[Coda]

This is one I had heard about as a kid (mostly thanks to the Game Genie code book) but never actually saw anywhere I could actually play it, and it never really got any coverage in anything I had read, so all I really knew was the name. When I was reminded of its existence, I decided to look it up and give it a try

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Game: The Magic of Scheherezade
Developer: Culture Brain
Platform: NES
Year: 1987 (Japan), 1989 (US)

I didn't quite know what to expect from this game going in, but I was pleasantly surprised.

Right off the bat, the graphics look really good for 1987, and they still hold their own in 1989. The music is well done. The sound effects aren't bad. The play control in the overworld is pretty good, although there are still some rough edges, especially around collision handling. And the subject matter is honestly something that doesn't get a whole lot of attention outside of the story of Aladdin.

And it's got time travel that's surprisingly well written! The translation is better than most games of its era. Still a few issues, especially when it comes to names. A proper translation would have required fluency in not just English and Japanese but also Arabic, with a familiarity with fiction from the Middle East. But it still does a pretty good job. (And no, "mashroob" isn't a mistranslation; that's actually a real thing.) And I have to wonder if some translation choices were actually to intentionally distance it from the source material -- "Alalart" for example is probably a mistranslation of "Ararat", but it makes sense to choose a unique name in the context of the game.

And the solar eclipse mechanic is interesting. It's not super deep, but it's novel, and it's worth paying attention to.

Sadly, it isn't without its flaws. The game balance is really inconsistent. It has a level-up mechanic that gives you more health, magic, and attack power. It TRIES to keep things balanced out by automatically advancing you to the maximum level for the area when you complete it, so you always start each chapter at a predictable level. But there are just some choices that matter way more than others. There's basically no reason to play a sage except for the one small period where you're forced to. Magic user is almost universally an inferior choice to fighter. And this means you can basically ignore most of the weapons in the game. And some of the "great" magic is basically useless. I never cast Raincom or Libcom. (Libcom isn't COMPLETELY useless, but revive magic isn't very helpful if you make sure your party stays alive.)

And then there's a weird turn-based RPG battle system that triggers on screen transitions, mostly randomly although there are a few places where they're scripted. After playing a Zelda-style action-RPG, getting thrown into a Dragon Quest-style menu-based RPG is weird. There's some interesting complexity to the battle system. You collect party members through the course of the game, and you learn formation tactics that let you counter certain enemy groups with massive attacks that have special effects. But it's almost universally better to just avoid the fights if at all possible. Since it's not action-based there's really no amount of skill that will let you get through the fights without losing a fair chunk of HP and magic, and while you do get increased rewards from the fights, you could just grind in the overworld a little to get most of the same for less risk and spend less time doing it.

But ultimately, I think the game's weaknesses are just polish issues. It's otherwise a great game that I solidly recommend -- generally fun to play, a good story, some fun humor in the dialogue, and characters with personality. It's limited by the technology of its time and it's a little rough around the edges, but it's not hard to see the game it could be.