Another game for RPG Night, this one took me a few weeks, mostly cause I was busy. It's not too long, and wasn't too bad of a mastery tbh. This is the final game released for the Saturn here in the west, because Working Designs took too damn long. It's based on Magic Knight Rayearth, a popular Clamp anime, which is apparently getting a remake, which means THIS GAME IS RELEVANT AGAIN! I'm timely for once!
I've not watched MNR before, though this game is basically the entirety of the first half of the story. You are three girls who are dragged from Tokyo Tower to the magical land of Cefiro, as the Magical Knights, and you're here to save Princess Emerald, who is being held by the evil Zagato, or Zagat as he's called here. Zagat was once a priest of Emerald, who betrayed her and sealed her away, and now the land is falling apart, because without her it can't be stable. You've got the three characters, Hikari, the himbo. Fuu, the shy bookworm. And Umi, the hot headed rude one, who is the one the translators got to say mean things a lot.
Yeah so this was translated by Working Designs. If you don't know them, they're infamous for translating things and doing two things. 1) Adding a lot of... timely jokes, which do nothing and really distract and are annoying and NOT fitting in any conceivable way. For example, that fucking Joy of Sex reference up there, what the shit. This game is LITTERED with these. Umi calls a villain a skank. There's a Greedo Shoots First joke of all mother fucking things, and I think that had JUST became relevant. And then 2) deciding the game is "too easy" and fucking up the game balance by just giving everything a million health. Thankfully there's a brand of hack called "Un-Working Designs" patches which remove these edits. Unfortunately, can't just redo the entire translation, that's too much work.
So what does the game play like? It's an action RPG! Think Zelda or something of the sort. You run through the anime's first season with your three characters, who each have their own magic abilities and weapon types. Hikari uses a wide sword. Umi uses a rapier. And Fuu uses a bow which is really nice but deals a LOT less damage. There's health and magic upgrades, and lots of story and plot too. They even show some anime scenes for important scenes, in all their bitcrushed FMV glory.
A lot of the areas in this game have big Anime Filler Arc energy in a good way tbh. This game adds a lot of new characters that weren't in the anime, and it really really feels Filler Arc. Oh also speaking of that, it also changes the story a lot apparently? Lots of characters die in this that don't actually die in the anime? That's wild. I didn't even notice, they were handled well here.
The set itself was pretty good. The boss fights had challenges, but thankfully none were damageless. I'd fucking hate that. Instead it was heal-less, which is WAY more forgiving and pleasant. Over all, I didn't think this was my new favorite Saturn game or anything, but it was totally worth a play. I'm feelin' about a 7.5/10, though I could hear an 8/10 easily.
