Magic Knight Rayearth (video game)

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Magic Knight Rayearth

Developer(s)	Sega
Publisher(s)	Working Designs
Designer(s)	Rieko Kodama
Platform(s)	Sega Saturn
Release date	^JPN August 25, 1995 ^USA December 11, 1998
Genre(s)	Action-adventure
Mode(s)	Single-player
Rating(s)	SSJ: All Ages ESRB: Teen

Magic Knight Rayearth is an action adventure video game that was released for the Sega Saturn. It is based on the anime series of the same name (Magic Knight Rayearth). The game was released in North America by the now defunct Working Designs; it is notable because it was the last Saturn game released in the US region. Because of its late release in the US, it was not localized in Europe. Working Designs was based in Redding, California, and all the voice actors they used were local, as was their standard. Key voice actors such as Paul Howell and T. Owen Smith voiced the evil characters of the game.

[edit] Miscellaneous

Approximately 15,000 units were sold.^{[citation needed]}

The game, as with most of Working Designs' translated titles, came packaged with different artwork on the CDs to increase their value among collectors. The game came with four different designs on the CDs, one for each of the game's three heroines, and one featuring all three of the characters.

As noted in the instruction booklet, Working Designs' art work for the title would have mimicked the original Japanese title of the show (Gems morphing into the logo) but due to Media Blasters' acquisition of the TV Series, Media Blasters released their official logo for the show which Working Designs had no control over. After Working Designs' hard work, they were forced to change the opening with the official design by Media Blasters. The intended logo for the game is still viewable in the instruction booklet.

As written in the translation notes in the instruction manual of the North American version, some of the source code to the original Japanese version had been lost due to a hard drive crash. The missing code was completely rebuilt for the US version. While there is no solid proof or evidence, word has it that the source code to Panzer Dragoon Saga may have shared the same hard drive, which would explain why the code for that game has gone missing.

Working Designs tried to acquire the original Japanese song for the English release, but wasn't able to. They instead used the same melody as the Japanese version and simply reworded the song.

While the anime and manga both have the Magic Knights using color-coordinated swords, the game has only Hikaru use a sword, while Umi uses a fencing sword and Fuu a bow and arrow. This setup also appears in the anime and manga at it's early stages, but changes towards the end. This probably was to increase game play variety, but is essentially useless towards the second half of the game as since Fuu can heal and is eventually given the power of having homing arrows, it makes the other two characters all but useless except during boss fights.

Three versions of the opening song were recorded, two of which are accessible on the game disk. The original version was only released on Working Design's website, and had an entirely different singer and instrumentals than the two versions of the song that were released on the game. This version was a lot closer to the original anime's theme, but with Working Designs' English lyrics.