This article is from the M! 351 (December 2022).
MERING • After the powerful work “A Guide to Japanese Role Playing Games” is with Fight! Magic! Items a new, English-language work on the subject of J-RPGs has appeared. Compared to the encyclopaedic work directed by Kurt Kalata, the book by the Hugo Award-winning US journalist and fantasy author Aidan Moher is more historical and traces the history of Japanese role-playing games chronologically.
A special focus is on their reception in the USA. In particular Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy Of course, they play prominent roles, but so do series like Phantasy Star, Mother/Earthbound and Shin Megami Tensei come into their own. One notices the experience of the author in the work: Moher quickly and effortlessly takes the reader on a great role-playing journey through time and also explains complex relationships in a plausible and comprehensible manner. For inveterate connoisseurs, some topics may have been dealt with a little too succinctly and a few blurring of the content have also crept into the book. But there is still a big recommendation: It doesn’t matter whether you’ve been thrashing slimes and riding chocobos since the 1980s, or whether you’re just starting out Persona 5 have discovered the world of Japanese RPGs for you or have had no contact with this special type of role-playing game – for just under 20 euros you can broaden your gaming horizons here in a very entertaining way.
Fight! Magic! items! • Running Press Adult Verlag • 320 pages • approx. 20 euros
