The balance in the magical world of Cefiro is supported by the prayers of the lovely princess Emerald. When the evil Sage Master imprisoned her, the existence of the entire world was endangered. Using her spiritual powers, the princess contacted three Japanese high-school girls, Hikaru, Umi, and Fuu, turned them into Magic Knights, and summoned them to Cefiro, where their goal is to save her and to restore the balance. This adaptation of the eponymous manga and anime series is an action game with light role-playing elements, somewhat similar in style to Zelda games. The protagonists are all the three girls, but the player can controls only one of them at a time. Each one has advantages and disadvantages, as well as different fighting styles: Hikaru uses swords, Umi a rapier, and Fuu a bow. The player advances through the game by exploring the world, talking to non-playable characters, and fighting enemies in real-time combat. There is no experience system; new abilities (among them swimming and jumping) are gained as dictated by the story, and must be used in certain points in order to advance.
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"Hold on tight! It's going to be a bumpy ride!" -Victor Ireland, Video Games: The Ultimate Gaming Magazine, Issue 89 June 1996
Magic Knight Rayearth is an Action-RPG released for the Sega Saturn at the tail-end of its life. It is often remembered fondly by those who grew up with the title as the last Saturn game to release in the U.S., having released here on December 11th, 1998. However, this title was originally meant to release here much, much earlier.
As is stated in the game's instruction manual, Working Designs had been interested in having the title brought overseas as early as when they first became aware of its existence back in 1995. As soon as they acquired the rights to get a localization done, they began their work on the project, which was easier said than done for them, as a hard disk crash required them to rebuild much of the game's data on their own. Confident in their abilities at the time, they believed that they would have a completed product ready to hit consumer shelves in 1996, with Next Generation Magazine giving a release date of July of that year. In an interview with Video Games: The Ultimate Gaming Magazine, this became "Late summer '96", with Victor Ireland of Working Designs claiming that Magic Knight Rayearth is "...one of the biggest — if not the biggest — conversion projects that Working Designs has ever undertaken."
Over a year would pass from the time of this interview's publication and a future working with SEGA would begin to fade into the distance due to issues that arose at E3. In an interview with Electronic Gaming Monthly, Victor Ireland recounts the events that took place. SEGA had the Working Designs booth placed in a location that received little traffic, causing their showings of games like Albert Odyssey and Magic Knight Rayearth to go mostly unnoticed by attendees. Vic also claimed to have disdain for the then COO of Sega of America, Bernie Stolar, due to how he had relayed to the press much information about their upcoming console, the Dreamcast, while also downplaying the importance of the Saturn. These factors would be what lead to him taking Working Designs in a new direction, working solely with Sony regarding then unannounced projects. They were, however, committed to releasing the games that they had promised the public before these events, including Magic Knight Rayearth.
A little over a year later, the U.S. would finally be given a localization of Magic Knight Rayearth after countless delays, technical issues, and corporate drama. What began as a project they thought they could ship in a year became a demon that took them three years to finally conquer, getting not only the "honor" of being the last Working Designs localized game published for the Saturn, but also of being the last Saturn game to ever release in the United States.
"...this has been, without doubt or question, the
most grueling conversion we have ever attempted." -Working Designs, Magic Knight Rayearth Instruction Manual Page 18
Now, with the history said and done and the game in our hands, let's take a look at the game in question, shall we?
Magic Knight Rayearth plays similar to games like The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Secret of Mana. It's a top-down adventure with a focus on exploration and combat, with a trio of protagonists who each offer their own unique skills. You have Hikaru, who wields fire magic and attacks with a crossing sword slash. I wound up using her for most of my playthrough, if only because I liked the feel of her melee attack the best. Second is Umi, who attacks with a stabbing blade and also wields water magic. I used her the least, if only because I didn't like the feel of her melee attack. The range of the stab did help immensely in some boss encounters, though. Last, but most certainly not least, is Fuu, who attacks using a bow and wields wind magic.
