Septerra Core: Legacy of the Creator

The setting and story felt rather compelling early on. I almost thought I was gonna get some chrono-trigger type of fix. But....urgh. Combat is too slow. The first few combats it's not so bad, because you're learning the system, getting used to the flow. But when you hit the second encounter area it's just...why. I've sometimes noticed emulators have fast-forward buttons on them. If you can find a way to do that for this game, perhaps that would be a fine thing.

Gameplay is fun although bit tedious, this is especially true for start of game. Bit warning: avoid overgrinding at start as healing and any form of recovery is very limited for good while, boss fight required to access shop with healing items can be far more difficult for leveled party than low leveled party thanks to lack of healing options:) if you like rpgs in general, this is solid pick but be warned this also is quite bit harsher than jrpgs

Great game, awesome story, good battle system if you don't mind the grind. Works flawlessly with touch interface on Windows Surface Pro 4!

Septerra Core is a very good Western RPG, disguised as a JRPG. Despite I hadn't played the game when it came out in 1999, it aged very well for itself. But the game has issues when it comes to how most RPGs at the time when you defeat an enemy, you have to press prt-scan just to get the game to load the battle results. And without a patch or a fan patch; cutscenes tend to get skipped or become unplayable. Now I do think that maybe by some miracle this game, which was made under a shoe-string budget by a small team, gets a second wind for this game. Like, I can see this game getting a remake or a remaster of some kind, now that JRPG or JRPG-like games have exploded in popularity decades later.

A lot of the other reviews have explained the game well enough, so I'll focus on my own experience with it. I am generally not a huge JRPG fan, and most of the "classics" never appealed to me. I do like Western-style RPGs, and have played a lot. This game tries to bridge those two concepts, and that's why I think it instantly grabbed my attention when I originally rented it from a local CD-renting shop in the early 00's. In its core, it's a JRPG with very light RPG elements, which I think is OK; what really sold the game to me was the toning down of J-elements, as well as the setting that I thought was super unique at the time (even though it wasn't 100% unique). As with most games, I started it multiple times as a kid, never getting much farther than the first visit to Shell 7. Years later I bought it on GOG, played it all the way through, and had a blast. If you like turn based RPGs with light RPG elements, and decent but not great voice acting, definitely look into this game and consider buying it. The goodies in the Deluxe Edition are especially good, in my opinion.