1.) Lunar
Still my favorite game series of all time, Lunar, deserves a sequel and has plenty of source material to derive such a sequel or rather, prequel from. What I’d like to play is the original tale that started it all, playing as Dyne, with the original reincarnation of the goddess Althena, and Ghaleon, and Mel, and the other 4 heroes (whose names I’ve forgotten at the moment). Of course, they could always just spin it off in a new direction in a future somewhere and use return appearances or references of some of the characters. But the logical next step to me, would be to let us see and play the tale of the original 4 heroes.
2.) Suikoden
Well Konami is crap and only cares about gambling pachinko machines these days – but that didn’t stop the original creators of Suikoden from starting a successfully funded kickstarter to a spiritual successor of Suikoden called Eiyuuden. I already backed it… It’s estimated to take about 2 years before we’ll see it. The gameplay is 100% Suikoden, just for legal reasons they couldn’t use that name, so Eiyuuden it is now. Recruit the stars of destiny. Some are chefs, or shop keepers, some are fighters, build your fortress, 6 team battles, etc. Suikoden is long one of my favorite game series. 2 is still the best really, but they’re all awesome. Very excited about this kickstarter. They’re posting lots of updates over here. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rabbitandbearstudios/eiyuden-chronicle-hundred-heroes
3. Azure Dreams
One of my favorites back on PS1. I don’t think there was ever any sequels. There was a watered down version for GBA or Gameboy Color, but it was fundamentally different because they took out the best parts of the game, the dating and town building, leaving only a randomly procedurally generated dungeon crawling game. Still fun but lacking from the original. I’d like to see a sequel. A few different indie projects have taken inspiration from this series, but none have quite hit the mark for me.
4. Jade Cocoon
This game isn’t well received, but honestly I enjoyed it for its deep level monster breeding aspects. The last sequel was in 2001. One of the kickstarters I backed recently and shared on this blog mention they were inspired by both Azure Dreams and Jade Cocoon – so we will have to wait to see how the final product turns out. Read more about that kickstarter here.
5. Monster Rancher
How fun was this game? Pop in ANY CD – could be a music CD, game CD, DVD, movie, whatever – and generate a unique monster. I had (and probably still have) an enormous collection of CDs (games, movies, not so much music), and finding rare monsters was so much fun and so exciting. Exploring, Training, and Fighting the monsters, also fun. Now in a world of digital games, they would need a different system. I think it could be a fun mobile game, maybe like Pokemon GO, using some type of VR elements to find and capture monsters maybe. If it was on console or PC perhaps it could scan your digital library or use bar codes or CD key codes or something of that nature. There was a mobile game at one point but I recall it not being very good honestly. Monster Rancher was popular enough to have 4 or 5 sequels, but I believe the last was on PS3? or maybe even PS2? Let’s bring it back for PS5 – or better yet, the Nintendo Switch.
6. Dragon Seeds
Am I the only one who remembers this game? Like Monster Rancher, it too allowed you to generate random monsters, though not from discs. I believe it used some type of in-game items (strands of DNA) that you found while battling. Was there a sequel? I feel like there may have been 2 games maybe total? But maybe only one (too lazy to look it up right now). I think both were on PS1, with possibly the sequel – if it exists – being on PS2. I enjoyed this little underrated gem. I liked that I could battle in 2 player mode – but now with the internet – and online games – it seems those capabilities could be expanded.
7. Arc The Lad
Working Deisgns brought us almost all of these games back on PS1 (and likely is the reason they shortly thereafter went bankrupt) There may have been a few sequels on PS2, but now I’m pretty sure it’s been over a decade, perhaps nearing two decades, and no new installments in this series. I liked the branching plot, deep storyline, and anime graphics of these games. Why did they stop making them? They had so many of them at one time. Working Designs collection had what? 4? or 5? of them I think, and I know there were others released after that too. It seems weird for a once wildly successful RPG series to just vanish.
8. Lost Odyssey
The only reason to own an Xbox gaming console in my opinion is for Lost Odyssey. It legitimately is one of the greatest RPGs of all time. But I’m too lazy to dig my Xbox (360 I think right?) out just to play one game. I loved this game deeply. I know the creator is working on some mobile shit now and we’ll probably never see a sequel to this game ever in our lifetimes – which is a shame. What a waste of such talent. But I know he’s got to make a living and just going to where the money is (with mobile games and pay to win being the new way kids are gaming in 2000 and beyond). I’d like to see him return to work on Lost Odyssey 2… Or even just a port / remake of the original…. I’d even buy a next gen Xbox console just for this one damn game or its well deserved sequel, and then never sell it, so I could replay it over and over.
