Hey pix,
As some of you may know, I'm a little obsessed with GBC restriction stuff. Well in one of my random searches a while back, I stumbled upon a gem I had never seen before and would like to share with you guys: Kakurenbo Monster Battle Tactics. The Japan only nature of the game is probably the reason for this, but I'm still surprised at the lack of exposure this game has.
I was immediately captured by the extremely well done portraits, brought to mind Justin Cyr; not many games do low color, 32x32 portraits as well as this one. The variety of characters and powerful instant reads breath a lot of life into this game. Beyond that, the shadow based mechanic of the game is really impressive to be done on a GBC cartridge.
The environment work is more standard rpg, but is very servicable, and the bright colors and crisp shapes definitely lend to a highly polished look. This game being released near the end of the GBC lifespan makes sense, as it often feels more like an early GBA title.
I doubt anything will ever dethrone Star Ocean: Blue sphere in terms of superior GBC graphics, but it's nice to have a new title to oogle at! Below are some screenshots, and at the end, a collection of some of the portraits I put together. I don't have the time to go through the game with it being all japanese, but if some brave or knowledgeable soul wants to take a stab at getting some rips of the later characters, that would be awesome
