Kemco is a company that has had a lot of strange ups and downs since they entered the game industry during the 8-bit Nintendo boom in the 1980s. In their early days, they were most famous for their ports of Western computer games like Shadowgate and Deja Vu to the NES. In the 16-bit era, they were probably best known for publishing the Top Gear racing series from Gremlin Graphics. The next two generations were perhaps the company’s darkest days, resulting in such legendarily awful games as Batman Beyond, Batman: Dark Tomorrow, and the Nintendo 64 version of Daikatana. About 10 years ago they started focusing on the blossoming mobile market, acting as the publisher of a multitude of low-budget, low-priced RPGs. A half-decade ago, they started bringing those games out worldwide, and my friends, they did not stop.

That is, until this year. They seem to be re-assessing their strategy at the moment, possibly tipping onto the idea that there are only so many people who want or need more than 60 relatively generic JRPGs on their mobile device. In the last several months, we’ve seen efforts like Yodanji ($2.99) and Djinn Caster ($4.99) released, adding some much-needed variety to the line-up. Before that, however, Kemco’s tried-and-true developers had taken a couple of swings at doing something different with the tools they had in front of them. And wouldn’t you know it? Some of those swings are currently discounted for Kemco’s annual spring sale. The titles include:

• Infinite Dunamis ($3.99) (Dev: EXE-Create, REVIEW)
• Tears Revolude ($3.99) (Dev: World Wide Software, REVIEW)
• Legna Tactica ($0.99) (Dev: Hit-Point, REVIEW)
• Illusion of L’Phalcia ($8.99) (Dev: EXE-Create, REVIEW)

If you don’t have time to check out the reviews, here are the important details. First, none of these games are terribly good or particularly bad. Infinite Dunamis and Illusion of L’Phalcia are both fairly traditional in their structure, with the former using 2D art in battles and the latter using some chunkeriffic polygons. Legna Tactica is a tactical/simulation RPG along the lines of Final Fantasy Tactics but, you know, not nearly as good. Finally, Tears Revolude is perhaps the oddest of the bunch. It’s a top-down dungeon crawler, and while it uses turn-based battles, its specific mechanics are quite uncommon. If you’re looking for something to do with your time, these are all decent pick-ups at these sale prices.