Magic Knight Rayearth
Sega Saturn
Developer: Sega AM7 R&D
Publisher: Working Designs
Rated: T for Teen
Released: 1998
Completed: 07 February 2016
I'm not sure any console has a higher ratio of good but rare games than the Sega Saturn. As the last game released for Sega's penultimate system in North America, Magic Knight Rayearth is understandably in demand, but it's also a fitting swan song for a system that never got the love it deserved.
Based on a Japanese manga and anime, Rayearth tells the story of three high school students who have been whisked away to the magical kingdom of Cephiro to fulfill their destinies and take the mantle of the legendary Magic Knights. Only they can save the mystical world from falling into darkness at the hands of the evil Zagat, who has kidnapped Princess Emerald, and presumably will ruin the world by giving bad restaurants good reviews to poison its people. OK, so I made that last bit up, but the rest is true.
By the time it was released in the US, Magic Knight Rayearth was already several years old in Japan, but that doesn't stop it from being another in the long line of excellent Saturn games most people have never played. Though the packaging prominently proclaims it an action RPG, the game has far more in common with The Legend of Zelda, or the PlayStation gem Alundra, than Final Fantasy.
You control all three girls at once and can switch between them on the fly to take advantage of their unique abilities. Hikaru uses fire magic, Umi water magic, and Fuu wind magic, but there are only a total of nine spells (three for each) in the game and some of them are used more to solve puzzles than to combat monsters. Hikaru and Umi both wield bladed weapons, while Fuu uses a bow and arrow whose charged shot homes in on enemies. Coupled with her healing magic, Fuu is arguably the most important of the three girls, and will likely be the recipient of the majority of stat boosting items you find throughout the game.
Unlike traditional RPGs, the Magic Knights don't level up by defeating monsters. At specific points in the story, their power will automatically increase, granting them longer life bars, more magic power, and stronger weapons. You'll also find heart and magic gems that will increase each respective bar by 1 point. Combat is a single-button affair, with the only real strategy found in deciding which girl to use. Out of reach enemies are easily defeated by a few shots from Fuu's charged bow, but close encounters are often better handled by Umi's charged rapier, which does tremendous damage and has a long reach of its own. You can use your spells to damage enemies, but apart from the game's bosses, there's little reason to - and even most of the bosses are absolute pushovers.
Rayearth is an extremely easy game. It's rather linear, taking you through its locations as simply the next stop in your journey to save Cephiro. You can technically revisit them, but there's almost no reason to unless you want find all of the hidden amulets that can be used to buy special rare items or outtakes of the game's voice actors recording their dialogue. This brings us to the only real gripe I had with the game - its terrible map system.
In order to reach new locations, you exit your current one from a specific direction. The game then loads the map screen, automatically moves your party to the next stop, then loads that locale. The loading time is a little long, though bearable, but the major issue is that you cannot freely select your destination on the map. You can only go in the direction the game wants you to based on where you exited the previous screen. This means you have to memorize where each exit takes you to should you want or need to revisit a particular place, and sometimes you'll have to pass through several towns just to figure out the correct path. Backtracking is kept to a minimum, but if you're really desperate to find those amulets, some of which are hidden in nigh impossible to guess places, the load times can suddenly seem unbearable as you switch from place to place and hope you remembered the right order to get where you wanted to go.
That's a pretty small nitpick in the face of all the enjoyment the game provides. It may rely on simple mechanics, but Rayearth really is a joy to play from start to finish. The dungeons are fun to explore, platforming is handled remarkably well for a top-down action game, and the localization has all the usual Working Designs wit and charm. There's some pretty strong innuendo here, including a reference to tossing salad, and there's even another shot at Scientology, which seemed to be a favorite target for the publisher, but it's a great and highly entertaining translation. The story even has a few nice twists thrown in.
Graphically, Rayearth isn't going to blow you away, but that's not to say it's unattractive. Colors are very vibrant and the pseudo-3D look of the sprites looks nice. Each town and dungeon has its own distinct feel. There is some slowdown when there are a lot of effects on screen, but overall the presentation is solid, if unspectacular.
The in-game visuals are complimented by some nice anime cutscenes. There are compression artifacts thanks to the limits of CD-ROM technology, but they still look very decent and there's a fair amount to watch.
The audio is the real star of the show here. Much of the game has voice-acting, which isn't half bad for a 90's action-RPG, but the music is universally fantastic.
I was absolutely shocked by how much I ended up loving Magic Knight Rayearth. Knowing nothing about the anime going in, other than that it existed, I didn't know what to expect from a Japanese game starring three fourteen-year-old girls. It turns out, they're pretty kickass heroines in a solid action-adventure-RPG hybrid. It may not appeal to everyone, but I was pleasantly surprised and I had a pretty hard time putting it down.
Magic Knight Rayearth was completed on a real Sega Saturn with no cheats.
Comments