Magician Lord (NGM-005)

SNK Neo-Geo MVS cart. published 35 years ago:

Magician Lord (c) 1990 Alpha Denshi Company, Limited.

Magician Lord is a side-scrolling platform shoot-em-up in which players take on the roll of a wizard called Elta - the last Magician Lord - on his quest to save his homeland from the evil Gul-Agieze, who plans to resurrect the God of Destruction using 8 tomes of mystical power.

Elta has to jump, shoot and climb his way to the end of each of the game's 8 levels where he must beat a servant of Gal, along with one of Gal's sinister boss creations. To complete the game Elta must reach the final stage and defeat Az Atorse himself. If the player takes too long to complete a stage, Elta will be harassed by an invincible monster.

Elta's primary form of attack is a weak but fast-moving energy projectile that can fired in one of four directions, but by collecting the special colored orbs that occasionally appear, he can transform into a different form, making him more powerful and giving him new attacks.

These are the six different forms that Elta can assume by picking up the colored orbs:

* Dragon Warrior: In this form Elta attacks by breathing fire; a continuous short-range attack that, unlike the standard attack, can also be aimed diagonally.

* Waterman: The Waterman-form attacks with water grenades – blue bubbles of water that burst upon touching the ground and form into water pillars. The attack can hit several times for additional damage but only covers a small area.

* Poseidon: A more powerful version of the Waterman, Poseidon shoots wide waves of water that travel along the ground for several hits. It does severe damage and causes enemies to freeze and shatter on impact. While very powerful, this form moves very slowly.

* Shinobi: The Shinobi-form gains increased agility and attacks with powerful magical arcs of fire which are wide but slow-moving.

* Samurai: While limited in range, the Samurai-form is the only form that can attack through walls, shields or even multiple enemies, using a boomerang-like energy attack that does heavy damage.

* Raijin: The Raijin-form gives Elta's jumping ability a big boost as well as a unique attack that creates a continuous electrical field around his body.

- TECHNICAL -

Runs on the SNK "Neo-Geo MVS" hardware.
Game ID: NGM-005
Cartridge Size: 46 Mega

Players: 2
Control: 8-Way Joystick
Buttons: 2
=> [A] Shot, [B] Jump

- TRIVIA -

The project design (kukakusho) debuted in 1989 and the development started first semester of 1989. A beta version was location tested in January 1990 in Japan, this version had longer stages and this was not adapted for an arcade play (a game was too long). So, developers taked the decision to smaller all stages but cutting them off for the final version.

This is the first Alpha Denshi game for the SNK Neo-Geo MVS hardware and it was the first game which used the capabilities of the hardware (dezooming, rotate).

27 player's transforms were planned but only six were finalized due to gameplay changes.

Magician Lord MVS was released in June 1990 in Japan. At this time, this game was the Killer application for Neo-Geo, all reviews from magazines were very positive, many people wanted it and bought it.

Default highscore table :
1 50000
2 40000 RYU
3 30000
4 20000
5 10000

AES format: "Magician Lord [Model NGH-005]"

- STAFF -

Plan: Takashi Egashira
Produce: Akira Ushizawa
Back Ground Design: Tomoharu Takahashi, Kenichi Sakanishi, Takashi Egashira
Sprite Design: Akira Ushizawa, Shinji Moriyama
System Program: Eiji Fukatsu, Satoshi Okada (S.OKADA)
Main Program: Hiroyuki Ryuu, Osamu Iijima
Sub Program: Yukinori Nishikata, Teruaki Shirasawa
Sound Program: Makio Chiba
Music: Yuka Watanabe, Hiroaki Shimizu, Hideki Yamamoto
Sound: Hiroaki Shimizu, Hideki Yamamoto
Special Thanks: Yuji Noguchi, Takashi Hatono

- PORTS -

* CONSOLES:
SNK Neo-Geo CD (1994) "Magician Lord [Model ADCD-100]"
Nintendo Wii (2007) "Virtual Console"
[US] Sony PS2 (may.05, 2008) "SNK Arcade Classics Vol.1 [Model SLUS-21724]"
[US] Sony PSP (may.05, 2008) "SNK Arcade Classics Vol.1 [Model ULUS-10338]"
[KO] Sony PS2 (may.29, 2008) "SNK Arcade Classics Vol.1 [Model SLKA-25424]"
[US] Nintendo Wii (jul.29, 2008) "SNK Arcade Classics Vol.1 [Model RVL-P-RNCE]"
[EU] Sony PSP (Oct. 17, 2008) "SNK Arcade Classics Vol.1 [Model ULES-01105]"
[EU] Nintendo Wii (Oct. 31, 2008) "SNK Arcade Classics Vol.1 [Model RVL-P-RJZP]"
[EU] Sony PS2 (Nov. 21, 2008) "SNK Arcade Classics Vol.1 [Model SLES-55232]"
[JP] Sony PSP (May. 21, 2009) "SNK Arcade Classics Vol.1 [Model ULJS-193]"
Sony PlayStation Store (Dec.2010)

- CONTRIBUTE -

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