A relatively early action-RPG for the Famicom, and a relatively novel concept - as the titular Jarvas, you're actually the lone survivor of a nuclear holocaust and go back in time to well before the atomic era to conquer the entire world, averting humanity's extinction in the most heavy-handed way possible. The game is relatively full-featured for the time period, with the player able to change between multiple job classes, a pretty lengthy campaign, a rather large world map with numerous sub-maps, and a lot of sub-quests to complete to earn gold, which you must do as random enemies on the map do not drop money when defeated. You also have a Fame stat that increases as you win duels, which you must do in order to recruit troops to open castles so you can overthrow each continent's rulers (and no, they don't provide you any aid in battle whatsoever). That said, design-wise it's a bit of a trainwreck - it's buggy, slow paced, has very poor hit detection, it's easy to wedge the game into an unwinnable state by picking a quest you can't finish yet (you can only take one at a time and can't cancel quests without actually completing them), and it's extremely slow and grindy. Oh, and forget trying to play as a magic user; as in old Dungeons and Dragons you start with one spell that barely does any damage, and your physical stats are so pathetic that one or two hits from basically anything will knock you dead. It is at least notable for being the first Famicom RPG to use a battery backup to save games; prior to this games either relied on a tape recorder peripheral, rewritable floppy disks or just using a password system, and its general "western-ness" with a focus on sidequests, army battles (such as they are) and being able to change character classes are all relatively novel for the time and the platform. But as the saying goes: being one of the first means it's also one of the worst.
Publisher: Taito
Released: 1987
Platforms: Famicom