We need to talk about Fuu. So, having a bow immediately removes the range limitations of a melee attack like those of Hikaru and Umi. Not only can she shoot an arrow across the screen, she can also do it rapidly, ensuring an endless onslaught of arrows on her enemies. Each member of the party also has a special version of their melee move that they can perform by charging up their weapon by holding the attack button. Hikaru's and Umi's charge moves simply increase the range of their melee attack. What does Fuu's charge move do, then? Well, it only shoots out multiple arrows that also HOME IN ON ANY ENEMIES AND BOSSES ON SCREEN! Also, as the party travels through the adventure, their weapons level up and get stronger. When this happens, their special moves get more powerful. What does this mean for Fuu? It means she shoots EVEN MORE HOMING ARROWS!
This is only half of her kit, by the way. I haven't even begun to talk about how magic works. So, Hikaru and Umi's magic allows them to do things like send water or fire attacks in specific directions or perform moves that hit all enemies on screen with powerful magic. Neat, but not something you'll be using constantly. Outside of the occasional puzzle room that requires them, you're probably not gonna use their magic much.
As for Fuu's magic, however, we have a different story. She gets a move where she uses wind to attack enemies and do some extremely light puzzle-solving as well as a shield that protects the party from damage but comes at a huge MP cost. Her other spell? Oh, that one just heals the entire party for only 3 MP! It's also the first spell she gets, making her magic immediately the most useful of the trio.
I mentioned that I played as Hikaru the most during my adventure. That's because Fuu is WAY too strong for her own good. Her range and ability are unmatched and tears the game balance in half. If you're looking for an easy time, just set yourself to Fuu whenever you don't have to be someone else and delete every enemy in your path!
Honestly even when Fuu isn't clearing out foes the game is pretty easy. Despite Working Designs' attempts to make the game artificially harder by boosting the speed and damage of enemies and bosses (As shown on The Cutting Room Floor), Magic Knight Rayearth is a breeze to complete. With three characters to play as, you also get three separate health bars and magic meters, meaning you can use magic attacks with one character and wail away at enemies, and then switch to another when they're in danger of going down. Then, of course, you have Fuu who can use magic to heal everyone up when everyone's low on health and the cycle starts anew. Also scattered throughout the world are health and magic upgrades that allow you to take more hits and use more spells. Each time you find one, you get to choose who gets it, making it become more of a personal choice as to who gets stronger. I gave all the health upgrades to Hikaru and all the magic upgrades to Fuu (Sorry Umi!), but if I were to go through this game again for any reason, I'd probably give all upgrades to Fuu for reasons already mentioned by now.
Along with your magic abilities, you'll also be given traversal abilities throughout the adventure. Sadly, these aren't very interesting at all. One is the ability to swim, which requires you to mash the attack button whenever you're in water, which is very annoying. The other two you get are basically the Pegasus Boots from Link to the Past split into two parts. You'll get the ability to break objects by dashing into them first, and then after that you'll get the ability to actually hit a button to dash.
You see, in this game, you can build up speed by moving in a straight line. Deviate from straightness for a single moment and you'll have to rebuild speed all over again. In the Settings menu, you can customize your controls, which shows that there is a button to dash. I kept hitting it throughout a good chunk of my playthrough and kept getting confused by it. Was I doing something wrong? Is my controller broken? I wound up looking it up online and found other confused players. Once I actually got the dash ability, I was relieved, but also upset since I was left confused about that button for so long.
Outside of combat, you'll be exploring the world of Cefiro, chatting with NPCs, examining random objects, and finding Rainbow Amulets. Let's talk about Rainbow Amulets first. These are scattered all over the world, and the game encourages you to find them all. In dungeons, they'll be locked away in chests. In towns, they'll either be given to you by NPCs, or they'll be hidden in random objects in the area. If you keep vigilant about seeking them out, you'll most likely be able to find most of them without need of a guide. These are used in the Rainbow Junction Shop, which isn't really a shop. You just need to have a certain number of complete sets in order to obtain the items there. These include practical items, such as an item that lets you regain MP by standing still, and also joke items such as noisy slippers and a mysterious journal. You won't need any of these items to beat the game, but it does give you something to keep an eye out for that makes exploring the world a bit more interesting.
