Revelations: The Demon Slayer
Revelations: The Demon Slayer (or Megami Tensei Gaiden: Last Bible) is an RPG by Atlus, release in September 1999 for Game Boy and Game Boy Color in North America. It's the first color RPG for Game Boy Color released in North America. It follows the Pokemon trend by giving you the option to negotiate with enemy monsters in an attempt to convince them to join your battle party. Revelations already came out in Japan a couple years ago for the original Game Boy, titled as Last Bible. So, this version for Game Boy Color is a re-release, and as an added bonus it was color-ized for the 'new' Game Boy Color system. The almighty Gideon Zhi of Aeon Genesis Translations graced me with his knowledge on this game series. This is what he told me:
"I just took a look at your site, and since you seemed to enjoy it you might be interested to know that Last Bible is actually a subseries of the Megami Tensei series, which encompasses an original two Megami Tensei games (with a Kyuuyaku Megami Tensei remake/graphical overhaul similar to DQ12r), three Shin Megami Tensei games with two new ones in development, four Last Bible games, an Another Bible strategy offshoot of Last Bible, a Majin Tensei strategy offshoot of the Shin Megami Tensei series, a Devil Summoner series which plays like SMT but with less of a focus on law/chaos/neutrality and more of a focus on character/story development, the Persona series which features a system that Final Fantasy 8 totally blatantly and unremorsefully ripped off [Personae=Guardian Forces, basically], and the Shin Megami Tensei Devil Children games which are a lot more pokemon-ish than the other megaten titles and therefore aren't worth nearly as much in my book."
Last Bible II
Last BIble II (or Megami Tensei Gaiden: Last Bible II) was released in November 1993 for Game Boy only in Japan. In April 1999, it was re-released for Game Boy Color in (yep, again) only in Japan. in May 2009, English speakers rejoiced as a 100% English fan translation was released by three individuals known as "EsperKnight", "Prez" and "Tom". And if you want to visit the translation group's homepage, click here. In my Downloads page you can find this game for download, its English patch, and a cool trailer!
Last BIble II features gorgeous battle graphics and animation. A moon feature was added; different phases of the moon affect the conversations with the monsters. Besides that, the game isn't very different from Revelations: The Demon Slayer.
Last Bible Special
This is the third game to the Last Bible series, released in March 1995 only for Game Gear. However, it's not a sequel. It has everything you would expect from a Last Bible RPG, except that the style of gameplay is maze based (like Arcana). This was only released in Japan. In August 2017, a fan based English translation was released by members of RomHacking.net known as MrRichard999, SSTranslations, and Tom. In my Downloads page you can find this game and its translation for download.
Revelations: The Demon Slayer
Long before human beings existed... telepathy, teleportation, telekinesis... power that only Gods could harness... Gods named this power Gaia. Set in medieval times on the fifth planet of a faraway solar system, Revelations: The Demon Slayer tells the story of a race of people who are able to wield the mysterious power of Gaia. Protected by a magical orb that maintains peace and order, these people live in happiness until the ever-present forces of evil attempted to use the power of Gaia. The story begins with El, the hero, finishing up his training as a Gaia warrior. Soon after, he is unexpectedly given the quest to defeat the evil that threatens the whole world. Only two other humans and any monster he chooses will fight by his side.
Last Bible II
In Magoku, only one baby was born one night. This is a sign that the revival of a godly power called Gryas will occur. Fifteen years later, Yuri, the main character and student of the powers of Gaia is recruited by the King of Magoku to destroy the ever approaching Gryas.
The battles in Revelations: The Demon Slayer and Last Bible II are the typical text-based style. You can get up to 100 monsters and convince them to join your battle party. You can elect to try to negotiate with enemies rather than fight them. The monsters actually join your party. As you collect more monsters, you'll be able to merge them together into even stronger monsters. In addition to aiding your characters in the game, these monsters can be pit against a friend's team in the Pokémon-style Game Link mode. There aren't really too many spells but at least they are some. They consist of the usual Fire, Ice, Sleep, defense boosting, attack boosting, etc.
Last Bible 1 and Last Bible Special came out for Sega's Game Gear. So if you were wondering where many of these colorful decorative pictures came from, they are from Game Gear's version of Revelations: The Demon Slayer (Last Bible 1). They're the exact same games! The only difference is the graphics and music. Last Bible Special has amazing graphics for what Game Gear is capable of. It has no similarity to Last Bible 1. The freedom of roaming around the world map is gone and replaced by a sun that moves to major locations (towns, temples, etc) for you. The towns are menu-based along with some illustrations, so you don't have to bother exploring them. The dungeons are 3D! Yup, you heard me. The graphics of the 3D dungeons are quite impressive too. And the opening sequence of Last Bible Special is so awesome. I wish this game was translated to English! I have both Game Gear Last Bibles downloadable in the Downloads section if you want to play them. The only catch is that they're in Japanese. Heh, if you know Japanese and programming then feel free to translate them!
* Want to see screen shots? Click here!
I got my copy of Revelations: The Demon Slayer a couple weeks after it came out and I beat it in about two or three weeks. My first impression on the game was much better than I expected it to be. It's GREAT!! The monster recruiting is the best part! It makes this game quite entertaining, good enough to compete with Pokemon. Speaking of that, Revelations and Pokemon share the same flaw... lack of replay value. The battle system and monster recruiting gets boring after beating the whole game once or twice, but the game is still quite memorable those first times you beat it. It's quite impressive for what Game Boy Color is capable of. The soundtrack is also quite impressive, for what Game Boy is capable of. My favorite songs is the world map theme, the town theme and the boss battle theme.
As for the fan translated Last Bible II, I have yet to play it so I do not have an opinion. However, I can say the battle graphics definitely look pretty! It's surely one of the more visually impressive RPGs for Game Boy and Game Boy Color.