9. Skies Of Arcadia
Here’s another great, and forgotten RPG game – It has had a few remakes and ports, but never a sequel. Why the hell not? A quick google search tells me that the creator wants to make a sequel and aknowledges there is a strong fanbase – so why the hell doesn’t he just make a kickstarter campaign? Duh… Even if you have to change the game title and tweak the gameplay “just enough” That’s what everyone else is doing. Suikoden became Eiyuuden, etc. Shenmue 3 finally came out via Kickstarter, and loads of other games got long awaited sequels. One thing’s for sure, if Skies of Arcadia creators did start a kickstarter, I’d back it. It’d probably be funded in like less than 24 hours. For sure. One of the best, most unique, fun, and outstanding RPGs, ever made. It is now over 20 years old.
10. Inherit The Earth
Well this is already happening – although it’s taking its bloody sweet time in development. It appears to still be happening at least. Seems the last update on the website was about 4 or 5 months ago now. This was a childhood favorite of mine. The sequel looks interesting…. from what little is actually shown…… the patreon page is mostly web comics? But it seems there is going to be a sequel to this game… we can only hope. I mean it’s only been almost thirty years since the first game and all…. lol. You can follow the progress on patreon. https://www.patreon.com/wyrmkeep/posts or take a look at the official website… which is pretty damn bare at this point. http://inherittheearth2.com/ The web page does show 2 youtube videos… which gives me a little hope that something might eventually come from this project.
Following the creator’s account of those two videos, lands me here, at this youtube page, with about 20 videos.
But sadly, the most recent video is from May 2019 – almost a year ago. Perhaps this project is dead in the water now? Although it is still very deserving of a sequel. I hope to see it reach its goal someday.
11. Ever 17
This is one of the best visual novels of all time – I don’t care if it has typos and if the names are confusing – that’s arguably, intentional, anyways. Not the typos, but the name thing, you know. It’s one of the most mind fuckery games ever created, with huge revelations upon completing all branches, that nicely tie the story up and make it all, finally in the end, make sense. I do know that Ever 17 is part of a large series of games including Never 7 and Remember 11 – which I have played thanks to fan translations. Only Ever 17 was commercially released in North America, for the PC by the now bankrupt and defunct, Hirameki International. I love all the games, but Ever 17 was arguably the best. There’s also Riven 12, by the same developers, but as far as I know it did not receive a fan translation. After Riven 12, the creators went on to develop 999, 9 Persons, 9 Doors, whatever it was called, as well as Zero Escape and Nonary Games. The creator is hard at work right now on a new game, that’s not actually a visual novel, but still does have a branching plot, and like Ever 17 takes place in an abandoned theme park. I saw footage of it during the Nintendo Live Direct. So it appears to be coming along nicely still in 2020.
Anyways I don’t really want a sequel to Ever 17 because it’s perfect the way it is. The ending after all routes is perfect, leaving not a single question unanswered. But I do want someone to port this game to Steam or Nintendo Switch please for the love of god. Why hasn’t anyone brought this over yet? No one should own the rights anymore to it, so it seems like easy pickings. Someone even said years ago it was spotted in the steam database, so where the hell is it? I just want to play my favorite Visual Novel again please? thx.
12. Dogz and Catz – Petz
Ok so Dogz and Catz is argueably still going. Ubisoft bought them, and there’s been a few games here or there, but they’re poor clones of nintendogs at this point. They have lost what made them so great. Using the perfume to breed Muttz, to get unique looking petz, to mod the game to create your own breedz, the community – which could now be brought into an online or even mobile aspect to have showz, and so much more. I want THAT petz experience again please and thank you. Or at least bring PF Magic Petz 1-4 or whatever onto Steam or GOG.
13. Princess Maker
Where the hell is Princess Maker 4? People don’t particularly like it, because it’s text heavy and more like a visual novel, but I loved it. It had the cutest princess by far. Although Princess Maker 2, actually looks damn close to my real life self, with the brown curly hair, and brown eyes, lol. I like the animation style of Princess Maker 4 so much. Princess Maker 5 is kinda rather ugly, but I know the gameplay is better. I still haven’t beat it yet. It’s a long and slow game. Well that’s true of all the Princess Maker Games, but 5 feels slower than 1-3. I dunno why. I want 4 so bad I can taste it. I think I read one of the reasons it isn’t included is because of the ending where you can marry the princess. So if that’s all the fuss, just remove that one ending, shouldn’t be that difficult. I also heard it has too much text and they don’t want to bother translating all of it. Stop being lazy. We want PM4. Say it with me now. I’m still waiting… But while I’m waiting for that… where the hell is Princess Maker 6? When the hell was the last time a Princess Maker game was made in Japan? Like a million years ago? I just googled it and 5 was released in 2007… that was almost 20 years ago. We need more daughters. Release the daughters to us immediately.
