Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

Benkei Gaiden opens with a clean motive and wastes little time dressing it up: your fellow disciple has been carried off to a monster tower, and Oniwaka heads south to bring him back. That direct setup gives the early wandering a purpose. You leave the temple’s safety, trace routes across the world map, and start making the familiar RPG calculation of whether your equipment and resources are good enough for the next dangerous stretch.

Its structure is firmly rooted in the earliest Japanese console RPGs. You visit towns, purchase weapons and armor, and are pulled into random encounters. Combat is turn-based and seen from a first-person viewpoint, so the rhythm is less about flashy battlefield tactics than steady preparation: improve your gear, survive repeated fights, and keep pressing toward the tower. There is a sturdy pleasure in that loop when you are in the mood for something uncomplicated and deliberate.

The biggest hurdle is the interaction system. Rather than assigning common actions directly to buttons, Benkei Gaiden asks you to open a menu and select commands such as Talk and Search. That is authentic to the era and closely echoes early Dragon Quest, but it also adds friction to every ordinary interaction. Once you settle into its pace, the routine becomes workable; at the start, it can feel like the game is making you ask permission to do things you already know you want to do.

Random battles are the other dividing line. They make travel tense and make each equipment purchase matter, but they can also turn simple exploration into a stop-start grind. Give Benkei Gaiden a chance if you enjoy the patient accumulation of small advantages in classic RPGs. Skip it if your tolerance for menu-heavy exploration and repeated encounters is low.

Graphics

The game shifts between a top-down overworld for travel and first-person battle screens for encounters. Towns, roads, and the route toward the southern tower are viewed from above, while fights put the enemy directly in front of you. That straightforward split keeps navigation and combat visually distinct.

Its feudal Japan-inspired world and supernatural monsters give the journey more character than a generic medieval quest. The imagery is built around temples, towns, wilderness travel, and monster threats rather than elaborate cinematic staging.

Story

The rescue premise is simple, but it works because it is personal before it becomes heroic. Oniwaka is not initially sent out to save the world; he is sent to retrieve a kidnapped companion. That gives the opening a human-scale urgency, even as the larger monster invasion hangs over the journey.

The Dharma Eyes provide a useful frame for the adventure. These Buddhist priests have sheltered and trained young martial artists in a secluded temple while the surrounding lands suffer, and Oniwaka’s mission becomes a chance to challenge that long-running danger. The setup naturally points beyond one rescue toward a broader confrontation with the monsters.

Do not come expecting a densely layered tale from this premise. Benkei Gaiden’s story is a clear quest engine: travel south, rescue your friend, and confront the menace that has terrorized the land. Its strength is the way Japanese religious and feudal-era imagery gives that familiar RPG goal a specific flavor.

Overall Experience

Benkei Gaiden is satisfying when you meet it on its own old-fashioned terms. The pleasure comes from a direct goal, a manageable world-route rhythm, and the slow confidence that grows as you buy better equipment and withstand the monsters that once forced you back. It understands the classic RPG appeal of beginning vulnerable and gradually earning the right to go farther.

At the same time, this is not a hidden reinvention of the formula. Its command menu, random encounters, and conventional progression are not occasional throwbacks; they are the core of the experience. The Dragon Quest influence is so plain that your reaction to those early games will tell you much of what you need to know.

For a fan of vintage Japanese RPGs, the Buddhist temple backdrop, supernatural threats, and rescue-driven structure make Benkei Gaiden worth the time. You get a focused adventure rather than an overcomplicated one. For everyone else, the dated interaction style may overshadow its charm before the journey south starts to click.

Retro Replay Score

6.5/10