Magic Knight Rayearth, being based on a manga/anime, has a lot going on in terms of dialogue and cutscenes. This game has many Full-Motion Video cutscenes to view, with some being from the anime and some being original to the game. I haven't gotten a chance to check out the manga or anime for this series, so this game definitely did a good job of making me more interested in them. According to The Cutting Room Floor (TCRF for short), the FMVs for this game were re-encoded for the US release, leading to them having worse video quality than the original Japanese release, which is a shame. You may want to consider an "Undub" mod for this game if you wish to experience this game with the cutscenes as they were presented in the original release.
Speaking of the dub, it's...okay? There are some moments where it can be hard to make out what a character is saying in a FMV cutscene where there are no subtitles and sometimes the delivery of lines can be flat, but overall, I'm not offended by the dub provided here. I feel like the voice actors did an okay job for the most part. There also isn't a whole lot of dubbing in the game outside of the FMVs. In the instruction manual, Working Designs mentions that in the original release of the game, more NPCs had voiced dialogue. They claim that testing allegedly lead to players having issues with this, as it allegedly "slowed down the flow of the game". To fix this, they had this dialogue removed, swapping it for a diary mode. This diary is updated as story events happen in the game, with each of the main trio updating their own personal diary with their observations and events that occur in the plot. Each entry is also fully voiced by each girl, allowing the player to get a better feel of each character's unique personality.
Working Designs claimed that this diary feature became possible due to the expanded CD space they were able to have after taking out the undubbed Japanese dialogue. However, according to TCRF, this unused dialogue is still on the U.S. version's disc, meaning that that's a complete lie.
Personally, I don't mind the inclusion of the diary. I think it's cute and does a good job of giving the player a deeper understanding of each character. However, I wouldn't miss it if it meant we could have the NPC dialogue dubbed, because there are a good number of important NPCs in this game that could benefit from having more or any voiced dialogue. I feel that by sacrificing that for this diary feature, we lost the opportunity to have stronger connections with these characters that we meet and interact with. Also, this idea that voiced NPC dialogue slows down the game can be remedied by allowing players to skip voiced dialogue. You can skip FMVs in this version. You couldn't do that in the JP release. Why not give the player the ability to skip dialogue that's voiced? For some reason, they don't let you do that here, which makes the intro of the game slower if you're doing a repeat playthrough. Maybe it's some weird pride they take in their dubs? I don't know and I'm not about to call Vic and ask.
Working Designs also mentions in the manual how they did their best to reduce slowdown that was present in the original release and apologize for the amount of slowdown present in the town of Rozen as they could not find a way to fix it. What they fail to mention here is the effects of this slowdown. When the framerate of a game gets low, it begins to affect how well a game reads your inputs. For example, pressing a button in a game running at 20 frames per second (fps) will produce results less reliably than a game running at 60 fps. Ever wonder why you fall into a pit in a platformer even though you swear you hit jump at the right time? It could be because the input latency caused by the framerate being low caused your input to not be registered. So, when you're in Rozen, surrounded by tons of NPCs that are tanking the framerate, your inputs are now registering rarely at best, meaning that after enough effort, you may be able to see what an NPC has to say, and after some more effort, you may be able to escape that conversation. This isn't limited to just Rozen, by the way. In some later dungeons, there are enemies that can cause the framerate to dip, causing your attack inputs to fail, leading to you taking unnecessary damage. Is it a deal-breaker for the entire game? No, not really. Is it really annoying? Yes, absolutely.
Okay, I've dodged it for long enough. Let's talk about what they did with this game's script.
