Miracle Warriors: Seal of the Dark Lord

Miracle Warriors: Seal of the Dark Lord is one of the handful of genuine JRPGs that made it to the Sega Master System even outside Japan, and that alone gives it a special place in its genre on this console. The player crosses a sprawling game world divided into several continents, traveling between them on the back of a unicorn, visiting villages and temples, restocking supplies, and gradually recruiting allies who strengthen the party and bring their own abilities to battle. Fights against monsters drawn from Greek mythology occur randomly while moving across the map and are resolved with a simple menu selection typical of early console RPGs, while the character and allies gradually grow stronger with accumulated experience and open access to more dangerous areas.

Technically the game benefits from the Master System's color palette and fairly detailed backgrounds of towns and wilderness alike, though combat itself remains sparse and repetitive, as was typical for the era. The music underscores the sense of a journey across a fantastic world and, together with the slow but steady growth in the character's power, creates the atmosphere of a long adventure that rewards patience and systematic map exploration. At the time of release it was one of the few attempts to bring to the eight-bit Sega a genre then clearly dominated on the market by Nintendo with its RPG titles, and the game earned the attention of players hungry for a similar experience outside the NES.

Today Miracle Warriors is viewed mainly as a historical curiosity and proof that the Master System, too, had its own attempt at a sprawling fantasy adventure with an open world. The game's pacing and archaic combat system feel clunky and less streamlined by today's standards than later genre entries, but for fans of the early history of console RPGs it remains an interesting stop and a reminder of a time when the genre was still finding its shape on home consoles outside Japan.

Why play: For fans of the early history of console RPGs who can take a clunkier pace and archaic combat system in stride in exchange for a look at a time when the genre was still finding its way outside Japan.