This Month in Retro May 2023
Hello all and welcome to This Month in Retro! Today, I'll be taking you back to May of 1999, which was a good month for games but less so for actual happenings in the game industry. E3 happened this month, so it was mostly just announcements, announcements, and more announcements. The most important one came from Nintendo, who publicly announced that their next home system was in developed under codename "Project Dolphin", which eventually became the Nintendo CameCube. Sid Meier, the legendary game developer whose name is often associated with the Civilization series, was the second person to be inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences' Hall of Fame at the same E3 event. And uh... that's it for this month, so let's move on to the games straight away!
This Month in Retro takes you through the major game releases of May 1999, be it famous- or infamous ones, hidden gems, and all in between. Their legacy will be discussed in the form of reception and sales, as well as their achievement sets if applicable. The Japanese side of this article covers only the games that have never made it to the west, hopefully with fan-translation present so everyone can enjoy them. And that's all you need to know, so let's get to it!
Also uh, apologies first of all. I made a teaser next month that we would see an absolutely bananas game today, which was meant to be Ape Escape... but Wikipedia gave me the incorrect information and that game actually released in June. Sorry if I got your hopes up :(
For the first title of the game... I'm showing my bias just a bit. It doesn't happen that often that I end up talking about a game I've played more than once and also on RetroAchievements, so I have to take that opportunity when I can right?
| Game |
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 Bomberman Quest (Game Boy Color)
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| Release dates | JP: December 24, 1998 |
| NA: May ??, 1999 | |
| PAL: November ??, 1999 | |
| Sales | N/A |
| Average score | 79% (MobyGames, 6 reviews) |
What do you get if you mix The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening with Bomberman? You get Bomberman Quest! In this action-adventure game, you travel through four regions and recapture all the monsters who were let loose after an attack by the Four Commanders on Bomberman's space shuttle. Capturing a monster is as easy as throwing a bomb at them Bomberman style, but not all monsters feel frightened by your explosive might. Found throughout the world, a bunch of items will help Bomberman with his task, such as a variety of bombs for different terrains, as well as the ability to jump, and much, much more. Sometimes you even need to travel back through previously visited areas to defeat monsters you previously were unable to, truly channeling that Zelda spirit and presenting the player with a satisfying gameplay loop. It did go somewhat under the radar however, having almost no presence on the internet in terms of critic- or player opinions, so have mine instead! It's a really fun game, albeit with some noticeable flaws, such as Bomberman initially moving pretty slow. But it also has the biggest criticism of Link's Awakening and amped it up to 11: the item switching menu. Whereas that game only had several items, in Bomberman Quest almost everything is an item, including ways to increase Bomberman's movement. You'll be opening that menu very often, and it can get a bit grating admittedly. Certainly would love to see this remade in full glory someday, but as with most Bomberman games that aren't mainline, they unfortunately never saw the light of day again.
It comes with a solid achievement set, but beware because if you want this mastery, your skills will be put to the test. The achievement set covers the entire game as a whole with nice separated progression achievements sorted by boss and region, while also having achievements for most of the more important items. But the damageless bosses are really tough, specifically the later ones that make your game run at an extremely low framerate. Either that, or I just suck. And fun fact, this set also comes with an Achievement Guide created by yours truly! Please play this game now, thank you.
The PlayStation 1 was still going very strong in 1999, seeing not one but two JRPGs this month! The first of which I'll be talking about is a remake of a Sega CD title, and arguably the best way of playing this game.
