When PC RPGs were at their crunchiest and most hardcore in the 1990s, Farland Story set itself apart by… being cute?

Pasokon Retro is our regular look back at the early years of Japanese PC gaming, encompassing everything from specialist ’80s computers to the happy days of Windows XP.

Old RPGs, especially grid-based ones created for dusty computers equipped with dual floppy drives, are often stubborn, complex things. They demand graph paper and patience. A love for gruelling exploration and an unquenchable thirst for danger. Learning how to navigate sober character creation screens overflowing with stats is just as important as safely avoiding any trap.

And then there’s Farland Story, the first game in an adorable PC-98 strategy series that ran for almost a decade. The manual is slim and full of pictures. The included poster really is just a nice poster, rather than an overview of an important city or a beginner’s guide to some hellish labyrinth. It’s basically the opposite of everything a computer RPG from the early ’90s “should” be.

This is a bright, colourful, and very straightforward world where elves use bows, dwarves wield axes, and heroes wear capes. A place where deep forests hold hidden treasures and quaint villages are tucked away between rocky mountains.

There’s no time to dwell on the simplicity of it all because the game cuts straight from the title screen to the first battlefield without a single meandering prologue between the two. The pace is as refreshing as it is relentless, sprinting directly from one skirmish to the next, refusing to slow down for anything more than a few short and quickly absorbed sentences of dialogue.

Every scene and mid-battle exchange has been pared back to only the most important bits of information. What’s that, the hero’s beloved friend that he definitely doesn’t like like has been kidnapped by a creepy knight clad in black armour for mysterious purposes? Well, if that’s not enough of an excuse for a bandanna’d lad to set off on an adventure, what is? Rid a village of some bad guys? Congrats hero, you’ve just earned yourself a new friend. Proven your might? Have another new friend. Turn up in the right place at the right time and look like a nice person?

Yep, you guessed it: friend time.

The interface adopts the same frictionless attitude. I can clear the whole game with a mouse in one hand and a fresh mug of coffee in the other if I like, and even then my clicking is kept to a minimum thanks to some clever streamlining. Moving a unit next to another will automatically superimpose the most relevant one-click icons on top of the adjacent sprites, saving me from having to go rummaging around a menu for commands. So if I park my mace-wielding priest next to an ally and an enemy, clicking the friend with a blue heart over them will heal, while clicking the red sword on the other will launch a vicious attack.

Well, I say vicious, but in truth the brief animations that follow these clicks are more comical than cruel. In keeping with the spirit of the rest of the game, everyone runs and jumps at full speed into each other, and when a huge lance or a red-hot fireball connects with its target the teary expressions are more “Ouch, that’s rude” than showing actual pain. It’s worth getting into a fight just to see a pumpkin monster throw its head at someone, or a fairy angrily flying butt-first into her foe.

Humorous high-speed scuffles can only carry a game so far though, which is why Farland Story backs it up with just enough strategy to stay interesting.

The pretty locations I do battle in aren’t just for show. Dense forests and mountains slow down units while also providing enhanced defence to anyone standing in them, and when I move my team into and out of them or go looking for a fight in the middle of them each turn is always up to me.

And deciding who goes when really does matter here, as both combatants (assuming the defender survives the opening blow) get to have a swing at each other no matter who initiates combat. Sometimes that means I get to finish off a thoughtless enemy for free on their turn with an automatic retaliatory strike, but it can also mean I whittle down my own character’s health bars as the enemy does the same to me, leaving my team vulnerable.

Keeping everyone’s weapon range in mind quickly becomes crucial to my survival. If two swordsmen exchange blows then they’ll both end up a little worse for wear, but if a melée-range swordsman gets close to a long-range archer? The archer has to take the hit. The opposite is also true, with ranged characters able to soften up whoever’s in their sights from afar before someone else dashes in for the kill.

The punishment for failure is swift and sharp. Anyone who dies can be revived easily enough (even multiple times in a single fight), but they’ll have a few random points permanently knocked off their stats for their troubles. Luckily XP and replacement levels come quickly enough and each stage’s numerous shops often sell stat-boosting consumables to compensate for these losses, but it’s definitely something to be avoided where possible.

It’s a shocking reminder that the rest of the game is easygoing by choice, and the nimble tempo is by design. Farland Story may not have a plot capable of igniting passionate online arguments, or the depth to give Tactics Ogre anything to fear, but it never wanted to either. Instead it whisks me from one heroic RPG moment to the next, an enthusiastic tour of the genre’s highlights spread across four floppy discs. It’s very serious about being unserious, and that makes it stand out as much today as it did back in 1993.