Forgotten Games: Alcahest - SNESdrunk 

The name comes from alkahest, a universal solvent described in medieval alchemy texts, related to the philosopher's stone according to some. I had started this game some time ago, but now knowing that it's short actually revives my interest in playing it.

Dude, you're where I go to find games.

Fun Fact: The late and great Satoru Iwata designed this game. Also, does anyone else think that Alen from this game looks a little bit like Richter Belmont from Castlevania?

And that sweet Kirby-style music! (same composer)

The old English translation patch for Alcahest was actually beta, since the translators want to replace passwords with a save/load feature. The passwords however were also stage titles too. Jun Ishikawa did the music for this game (I liked the title screen music btw). Great game though.

This is why i love your channel, to discover awesome games. You have no idea have many games i have played and beaten based on your recommendation (I'm playing right now Front Mission Gun Hazard and holy shit…what a game) This one also looks great. Thanks drunk and keep em coming!!

How did this not get an official English release? It looks fantastic.

Isn't that what Geralt of Rivia drinks in The Witcher?

THIS right here is why I love your channel :D I had no idea this game existed and it looks like something I would like. Thanks for your hard work!

Graphics and design for this look really impressive

I played this recently for the very first time and was really into it. I would've loved this back in the day. Why the powers that be thought this wasn't worth localizing is beyond me.

Another great video man thanks for the time and effort you put into your channel.

This game is also similar to Arcus Odyssey for the MD/Genesis with it's ally feature. Oddly enough Arcus Odyssey was also ported to the Super Famicom a few years later.

Nice, I love the Gaia stuff. You always pick the best SNESdrunk!

Great review. I missed this one over the years, but over the last couple of months I've been watching someone route the speedrun for it. I definitely need to add it to the backlog.

I remember playing and finishing Alcahest years ago. It's punishing in some spots but when you take the time to practice and explore, it's quite enjoyable.

Never heard of this game til your vid! Really want to try it now. I LOVE Soul Blazer

I love this game. It's about time you featured it.

Had never heard of this game before. This is why this is such a great channel

Simple answer: Alcahest is when you get out of work on Friday night, you walk into your apartment and your roommates order you to take 3 shots immediately. Alca (alcohol) - Hest (an archaic form of behest, or to order or command).

It really reminds me of Brainlord.

CooL game, I'd never had enough time to finish this one... but if it's that short, I'll give it a shot this week! As always, great review.

This is why I come here and automatically give the videos a thumbs up before even watching anything: A great review for a game I never even heard about before :D

I really enjoyed playing Alcahest.

Been playing this again lately, I'm on the last level. The music is in the unmistakable vein of Kirby Super Star which makes this game all the more nostalgic for me.

Cool! I remember snes drunk talking about this game a while ago. I wanted to play it but didn't bother because the password system didn't work back then. Glad to hear its fixed. Romhacking.net here i come.... Hope ladystalker gets a translation some day

Man....this looks great. Never even heard of it. Gotta find a way to play it. Thanks for the great content btw. Love your videos

Thank you dude! I played this game when was a kid and never knew the name.. I had an american SNES and bought that game original in a Famicom cartridge, with carved dents on the sides to fit on the SNES. Never knew what I was doing, because everything was in Japanese, but managed to get the mage companion still. Great review!

Saw this on a longplay - looks like a classic banger.

Watching this also reminded me of beyond oasis

Love your vids man, keep it up.

Great review!! I started palying this game a couple years back, I never followed, but I certainly want to

Nice review. Time to give this game a try as I really loved Soul Blazer.

I would have been very into this as a kid. Great review!

oh man I thought this was on Super Nintendo for a second it looks great you got my hopes up great videos always

What an odd coincidence. I text my friend about this game only a few hours before you posted this video.

Super cool find, this game looks stunning... Drives me nuts how developers don't eventually release these old games translated and all in this day and age.

The armor changes your character's sprite - very nice.

Nice another game to add to my snes mini great review btw looks like a true snes hidden gem!

This game looks phenomenal!

i remember playing an early translated patch and wasn't able to finish it until a fully translated version came out to download! i really like this game!!

I always liked this game, nice review.

Can definitely hear some Kirby in the music. Cool stuff.

How come you don’t say have a great rest of your day anymore. That was always a nice finish to your awesome videos. Anyway I hope you have a great rest of your day.

This game always reminded me of Brainlord, one of my all time favorites, but maybe with a bit more fluidity. I never could stick with Alcahest though. I'll have to give it another try if it really is so short.

This game is great.

great music too!

I love this game.

Cool, just downloaded this now. :)

Looks like a lot of fun. I may just try it one day.

