Blog Post: Forgotten Gem: The Magic of Scheherazade

The first RPG that I ever did a full playthrough of (or even any play at all) was:

Final Fantasy?

The Adventure of Link?

The Magic of Scheherazade?

What was that, you say? Actually my first ever RPG was The Magic of Scheherazade.

The Magic of Scheherazade is a little known but wonderful RPG that was released for the NES back in 1989 in North America. Although it came a bit after Final Fantasy and The Adventure of Link, it was the first game I purchased for the NES back in 1990, when my foray into gaming began.

You could say that I hold a special place in my heart for this game, because it set the stage for many of the types of games that I would play from then on.

The game started immediately in the first town, after choosing among three classes: Fighter, Saint, and Magician. The town, at the time, looked so lush and green, and had a shop and hotel. You talked to characters in the town just like any RPG.

After leaving town, you entered what looked a lot like Zelda.

The first world was lush and green like the town, and you would see bandits and others coming at you in active battle. Other worlds included a desert world and lava world.

Then suddenly, as I was dutifully cutting down bandits and bugs, I would go to another map, and then: Turn Based Battle!

This was clearly heavily influenced by none other than Final Fantasy itself. I admit, though, that this part of the game could be incredibly, maybe even painfully, slow.

Another aspect of the game, which could be seen as well ahead of its time, is that each of the five worlds in the game had a counterpart which was set back or ahead in time. Plant a seed in one time, and you would get a harvest of coins in the future version of that world. Influence a character in one time, and a character would become your partner in the game in another. A total of 11 characters would join you in battle, plus troopers!

At the time this mixture of gameplay with both action RPG and turn based RPG seemed phenomenal. Add in the time travel, and I was sucked into the world.

My first steps into becoming a gamer began.

from Game Informer Magazine http://ift.tt/1cbXeSM