Magic Knight Rayearth (Game Boy)

Magic Knight Rayearth was released for Game Boy exclusively in Japan on June 2nd, 1995.

Just like the anime and manga it originates from, you play as three girls from the real world who are summoned to the magical land of Cephiro to save Princess Emeraude.

If you've seen my impressions on the Saturn version, you'll already know that one was an action RPG. The Game Boy version, however, is a completely different game, an extremely simplified turn-based RPG, built to fit the hardware's limitations.

A Pocket Adventure

Rather than covering the whole plot of the first season like its bigger counterpart, this portable game takes its own path with a mini story created exclusively for it. It's set at an unspecified point in the timeline, though one thing is clear: it takes place after the trio's adventures in the Forest of Silence, since all three girls already have their magic and their trusty swords forged from Escudo.

After discovering a magical painting in the middle of a forest, the Magic Knights are pulled into a different world trapped inside it. Separated from one another, each girl must complete her own small adventure before they can reunite.

Hikaru's story is a tiny self-contained RPG with a town and two small dungeons to explore. Umi's takes her through a single longer dungeon. Fuu's is the most involved of the three, spanning multiple dungeon floors and featuring puzzles.

You can play them in any order, and once you clear all three solo adventures, the girls join forces to take on the final boss, though even that is split into three separate fights, each knight facing it alone.

The Simplest RPG Ever

The turn-based battle system is about as stripped down as it gets. There are only three commands: attack, magic, and run. There are no items and no healing spells; HP and MP recover gradually as you walk. The only real strategy I found was to open with a normal attack when my HP was full, since I could afford to take a few hits, and to switch to magic when it wasn't, as it dispatches enemies quickly.

I did get knocked out once or twice from being stubborn and thinking I could squeeze out one more attack on a tough enemy instead of playing it safe. So the game is easy, but it's not something you can just mindlessly button-mash through either.

For Japanese Learners

Being a Game Boy title, the game uses only hiragana and katakana. That does mean you can't rely on kanji to tell homophones apart, but since the vocabulary stays simple, it's rarely an issue. Most of the game can be completed with minimal Japanese knowledge… except for Fuu's chapter. It has some simple puzzles that, while technically brute-forceable by checking every corner, mashing buttons in different orders, and cycling through every possible answer when talking to a set of very annoying stone gargoyles, being able to read what's going on saves a lot of time and frustration. I'd classify this one as a decent game for beginners.

Short and Not So Sweet

For a Game Boy title, some simplicity is expected. But I do think they went a bit too far. On top of that, the game is extremely short. The character level cap is 10, and since I was approaching it pretty quickly, I genuinely expected that once the girls reunited, a second part of the game would open up with a raised cap.

That never happens. Each girl finishes her short solo adventure, they take down the final boss, and it's over. And since every battle is one-on-one, you never actually get to play with all three heroines together, not even against the final boss. That one stung a little.

That said, it's a charming little extra for fans of Magic Knight Rayearth who'd enjoy one more outing with the characters, even a brief and simple one. I'd still point most people toward the Saturn or Super Nintendo versions first, though.

No matter which version you're after, Negai Japan can help you get it, along with many other Japanese treasures, delivered straight to your door!