Ralphadia is a cancelled JRPG that was planned by Taito for the Nintendo Famicom / NES, around 1992. This is another forgotten NES game with not much information online: Akamid83 found a small preview for the game in an old promotional leaflet for in-development Famicom and shared a photo on Twitter.
Heimao, who notified us about the photo, wrote “It is said that it was a novel mechanism in which the enemy was placed 360 degrees around the player in the battle”. By looking at these tiny screenshots it seems Ralphadia had a strange overworld map, with a top-down perspective on the bottom of the screen and a side-scrolling scenario at the top.
There are also 2 screenshots showing cities, were the game kept its side-scrolling view. Combat was “first-person turn-based”, similar to Dragon Quest, but you may have been able to rotate the “first person” camera around to see more enemies all around your protagonists.
That’s it all for now: will we ever see something else from this lost Famicom RPG? As it often happens with these obscure, unreleased Japanese games from the ’90s, probably not. If you can read Japanese and see more interesting details written in the leaflet photo, let us know in the comments below!
What do you think about this unseen game? Give your vote!
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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According to the Japanese Twitter page you link to the game was announced in Famicom Tsuushin 10.04.1992 (published on 27.03.1992). It looks like something major happened and the game was cancelled right after this announcement since just one week later it had already vanished from the same magazine‘s list of upcoming games.
Here is a translation of the Japanese article in the picture:
Ralphadia
Famicom – Release date and retail price TBA – 4MB + save function – RPG
A fantastic RPG in 12 scenarios
A series of events that coalesce into one magnificent story; plus a novel battle system: this game changes things up! You can even change jobs by switching equipment. RPG fans should not let this one pass them by!
Picture captions top to bottom:
1) The audience hall. This is where you receive orders from the king
2) You might run into monsters out in the wilds so make sure to proceed with care
3) The Battle System; enemies can surround the player 360 degrees
4) Since enemies might attack you from behind you better think up a strategy or else you might be done for
NPCs from top to bottom:
1) Inn Keeper:
Take a rest at one of the inns when your health runs low
2) Merchant:
You’ll use shops frequently – just like inns. When you purchase items the merchants will be quite friendly
[note: this might also say “if you purchase items your sociability [skill] increases”. The exact meaning is ambiguous without further context]
3) Bar Waitress:
A lot of rumors pass through a bar so be sure to listen carefully to the patrons’ stories
4) Fortuneteller:
The words of the mysterious fortuneteller foreshadow future adventures
5) Priest:
The church is a good place to have a curse lifted or a wound treated by a priest
huge thanks for the translation Tana!