"Forgive us, we tried." -Working Designs, Magic Knight Rayearth Instruction Manual Page 18
So, with this being an Action RPG, you're going to be reading a ton of dialogue. Not only will you be hearing what NPCs have to say, but you'll also be examining objects in each town and house. All three playable characters have something to say about each and every object you can interact with in the game, which is a neat feature. It honestly caught me off-guard when I checked an object with one character and switched to another only to see a different take on the object from them, and it made me excited to see what everyone has to say about everything in the world.
However, Working Designs has a tendency to try to push things in directions that make most uncomfortable. They have a legacy of shoehorning in pop culture references and dirty jokes into their projects, and sadly Magic Knight Rayearth is yet another victim of this. It also does not help that our main cast of characters are all 14 YEARS OLD, which just makes it even creepier when they start bringing this stuff up. Not even the back of the box is safe from this, which refers to the cast as "the teenage threesome". Considering we have information regarding the ages of these characters, you would've hoped that Working Designs had held back a little on their tendencies, but sadly that is not the case.
Throughout my playthrough I made an effort to write down any of the lines from this game that made me either groan deeply or do a double-take due to how egregious they were. I didn't get to experience every line of dialogue in this game, I'm sure, but I did see a good chunk of them. I would like to share some of the standouts here to give the uninitiated an idea of what to expect when playing a game published by Working Designs during the fifth generation of game consoles. I won't be sharing these without context, but I will make sure to not say enough to spoil anything for people who want to go into this game to see what it's like.
Context: One of the girls is flustered and trying to hide it from the others
Girl 1: "Oh? Then why are you blushing?
Girl 2: "!!! I...I am not!!"
Girl 1: "And moist!"
Context: One of the girls hit a boy
Girl: "Just call me Ike. He's my Tina!"
This is a reference to Ike and Tina Turner. Ike was a domestic abuser. Funny line, Working Designs!
Context: One of the girls is examining a book
Girl: "What's this book? 101 Ways to Give an Enema, by Dr. Felch. Hmm..."
Context: One of the girls is examining a chest
Girl: "Why are we wasting time looking in other people's chests? I've got enough hassle just trying to grow my own!"
Context: One of the girls is checking a supply cabinet
Girl: "Look at all these supplies! They've got enough condoms to last for 50 years!"
Those, and many other lines lie within this game. Working Designs' sense of humor certainly persists in their titles, but it's mostly bad. There will be moments that get a chuckle out of you here and there, but a lot of it is like this. This isn't the whole game, either, just to be clear. The stuff relating to the main plot is pretty normal for the most part. They just like to stuff these in there and I really wish they were normal and didn't do that because it's weird, man.
Overall, I didn't hate my time with this game. My grievances with the localization aside, this is a decent game that feels good to play and doesn't overstay its welcome. I won't go out of my way to call it a "hidden gem" because it really doesn't do anything to earn that title. It does nothing to impresses you nor does it do anything unique enough to stand out on its own. It's a by-the-numbers top-down action RPG with three playable characters. The presentation is decent. graphics look good. Music is okay, but not memorable. If you're looking for a game that plays like Zelda that really wants you to know about how much characters want to bake cakes, look no further than Magic Knight Rayearth.
Magic Knight Rayearth is an Action-RPG released for the Sega Saturn at the tail-end of its life. It is often remembered fondly by those who grew up with the title as the last Saturn game to release in the U.S., having released here on December 11th, 1998. However, this title was originally meant to release here much, much earlier.
As is stated in the game's instruction manual, Working Designs had been interested in having the title brought overseas as early as when they first became aware of its existence back in 1995. As soon as they acquired the rights to get a localization done, they began their work on the project, which was easier said than done for them, as a hard disk crash required them to rebuild much of the game's data on their own. Confident in their abilities at the time, they believed that they would have a completed product ready to hit consumer shelves in 1996, with Next Generation Magazine giving a release date of July of that year. In an interview with Video Games: The Ultimate Gaming Magazine, this became "Late summer '96", with Victor Ireland of Working Designs claiming that Magic Knight Rayearth is "...one of the biggest — if not the biggest — conversion projects that Working Designs has ever undertaken."
