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Bahamaut Lagoon was probably one of the last few strategy titles to come out for the SNES. Previously limited to the Japanese Gamers and the lucky few who imported and can actually read Japanese text, BL is a decent perfectly sized title that should satisfy any strategy starved fan. Thanks to the power of emulation and the great guys at DEJAP ,who translated this game, even the average gamer now has the oppurtunity to play this game.
The gameplay of BL can be described as a hybrid of sorts.You move on the world map like FF tactics, or vadal Hearts, and attack groups of enemies. Your party consists of 4 controllable characters and a CPU controlled Dragon. You can also do longer ranged attacks with magic using characters, that can affect multiple enemy parties. After each move your Dragon takes off and is capable of using long range indirect magic attacks or fighting the enemy head up. The choice is up to the AI really. Think of the direct battles like the time you defend Narshe in FF3 from KEFKA except that each party gets only one turn to attack each round like Ogre Battle.
Before and after each battle the player is allowed to move around, depending on the situation, and buy items, from a salesmen, and talk to crew members and the occasional townsfolk. It's sort of like a stripped down RPG town usually, although sometimes you are stuck on the battleship for the intermission.
What is unique about this game is the dragon system. You feed your dragon's anything , and I mean anything!, and they get certain atrributes. EX.. if you feed a dragon a long sword he gets some strength. Eventually after all the feeding the dragon morphs into a different form. From what I can tell they all have pretty much the same abilities except for the higher end dragons.
Really the only gripes in this game are the fact that the dragons are CPU controlled and go head on into battle even when outnumbered all of the time unless you select the "come" command which makes the dragon follow the assigned party. Also the story is BORING. In fact the whole story revolves around a weak princess. BORING at best as I found myself fast fowarding most of the time with the cool feature on my EMU, which really is a shame since the guys who translated it into english worked so hard and basically did it for free. Also the music is average at best. Not really anything all that great. Nothing bad, just average.
There is plenty of things going for it however. There is some Funny dialogue in here, humor similar to some anime, and it really helped move along the boring story. Also if you dig OB and FF Tactics then you will dig this game. The dragon feature is also a neat addition as well. The graphics are a rip off from FF3 so at least they look good, even for a game this old.
Anyway, overall a solid title. The dragon angle of the game is very original and makes for a very unique experience. This game is nearly impossible to find for sale and pretty hard to find on EMU as well so good luck in advance. But if you do happen to find the rom and patch then enjoy all that this game has to offer.
