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Kemco: providing me with delicious gaming moments since 1991. |
Lo and behold: I'm just done polishing off a Kemco game, dear fellow gamers.
Now, why the solemn announcement, you may ask? Well, that's because it's been
nearly 30 years since I last played a Kemco game.
My first (sweet) brush with Kemco happened in 1991, when I played — and loved —
Bugs
Bunny Crazy Castle on the Game
Boy. Of course, developers' and publishers' names and resumés were the farthest
thing from my young mind at the time; but with hindsight, and a quick glance at
Kemco's Wikipedia page, I can claim that I didn't play a single game of
theirs after that, be it a game they developed or published. That oversight was
bound to end, though, as I stumbled one fine day upon Kemco's Asdivine
Hearts on Limited Run Games. The cover's Trails in the Sky-ish art
first lured me in, and the heavy retro graphics convinced me to hit the
Purchase button; and then there was no turning back.
One thing leading to another, it wasn't long before I discovered Kemco's
insanely long and thick string of budget RPGs, and tasked myself with the
mighty fine mission of purchasing as many of them as I possibly could. That's
how I ended up acquiring all the titles released on the Vita, as well as the
Omnibus collection for the Switch; however, this is but a beginning, as there's
a lot of room for improvement on the Android and Switch fronts. Now,
this leaves one question opened: why would I even bother with those games, when
I have so many greater RPGs at my fingertips (like, literally)? After all, the
general consensus seems to be that Kemco's budget RPGs are little more than
mass-produced, RPG Maker-ed pieces of crap that aren't worth any
self-respecting gamer's time or money. There's more than a kernel of truth in
that statement; and yet, I'll gladly throw money at Kemco and gorge on their
budget RPGs. The reason is simple: those games manage to capture the essence of
what 16-bit RPGs were about and to deliver it in a fulfilling pint-sized format
— or, in other words: sometimes an RPG veteran just wants a simple grindy
treat, and Kemco's stuff can scratch that itch like no flashy recent RPG ever
could.
Mind you, my passion for all things Kemco RPG was kinda theoretical until
recently: although I had tried my hand at many of them to confirm prospective
Limited Run purchases, I had yet to finish one of them entirely. I'm just done
doing that — yay, me! — and so: see you soon for my first Kemco RPG run
report, dear fellow
gamers!
4 comments:
Everyone is a
little too hard on the Kemco games. Sure, most of them are way too same-y and
try to implement a little of everything without much effort or polish but
there's some that actually are pretty fun to play. I had a lot of fun with End
of Aspiration on the PSP, as well as Machine Knight, Chrome Wolf and Asdivine
Cross on Mobile, for instance. And from the little I've played of Dragon
Sinker, it was actually a solid RPG.
Curious about which one is the lucky first for you!
Nice to see you
again, Sieg! :D Hope you'll comment again before long. ^^
For me, Kemco do great in their own little niche. Sure, they're not reinventing
the RPG wheel by any means; but at least, they're kinda upfront about it. And
they seriously deliver the goods — like, literally: they release games by the
truckload, on all available gaming platforms.
I played some Dragon Sinker and really loved it; still, it's not the RPG I just
polished off. Oh well, you'll
see soon enough! :D
Ahah, my lack
of comments don't mean that I don't come here every two or so days checking for
some new posts! But yeah, I do try to comment when I can.
Anyway, I agree full-heartily with your post. Kemco is here to give a quick fix
for that "I wanna play some RPG but I don't know which one" feeling.
They won't create any ground breaking RPG but they also don't really develop
terrible ones (possibly). And since they have 7 or so sub-teams they're able to
release a new one every odd month or so. It's really staggering how many they
have now.
And you know what, all this Kemco talking actually gave me an itch for one of
their games. Maybe I'll give
Asdivine Hearts a spin.
Oh, that's lovely to read! ^^ No pressure to comment on my part, though: it's just that I love 'em comments, especially from faithful readers such as you. :) The more, the merrier! :D
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