Drakkhen ROM

The storyline for the SNES game is the result of a broken translation and rewrite of the original, as well as lack of supplemental stories. Drakkhen was developed by a French team, which was then translated into Japanese for the Super Famicom, which was then translated to English and further rewritten with help from the original French developers.

To exemplify the telephone effect of all this, the original game contained a French translation of an Emily Dickinson poem as quoted by a mysterious wizard, and that French translation of an English poem was then translated further into Japanese for the Super Famicom version, and then translated again back into English from Japanese. The version of the Dickinson poem that survived into the SNES version of the game is almost unrecognizable and difficult to comprehend. A player may freely travel the entirety of Drakkhen’s game world not long after beginning a new game, although this can be unwise in practice.

Chance encounters with hostile monsters are regular, but in contrast to other RPGs, the player may be attacked while stationary. All battles are automated by default but allow the player to micromanage their four combatants. The player is given time to focus on the real-time tactics of each enemy encounter, such as activating defense magic, moving around, or switching weapons on the fly. The player’s party may also be accosted at night when viewing constellations in the sky, or any time after bumping into a half-buried urn.