Traverse was an RPG released by Banpresto last summer for the SFC. The game was sub-titled Starlight & Prairie.
Traverse intended to be an RPG with a sort of free scenario, as in Romancing Saga. There is a large world with many (small) towns. The party can go anywhere in the world, not being 'prohibited' as in most RPGs. Instead of character levels, each character has got skills and basic attributes, and the character gets stronger by gaining skill levels and better equipment. The party may eventually grow to many characters; characters may be changed in combat (at the expense of one character turn). The game system feels like one derived from Western table-top RPGs, rather than DragonQuest.
Despite the potential of this being a good game, as it is now, I cannot understand what it has accomplished. The main problem is the density of events. Once past the opening events, I spent hours traveling through all the towns, but came across only a few events. In most towns, there are nothing but a shop or two, and a bunch of "commoners" doing pointless chat (such as the weather or their family life of the day). Now, if I want to chat with people and listen to them talking about things that have nothing to do at all with my own living, I would be hanging around the real world neighborhood instead of sitting down in front of a TV. When I sit down and play an RPG, I expect to see interesting events (and battles and character development), not pointless chat. For a game with a large, free world setting like this one to work, the events should be numerous and reasonably dense, as in Ultima V. Less than one event per town, or many towns, as in Traverse, is unacceptable. I spent hours waiting for the game to get interesting, and it never does, until I eventually get bored and shelf it.
I did run into a few events beyond the opening ones, and they were reasonably interesting. Once these were solved, though, I am left with a long list of towns, and a very short list of a few events which require a well-developed and well-equipped party. Where are the ones in the middle? I don't recall having to ask this kind of question when playing Ultima V, or Romancing Saga 2.
I don't have a guide book; maybe one, indicating where the events are, would help solve this problem. However, my word on this game is that it is very unplayable, very boring without a guide book. If they do not have events to fill out the world with, they should have made the world smaller in the first place, or put in more pointers to where the next events are. As it is, I won't recommend this game (without a guide book, at least), even though it started off trying to be something more than just another DQ clone. If you feel you have to try this game out anyway, my advice is to get a guide book first, and read through it, before buying (or playing, if borrowed or rented).