Wachenröder – Steampunk Saturn RPG

Posted by on March 21st,2007

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Mr Huang (Crabfu) very kindly pointed out this video on YouTube for the game Wachenröder, a Japanese language RPG/strategy game for the Sega Saturn. This is a video of the introduction to the game (a little meandering) showing some beautiful Steampunk backdrops – murky steamtrain stations, peculiar airship-variants, and silly-sized artillery. The game itself (there’s a little ingame footage at the end) looks like a turn based, grid based combat RPG, with an isometric view and cutting to a closeup, almost cell shaded, sequence for the individual hits. The combat apparently has a nice tweak to it where you can charge up your weapons to attack more powerfully, but you run the risk of a boiler explosion!

There’s some lovely concept art here, and apparently should you manage to find the game for your Saturn, you can find a translation into English over at GameFAQs. It’s spoken of quite highly, and it’s a shame it’s not been picked up for a sequel on one of the more recent machines.