My completion of this game marked the end of my Tengai Makyou journeys on the Duo. Being the backwards sort of fellow I am, I didn't play through it until I had already beaten its famous successors, so it had a couple of very tough acts to follow. But good old Ziria took up the challenge and proved itself to be a superb RPG. It isn't quite as impressive as the other two PCE TMs, as it doesn't feature the same caliber of awesome cinematic moments and its battle system is inferior to their respective systems, but it still manages to rule.

It wasn't agreeable to me at first. The battles were taking way too long, the field graphics seemed appallingly primitive, and the cinematics were too, uh, "laid back" in style.

The excellent combat-scene art gave me reason to remain optimistic. Cloudy skies and foreboding forests make for fantastically gloomy battle backdrops. The graphics on the whole are pretty dark, which I didn't expect after witnessing the bright, colorful visuals sported by Manji Maru and Kabuki Den.

Things really start to pick up once Ziria joins forces with a funny little nutcase named Tsunade. You've gotta love a girl who wields huge axes and shuns magic. There are lots of other wonderfully crazy characters to meet, which is par for the TM course.

There are also plenty of very cool bosses, including a woman with a viper-tongue and a burly kraken.