Man, The 7th Saga on SNES is one of those RPGs that sticks with you—mostly because it’s brutal in the best way. You pick from seven wildly different characters (I went with the demon knight first, because of course), and right off the bat, the game doesn’t hold your hand. The overworld’s gorgeous for its time, all moody colors and weird little towns, but those random encounters? They’ll wreck you if you’re not careful.

What’s cool is how each hero plays totally differently—the elf’s magic feels overpowered until you realize how squishy she is, and the robot guy’s defense is insane but he’s slow as hell. The rune hunt sounds straightforward until you realize some NPCs will straight-up lie to you about where to go. Classic 90s troll move.

Fair warning: the difficulty spikes are legendary. Grinding’s basically mandatory, and the AI-controlled rival characters hunting the same runes? They’ll ambush you at the worst times. But there’s something weirdly satisfying about finally beating that one boss after six tries. Just don’t throw your controller.