14. Graduation
OK the last time we had a graduation game was in 1995… It was I think the 2nd? possibly 3rd game in the series in Japan and after that, they had many more graduation games, including Graduation M with all male students. These are not hentai games, though there is some questionable things, like you can marry all the students all at once lol. But anyways, these games are awesome. Can we at LEAST pretty please get the already 1995 English version on Steam or GOG? Please? Remember when GOG used to be for “great old games” – now it’s like an indie marketplace or Steam clone, and that’s a damn shame. I want more OLD GAMES. Gimme Graduation. I love the theme song. I love the game play. I love the whole game. I still play it from time to time. It’s challenging, it’s fun. It has a certain randomness to it, and unpredictability to it. It’s hard actually. You have to manage not just one daughter, but 5 or more girls (or boys in Graduation M). There’s dozens of endings, for each character. The voice acting was SOOOOOOOO bad. lol. I reviewed Graduation 95 over here. Can we get a re-release, with new voice acting? that’d be great.
15. Oreshika Tainted Blood Lines
I did not know until I went looking trying to remember what the hell this game was called, that I found out it was 1, a remake, of a 2011 psp game and 2, a sequel of a 1999 ps1 game. Oreshika Tainted Blood Lines was released in 2007 and a PS vita exclusive at the time. I really enjoyed it. It is very unique. And in some ways reminded a little bit of Azure Dreams. It has dungeon crawling, and a generational element. It stands out in my mind. And anything that stands out deserves a sequel. It seems to get remade or ported to other systems, about once a decade. So I think it’s time we see a remake or sequel of this unique dungeon crawling multigenerational RPG.
16. Earthbound (AKA Mother)
OK I know A.) The creators of Earthbound have 0 interest in any more games in the series. B.) The one we know in North America is Mother 2. C.) There are fan translations for at least one, if not both of the other Mother games. D.) Mother 3 is one of the greatest RPGs of all time according to many sources. E.) This has led to fans demanding a fourth game. Creators explicitly refused, which led to fans developing their own 4th game. F.) Work on the 4th game began in 2010. It originally was going to be a free no cost fan game. G.) Last year, it was announced it would sever ties with the Mother series and become its own commercial project titled Oddity. It remains to be seen how similar or dissimilar Oddity will be to Earthbound / Mother.
In the meanwhile while we wait for Oddity, could we get all 3 of the other games officially released in North America? And available on Nintendo Switch. I think the one we already know and love is available as part of the nintendo online thing. Maybe.
17. Breath Of Fire
What in god’s name happened to Breath of Fire? One of the greatest RPG series of all time and a favorite of my childhood? The last I heard, there was a mobile one a few years ago? When the hell was the last console installment? PS2? I think? It’s long overdue. Feels like forever ago. We miss you so much. Come back to us!
18. Tsukihime
OK where the hell is the Tsukihime remake? I remember sharing news that the remake was under way, like 10, or even 20 years ago, here on my blog… They keep pumping out god damn Fate/Stay Night/Extella games… All I want is Tsukihime. One of the best visual novels I ever played. We never did receive an official release. I was lucky enough to play the fan translation. Tsukihime is a long ass visual novel. It’s graphic and violent as hell. It has rape and murder. But also a pretty damn interesting story about psychosis and childhood and love and other interesting things. I assume we never got it because 1.) There’s a few possible incestuous things going on, and 2.) It’s just too damn offensive and violent. It is definitely a Porn game or Hentai game – however, it’s a LONG ASS game – did I mention this game is REALLY FREAKING LONG?!!! And the amount of Porn or Hentai only accounts for like 2-4% of the total story – So it’s not that bad – I’ve seen worse on American TV. Plus, I think it mostly could be edited out if they really wanted to? Without changing much of the story really.
I liked the story. I’m a woman, and I’m not offended by this game. It was quite interesting. I like the mystery aspect. Really probably the murder is no worse than say similar novels like Higarushi, although perhaps the rape thing would be bad, because of the latest in “cancel culture” I mean if we can’t handle a skunk hitting on cats, how will we handle a young man whose vampire hunting bloodlines, give him uncontrollable desires and urges to kill a vampire princess, in the most brutal of ways, only for her to appear before him the next day after being thoroughly violated in every way imaginable. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. You see, as the story goes on, we learn why he has these urges, we learn about his fucked up family, his case of mistaken identity, psychosis, and childhood trauma, and why the heck he was sent away from his family as a child in the first place, and in the end, he even falls in love with this vampire he tried to rape and kill, and would do anything to protect her…. or not… the choice is up to you.