Over a year would pass from the time of this interview's publication and a future working with SEGA would begin to fade into the distance due to issues that arose at E3. In an interview with Electronic Gaming Monthly, Victor Ireland recounts the events that took place. SEGA had the Working Designs booth placed in a location that received little traffic, causing their showings of games like Albert Odyssey and Magic Knight Rayearth to go mostly unnoticed by attendees. Vic also claimed to have disdain for the then COO of Sega of America, Bernie Stolar, due to how he had relayed to the press much information about their upcoming console, the Dreamcast, while also downplaying the importance of the Saturn. These factors would be what lead to him taking Working Designs in a new direction, working solely with Sony regarding then unannounced projects. They were, however, committed to releasing the games that they had promised the public before these events, including Magic Knight Rayearth.
A little over a year later, the U.S. would finally be given a localization of Magic Knight Rayearth after countless delays, technical issues, and corporate drama. What began as a project they thought they could ship in a year became a demon that took them three years to finally conquer, getting not only the "honor" of being the last Working Designs localized game published for the Saturn, but also of being the last Saturn game to ever release in the United States.
"...this has been, without doubt or question, the
most grueling conversion we have ever attempted." -Working Designs, Magic Knight Rayearth Instruction Manual Page 18
Now, with the history said and done and the game in our hands, let's take a look at the game in question, shall we?
Magic Knight Rayearth plays similar to games like The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Secret of Mana. It's a top-down adventure with a focus on exploration and combat, with a trio of protagonists who each offer their own unique skills. You have Hikaru, who wields fire magic and attacks with a crossing sword slash. I wound up using her for most of my playthrough, if only because I liked the feel of her melee attack the best. Second is Umi, who attacks with a stabbing blade and also wields water magic. I used her the least, if only because I didn't like the feel of her melee attack. The range of the stab did help immensely in some boss encounters, though. Last, but most certainly not least, is Fuu, who attacks using a bow and wields wind magic.
We need to talk about Fuu. So, having a bow immediately removes the range limitations of a melee attack like those of Hikaru and Umi. Not only can she shoot an arrow across the screen, she can also do it rapidly, ensuring an endless onslaught of arrows on her enemies. Each member of the party also has a special version of their melee move that they can perform by charging up their weapon by holding the attack button. Hikaru's and Umi's charge moves simply increase the range of their melee attack. What does Fuu's charge move do, then? Well, it only shoots out multiple arrows that also HOME IN ON ANY ENEMIES AND BOSSES ON SCREEN! Also, as the party travels through the adventure, their weapons level up and get stronger. When this happens, their special moves get more powerful. What does this mean for Fuu? It means she shoots EVEN MORE HOMING ARROWS!
This is only half of her kit, by the way. I haven't even begun to talk about how magic works. So, Hikaru and Umi's magic allows them to do things like send water or fire attacks in specific directions or perform moves that hit all enemies on screen with powerful magic. Neat, but not something you'll be using constantly. Outside of the occasional puzzle room that requires them, you're probably not gonna use their magic much.
As for Fuu's magic, however, we have a different story. She gets a move where she uses wind to attack enemies and do some extremely light puzzle-solving as well as a shield that protects the party from damage but comes at a huge MP cost. Her other spell? Oh, that one just heals the entire party for only 3 MP! It's also the first spell she gets, making her magic immediately the most useful of the trio.
I mentioned that I played as Hikaru the most during my adventure. That's because Fuu is WAY too strong for her own good. Her range and ability are unmatched and tears the game balance in half. If you're looking for an easy time, just set yourself to Fuu whenever you don't have to be someone else and delete every enemy in your path!
