Solatorobo: Red the Hunter. It's an action-RPG game on NDS about an anthropomorphic dog named Red and his sister and friend going on an adventure. I hears that this game spent almost 10 years in development, and it shows. The world itself is polished and looks gorgeous for an NDS games. Almost all the NPC even the bystander one looks different from one another. There are so many major and minor characters and all of them have colorful personalities. The story itself is good though, with 10 chapters of main story and more than 80 sidequest, you're going to spent around 30 hours at this game.
For the gameplay, unfortunately, it's a very easy action RPG. Mainly it's because your HP is so goddamn huge. at first, you have about 5 blocks of HP and you will end up with around 20 blocks near the end since leveling up only increases your HP by a block and I never seen enemies deals more than 3 blocks. The fighting itself is pretty simple though, Armed with his mini mecha Dahak, Red's main attack is to lift his enemies and slam them into one another to defeat them. The huge one and bosses cannot be lifted though, so you have to throw stuff or smaller enemies at them. It gets pretty repetitive soon though because throwing is your only main attack that is until the second half where you get the ability to use super mode and shoot (that is treated as game breaker)
. Unlike Xenogears, Red on-foot skills is piss poor, he can only stuns enemies without his robot.
All in all, It is an easy game with a great stories and character, you guys should try this.
Before I joins MoTK, I remember myself playing a chinese Touhou RPG Maker Games called Bllizard of Faith and Revenge. Compared to Labyrinth of Touhou and Genius of Sappheiros, this game is nothing compared to them. But, its main point is in its story though. Unlike LoT and GoS with their excuse plot, this one has a full fledged-Disgaea-like story. It is filled with many humor that will make you laugh, but when it got serious, it will become serious (Damn, the first sidequest itself is dark, even for Touhou Fangame), I remember that I'm really holding back tears when finding the (supposedly) perpetrator of the incident and the subsequent battle. You play as Marisa, Flandre, Alice and Patchouli trying to solve an incident concerning the endless snow (not like PCB though). The downside of this game is that it follows Xenogears' school of dialogue making. Just like Xenogears, the text scrooooll really sloooooooow. But at least the story itself is fun.
Gameplay: Just like Xenogears Final Fantasy, it uses ATB to determine the turn order. You can Attack, use Spellcard, Item, or Flee in battle. Your primary way of dealing will be spellcards though since normal attack is very very weak. There's a catch though, this game LOOOOOVES multi hit attack, and ludicrous damage (late in the game, dealing half a million damage is considered normal). In return, enemies have really ridiculous HP (first boss: 5000. It doesn't take long for the boss to reach a million HP), best prepare for a long battle against enemies and bosses. When dealing with bosses, the strategies only boil down to attack-attack-heal. Halfway through, it becomes don't let the boss attack or she will TPK you.
this game is also one of the game where money is important until the very end of the game (95% progress). You will find yourself in need of money to buy equipment and items in the main story.
This game has many kickass music as well (probably ripped from other media) even normal battle BGM itself is badass.
The enemies sprites is ripped as well. Hell, in SDM, I even encounter Rachel Alucard as normal enemy (Vampire I guess) and Irisu Kyouko in Eientei (From Irisu Syndrome, check it out if you want a Atlus hard puzzle-horror game).
All in all, despite its flawed gameplay filled with damage sponge enemies and unforgiving boss. The story itself is worth checking out though (I say it's story is better than Touhou Mother).