Hiouden is a quirky title from many of the developers who went on to make games like Tenshi no Uta, Tales of Phantasia, the Star Ocean series and Valkyrie Profile. You play a crown prince who has fled from his castle under attack, and begin to employ monsters to help you.

It’s a point and click strategy RPG, and for an SNES game is very PC-like. (You can even make windows so you can follow the action easier when you split your party up.) The PC-like implementation does suffer a bit from the SNES’ small display, but the graphics don’t look too rough and the intro is quite pretty. If you’re a Motoi Sakuraba fan, you’ll love the sound; if not, you might find it a bit dull.

If you can handle the quirkiness, you’ve got a neat SRPG on your hands.

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