Love it .. bought the super famicon original.. and somehow beat it.. ha! Thanks for clueing me in.. cheers!

looks awesome

neat. first time hearing of this one. almost like a top-down version of Capcom's arcade game Magic Sword, with more RPG elements. Thanks for the heads-up on another awesome game. I've discovered a lot from your channel.

I played this game a while ago, I liked it

God-damn, I love that style of slightly atonal/microtonal 16-bit music in Boss fights!

Now this is a true hidden gem

Nice review! I like the way this looks. I'm going to have to pick it up. $40 English repro on ebay

probably my favorite jun ishikawa soundtrack

I remember going pretty far the first time I played this but I can't remember if I finished it. I didn't know a fix for the password system had been released since then, time to play this again I guess.

Great game

looks fun

I don't have the same standards of game lengths as you so this game seems just fine to me.

alcahest is an awesome game. you don't even really need the translation patch to enjoy it, it's definitely more arcadey than rpg-y.

Suuuuh..nesdrunk!

This looks like fun! It has a Diablo look to it.

Thx

Reminds me a lot of "Beyond Oasis " for the geny/mega drive.

Maybe someone here know the name of another Japanese Famicom RPG? You play as a guy with blue hair, you start in a castle, with simple clothes, then you search in a chest and find armor to put on. It reminds me of breath of fire for the stile and cameraview. The battles are isometric, I remember you attack by throwing your sword into the enemies. They fight goes like this: you and the enemy start standing in the corner of the screen and then go walking forward to each other and attacking throwing stuff or magic. You have lots of companions.

Ah, back when you didn't thank me for watching and so on and so forth. Good times.

Sweet another hidden rpg to explore :-D

This game looks great! How did I miss this it's not evn a garbage rpg

I remember emulating this one a looooong time ago. I liked it, but somehow I forgot about it and never beat it. I should give it another try.

Still use ZSNES on my Linux laptop and its still the best.

I never knew that HAL developed this game. I really like the opening track. The sense of urgency in the chords, and the 7/8 (?) time signature really make it unique. Good stuff. Here's another example of game music composers use odd time signatures -- the 5/4 in ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-HS8iO3xPGPA.html.

It should’ve released in the West back then, there’s not a ton of text. I think it could have found a decent audience, it’s very well made.

This game is so sweet. I can't do turn based RPGs. This combination of all the stuff I like from RPGs with full real time action is perfect.

This one looks like it would have been a lot of fun in my youth. Maybe not deep enough now.

Game looks fucking good!

Now i gotta doqnload this and put it on every device i own tbat has a snes emulator.

Watching this video makes me wonder about the possibility of gameshark'ing it so that one could play as the alternate follower instead..

Oooh I wanna play thiiis

Good morning

Zelda plus an arcade style beat em' up? Sounds good.

Dude everytime I got here I get to know even more cool games than I expected to find, and all of these goes directly to my Snes mini, by any chance do you know how to make Clock Tower to run on that? I'd really appreciate the assistance.

It is pretty cool to fight with a dragon.

This looks like 7th Saga reimagined as an adventure game!

SNES drunk rocks

Anybody able to get this working on their everdrive? I spent some time on it but can't get it to work yet

I always saw this game as a prequel to Diablo

The music is very similar to Kirby's.

Hey drunk, where's the part 8 of the chrono trigger playtrough bro? Nice video thou

Do a review of skitchin for sega

This seems like a nice little gem, why did the Snes seem to get all the good top down adventure games. As far as I know Gen only has Beyond Oasis lol? Landstalker sorta kind of counts I guess, maybe Light Crusader too? But in this genre overall I'd say the Snes wins.

Its a shame we haven't seen more PC Engine RPGs.

“So yeah” x 2 “But yeah” x 1

Thumb for referring to HAL as the Kirby-guys, as opposed to that other series they are famous for.

TurboGraphx Drunk!

This looks like "Brain Lord" on SNES.

A few hours sounds ideal to me. I can't be bothered with 60 hours games anymore, or even 40 or 20 hours games. I just want to get in, have some fun and be done in a few hours. Sometimes maybe I'd like to play a certain deep RPG for say 10-20 hours, but anything over that feels like a slog imo. So, yeah, this game sounds about ideal to me. :D The only thing I don't like is the little interaction blocks that let you dash and jump to different areas of the level. I think the designers could have been a little more creative with how they implemented those rather than making them look like clear "gamey" interaction blocks stuck in the middle of otherwise a convincing fantasy RPG world.

Ur thoughts on chrono trigger coming to the PC with 2 new features ?