| Game |
|---|
 Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete (PlayStation)
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| Release dates | JP: May 28, 1998 |
| NA: May 28, 1999 | |
| Sales | 550.000 |
| Average score | 86% (MobyGames, 22 reviews) |
The Lunar series is a small franchise of JRPG games, with the first game being the one that we talk about today. This title was initially released on the Sega CD in both Japan and North America, and has ironically seen more remakes than there have been different games in this franchise. The PlayStation 1 version is the first of three remakes, which was ported over from the Sega Saturn where it only released in Japan. This version has the story of Dragonmaster Alex remaining faithful to the original, only expanding upon it further to accommodate for a larger cast of characters like expanding the villainous side to even the scales. And these are all very welcome additions, as Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete is very often praised for having a great story and cast of characters that focuses on love and the typical "stop evil" but in a more laid-back setting at first, and it is complemented by an outstanding localization in general. The gameplay is a solid take on the turn-based formula we would see during the 16-bit era, but beating them all because there are no random encounters to worry about, hurray! "Professional" critics at first weren't as positive because "a 2D game on my 3D home system" is heresy according to them, but those complaints fortunately didn't last long when other critics- and players discovered the quality the game offered, now being heralded as one of the best JRPGs from around this era. I made the joke about this game getting revamped quite often, but it was done so for a reason after all! The 2009 remake on PSP would unfortunately also be the last time we saw a game in this series, as Game Arts currently isn't very involved in the video game industry anymore.
The set is a mix of both progression achievements, challenges mostly for the boss battle but also miscellaneous objectives, and collecting items in dungeons. With a total of 107 achievements, we certainly have a set worthy for this game! For people interested, there is a Missables achievement guide available as well that lets you know about the points of no return in chronological order, so certainly one worth keeping on the side!
Sticking to JRPGs for now, we have the second entry in another long-running RPG franchise still active to this day! Can you guess which one I'm talking about?
| Game |
|---|
 Star Ocean: The Second Story (PlayStation)
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| Release dates | JP: July 30, 1998 |
| NA: May 31, 1999 | |
| PAL: April 12, 2000 | |
| Sales | 1.094.000 |
| Average score | 81% (MobyGames, 24 reviews) |
Star Ocean: The Second Story was for a long time our first story as the original game for the Super Famicom never came over to the west until the PSP remake happened. Fortunately that didn't matter too much for this release as every Star Ocean game can be played independently from each other. In this game, take on the role of cadet Claude Kenni from the space-faring organization of planet earth who strands on a medieval-like planet where the other main protagonist is met, namely Rena Lanford. The player can choose to advance the story as one of the two, with the story and ending having a slightly different result based on it as well as with other choices made during the story. And of course, if you are familiar with the history of this series, such as it being developed by ex-members of the development studio behind the Tales of series, then you most likely also known about the real-time combat with free movement and a lot of freedom in setting your parties strategies. Furthermore, there are nine skills to choose from for each party member to master, mostly used for creating items outside of battle. The game had an overall good reception with solid sales as well, only barely missing out on a re-release under the "Greatest Hits" hood. Nowadays, This game is often regarded as one of, if not the best game in the series together with Star Ocean: Till the End of Time and Star Ocean: The Last Hope. And no, that last game being mentioned there totally isn't my own bias, nope, not at all. I love that game a lot and will bring it up every time I get the chance, sue me. That aside, the game did have a good life to say the least, having a manga based on it which was eventually adapted into an anime, and a remake for the PSP together with the first game which were also re-released on the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and Vita, but unfortunately in Japan only. But hey, the first game's remake did get re-released on the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 worldwide so the possiblity is still there, as Star Ocean is still very much a living franchise with the latest entry being released only last year.
The achievement set comes with a total of 92 achievements, focusing on a playthrough with Claude as well as one with Rena. All the skills mentioned before have achievements attached to them too, as well as the private actions to advance relationships between the playable characters. Do beware though, as the Star Ocean series is pretty infamous for having tough superbosses and multiple difficulties, and these will definitely put your skills to the test. If you are planning to play the set, it's also worth taking a look at the forum for the game as set developer Altomar has went in-depth regarding some of the before-mentioned objectives and how they interact with the achievements!
| Game |
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 Devilish: The Next Possession | Bad Omen (Mega Drive)*
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 Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Pool of Radiance (NES)
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 Toxic Crusaders (NES)*
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 Sol-Deace (Mega Drive)
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 Traysia (Mega Drive)
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Sets with an asterisk are currently claimed.
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| Game |
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 Magical Taruruuto-kun (Mega Drive)
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| Release dates | JP: April 24, 1992 |
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