Sorcerer's Kingdom

Sorcerer's Kingdom is a 1993 role-playing game for the Sega Mega Drive associated with the Japanese studio Masaya. The Mega Drive was never as rich in RPGs as its rival Super Nintendo, which gives every genre entry in its library a particular weight.

The game pairs overworld travel with battles fought directly on the map from the isometric vantage noted in our record. Characters improve through what they actually do, so the party's growth mirrors its members' real actions and leaves development firmly in the player's hands.

The year 1993 fell in the golden age of Japanese console role-playing, and the titles that reached the West squeezed through the narrow bottleneck of localisation. Sorcerer's Kingdom is one of the stream's lesser-known names, which is why it tends to be discovered today by fans combing the Mega Drive library in depth.

Digs like this are often the most rewarding kind: free of nostalgia's varnish, they show how broad the genre's output really was. Anyone fond of turn-based combat and the slow strengthening of a party will find honest genre craftsmanship here.

Battles fought directly on the map save both time and attention: there is no cut to a separate screen, enemies belong to the landscape, and combat begins exactly where the party stands, a refreshing solution for the genre. An English localisation also opened the game beyond Japan, which was far from guaranteed for RPGs of the day.

You can start Sorcerer's Kingdom directly in your browser on OldGame.cz and set out for the kingdom with no installation.