Sword of Vermilion

Sword of Vermilion is one of the first larger-scale RPGs that the Sega Mega Drive dared to offer shortly after the console's launch. The game combines a bird's-eye view while traversing towns and countryside with a switch to first-person combat in the style of dungeon crawlers of the time – the player alternately moves through the open world and then finds themselves face to face with enemies in an enclosed arena, where the actual sword-and-magic combat takes place. The story follows a young hero who sets out to avenge his father's death and gradually confronts a dark threat endangering the entire kingdom, gathering experience, better equipment, and new spells along the way.

For its time, the game was visually ambitious – it tried to present the console as a fully-fledged platform for larger-scale RPG experiences comparable to what computers or Japanese consoles offered back then. The music and sound effects make full use of what the Mega Drive could do at the time and round out the impression of an epic adventure, though today's players may find the combination of two different perspectives disjointed, and the transitions between them occasionally slow the pace.

Sword of Vermilion never achieved the fame of later series like Phantasy Star, but in Mega Drive history it holds a place as one of the first attempts to offer console players a serious RPG experience with a large world and gradual character growth. Today it is remembered more as an interesting technical curiosity and a pioneering step that showed even an eighteen-bit console could carry an ambitious genre experiment, albeit not without the flaws typical of early RPGs of its era. The world is divided into several regions with distinct architecture and enemies, so despite the repetitive combat system, the player gradually feels they have entered a different part of the kingdom. Character growth through levels and new spells gives the game a clear sense of progress, even though the system feels somewhat stricter compared to later RPGs on the same console.

Why play it: As a pioneering attempt at a large-scale RPG on an eighteen-bit console with distinct regions and character growth, Sword of Vermilion will appeal more to those interested in gaming history than to players expecting a flawless experience.