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The Magic of Scheherazade is a FASCINATING game. Made by Culture Brain, a weird-ass company who was always pushing boundaries, they’re most well known for their Little Ninja Bros/Super Chinese World series. But this is their other most well known game, a cult classic that may not have sold well, but that kept itself lodged in the brains of gamers who got to play it back in the day.

MoS is an RPG. What kind of RPG? Yes. It is both an action RPG in the vein of Zelda or Startropics, with a top down perspective and sword swinging action, and ALSO a turn based RPG with levels and spells and stuff.

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The story is pretty interesting. There’s this evil warlock, Sabaron, summoning an ancient demon, Goragora, and you’re the only person who can stop him, a powerful wizard and descendant of the ancient hero. Unfortunately, you lose before the game even starts, and your mind is wiped. But you still have your sense of justice, and even depowered, you know you must save the world, AND save the love of your life, Scheherazade, who was kidnapped by the warlock. so now, go, and save Arabia! Yeah, it’s Arabia here, and with Scheherazade, it likens itself to 1001 Nights, though it basically just makes up all of its lore, just with an ancient middle eastern style. Anyways, you are met by the Time Spirit, Coronya, a cute cat, who can take you through time to help you in your adventure.

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This game has a LOT of interesting systems in it. It has a class system. You can be a warrior (your sword is larger), mage (you shoot your rod faster, the best by far) or cleric (bad sword and rod, but you can block shots, worst, used only once for a quest). It has a level up system, which interestingly has a level cap that increases by 5 every chapter, and ALSO automatically levels you up if you’re behind, so no real need to grind! It has a magic system, you getting spells as you level, but ALSO you can find one super spell each chapter. It has a day-night cycle, kinda. Every now and then an eclipse happens, darkening everything and also empowering your super spells. It has a party system, you find party members who help you during quests. And it has random battles, both top down action, and also turn based. I just ran from the turn based ones. All the enemies had too much health and you did so little damage.

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So, this game does it all. But as a result, it doesn’t do everything GREAT. It does it WELL! It’s… INTERESTING, and quite fun in parts, but it doesn’t really stand out as an AMAZING NES game. Just, good. All the parts of it are good. It’s a jack of all trades situation. I do recommend it, there’s a lot to enjoy about it, but it can be a little clunky at parts, it can be a little hard to figure out what to do and where to go, and some of the bosses are genuinely annoying (Looking at you, Salamander). Good game though, it’s been on my list for years and I’m glad I finally got to it.