.
All in all, the game difficulty is WAY too staggered in my opinion, instead of being a smooth curve up it's more like a seriously brutal staircase.
-----
Depth:
How deep/long is the game?
There's quite a few mechanics here, but it's only about as depthy as Final Fantasy (the original), which for reference came out in 1987-- one year before this, so that honestly makes sense. There's quite a lot of spells, armor, and enemies to fight, so in that sense it's pretty depthy!
I won't speculate on the length of the game as a whole though, since I didn't finish it.
-----
Design:
How's the sound? How are the graphics?
The music in Jaseiken Necromancer is pretty solid, and I think that it sets the atmosphere in the game pretty well. The overworld theme is a little chippy and catchy without leaving the territory of being a little "off" sounding. I'm also impressed with how the mood is set when you head into a dungeon and get this goofy, but dangerous sounding tune.
The game looks excellent for 1988, especially compared to Final Fantasy from the year before. The animated sprites is something that's rare even for RPGs of later years, so that impressed me a lot. The enemy designs that I saw didn't really make good on the promise of being H. R. Giger influenced to me... but I think the game has a unique style for a JRPG. It's very macabre, overall, which is cool.
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Personal Chord:
Does the game have that undefinable "something" for me?
I think so, but not enough to keep me playing it through the grinding apparently. I like the style of the game, and the music's alright, and I think overall it seems like a great idea. However, it seems like maybe the game could have benefitted from a tighter difficulty curve and grinding curve. For an RPG, having to stay around one town for 2-3 hours starts to get old if you can't break it up with some story progression that at least lasts another few hours.
My experience with Jaseiken was more like grinding for 2-3 hours and then walking to the next town in about 10-15 minutes only to repeat it again.
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Should You Play:
Is there a reason to even bother with this one?
If you don't read Japanese at all you're going to have a hard time with this already hard game. If you do read Japanese, this is still hard to recommend to me based on the issues that I've brought up above. However, if you're the hardcore gamer type and you want an intimidating JRPG and don't mind grinding for hours, I'd say it's worth it just to try it out. The style of the game is definitely unique.
Otherwise, in 2019, I'm not sure this is really an essential play, from what I've seen.
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