Magician Lord

Magician Lord is a 1990 action-platform video game developed by Alpha Denshi and published by SNK for arcades on the Neo Geo MVS system. It was one of the launch titles for the MVS (on which it was a pack-in title), as well as its home counterpart, the Neo Geo AES, which launched in 1991. The player controls Elta, a magician who embarks on a journey to recover the stolen magic tomes from the evil sorcerer Gal and his followers before Az Atorse, the god of destruction, is revived and destroys the land of Cadacis and the world.

Upon its original release, Magician Lord received praise for its colorful and detailed graphics, sound, gameplay, and for being a showcase of the capabilities of the Neo Geo. However, some critics were divided over its difficulty, and the game was considered a financial flop in arcades. Retrospective reviews have been mixed in recent years, with reviewers praising the game's graphics and sound but criticizing its difficulty. Magician Lord was later re-released for the Neo Geo CD in 1994, followed by several appearances on compilations and download services for various consoles. A sequel to the game was in development, but was never released.

Magician Lord is a side-scrolling action-platform game similar to Ghouls 'n Ghosts and Rastan where the player takes control of Elta, the main protagonist, through eight stages of varying themes set in the land of Cadacis, where the main objective is to recover eight mystical books that were stolen by Gal Agiese, one of the main antagonists by defeating his servants, along with one of his creations that act as a boss at the end of the stage to progress further.

Some of the levels featured are linear in nature, populated with obstacles and enemies, requiring the player to traverse the stage by running, jumping, climbing, shooting or dodging enemies, while other levels later in the game become more maze-like and exploratory, making the player take different routes to reach the end: if the player takes too long to complete the level, an invincible creature appears and starts following Elta until he is killed and respawns on the same location where he died. Once all lives are lost, the game is over unless the player inserts more credits into the arcade machine to continue playing. If a memory card is present, the player is allowed to save their progress and resume the last stage the game is saved at. As with many earlier games released by SNK, it is well known for its high difficulty.

All of the levels in the game have doors that can be opened by pressing up on the joystick, leading to rooms that can either benefit or harm the player and finding the correct door will lead the player to the miniboss of the level, while in the AES version these also act as checkpoints. One of the main features of the game is the ability to transform into powerful beings by picking up combinations of colored orbs found throughout the stages inside treasure chests, granting the player new forms to attack enemies and bosses. When he is not transformed, the primary form of attack for Elta is a weak but fast-moving energy projectile that he can shoot in four directions.

Some of the transformations available in the game are the following by grabbing the same-colored orbs in a row or by combining them:

Once upon a time, the peaceful and prosperous land of Cadacis and its people were almost at the brink of extermination due to the sudden emergence of a sorcerer named Gal Agiese, whose evil power brought a legion of monsters to invade upon the land and seeking to resurrect Az Atorse, a demonic god of destruction, to conquer the land of Cadacis and the world. When all hope seemed to be completely lost as the demons were about to take control completely, a young magician capable of many feats appeared and fought against the unleashed beasts, in addition to sealing both Gal and Az away into a collection of eight magical tomes. The young magician later became known as the "Magician Lord" after saving the world from evil, and several years went on with peace reigning supreme on Cadacis, but the seal weakened with time and Gal Agiese escaped from it, resurrecting himself and stealing the eight magical tomes as a result, spreading destruction into the land once more and seeking to revive Az Atorse again. Elta, the last descendant of the "Magician Lord", goes on a journey to retrieve the eight magical tomes from Gal and his henchmen, before Az is completely resurrected. After defeating the demonic henchmen, Elta arrives at the tower where Gal Agiese resides, who managed to summon Az Atorse before being sealed once again by Elta and after defeating and sealing the god of destruction, peace returns to Cadacis once again and the legend of "Magician Lord" is reborn.

Development and planning of Magician Lord started in the first quarter of 1989, a year before the Neo Geo system was announced and released to the public in Japan. The game underwent a beta location testing in January 1990. This early version featured longer stages that were deemed not suitable for arcade play; as such, the development team scaled down the levels, but some were cut from the final version. It was the first title developed by Alpha Denshi for the Neo Geo platform, and featured graphical effects such as zooming and rotation. There were originally 27 planned transformations that players could morph into, but only six were finalized due to gameplay changes during development. The game was also showcased for the first time in North America during the 1990 ACME show in Chicago. The soundtrack for the game was composed by Hideki Yamamoto, Hiroaki Shimizu and Yuka Watanabe.