Game

This is the only Madou Monogatari game that has an achievement set on RA at the time of writing, so it’s actually my first game in the series I’ve ever played. Uh, kinda. I’ve actually played a LOT of Madou Monogatari! And you probably have too, or at least you’ve seen it a lot. But you probably have never heard that name before, unless you’re a massive turbo nerd, like I am. What IS it? Well, Madou Monogatari is an early 90s dungeon crawler series by Compile about a very young girl named Arle. Most of them are that like, first person dungeon crawler style that was popularized by Wizardry. They were good, but never came out over here, so no one in America knows a single thing about the series.

Except. The series DID come out here. The series had a spinoff, a little puzzle game called PUYO PUYO. You might have heard of it. This series became MASSIVELY successful, and HUGELY popular. They greatly outstripped Madou Monogatari, to be point where the original series is very nearly just dead (there was a new one that came out last year, apparently, the first in 11 years, and 9 years before that one for the third most recent one). But these original games are still there. The Madou Monogatari series though, has a thing about it. It doesn’t really get new games in the series very often. What it DOES do is do remakes of the first game, over, and over, and over. This is one of those!

Game

This is an RPG that is NOT a dungeon crawler, the first in the series like that. It’s more of a traditional JRPG, though a very weird one, and a retelling of the first game, though extended. I’d say it’s the plot of MM1 with 80% of the game taking place right before MM1, and the last dungeon is MM1. The plot is you’re Arle, a kindergartener, and your final exam is coming up. You need to travel the world, collecting items so you can make a wish for your exam ticket, and then take the exam to graduate! Along the way you’ll help people and meet a bunch of wacky characters, all of whom you’ll recognize from Puyo games, if you’ve played those, which you probably have.

Game

Most of the game is played in a top down style, where you’re running around, talking to people, exploring dungeons and the like. And the other half of the game is the random encounters and combat you get into. First you get a little dialogue between characters that is straight up the dialogues from Puyo games, then it’s KIND of traditional JRPG combat? This game series is actually quite weird, and the way I’d describe it, is it runs 100% on vibes. You don’t know your health. Or your MP, which all spells take. Or your opponent’s health. Or ANYTHING. That is gauged by the very extensive and quite good animations of Arle, and the opponents. And after attacks you’ll be told a little thing, like “The Puyo is not feeling so good!”. There are like, 10 different levels of damage, and you’ll need to learn a general idea of how hurt an enemy is, and how hurt YOU are.

Game

On the main field, you can gauge your health by Arle’s big-ass face that’s always right there at the bottom, at all times. There’s also some orbs down there, that’s your EXP, when all those fill up, you level up. You can view your stats on your report card, and it gives a general description of you, ranging from “A wimp” to “Kind of scary”, which is a very funny way to describe a 4 year old.

So yeagh, I described the JRPG mechanics of this game as “baby’s first JRPG”. It’s entirely run on vibes, not hard to pick up, and very simple. Unfortunately, the rest of the game doesn’t hold up quite as well. Random encounters are very common, so it’s slow paced, and the dungeon design in this game is honestly just kind of bad. This game is half of the same rooms pasted over and over, honestly, in giant door mazes. It’s really disappointing.

While there’s a lot to like about Madou Monogatari: Big Kindergarten Kids, as it’s translated, there’s also a lot to detract from it. I think its style and presentation is utterly FANTASTIC, it is a GORGEOUS Super Famicom game. Which it should be, It’s a 1996 SFC game, that’s pretty damn late. I’d really only recommend this if you’re really curious, a huge puyo fan, or a Madou Monogatari fan who’s somehow never played this, but I dunno how many of YOU read my blog.