Genesis is a rather primitive role-playing game brought to us by Square, whom I’m sure you all know and quite possibly love. However, if anything lends proof that Square is indeed fallible, it may in fact be this game. At the very least, this game’s existence lends credence to the rumor that Final Fantasy was thusly named due to the fact that the company was about to go under at the time of its release. But, I digress.

The game play in Genesis is not unlike various Rogue-variants such as Moria, Angband, or NetHack. Possibly even the original Ultima, but the farthest my Ultima knowledge goes back is Ultima: Exodus for NES, so I can’t really comment on that.

Regardless, the major differences between this game and the Rogue-style games are that we have actual graphics rather than ASCII art, a post-apocalyptic sci-fi setting rather than traditional fantasy, and this game is a lot less fun. Besides that, they have a lot in common: you will get slaughtered rather quickly, and the object of the game as far as I can tell is to get as far away from where you start as possible. Maybe there’s a deeper motive behind the game, but the text in the (long and un-skip-able) intro is not translated as of this writing. There are towns and buildings and such, but you’ll be slaughtered by tanks and Mohicans long before you reach any of those.

Of course, I never had much patience for Rogue-style games, I’ll admit. I think it’s because I was too busy playing fun games like Pitfall!, and River Raid when Rogue-style games were at the height of their popularity. So your mileage may vary. Maybe you can wax nostalgic over this.