REP_PLUS_^-^ PROUDLY PRESENTS,
TEH
Magic Knight Rayearth (J release from another place than in my previous thread;
propably in the better quality)
Front cover
Developer
Sega
Genre
Action RPG
Some info- part 1
Great 2d game in any way ( and with wonderful story similar to the anime series ).
Some info about very bad USA release and Working Designs
EXTRA LIVES: MAGIC KNIGHT RAYEARTH
[That's not how the title should look OH MY GOD I HATE WORKING DESIGNS SO SO MUCH] Magic Knight Rayearth for the Sega Saturn is the most notorious anime-based game released in North America. It started innocently enough: created in 1995 by some of Sega's A-list talent (including Phantasy Star's Rieko “Phoenix Rie” Kodama), the Japanese edition of Rayearth impressed many with its polished visuals and lightweight, importer-friendly gameplay. It also summed up the first season of the cheaply made Magic Knight Rayearth TV series by recreating the tale of schoolgirls Hikaru, Umi, and Fuu being summoned to a land of fantasy and wish fulfillment. But that's not why Rayearth is notorious.
No, Rayearth is notorious because of its long, troubled journey to the States. It was quickly licensed and slated for a 1996 launch by Working Designs, the U.S. publisher of countless '90s Japanese action games and RPGs, including the fan-favorite Lunar series. There's a long and nerdy debate to be had over whether Working Designs was a savior or an abusive stepfather to deprived fans of Japanese games, but the company was certaintly known for liberal-minded translations and long production delays. Rayearth would we remembered by Working Designs as “the most grueling conversion we have ever attempted.”
[This video is also grainy and IT'S ALL VICTOR IRELAND'S FAULT.] For starters, a hard-drive crash at Sega wiped out some of the game's source code, leaving the programmers to rebuild it from scratch. Next, Sega unveiled a big, stupid plan to launch the Rayearth anime in the U.S., complete with awful new names for the characters, and Working Designs refused to cooperate. Perhaps the biggest obstacle emerged at the 1997 Electronic Entertainment Expo, where Sega gave Working Designs paltry booth space and openly proclaimed the death of the Sega Saturn. In response, Victor Ireland, the irascible emperor of Working Designs, cut ties with Sega and turned to the PlayStation, going so far as to cancel a translated Saturn version of the first Lunar.
This didn't bode well for Rayearth, and the problems continued. The game's script went through five different writers. The English logo made by Working Designs had to be discarded in favor of Sega's official one. The rights to the opening song were tied up. While the project simmered, Working Designs caused a stir when Ireland cease-and-desisted artists who'd published pornographic comics showing, among other things, Lunar characters. The fallout was brief yet hilarious, culminating in one prankster e-mailing crude Rayearth porn to a Working Designs staffer so he could tack it to Ireland's office door.
[It's HIIKARUU and not HIKARU WORKING DESIGNS CAN'T DO ANYTHING RIGHT AND THE GAME'S TOO HARD AND THEIR DUBS SUCK EVEN THOUGH I HATE ALL DUBS ANYWAY.] Rayearth somehow hung on. Sega's plans for the anime fell through, and its revamped version, dubbed by Ocean Studios, never saw the light of day. This cleared the way for the Rayearth game, but another matter arose: the Sega Saturn itself was clearly dead in the U.S., playing a distant third to the PlayStation and the Nintendo 64. Working Designs, which had previously supported the TurboDuo and Sega-CD up to their dying days, wouldn't be dissuaded by such a minor thing as a system's total market collapse. And so it was that on December 11, 1998, stores finally got copies of Magic Knight Rayearth, the last Sega Saturn game released in North America.
Rayearth arrived with the usual Working Designs flourishes: a glossy, full-color manual, character stickers, three different disc-art variants, and a game script full of references to modern pop culture (which perhaps made more sense among displaced schoolgirls than, say, Lunar's fantasy setting) as well as sex education, condoms, and how “the back door is off-limits.” Signs of Rayearth's rough journey were all about. The Japanese original was packed with voice acting, but Working Designs removed the majority of it for the English version, citing that “players found it very, very annoying that many, many people in towns talked to you.” For those familiar with Rayearth's tumultuous past, the real reason was clear: recording all of the voices in English would've set the game's release back even further. In their place, Ireland and his programmers added voices for the three main characters' diary entries and threw in different versions of the theme song.
As for the game itself, Rayearth wasn't the wonder it'd been back in 1995. The game's visual style is crisp and enticing, but there's little spark in the jejune tale of Hikaru, Umi, and Fuu setting the dimension of Cefiro to rights. The script, jokes and all, isn't one of Working Designs' better efforts, and the voices seldom elevate it. The company's English voicework ranges from the enjoyable (Popful Mail, Lunar) to the unintentionally hilarious (Vasteel, Vanguard Bandits), and Rayearth manages to hit both extremes: the three heroines sound fine, but the villains and lesser-seen characters are terrible.
[Oh God, I bet they also make jokes about Baywatch and Clinton and Tootsie Pops TOOTSIE POPS I TELL YOU Atlus and NIS would never do this oh wait they did] Still, Rayearth's gameplay was a cut above the usual Zelda-ripped approach to action-RPGs, and it remains so today. Players can switch freely between the three heroines, and each has regular and powered-up versions of a different weapon: Hikaru's wide-range sword, Umi's poking saber, and Fuu's long-range arrows. The game also involves a good deal of jumping for a Zelda clone, even if the puzzles are far too simple.
That's Rayearth's real problem: its lack of any challenges. Working Designs, the company that once toughened up EXILE: Wicked Phenomenon so much that it was impossible to finish, didn't make their version of Rayearth much harder than the Japanese one. From the pushover bosses to the game's lone plot twist at the end, it's little more than a leisurely wade through the first anime season's storyline.
Working Designs' Rayearth wasn't a huge success. Media Blasters released both seasons of the TV series while Manga Entertainment brought out the OVAs, yet few fans bothered to buy the game and the obsolete Sega system needed to run it. About 15,000 copies were printed, and Rayearth remained available through Working Designs' website until the company went under in 2005. Some unsold stock turned up on eBay, where the game can now be had for slightly less than what it cost in 1998. It may be a bit much for a merely competent action-RPG, but there's no denying that Rayearth is a piece of history.
Size of image/ archive, Type of image
555 MB/ 362 MB, mdf/mds
After compression process to verify, i unpacked all files from archive, so archive is not corrupted.
Download links & Pass
http://www.mediafire.com/?3mxxm5mzkmm
http://www.mediafire.com/?112mdztozgz
http://www.mediafire.com/?htgkg2myyni
http://www.mediafire.com/?wkznmxe2okk
http://www.mediafire.com/?wzdzz4zg0zz
&
Rep_Plus_^-^
ALL FREE PROGS in *.zip, which are useful for Sega Saturn games,
you can download from:
MAIN SOURCE:
http://www.mediafire.com/?oh0avyn0z1v
MIRROR BELOW:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=L1UU9DR8
We work very hard to bring you these downloads.
Please, if you would be kind enough, use this thread just to say thanks and comment on the game itself.
Topic: Magic Knight Rayearth (J, another source) (Read 7527 times)