There’s other romanceable characters too – but she is definitely “cannon” (that is, the developer’s obvious path that they want you to take). But, you won’t know the whole story, unless you complete all the routes, the last of which is one of the lovely maid twins. There in lies the secrets to what the hell is actually going on in this bizarre, but brilliant mystery.
Uhhh OK I just went to google… to see where the fuck this remake is… because it was legit announced almost 2 decades ago… and it appears it’s COMING Summer of this year of our lord in 2021 AD. – they have a trailer and everything now…. How exciting…. Will we see it in English? Let us hope. If so, it will be the first time most English speaking gamers experience this beautiful story. One of the best, most intriguing visual novels I have ever played – and I’ve played just about damn near every visual novel ever. Tsukihime is one of my favorites. Top 5 for sure. LET’S GET EXCITED PEOPLE COME ON!!! Demand an English release of this game please. Write to everyone possible LET’S MAKE IT HAPPEN!
19. Top Shop
Ok this is an odd one – Pretty sure no one reading this will know what the fuck this is lol. It’s a playstation 1 game, that’s KINDA almost like Monopoly in a way…. We also recently saw Billion Road on Nintendo Switch (I’ve been meaning to do a review of that, but haven’t gotten around to it). It’s kinda like Billion Road too… Sort of… But not really? I dunno it’s hard to explain. It’s like Kairosoft’s Mall Story and Mall Story 2, but multiplayer? LOL. You roll dice and move around a shopping mall. If the building is empty, you can open your own store. If someone owns the store, you pay fees. You can upgrade your properties (similar to adding houses or hotels in monopoly). The visuals are cute. The theme is cute. I dunno it’s very fun. It’s been well over 30 years now since the game was on PS1. Reminiscent also of 100% Orange Juice kinda? I mean all of these games, are KINDA like Top Shop, but none quite EXACTLY the same? Top Shop is the best of its genre. I want to play it right now lol. Very very fun party game or 2 player versus game.
20. Air
OK Arguably the best Key Visual Novel – There is a fan translation for this game. I have played it. We got Clannad in English for multiple platforms now. And we get Key’s other new games, like Summer Pockets – I want them to give an official release of Air (and also Kanon, but my list is limited to 20 games, and I liked Air a little more than Kanon). Both Air and Kanon are better than Little Busters, and whatever else garbage Key games we got. The only other really great Key Game we got was Clannad. For me, I’d rank Air 1, Clannad 2, Kanon 3, haven’t played enough of Summer Pockets to rank it yet. Little Busters somewhere near the damn bottom. And the other one – oh Rewrite, yeah I’d put Rewrite dead last of the Key games. I greatly prefer Air and Kanon over Rewrite. Rewrite was so boring I never did finish it, same with Little Busters. Snoozeville. Is there any hope we will ever see official releases of Air or Kanon? In English ever? Air is so damn sad. The anime makes me cry like a little bitch. Every time she is just lying on the bed crying and crying and crying and crying…. It might be the saddest anime I’ve ever seen, and one of the saddest visual novels I’ve ever seen. If you remember the movie, Benjamin Buttons, it’s basically like that, yeah? That plus toss in some reincarnation and ancient curses, and first love, and fucked up mother/daughter neglectful relationship, and the mending there of that relationship, and death, and rebirth, and there you have the story of Air.
Honorable Mention:
Tactics Ogre:
Tactics Ogre definitely gets an honorable mention on my list. There have been recent interviews with the creators of the series and talks about possibly porting the existing games or a new game, but nothing currently in the works. It is like Final Fantasy Tactics, but more advanced? And with a branching plot? and Some good/evil/neutral type of elements going into it. It’s one of my favorites. It gets remade ever so often. First appearing on Super Nintendo in the 90s, with Sequels on Game Boy Advance (I think?) and N64 (one of the only good RPG on N64), and remakes on PS1 and PSP. It’s been well over 20 years since we’ve had a new entry, or a remake. I’d like to see the old ones brought to Steam, Mobile, and Nintendo Switch, and eventually some day, a brand new Ogre Battle or Tactics Ogre game.
Well there are lots of other games that deserve to be on this list too of course. Tell me, what game do you think deserves a sequel? Are you a fan of any of the games on our list? Leave me a comment below!
