Magic of Scheherazade

[Discoalucard]

www.hardcoregaming101.net/scheherazade/scheherazade.htm

Brought to you by HG101's very own Malroth! I've never played this one actually, but it sounds pretty interesting, as far as NES cult classics go.

[kyouki]

I had this back when I was a kid, and have very fond memories of having my friends over and trying to figure this game out.

Culture Brain was an awesome company. They were always trying new stuff in their games, and their magazine ads in the US were fantastic!

They are still around apparently, though their website is awful and has basically no information on it other than some strategies for a couple of DS games.

[cj iwakura]

This looks very similar to Startropics.

[TheGunheart]

Aug 19, 2008 21:11:19 GMT -5 cj iwakura said:

This looks very similar to Startropics.

I've played it. While there's some similarity in controls, it feels a lot different.

Anyway, it's a fantastic game. I love how the NES was a breeding ground for some truly crazy ideas.

[King Frost]

Glad Malroth took the time to write this entry. I like this game quite a lot and it's a gem for the NES that I should have never sold back in the day. Many concepts from Chrono Trigger come directly from this game, it's definitely a game that was ahead of its time. I fully agree with the opinions of Malroth in the article.

I tried to play the Japanese version as it is really different from the American one as described. I didn't get far, I don't understand what is being said at all and the game is different enough so what I know about the American version can't be used for the Japan one. The Japanese version seemed a lot harder than the American one, which is a pretty easy ride for a NES game. However, the Japanese released seemed more balanced. For example, Coronya is actually a useful party members in turn based fights, it's not trivial to run away from these fights like the NA version, you don't get the rod at first, so you can simply plow your way through the game as a Magician, etc...

[Malroth]

I really would have liked to flesh out the Japanese differences more, but it's incredibly difficult to navigate the game, if only because of the controls. It took me close to five minutes to figure out how to equip my sword, of all things.

And Frost is right, Coronya is more useful. I remember reading on the gamefaqs boards that the characters essentially look at the main character, and then have their stats reduced by a certain percentage. I left that out of the article since it seemed a little to statistical.

Glad to see everyone's enjoyed the article thus far!

[ReyVGM]

There's a bunch of Scheherazade cameos in Super Ninja Boy, here are a lot of pics if you wish to mention them:
www.flyingomelette.com/mos/oddities.html#alt

[Malroth]

Yeah, I was considering mentioning them but I didn't want it to seem like I was ripping off that guy's work. I'm planning on doing a Super Chinese article at some point, so I'll grab my own screenshots of the cameo's then.

Thanks for mentioning!

[ReyVGM]

Girl, actually
She doesn't mind as long as you give her credit for it.

[Malroth]

Alright then. I'll contact her later and ask first. Don't wanna step on any toes, after all.

[Malroth]

Sorry to double post, but there are some errors that need to be corrected.

All instances of "Isfa" should be changed to hero. I thought I had done that before I submitted the article, but I was wrong.

There are some grammatical errors as well:

" "Secret" is a term used loosely, however, as Coronya immediately will immediately notify you that a staircase is hidden somewhere."

Should be,

" "Secret" is a term used loosely, however, as Coronya will immediately notify you that a staircase is hidden somewhere."

"Mosques in town also give Isfa the change to change his class for a fee."

Should be,

"Mosques in town also give the hero the chance to change his class for a fee."

"It's also necessary to become the saint class a certain points in the game to progress the story"

Should be,

"It's also necessary to become the saint class at certain points in the game to progress the story."

Also,

"Chances are most players will be too focused on not getting killed by the monster, but it's unusual for such a bad song to appear when the rest of the score is excellent"

Should be,

"Chances are most players will be too focused on not getting killed by the monster to notice, but it's unusual for such a bad song to appear when the rest of the score is excellent"

*smirks* I'll do a better job of editing next article.

[derboo]

It may be a bit small for the article, but this place has a scan of the japanese box:

www.japangamestock.com/buy_video_games.php?products_id=9415

[onoff456]

I really liked this article. It's very well structured and the pictures are really nice and complimentary (as always). I specially like the tone. You can tell the author tried to be as neutral as possible (while still telling why he liked this game so much). I liked the part about the classes. It made me wonder about the other classes I didn't get to play.

I remember this game being overlooked by pretty much by everyone when it came out. I think the game's title hurts it a little bit. Makes it easy to dismiss but it surprises you when you try it.

[zentradialert]

A bit of a necrobump, but I’m curious about who “Kume” really was. At this point I’m pretty sure it’s Akinori Sawa. Several sources (including VGMPF) list him as the Magic of Scheherezade composer, and I swear I hear his style coming through in several of the game’s songs. I suppose it’s possible that “Kume” simply used the same sound driver that Akinori used, creating a superficial similarity, that seems less likely to me. Kume has commonly been credited as the game's composer for a long time, but I’ve never once seen a reference article of any sort confirming his/her existence. I get that some companies obscured employee credits to discourage headhunting, but we’re talking about someone with a second life as a concert pianist here. Given that Akinori Sawa lists “pianist” and classical orchestration as skills on his LinkedIn page, I’m again wondering if they aren’t the same person.

The other composer who should get partial credit for this game, I think, would be Shunichi Mikame. He worked on the original 1987 Japanese version of this game. Although it largely had a different soundtrack, and while most of his songs for it were purportedly rejected by the company, three of his songs did end up in the final game—and at least one song (the shop music) was carried over to the U.S. version in a slightly remixed/transposed fashion. Just something that came to me recently, if anyone’s interested.