Final Fantasy-inspired PS1 RPG Shadow Madness coming to Steam soon
Shadow Madness is an example of Western devs taking a shot at emulating the success of their Japanese counterparts. Back in the PS1 era, JRPGs picked up the pace on the new 3D consoles, so it was uncommon to see a game like this from the WRPG side.
Developed by Craveyard Studios, it was the team's first attempt at emulating a certain RPG franchise on the PS1. It was released in 1999 exclusively for the PS1 console in a two-disc format. And now, it is getting a PC port via Steam.
Taking place in the fantasy land of Arkose, everything is plunged into chaos by a mysterious illness only called the "shadow madness". It apparently has no cure. After witnessing his town befall the same fate, a boy named Stinger sets out, against all odds, to fix this mess. Along the way, he meets a vibrant cast of characters who aid him on his travels.
The elf-girl Windleaf and Warf-5, a farm robot, are just a couple of examples of the eccentric lineup of faces Stinger encounters. The dev team, while new to game development in general at that point, had members who were involved in key RPG projects at companies like Squaresoft (later merged with Enix in 2003 to form Square Enix).
This had the benefit of Shadow Madness being a "J"RPG whose writing and humor could be well-targeted towards its audience - Europe and NA, since those are the only regions the game released for.
Exploration is done on maps with pre-rendered backgrounds - as was the norm for the era. Encounters are random, and combat takes a page from Square's Final Fantasy 7 with how everything is designed.
Battles are ATB (active time battles) and allow the use of characters with unique abilities and specializations like magic, long-range or melee. In fact, nearly everything about Shadow
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