Alternatively known as Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden, or Mystic Quest — no, not that one — or simply just the start of the long-running Mana series.
Video Game of the Year: A Year-By-Year Guide to the Best, Boldest, and Most Bizarre Games from Every Year Since 1977 is available now, and I spoke with the author about how it came to be.
The studio itself has been shut down for 20 years now, but that doesn't mean its former developers stopped working.
Compile developed a few pinball games in their day that remain absolute classics of the genre decades later.
A partnership with Hudson Soft's rival in the shoot 'em up space resulted in one of Compile's finest contributions to the genre.
The Guardian Legend is a cult classic, but it deserved so much more.
Along with Zanac X Zanac, released the same day in November 2001, Guru Logi Champ is Compile's final completed game before their closure, and serves as a reminder this studio still had a lot to give.
Just before the Soviet Union's dissolution, Japan made video games that featured the actual (and approved) likeness of its then-president, Mikhail Gorbachev.
An action-adventure game with a twist or three.
Before Puyo Puyo took the puzzle world by storm, its characters starred in a first-person dungeon crawler that defied genre conventions.
Zanac wasn't Compile's first game by any means, and not even its first shoot 'em up, but it's where their real legacy and mark on the industry began.
Compile left its mark across multiple genres, developing loads of games that are still a blast decades later, and their successor studios have helped keep the spirit of the original alive.
