*explaining via analogy to Moon Remix RPG Adventure* OK, so, Madou Monogatari 1-2-3 is the "fake Moon"… and Puyo Puyo… is the "even faker somehow Moon"…
*you open the door and encounter me* So Madou Monogatari 2 for MSX is like the original Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radioplay, in that the medium and conditions of its creation explain everything about it, but people only ever play adaptations of it that *you close the door*
It's kind of funny that Madou Monogatari 1 was mainly created just as setup for the "main" story of Madou Monogatari, and yet it and it alone got four remakes and a spinoff.
Which retro game fact is more fricked up: that Touhou 2 was released on the same day as Touhou 1, or that Madou Monogatari 2 is actually the first game and Madou Monogatari 1 is a prequel
Puyo Puyo 1 only having one rotate button is actually meant to represent the effects of the cursed tile in Madou Monogatari I that prevents you from turning to the right. Send tweet.
Mind still inundated with the Madou Monogatari 1-2-3 monster roster getting square-pegged into a competitive game roster… what a world… what outrageous fortune…
Arle and Ocarina of Time Link might be the two fantasy videogame characters who have distinct Child and Adult forms of roughly equal popularity.
By the way…… I kind of want a word with who apportioned the enemy roster in this game…… I just wanna know why the Draco Centaurus enemy, the third-strongest enemy mob in the game, was put in stage 1, while the entry-level Witch from the same game gets stage 8.
I think it's a little cute that the 5-chain sound is "BAYOEN!" because Bayoen is a spell for "deeply moving the opponent's heart", which fits into my idea of puzzle game chains as attacks of beauty (compare danmaku), even though that spell is kind of low tier in the actual game.
The Diacute spell as an alternative to high-level Fire and Ice spells suddenly makes brilliant sense, too: by simply making the strength of your spells based on how much mana you can spend on Diacute, it scales perfectly across the early, mid and lategame of both 2 and 3.
The dungeon in 1 is a tower, and near the end you learn Warp, which teleports you up a level. Then, all the dungeons in 2 and 3 are descending caverns. The spell remains the same, but its meaning changes entirely – a design that's only evident when all 3 games are together.
You may recall I played two different remakes of 1, and the real version is so different… the whole point of this story is that Arle learns every spell at this magic school, and that's it. Those are the only spells you have in each of the next two games, from start to end.
1 and 2 are on single floppies, and 3 is on two. Each floppy has a 6-floor dungeon (or two with a 1-5) that you can beat in about 4 hours. That's all! Just three concise, cozy games that barely feel old.
Madou Monogatari 1-2-3 for the MSX… might actually be the best version. All three of them are really breezy and light… the puzzles are gentle, the encounter rate is surprisingly tame, and there's a few handfuls of genuinely good jokes in them.
It's also really funny, once you play Madou Monogatari 1-2-3 for the MSX, which is such a modest, humble game, very much like For The Frog The Bell Tolls, to think of these characters and this enemy roster becoming a competitive game brand.
I find it very amusing that Madou Monogatari got a modest first game in 1990, introduced a bunch of characters, and then, a mere one year later: Puyo Puyo 1. No messing around, just straight to destiny.
Line delivery of the century.