Dragon Knight 4

Dragon Knight 4 is the most ambitious entry in its series and also one of the rare cases where an erotic adventure turned into a full-fledged tactical strategy game. The story follows the fate of a hero trying to stop the expansion of a powerful empire, offering a notably more serious, adventurous tone than the previous entries, including a large cast of characters and a long campaign split into chapters.

Battles take place on a square grid, where squads made up of individual heroes and hired units face off against each other. Terrain, range, turn order, and even who you place next to whom all matter, since units boost one another. Between battles, the game returns to its adventure portion: you visit towns, recruit allies, hold conversations, and develop relationships with characters, which in turn affects their strength on the battlefield. The campaign offers several ways to bring the story to a close, so the player has to manage not just tactics but also who to devote attention to along the way. The difficulty leans toward planning rather than punishment; the game gives you plenty of room to reinforce and equip your army but won't let you finish the whole campaign with a single lineup. The recruitment system also means the same battle can be won in very different ways depending on who you managed to enlist earlier. The chapters are long enough for a real bond to form with individual characters.

On the PC-98, this was a lavishly produced title with hand-drawn portraits, animated scenes, and an extensive orchestral score lending the battles an epic feel. The game was later ported to consoles in a modified form and circulated in the West under an English title, which made it known even to audiences outside Japan. Dragon Knight 4 is still remembered as proof that adult titles could offer mechanics on the PC-98 comparable to Japanese console strategy games of the time, and its tactical layer holds up even after all these years.