KING RAT'S GAMER PAD

KING RAT'S MADOU PAGE

...Or, more accurately, Areiado!

The Puyo Puyo series is moderately popular in the US, though I'm not sure how many are aware it's a spinoff. Madou Monogatari, translating to Sorcery Story but more commonly referred to (by my friends and me) as just Madou, is a series of dungeon-crawling games produced by the company Compile. Almost all of the Compile-era Puyo characters come from this series, with a few exceptions (one being Lagnus the Brave, who first appeared in Puyo Puyo Sun). While SEGA now owns the rights to Arle and the other Compile characters, Compile still owns the rights to Madou Monogatari. I personally consider the series dead if only because I can't imagine it being the same thing without Arle and co.

Madou Monogatari 1-2-3, the first entry in the series, was ported a handful of times to various different systems. The three 'major' ports are the original MSX version, the PC-98 version, and the Game Gear version. I consider the PC-98 version to be the most interesting, mostly because of its more realistic artstyle and less kid-friendly approach. For instance, PC-98 Schezo is straight up beheaded by Arle, only for his head to be the phase 2 of his boss. Madou 2's Game Gear port is interesting, too—Schezo appears as a semi-random encounter, with the final time you see him being when you meet Satan. You're forced to choose one or the other, and if you don't, they team up to kill you. This is interesting to me only because Schezo and Satan don't seem to get along in any game (in fact, Schezo was probably looking to confront Satan himself before you found him), so it's like the only time they cooperate.

Madou Monogatari: ARS is also interesting to me because you get an actual backstory for Schezo, Rulue, and even the source of Arle's power. It doesn't appear to have been translated to English, but Arle's two 'spells' at the beginning of the game are just throwing cold and hot water at the enemy. Considering Schezo's immortality, it's my personal headcanon that English (or Japanese depending on the language you play the game in LOL) isn't anywhere near Schezo's first language, and that's why he ends up saying so many accidentally perverted things. Rulue's story is also very entertaining to me, considering that she basically knocks someone out cold and then the next theme that plays is called 'The Elegant and Graceful Rurue~'.

Unfortunately, all the games I want to play haven't been translated yet, but I did play the Game Gear port of Madou 1. There's a GameFAQs walkthrough for the port somewhere, but it's a bit difficult to read and I've been tempted to make my own. The PC-98 port seems to be in the process of being translated by someone, which has me really excited! But I'm not sure if Madou ARS is going to be translated any time soon. There's also the SEGA Saturn game (just titled Madou Monogatari), which is the last Madou game before Compile gave SEGA the rights to the characters—I'm not sure if that one was translated or not, but I think I saw the entire script for it at some point. If you're interested in playing Madou 1-2-3, I believe all three of the Game Gear games have been translated.