So a while back (December-Januaryish) Joey and I wrote an article for Hardcore Gaming 101. It was a fairly in depth review of Rudra no Hihou - or Treasure of the Rudras, a fantastic 16-bit RPG from Square that has a magic system so unique you'll wonder why the hell we didn't get it (which is explained in the article) and why you haven't played it.
For those of you that HAVE already played it: kudos!
Hardcore Gaming 101: Rudra no Hihou - Courtesy of yours truly and my equally retro, if not moreso, compatriot, Joey G.
thanks, Ryan, this looks awesome!
The Mantra system is so incredibly cool - you write your own spells! And the sprites are some of the most impressive I've seen from Square - they're big, detailed, and a lot of them are very well animated!
I forgot cartridge games could run you $70. Jesus.
Oh yes - those were the days where the prices didn't have anything to go on, they pretty much based it on how many megs the cart held, so those larger RPG's could be almost $100!
Did you say "Fan of Jrpgs has to play"? Hmmm. Intrigued am I ,Ryan! Yes! very intrigued!
I've said it before, but you can WRITE YOUR OWN SPELLS. It's awesome, and the storyline, while nothing super innovative, is interesting and solid enough to keep you going, and you can play the three main stories in any order, and even switch to a different one whenever you want!
Wow, spell creation. Not many Jrpgs I know of have that. The screenshots also looked gorgeous. Normally this game would have become a classic but I read it was late in the snes cycle. Aka, maybe it got buried by the PS1 hype train?
Oh, it never came stateside,that figures! At least someone seems to have translated a rom version of it!
Yep, it would have been too expensive and time consuming to localize it, and since it was in 1996, they'd have been cannibalizing their marketing for FF7, so it flew right under the radar, but now there's a fantastic translation of it, and it's well worth the play!
If SquarEnix was smart they would localize this and put it out on PSN. It would not take much memory and they would not have to spend any money to publish physical copies. It would be a win win for everybody.
This is exactly why I think blogging is so important. I never heard of this game and now I will seek it out and try it myself. I tried playing an import version of FF Type-0, but so frustrating without a fan translation. I'm glad there was an attempt to translate this game and make it available to Square fans. The magic system sound similr to FF8 or Shin Megami Tensi Demon fusion. Thanks for your post man! 
There are also fan translations of Bahamut Lagoon and Seiken Densetsu 3, which are great. I bought all three on ebay from a repro salesman. They play great on my SNES.