Far East of Eden II [import] review

You’re thinking: Far East of what? Japan’s thinking: something in Japanese that translates as “Oh, that 2 million selling RPG, which brought proper cutscenes and CD-quality music to the genre via the PC Engine in 1989 and provided admirably stiff competition for yer Final Fantasys and yer Dragon Quests.”

In other words: this remake of Far East of Eden II is big news to those in the know. It’s traditional, all right - village boy sets off for take-turn battles to rescue Japan from demons etc, etc. But what makes this faithful re-release a cut above your average simplistic two-decade-old RPG is, perversely, the simplicity. There’s little to do except walk across a few squares of map and kill the next floating specter with incomprehensible kanji, but it’s all so unexpectedly quick - you walk and fight at super quick speeds - that it’s one of the most mesmerizing things we’ve ever played. Plus, every minute of those anime mini-movies that wowed your (Japanese) dad in ’89 has been crowbarred onto a cart the size of an airmail sticker.