I was lying in bed a few nights ago when it came to me. Totally out of the blue, the words Sword of Vermillion appeared plastered in my mind's eye like a billposter for a Christmas pantomime starring an unlikely cast of long-forgotten TV personalities. Sword of Vermillion, my goodness, it's been a while. I first played the Sega Mega Drive (Genesis if you're reading this Stateside) role-playing game in late 1992, and, even at just six-and-a-bit years old, was blown away by how sophisticated it felt. Against the likes of Sonic the Hedgehog, ToeJam & Earl, Golden Axe, and the various other start here-finish-there 16-bit side-scrollers of the day, it felt like there was just so much to see and do in this world.
At the time, Sega certainly thought so – ambitiously marketing its in-house RPG as a 300-hour experience. Even the blurb on the back of the game's case promised "hundreds of hours of adventure gameplay!" And while I've no idea how many hours I personally sank into the game almost three full decades ago, I do know it must have cost my dad a small fortune in rental fees, with me borrowing it from our local Blockbuster Video for two days every week for well over a year.
