THE LIBRARY

Phantasy Star II, III and IV, Shining Force and its sequel, Warsong, and the two Lunar games: the verified covers, the honest gaps, and the histories behind them.

The first Mega Drive RPG: a 6 megabit cartridge, Nei, a bundled 110 page hint book, and the ending that reversed the invasion.

Generations of Doom: three generations, marriage choices, four endings, and the black sheep argument in full.

The End of the Millennium: Kodama's finale, Boris Vallejo's cover, just under $100 at American retail, and the missing fifteenth combo.

The rankings that settled it, the near $100 price that shaped its legend, and the 1995 dissent that said years behind.

Takahashi on the record: not Fire Emblem. Dragon Quest battles, an obscure PC game called Silver Ghost, and the tactical RPG with no game over.

The hit or else sequel: free roaming, branching promotions, GamePro's pan against the canon, and the Devil Kings translation its co-director corrected.

Langrisser in Japan, Warsong in America: Masaya's commander and troops tactics, Treco's renamed edition, and the five game series the West saw once.

Japan's best selling Mega-CD game: animation as storytelling, Working Designs' eight week translation, and seven collectible disc art variants.

Three years and $2.5 million, fifty minutes of animation, a save system that charges experience, and GameFan's about face on the jokes.

Names, censorship, injected jokes, a new harp sequence, rewritten lyrics, rebalanced battles, and priced saving, itemized from the record of both Lunar games.

Fourteen Famicom and NES role-playing games, Dragon Quest to Lagrange Point, with their covers, their two names apiece, and the questions behind them.

Horii, Toriyama, and Sugiyama build the first Japanese console RPG in 1986, and America meets it in 1989 as Dragon Warrior.

The first party, the first ship, 2.4 million copies in Japan, and the hardest late game of the early series.

The class system, a world shaped like Earth, 3.8 million copies, and the prequel twist that explained the Erdrick legend.

No law was passed. A million copies in a day, almost 300 truancy arrests, and Enix's own weekend decision: the record, with the myth labeled.

Five chapters, five viewpoints, the Tactics system, 3.1 million Famicom copies, and the PlayStation remake America never got.

SNK's God Slayer: four elemental swords, a hero woken a century after the end of the world, and a Game Boy Color version that rewrote it.

Capcom's 1989 horror RPG: five filmmakers, five tools, permanent death, and the mansion Resident Evil was built on.

Through its own director. Fujiwara produced Resident Evil to do what the Famicom could not, and the inheritance is itemized on the record.

Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light: Kaga fuses Famicom Wars with an RPG, death becomes permanent, and Japan waits thirty years to share it.

Capcom's second Willow game of 1989: Akira Kitamura's NES action RPG, Harumi Fujita's score, and an eighteen character password.

Garriott's 1985 RPG of eight virtues and no villain, remade in Japan for the Famicom and sold back to America on the NES.

Konami's Japan only space opera of 1991, and the VRC7 chip that gave it a sound no other Famicom game has.

Its cartridge carries six channels of FM synthesis. Konami claimed the first; the technical record says it stayed the only one.

Eight main line games and Monsters on one shelf: Horii, Toriyama, and Sugiyama's series, cover by cover, Japan's national event against America's nine year silence.

Sugiyama recorded the eight melodies with an orchestra in 1986 and conducted them at Suntory Hall in 1987. The suites never stopped.

Terry's Wonderland: Tose's 1998 spin-off, the breeding system, 2.35 million Japanese copies, and 60,000 American ones.

Ys Book I and II, Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys, Tengai Makyou II, and Cosmic Fantasy 2: the first CD console's RPG shelf, with its absences stated.

732 megabytes in 1989: two Falcom games on one CD, voice dubbing, bump combat, and EGM's number 38 game of all time.

One of two games called Ys IV, Hudson's licensed Celceta chapter, Japan only, with the 2004 fan translation as its only English door for decades.

500 million yen, Joe Hisaishi, 20,000 screens: Japan's best selling PC Engine game and its highest rated, never released outside Japan in any version.

The platform that lost America, the biggest localization job on it, an American preview that led nowhere, and Victor Ireland's number one game of all time.

The first third party game published on a CD console, EGM's Best RPG of 1992, and nearly one copy sold per American TurboGrafx-CD.

Twenty games that made one console the home of the RPG: Final Fantasy VII to IX and Tactics, Xenogears, Chrono Cross, Vagrant Story, Parasite Eve, Valkyrie Profile, Suikoden, Persona, Grandia, and Lunar.

The Final Fantasy VII proposal that was too dark: Episode V of a six part saga, Perfect Works, 1.19 million copies, and no European release.

The budget cut legend, and director Tetsuya Takahashi's own account from 2017, labeled apart: a young team, a two year rule, and a choice.

Kato and Mitsuda return without the Dream Team: parallel worlds, 45 heroes, a perfect 10 from GameSpot, and the sequel argument that never ended.

A 94 on Metacritic against a fan argument about what a sequel owes: the critics judged the game, the fans judged the sequel.

Matsuno's one man dungeon: Famitsu's perfect 40, the Tactics team in full 3D, and the most admired Square game of its year, overshadowed by its own stablemates.

Square adapts Hideaki Sena's horror novel, builds its first M rated game with a mostly American team in Los Angeles, and invents the cinematic RPG.

Almost every word: the complete retranslation, Algus renamed Argath, two new jobs, Balthier and Luso, voiced cutscenes, and the slowdown that came with them.

Murayama and Kawano build Konami's 108 Stars RPG: Water Margin's outlaws, three kinds of battle, and the split verdict: America's RPG of the Year against Famitsu's series-low 26.

Two friends, two halves of one rune, and a limited Western print run: the 1999 record (Japan hit, EGM 7) and the canon lists that reversed it.

No reprint after a tepid Western start, a decade of best-ever lists, PSN in 2014: the dated stages of an afterlife, separated from the nostalgia.

The Saturn original in full: 344,554 Japanese copies, a cloth map limited edition, and import fame, then the 1999 PlayStation port that carried it West.

Sega of America said no, the petition failed, the European talks failed: how an acclaimed Saturn game reached the West only by changing machines.

The West's first Megami Tensei RPG: Jung, Twin Peaks, demon negotiation, and a 1996 edition that cut an entire second campaign, restored on PSP in 2009.

Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment as the pair they are: rumors that become real, one story from two viewpoints, and a first half the West waited twelve years for.

Not a ban: a documented debate, real content concerns, and the reason Atlus staff gave as the main one: the team was already localizing the sequel.

Sony's $16 million in-house answer to Final Fantasy: the Additions system, a Metacritic 74, over a million copies mostly in America, and a sequel cancelled in pre-production.

Ryu grows from lost child to adult across one game: masters, dragon genes, a fairy village, and the jazz soundtrack reviewers fought over.

Two leads, Private Actions, 86 endings: the first Star Ocean the West received sold 1.094 million and is still called the series' best.

A spaghetti-western RPG from a ten-person team: among the first 3D battle systems on PlayStation, and 1997's runner-up to Final Fantasy VII in award after award.

Talking swords and real-time 2D battles: over a million copies, a localization bet documented by its own producer, and the sequel naming trap, flagged.

The Silver Star rebuilt: 50 minutes of animation, a villain rewritten into sympathy, and Working Designs' $60 collector's box that sold out its entire run.

Mitsuda's 1998 Celtic arrangement of his own score: five vocal tracks, one sung in Gaelic, recorded with his band Millennial Fair.

A hundred hours, a 35 person team, the 64DD defection, 4.06 million Japanese copies, and the last Dragon Warrior.