A Korean PC RPG called Arcturus: The Curse and Loss of Divinity (playing in Japanese, mind, as my Korean is by no means up to the task~ :'D). It was developed in 2000, at the height of a short lived Korean single player RPG boom which was later killed off by rampant piracy, and it's obvious that a lot of work and a decent amount of money (by Korean RPG standards) went into its development. Its developer, Gravity, later got into MMOs, and developed the now famous (or infamous?) Ragnarok Online, which shares an engine and many assets with Arcturus.

I was really keen on playing the game back in the day, but my Japanese was never quite up to the task. And by the time my Japanese was good enough, it had sort of fallen off my radar. Really, really glad I got around to starting it, though. Because... like... wow. It lacks a bit of spit and polish, as most RPGs from places in Asia other than Japan do, but it more than makes up for it with great characters, an interesting world and a fabulous if horribly bleak story. Like... seriously, this is the darkest Asian RPG I've ever played by a long shot. The art style and opening acts of the game are deceptively cute and light-hearted, but by halfway through the first chapter, it has already started to slip into some seriously dark territory. And word is it gets even worse (better?) as it goes on. Eek. :'D It's really well-written, too! I don't know if that's a credit to the original Korean writer or Falcom's Japanese translator, but either way, the script reads really well, and there have been a good number of really memorable lines already.

Between its mixture of rotatable 3-D environments and 2-D sprites, its fairly heavy emphasis on religion and its willingness to throw in some... really quite disturbing plot points, it feels a lot like a spiritual successor to Xenogears in many ways. Would be very surprised if it wasn't influenced in some way by Square's game, given the respective timeframes involved. In any case, really, really impressed! With a bigger budget behind it, some better map designers (because oh god the overworld maps are bland, boring and needlessly huge), and a little more polish on the battle system (it shows potential, but it can be a bit glitchy and unpredictable at times compared to something similar like Grandia, and the difficulty fluctuates pretty wildly), I genuinely think this could compete with some of the best titles from Japan. Really hoping the story and characters remain as interesting as they have been so far.

Oh, and Sizz = cutest main character ever. <3 Such a shame that every other character is a massive jerk and appears to be scheming against him / taking advantage of him. :'D