A History of Korean Gaming

유리도시 (Yuri Dosi) - IBM PC (March 20, 1997)

Not a game in the narrow sense, but an avatar chatting client, Yuri Dosi ("Glass City") still deserves an honorable mention for being the first of its kind in Korea.

컴백 태지보이스 (Come Back Taiji Boys) - IBM PC (March 1997)

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Seo Taiji and the Kids (Seo Taeji-wa Aideul) was the hottest Korean dance music act in the mid-1990s. They disbanded early in 1996, but Adam Soft made them "come back" in an action platformer starring their digitized images.

Adam Soft wasn't a devoted game developer, but dabbled in "computer games, artificial intelligence, databases and internet solutions"1, not exactly good auspices for the quality of the game, and despite the popularity of the band it was soon forgotten.

미노의 모험 (Mino-ui Moheom) / Mino's Adventure - IBM PC (March 1997)

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Render Platformer by Virtual Wave/Impreso Team about a boy who gets sucked into his video game console. But instead of exploring the wondrous worlds of his games, he ends up walking around the circuitry of the machine. Travels through cables take place in form of horizontal shooter stages.

임꺽정 (Imkkeokjeong) - IBM PC (May 1997)

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Imkkeokjeong was developed for Ssangyong by the Korean-American team Joy Cinemedia, who had also worked on the unreleased Morae Sigye. The fighting game set in medieval Korea is one of those games that appears on later lists of released games, but couldn't be discovered in form of actual copies, nor does it appear in the Game Rating Board's database. It could therefore be an unreleased game, too.

전사라이언 (Jeonsa Ryan): The Last Warrior - Windows (May 1997)

Console style RPG with turnbased combat and pre-rendered graphics, The Last Warrior was the only game developed in-house at the Ssangyong conglomerate's software division.

머그삼국지 (MUG Samgukji) - IBM PC (June 1997)

The classical chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and in extension Koei's series of stratefy games based on it are extremely popular in Korea, but if there's anything Japan has lagged behind in terms of video games, it's online multiplayer. Therefore, a small Korean studio called Appleware decided to make their own version of the game around that very feature.

Adam (아담): 21C Moon War Story / Armored Moon: The Next Eden - IBM PC, Windows (July 1997)

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RTS game set on the moon. This game was released in the West by Microforum.

붉은 악마 (Bulgeun Angma) / Red Devils - IBM PC (November 1997)

Korea's first serious Association Footbal simulation is not a independently developed title, instead Media Soft licensed the soccer game engine from the British developer Anco and modified it to focus on the Korean national team. A sequel followed in 1999.

Counter Blow (카운터블로우) - IBM PC (December 10, 1997)

Command and Conquer-inspired RTS developed by CenoZoic and published by SKC. Long before Blizzard sold three separate campaigns for Starcraft II, each of the two factions in this game had its own retail box. Eventually, the two were also sold in a bundle, though.

Dark Saver (다크세이버) - IBM PC (December 1997)

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Dark Saver was Korea's first MMOSRPG. Developed and originally maintained by Menics, but then later picked up by Wizgate/Mgame, service continued until February 2006.

마제스티 (Majesty) - IBM PC (December 1997)

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Majesty was developed by Pantech Net, which consisted of Mirinae Software's former online game team. Accordingly, the game was an MMORPG.

Morbid (모비드) - IBM PC (1997)

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Morbid is a very hard-trying attempt at a horror game, employing all kinds of cinematic thriller techniques, all the while nothing exciting is actually happening. As a first person adventure in the style of Myst, the game sends players walking around between predefined waypoints and sometimes incomprehensive turning angles, clicking on stuff and solving one or the other puzzle in between.

Most of the time is spend wandering around in the all to same-looking empty hallways of a school building and trying to find out what the game wants to be done, as there are no instructions or any other kind of guiding text whatsoever.

용세기 (Yongsegi) / Age of Dragon - IBM PC (1997)

Age of Dragon (IBM PC)

From the same team as Morbid (Jin Young Technology) comes Age of Dragon, but this is an entirely different story. Reminiscent of Dragon Spirit, a blue dragon is steered through a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up. It has three weapons at its disposal, a standard straight shot, a spreadshot and homing projectiles. Each of the three gets upgraded with use, but taking hits brings them down again much quicker than they rise up. The homing weapon is vastly superior to the others, though, at least after it's fully upgraded, when it dominates almost the entire screen.

Still the game remains ridiculously hard at all times, mostly because each death sets the player back to the very beginning of a stage, even wehn losing against a boss. When dying at one of the higher stages, or even just getting the weapons weakened too much, one might as well restart the game. The dragon is much too slow to dodge most of the bullets, and often the only way is to kill the enemies first, which can't be achieved with a low grade pea shooter.

블랙싸인 (Black Sign) - IBM PC (1997)

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SRPG by the indie team DreamCard (who previously made the freeware game Moheom Sok-euro I: Ak-ui Geurimja).

마법의 향수 (Mabeop-ui Hyangsu) / Nostalgia of Magic - IBM PC (1997)

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Developed by the unknown developer IKGN Soft and published by KOGA, Nostalgia of Magic certainly looks old for a 1997 game, even by Korean DOS game standard. Apparently emulating the visual style of the first Ys games, with tiny sprites and sparse coloring, it rather looks like a late 1980s home computer game. Even in cutscenes, which are zoomed in and show much more detail than the regular game graphics, the 8-bit style is preserved. Only during combat, which is not at all like Ys but held in typical JRPG fashion, the characters are replaced by much more realisticly pixeled sprites. Oddly, only one half of the unusually wide battlefield is displayed at any given time, with the camera scrolling abck and forth during attacks.

The game design feels equally archaic. The different regions of the game world are accessed in fairly linear order, but it got the same kind of undocumented hidden passages, unspecific aims and inconspicious event triggers as the classics. Other than most 8-bit games, though, enemy encounters can be seen on the map beforehand and therefore be avoided, but once they see the player party, they hunt them down relentlessly.

Deicide 3 (디어사이드3): Distorted Existence - IBM PC (1997), GP2X Wiz (January 15, 2010)

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As its only game, Studio Jacobin set out to serve a genre not seen very often in Korean games; a typical Japanese-style adventure game, or ADV. The cyberpunk setting and crosshair shooting intermissions make it seem inspired by Snatcher, although the tone is much darker and more serious.

apparently Deicide 3 was popular enough to warrant a port to GP Holdings' GP2X Wiz, as one of only three retail releases for the ill-fated handheld.

B-Shop SD (비숍 에스디) - IBM PC (1997)

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Mecha action with a post-apocalyptical setting by Infomedia.

헬로우 대통령 (Hello Daetongnyong) / Hello Mr. President - IBM PC (1997)

Hello Mr. President (IBM PC)

Turn-based strategy game about presidential election campaigns, developed by Geomind (Battle Commander) and published by HiCom.

일렉트로닉 퍼플 (Electronic Popple) - IBM PC (1997)

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This cutesy beat-em-up by Byteshock has its own article on Hardcore Gaming 101.

일몰 (Ilmol) / Sunset - IBM PC (1997)

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This RTS explores the grief prospect of a modern war between Korea and Japan. It is focused on tactical actions rather than building bases like in most RTS, the only problem being that there aren't many tactical options at all, making it feel like a much more slow-paced but much less skill-based variant of Cannon Fodder.

귀견 (Gwigyeon) - Windows (1997)

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A quasi-sequel to GenCom's Saengsado, Gwigyeon appears to rely on the same sketchy engine and a similarly uncommon graphics style, though with a different tone.