Fharanx - The Missing Link of Japanese RPG's

Athlor · Post by **Athlor** » Tue Nov 04, 2008 4:19 am

Most Japanese RPG developers have admitted the Ultima series as a major influence. Yet their first RPGs, like Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy, already seemed significantly different. Well I discovered one called Fharanx who influence is so obvious it's amazing. It's a much more serious theme, no anima/manga. In a way, a Holy Grail of Japanese RPG's.
http://www.generation-msx.nl/msxdb/softwareinfo/618
It was for the MSX system, developed by Enix and, get this, written in Basic. About 1/3 of the text is in English but the story parts are definately Japanese. There is a guy working on a translation right now. The ascii Basic code is only about 27k with an additional 15k data file for maps etc.
This would make for an interesting port for the Vic wouldn't it? A real Enix RPG for the Vic-20.

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Tue Nov 04, 2008 5:16 am

So.... What is RPG?

Zeela · Post by **Zeela** » Tue Nov 04, 2008 6:33 am

RPG = Role Playing Game

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Tue Nov 04, 2008 6:42 am

OIST = Oh, I see... Thanks

PaulQ · Post by **PaulQ** » Tue Nov 04, 2008 9:01 am

Or...

jbuonacc · Post by **jbuonacc** » Tue Nov 04, 2008 2:06 pm

pretty cool! i guess the point is though that Enix greatly improved on this design the next year with Dragon Quest, then Square took it even further with Final Fantasy. the fact that they were different from the Ultima series (and clones) says a lot.

gklinger · Post by **gklinger** » Tue Nov 04, 2008 3:12 pm

Is the source code available somewhere? I wasn't able to find it with, admittedly, a cursory search.