Aspic is a through-and-through RPG. In this case, I am playing it on the PC-6001mkII. The PC-6001mkII has 15-color output, a cut above the standard 8-color that is typical for digital RGB machines, but as it is relatively low-resolution and the characters are all hiragana and katakana, it can be kind of tiresome to read through the text of the game. I think the game itself is pretty good, though, it is probably much better on the X1 or FM77AV.

In true RPG fashion, you are placed nearby a castle. Enter the castle and you are greeted by friendly faces, knights and the king. It seems your first (main? only?) quest is to rescue a princess. In the area surrounding the castle, you won't run into enemies (at least, I haven't so far), but rather villagers who just hope for peace, or swordsmen who are willing to help you on your journey.

There is a decent amount of variation in the outside world, mountainous regions, forests, deserts, bodies of water, etc. And you can find buildings here and there, often with merchants within their walls.

Enough adventuring will get you to dangerous lands, where both overworld and underworld assailants await you. Battle takes place in a mini window. You control your character's actions in real-time, while the NPC party members can either be controlled in real-time, or can be controlled by the computer automatically.

The box and manual artwork are both pretty good for the fantasy RPG genre.