SD Keiji: Blader

SD Detective Blader was released in Japan in 1991 and never brought to Western shores, which was a great shame since it's a an imaginative, humorous and challenging RPG set in a future Tokyo. Fortunately, an excellent new fan translation makes the game accessible to a wider audience. Blader is a space detective and arrives on Earth in the Galaxy spaceship, which remains his base during the game. The battle system is turn-based, the encounter rate in dungeons is very high, and the game moves at a fast pace with allies joining and leaving the party at various intervals. SD Blader is very much like an early Dragon Quest RPG with nice sub stories involving each town, except that you use guns and science rather than swords and sorcery: and it's great fun to play.