Honestly even when Fuu isn't clearing out foes the game is pretty easy. Despite Working Designs' attempts to make the game artificially harder by boosting the speed and damage of enemies and bosses (As shown on The Cutting Room Floor), Magic Knight Rayearth is a breeze to complete. With three characters to play as, you also get three separate health bars and magic meters, meaning you can use magic attacks with one character and wail away at enemies, and then switch to another when they're in danger of going down. Then, of course, you have Fuu who can use magic to heal everyone up when everyone's low on health and the cycle starts anew. Also scattered throughout the world are health and magic upgrades that allow you to take more hits and use more spells. Each time you find one, you get to choose who gets it, making it become more of a personal choice as to who gets stronger. I gave all the health upgrades to Hikaru and all the magic upgrades to Fuu (Sorry Umi!), but if I were to go through this game again for any reason, I'd probably give all upgrades to Fuu for reasons already mentioned by now.
Along with your magic abilities, you'll also be given traversal abilities throughout the adventure. Sadly, these aren't very interesting at all. One is the ability to swim, which requires you to mash the attack button whenever you're in water, which is very annoying. The other two you get are basically the Pegasus Boots from Link to the Past split into two parts. You'll get the ability to break objects by dashing into them first, and then after that you'll get the ability to actually hit a button to dash.
You see, in this game, you can build up speed by moving in a straight line. Deviate from straightness for a single moment and you'll have to rebuild speed all over again. In the Settings menu, you can customize your controls, which shows that there is a button to dash. I kept hitting it throughout a good chunk of my playthrough and kept getting confused by it. Was I doing something wrong? Is my controller broken? I wound up looking it up online and found other confused players. Once I actually got the dash ability, I was relieved, but also upset since I was left confused about that button for so long.
Outside of combat, you'll be exploring the world of Cefiro, chatting with NPCs, examining random objects, and finding Rainbow Amulets. Let's talk about Rainbow Amulets first. These are scattered all over the world, and the game encourages you to find them all. In dungeons, they'll be locked away in chests. In towns, they'll either be given to you by NPCs, or they'll be hidden in random objects in the area. If you keep vigilant about seeking them out, you'll most likely be able to find most of them without need of a guide. These are used in the Rainbow Junction Shop, which isn't really a shop. You just need to have a certain number of complete sets in order to obtain the items there. These include practical items, such as an item that lets you regain MP by standing still, and also joke items such as noisy slippers and a mysterious journal. You won't need any of these items to beat the game, but it does give you something to keep an eye out for that makes exploring the world a bit more interesting.
Magic Knight Rayearth, being based on a manga/anime, has a lot going on in terms of dialogue and cutscenes. This game has many Full-Motion Video cutscenes to view, with some being from the anime and some being original to the game. I haven't gotten a chance to check out the manga or anime for this series, so this game definitely did a good job of making me more interested in them. According to The Cutting Room Floor (TCRF for short), the FMVs for this game were re-encoded for the US release, leading to them having worse video quality than the original Japanese release, which is a shame. You may want to consider an "Undub" mod for this game if you wish to experience this game with the cutscenes as they were presented in the original release.
Speaking of the dub, it's...okay? There are some moments where it can be hard to make out what a character is saying in a FMV cutscene where there are no subtitles and sometimes the delivery of lines can be flat, but overall, I'm not offended by the dub provided here. I feel like the voice actors did an okay job for the most part. There also isn't a whole lot of dubbing in the game outside of the FMVs. In the instruction manual, Working Designs mentions that in the original release of the game, more NPCs had voiced dialogue. They claim that testing allegedly lead to players having issues with this, as it allegedly "slowed down the flow of the game". To fix this, they had this dialogue removed, swapping it for a diary mode. This diary is updated as story events happen in the game, with each of the main trio updating their own personal diary with their observations and events that occur in the plot. Each entry is also fully voiced by each girl, allowing the player to get a better feel of each character's unique personality.
