Hoping to make your life's design a bit more dynamic!

I thought this would be a cool question to ask, especially from the core members of the group. I'm only including the games I have tried out, but I have played the majority of the Dynamic Designs releases. Here are my top 5:

1) FEDA: I still remember how disappointed I was that this game never made it to the U.S. when I saw it in an issue of EGM.
2) Lennus 2: I just love the look of this game.
3) Just Breed: One of my favorite NES games of all time.
4) Shell Monster Story: I was surprised by how much depth existed in this world and how much you can discover.
5) Mystic Ark: Hard to pick the fifth game, chose this over Burning Heroes because the former kept on introducing fresh new worlds while Burning Heroes had too much repeated between the different character choices.

Not an easy list!

1. Lennus 2: It was the game the led me to join up with these guys so many years ago during the CTC days. It was also the game that brought everyone back to "the scene" after Bongo` came on board. I feel that without Lennus 2, there would be no D-D.
2. FEDA: One of the first SRPGs I played. Really enjoyed working on this one.
3. SSMS-1: Loads of fun. Definitely a game that should have come out in the West.
4. Chaos Seed: This game nearly killed Bongo` and me... It probably shouldn't even be on this list, but it is such a unique gem that I couldn't leave it off.
5. Mystic Ark: Great fun to play and experience.

Probably G.O.D. or many of the other games in the pipes will knock at least one of these entries off the list.

Gosh, this is tough for one who was involved in production because of viewpoints other than purely gaming. So, I will list the five games that thrilled me the most to help put together.

#5 Super Shell Monsters Story - The game and music score grabbed me from the introduction. Still, when starting out, I had no inkling of the sophistication and complexity of this work of art! It began a bit too linear and quickly evolved into being too wide open. Some monster battles may seem easy, but the game can pound you into the ground with missing critical items if you don't exercise a little patience and maybe take a few notes!

#4 Super Shell Monsters Story-II - I translated two-thirds of this script myself until the mighty Gerb rescued me, same as Shiva Indus did in Silva Saga-II. How is it possible for me to put the sequel ahead of the first SFC release in this series? I don't know. Just consider them both one lonooooog game and call it a tie!

#3 Silva Saga-II - I actually translated about 80% of this game myself, then along came Shiva Indus who knocked it out in no time flat and corrected all of my screw-ups! Many others helped, too, Garrett and Aisha, notably. I was pleased to hear reviewers report that my localization elevated what some jaundiced types labeled a mediocre game that was too short and rather easy to be considered a decent play. I was even more pleased the see it translated into French! I suppose opinions are like those things we sit on... Everyone has one!

#2 Lennus-II - A legion of translators and technical stoppages that spanned years, but Bongo` and Draken solved them and pulled me back into the biz-ness following my "retirement". Massive scope spanning three worlds!

#1 Destiny of an Emperor-II - My most exciting project and a miracle to get this done, but Taskforce and company found a way to hack it, and a legion of translators got that part of the job done in bits and pieces. Musashi did the lion's share of work piecing the story together by matching people and events in the raw translations with chapters in the Romance of Three Kingdoms novel. We had to translate both Japanese and Chinese, and the Japanese script contained no Kanji - making readings even more difficult trying to pair Chinese names in Romaji with Mandarin ideographs! On top of that, the big warlords had "style" names that were different.

I feel badly leaving out Mystic Ark, Ranma, Feda, Slayers, and the two Arethas. Also Galaxy Robo and Princess Minerva. All have been a fun ride!

Hmmm It's a little hard to answer, i wont number any of the five because it depends on my mood, but let's try:


Just Breed was a total surprise for me. I like strategy RPG's, and this one is a very nice addition to the genre, even more if you think this is a Famicom game. It also suprised me the ammount of text it has, and how often it changes (Most npcs have a lot of things to say as you progress through the game), it made going back just to see what npcs say interesting, and to find this in such a small game, and so well translated it was a very unique experience for me.

I liked the game so much that I even learned a little of it's code just to discover how to edit characters' spells so I could give it a spin for future playthroughs. Very good work.

Super Shell Monsters Story was one of my most anticipated translations, but not only that, it's is becoming one of my favourite Super Nintendo RPG's and translations. So mucho to see, so much depth in a game that doesn't look like is going to be near as good as how it actually is (Thank old Squaresoft, for spoiling us so much).

It feels like a fantasy RPG like Dragon Quest and Earthbound had a child and it was beautiful.

Chaos Seed was another big surprise. it's like Dungeon Keeper before Dungeon Keeper, with a lot of other features added for a great experience, and I would say a little more addictive than DK for me. This is one of the games that I had to stop playing because real life problems (The other being Mystic Ark) and I need to get back with dungeon building!

Again the translation is amazing, and seeing the original japanese this feels like it should have been very difficult to do, but as always you guys end doing a very proffesional job.

Mystic Ark is a very special game. And has a very special translation too.
This was one of those games that I saw a lot of people talk about, and the time I put into the game before I had to stop showed me that DD did a really good job, and that the game was going to hit hard with symbolism and story. I have to play it again.

I said I like Strategy RPG's, and when I know there was a game like Shining Force for the Super Nintendo I really wanted to play it.Then i discovered it never came outside of Japan.

DAMN.

Some years passed and I remembered about this game, around 2012. It was when I discovered that someone actually did a translation for it. I was so happy to see that FEDA: The Emblem of Justice in a language I could understand...

The game and translations are great, and I really enjoyed it.

There are a lot of good ones, but my top five (in order) would be these ones:

1. Record of Lodoss War
2. Burning Heroes
3. Mystic Ark
4. Just Breed
5. FEDA

I would have also mentioned Lennus-II, Villgust and Ranma, but the ones above are my overall favorite ones. It will be quite interesting to see how popular the current projects we're working on will be once they're finished and released. There really are a lot of good ones!

Well, I'm a bit of a quirky person, so the ones I'll list will likely be ones I've been involved in, but the reason I was involved in them was because I liked the games so that would be a good reason the list works like that.

5. Feda: The Emblem of Justice
4. Record of Lodoss War
3. Villgust
2. Phantasy Star Gaiden
1. Ranma 1/2 RPG

Not only is Ranma my favorite game that we've done, it was also the most fun I had on a game we've done. It was an enjoyable process of working with Wildbill to make sure the style set forth in the game matched up well to what Viz had created for the anime market. It was challenging at times but also rewarding, and after Destiny of an Emperor II which felt more like a chore to me, it was nice to have something I completely enjoyed working on again.

I have no doubt that stuff in the pipe will knock some of this off the list. Record of Lodoss Wars is easily able to be knocked off simply because the game only told half the story. Feda, as much as I liked it could be toppled because I don't care for Strategy RPG's, but it does have a great story. Even Villgust and Phantasy Star Gaiden aren't totally safe I doubt that Ranma would fall completely out though. There are games in the pipe that have the potential for me to knock Ranma out of #1, I'm not sure they will though, so I'll keep the list limited to released games at this time.

I know one that will knock something out maybe, and it all works again.

Dynamic Designs has really picked up some interesting games recently. I'm pretty sure some of the games on my list might change soon although it will be a struggle for me to find time to play them.