Ever stumble across a weird little Game Boy RPG you've never heard of? That's Aretha for me—somehow flew under the radar outside Japan. You start off as this girl named Aretha (shocking, I know) who gets dragged into a fantasy world, and the whole thing has that classic 90s JRPG vibe—turn-based battles, cryptic NPCs, and way too many random encounters.

The sprites are tiny but charming, and the music’s got that nostalgic Game Boy chiptune sound. At first I thought it was just another generic dungeon crawler, but there’s some neat stuff here—like how you recruit party members by convincing them mid-battle instead of just fighting. Took me forever to figure that out because, surprise, no English translation back in the day.

Definitely rough around the edges, but if you’re into obscure retro JRPGs, it’s a fun time capsule. Just bring a walkthrough unless you’re fluent in moonrunes.