Working Designs claimed that this diary feature became possible due to the expanded CD space they were able to have after taking out the undubbed Japanese dialogue. However, according to TCRF, this unused dialogue is still on the U.S. version's disc, meaning that that's a complete lie.
Personally, I don't mind the inclusion of the diary. I think it's cute and does a good job of giving the player a deeper understanding of each character. However, I wouldn't miss it if it meant we could have the NPC dialogue dubbed, because there are a good number of important NPCs in this game that could benefit from having more or any voiced dialogue. I feel that by sacrificing that for this diary feature, we lost the opportunity to have stronger connections with these characters that we meet and interact with. Also, this idea that voiced NPC dialogue slows down the game can be remedied by allowing players to skip voiced dialogue. You can skip FMVs in this version. You couldn't do that in the JP release. Why not give the player the ability to skip dialogue that's voiced? For some reason, they don't let you do that here, which makes the intro of the game slower if you're doing a repeat playthrough. Maybe it's some weird pride they take in their dubs? I don't know and I'm not about to call Vic and ask.
Working Designs also mentions in the manual how they did their best to reduce slowdown that was present in the original release and apologize for the amount of slowdown present in the town of Rozen as they could not find a way to fix it. What they fail to mention here is the effects of this slowdown. When the framerate of a game gets low, it begins to affect how well a game reads your inputs. For example, pressing a button in a game running at 20 frames per second (fps) will produce results less reliably than a game running at 60 fps. Ever wonder why you fall into a pit in a platformer even though you swear you hit jump at the right time? It could be because the input latency caused by the framerate being low caused your input to not be registered. So, when you're in Rozen, surrounded by tons of NPCs that are tanking the framerate, your inputs are now registering rarely at best, meaning that after enough effort, you may be able to see what an NPC has to say, and after some more effort, you may be able to escape that conversation. This isn't limited to just Rozen, by the way. In some later dungeons, there are enemies that can cause the framerate to dip, causing your attack inputs to fail, leading to you taking unnecessary damage. Is it a deal-breaker for the entire game? No, not really. Is it really annoying? Yes, absolutely.
Okay, I've dodged it for long enough. Let's talk about what they did with this game's script.
"Forgive us, we tried." -Working Designs, Magic Knight Rayearth Instruction Manual Page 18
So, with this being an Action RPG, you're going to be reading a ton of dialogue. Not only will you be hearing what NPCs have to say, but you'll also be examining objects in each town and house. All three playable characters have something to say about each and every object you can interact with in the game, which is a neat feature. It honestly caught me off-guard when I checked an object with one character and switched to another only to see a different take on the object from them, and it made me excited to see what everyone has to say about everything in the world.
However, Working Designs has a tendency to try to push things in directions that make most uncomfortable. They have a legacy of shoehorning in pop culture references and dirty jokes into their projects, and sadly Magic Knight Rayearth is yet another victim of this. It also does not help that our main cast of characters are all 14 YEARS OLD, which just makes it even creepier when they start bringing this stuff up. Not even the back of the box is safe from this, which refers to the cast as "the teenage threesome". Considering we have information regarding the ages of these characters, you would've hoped that Working Designs had held back a little on their tendencies, but sadly that is not the case.
Throughout my playthrough I made an effort to write down any of the lines from this game that made me either groan deeply or do a double-take due to how egregious they were. I didn't get to experience every line of dialogue in this game, I'm sure, but I did see a good chunk of them. I would like to share some of the standouts here to give the uninitiated an idea of what to expect when playing a game published by Working Designs during the fifth generation of game consoles. I won't be sharing these without context, but I will make sure to not say enough to spoil anything for people who want to go into this game to see what it's like.
Context: One of the girls is flustered and trying to hide it from the others
Girl 1: "Oh? Then why are you blushing?
Girl 2: "!!! I...I am not!!"
Girl 1: "And moist!"
Context: One of the girls hit a boy
Girl: "Just call me Ike. He's my Tina!"
