So it's been only three days since I last made a post and already I finished a game. Technically, two days were spent on The Magic of Scheherazade; this game is an NES game that has a password system (no saving) and Legend of Zelda-style movement. And yet aside from action RPG combat, they also went ahead and gave us Dragon Quest-style turn-based stuff too. Along with jobs that impact stats like Final Fantasy 3, time travel like Chrono Trigger and many others, a weird solar eclipse that comes by which reminded me of Castlevania 2's day/night system, different tools and magic to use like many other action RPGs. All of this, Culture Brain, somehow you managed to do all of these before the more famous ones did, and yet you get barely even a mention even among other RPG gurus!
So yeah, The Magic of Scheherazade is a game I recommend everyone to look at at least once. It's got that "little of everything" spice to it which means it doesn't actually hit a stride anywhere, but it provides consistent enjoyment. At least, when it's enjoyable. Money isn't a problem usually. Experience is usually not a problem. Filling up HP and MP with the items is unorthodox and took me a while to figure out. Some enemies just spawn in annoying places. Some spells are overpowering like the "change forms" spell, both me and some of the opposing bosses can utilize this and it reminded me of Duke Nukem 3D's shrink ray in that it renders the target helpless and easily killable. For the bosses that had this change form spell, I really just had to spam magic at them, and for the record, the Magician class is the most recommended class, but others are necessary for certain plot-related things.
The two things I personally didn't like are the lack of a save system (obviously) and the turn-based battles. While it seemed innovative at the time to incorporate random turn-based battles upon screen transitions and such, it lends itself to a number of problems. First, fighting alone is totally not recommended, you die much easier that way. Second the magic your main character has isn't enough compared to what they can use on the field, your allies can use some of this though which doesn't make sense. Oh yeah, the allies? What the heck are their stats supposed to increase, when I increase? I guess that makes some sense. Often times I had to rely on them, some interesting formation attacks, or the recruitable troopers to get by some of these surprisingly tough turn-based battles. And then I said screw it. I would escape these things. Because ultimately the biggest issue with turn-based battles is that they are a total pace-killer. You gain experience much faster and easier in the action RPG battles, and while I appreciate using strategy in turn-based battles, it's also how these battles are shown up, enemies already in a formation where they TOO can use a group attack to soften up or straight up instakill in the case of the Mondiburn spell, and the recipes for frustration are more than enough for me to just escape or use loads of troopers to get through them.
Still, the fact I beat the game in two days shows just how dedicated I am to the fabric of this kind of stuff. And this really is the last game for my summer break, the rest will be much slower to come by.
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