This is a reference to Ike and Tina Turner. Ike was a domestic abuser. Funny line, Working Designs!
Context: One of the girls is examining a book
Girl: "What's this book? 101 Ways to Give an Enema, by Dr. Felch. Hmm..."
Context: One of the girls is examining a chest
Girl: "Why are we wasting time looking in other people's chests? I've got enough hassle just trying to grow my own!"
Context: One of the girls is checking a supply cabinet
Girl: "Look at all these supplies! They've got enough condoms to last for 50 years!"
Those, and many other lines lie within this game. Working Designs' sense of humor certainly persists in their titles, but it's mostly bad. There will be moments that get a chuckle out of you here and there, but a lot of it is like this. This isn't the whole game, either, just to be clear. The stuff relating to the main plot is pretty normal for the most part. They just like to stuff these in there and I really wish they were normal and didn't do that because it's weird, man.
Overall, I didn't hate my time with this game. My grievances with the localization aside, this is a decent game that feels good to play and doesn't overstay its welcome. I won't go out of my way to call it a "hidden gem" because it really doesn't do anything to earn that title. It does nothing to impresses you nor does it do anything unique enough to stand out on its own. It's a by-the-numbers top-down action RPG with three playable characters. The presentation is decent. graphics look good. Music is okay, but not memorable. If you're looking for a game that plays like Zelda that really wants you to know about how much characters want to bake cakes, look no further than Magic Knight Rayearth.
Wonderfully 90's in the good way. Very much plays like a weaker Zelda so the gameplay ain't much to write home about, but this game has a ton of charm. Really enjoyed reading each character's (voiced-over) diary entries over the course of the game, and each girl having their own separate dialogue for interacting with simple objects such as pots, kitchens, books, etc. added a nice touch that made the party more enjoyable. Very cute, cozy, and goofy game with some great music.
Whoever did the flavor text lines for Umi needed a cold shower, though.
Whoever did the flavor text lines for Umi needed a cold shower, though.
one of the coziest games I have ever played. so simple and enjoyable. I honestly loved the localization too
Badass interactive experience for the Sega entertainment system. I know know how to toss salad with the best of them
If you plan on playing this or any other game published by
Working Designs please do yourself a favor and check if there's an Un-Working Designs patch for said game you're looking for. Working Designs is notorious for increasing in game difficulty to a frustrating degree. Enemies do more damage, items cost more in shops, increased enemy stats, etc. With these patches the frustration and
tedium is mostly gone as they revert the difficulty back to the original Japanese releases. You still have to put up with their shitty ass scripts which added awkward sex jokes, slurs and
references, like Bill Clinton in Lunar and Bob Vila in Magic Knight Rayearth. Suffice to say I'm glad Working Designs is gone. #ripbozo #packwatch rest in piss
The actual game here is a fun little 2D Zelda like. Sprites are cute and the soundtrack goes kinda hard??? Platforming can be a bit awkward at times and maybe I'm just dumb but I found myself getting lost a few times. It also becomes a shmup for a bit at the end.
Working Designs please do yourself a favor and check if there's an Un-Working Designs patch for said game you're looking for. Working Designs is notorious for increasing in game difficulty to a frustrating degree. Enemies do more damage, items cost more in shops, increased enemy stats, etc. With these patches the frustration and
tedium is mostly gone as they revert the difficulty back to the original Japanese releases. You still have to put up with their shitty ass scripts which added awkward sex jokes, slurs and
references, like Bill Clinton in Lunar and Bob Vila in Magic Knight Rayearth. Suffice to say I'm glad Working Designs is gone. #ripbozo #packwatch rest in piss
The actual game here is a fun little 2D Zelda like. Sprites are cute and the soundtrack goes kinda hard??? Platforming can be a bit awkward at times and maybe I'm just dumb but I found myself getting lost a few times. It also becomes a shmup for a bit at the end.