But first:
It was episode 110, Season 7-14 titled
“School Lies” of American Dad in which Stan had his penis (aka
pud) hanging out. Available in volume 7 uncensored. Give credit were
due, in episode 97 two chicks showed their boobs. However keep in
mind this is the Seth MacFarlane style of animation.
Okay, now we've all heard about Krion Conquest,
I'm not going to talk about how I found a brand new copy in the
discount bin of a long defunct chain store and bought it because it
looked like Megaman. I'm not going to prattle on about the game
difficulty is like Megaman 1, but without the pause cheat. I'm totally
ignoring stuff like the lack of HP refills and the way too short a
lifebar. Instead I'll shoot straight to my main point.
What exactly did Krion Conquest aka
Magical Doropie (Doropii) aka Magical Kids Doropie do first? Was is
the first Megaman clone? To answer that we have to define what
exactly what is a Megaman clone. A stage select that is part of the game
play and not an easter egg. Stage start sequence, player selectable
weapons and not randomly shooting badguys to get weapons. Similar
enough gameplay mechanics and maybe even graphics/sound. This is a pretty
broad definition that can snare up some games like 8 Eyes which came out
in 1988 a full two years before Krion Conquest. When you play the
game, it is just like Castlevania.
Using the above terms that I totally
made up on the spot, four games come to my mind: Power Blade, G.I.
Joe, Samurai Pizza Cats and Bucky O'Hare. That last one came out in
1992. Pizza Cats according to the title screen came out in 1991. The
first two are confusing. Going by the title screens, GI Joe 1990 and
Power Blade 1991. Looking at the never wrong Wikipedia pages for both
games it says that the Japanese version of Power Blade came out in
mid 1990, months before Magical Doropie, and GI Joe came out in 1991.
This one is a wash.
While Krion Conquest is clearly a
Megaman clone, there are thing done in this game that would later
happen in Megaman. (By the way, I will be using terms like Krion
Conquest and Francesca for the most part. Mostly because I like them
better, they type out easier, and to irritate purists.) Starting on
stage one we are greeted by a cut scene. MM3 had a tiny one, But KC
has them between every stage.
Press the start button to warp past this and we can take a look at many of the things done here that would later show up in Megaman.
Press the start button again and we
have a Megaman 1 and 2 style weapon select. Different from Megaman is
the fact that Franny is running on it and her color changes as you
scroll through the weapons. Which we would see in Megaman 5. (I
decided not to post images of this, because of the major pain in the
ass it would be to do so.)
Starting off, let's see what Fran can do:
Holding the fire button lets you charge up your shot. A technique later employed by Samus Aran.
According to the unused sprite sheets for one of the fighter games, Bass could shot up with his normal weapon. Interesting how Megaman originally could only look up in the game that came out afterwards and only while red.
Frustratingly enough, badguys can still fly through walls.
Now to do some more talking because once again it will be a real pain to get some of the images. When you encounter a stage boss, you are presented with an alert message. Starting in Megaman X4 you would get a waning siren. Bosses would enter the battle room in a rather unique fashion and not just appear or float in. Megaman X and Megaman 7 would do this as well. When the boss is defeated he would disappear in a series of explosions like in Megaman X.
I think I'll digress from my main point and discuss my theory as to why Magical Doropie was radically changed into Krion Conquest. All the cut scenes were taken out as well as the ending. Most views I have read state that Vic Tokai thought that the American audience wouldn't like a game that was text heavy and had a strong female lead. I disagree because you look at Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy, and Ninja Gaiden. All text heavy, all very popular. On the second point, most people I knew preferred playing as the Princess in Super Mario 2 and Metroid has always been well liked.
Nintendo of America had a no religious symbol what-so-ever and a no blood policy in any game well into the 90's. I think after having spent so much time editing out the hexagrams, then faced with removing the blood and translating the Japanese text, the programmers just gave up and cut it all out. Leaving us with the Krion Conquest.
Magical Kids(?) Doropie?
In Megaman 7 you could input a password that allowed you to play a minifight game as either Megaman or Bass. In Megaman X3 you could call upon Zero occasionally. Unfortunately Krion Conquest had the secret players removed. However, go and get yourself a copy of Magical Doropie and input the Konami like Codes on the title screen and you can play as an alternate(?) Francesca or as Kagemaru!
My theories are that this is a protoform of Francesca, or maybe this is an entirely different character. The game is called Magical KIDS Doropie. I think the idea of having a multiple player game was scrapped because of time and money constraints. The programmers barely got done with Francesca's cut scenes and said "No Mas!" and decided to leave the other characters in as an easter egg. I mean, Francesca's scenes still play even though you may be using Kagemaru.
There are more similarities to later Megaman games, but I think that is enough. You guys go and sniff them out. I'll leave you with this:
Starting off, let's see what Fran can do:
Now to do some more talking because once again it will be a real pain to get some of the images. When you encounter a stage boss, you are presented with an alert message. Starting in Megaman X4 you would get a waning siren. Bosses would enter the battle room in a rather unique fashion and not just appear or float in. Megaman X and Megaman 7 would do this as well. When the boss is defeated he would disappear in a series of explosions like in Megaman X.
I think I'll digress from my main point and discuss my theory as to why Magical Doropie was radically changed into Krion Conquest. All the cut scenes were taken out as well as the ending. Most views I have read state that Vic Tokai thought that the American audience wouldn't like a game that was text heavy and had a strong female lead. I disagree because you look at Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy, and Ninja Gaiden. All text heavy, all very popular. On the second point, most people I knew preferred playing as the Princess in Super Mario 2 and Metroid has always been well liked.
Nintendo of America had a no religious symbol what-so-ever and a no blood policy in any game well into the 90's. I think after having spent so much time editing out the hexagrams, then faced with removing the blood and translating the Japanese text, the programmers just gave up and cut it all out. Leaving us with the Krion Conquest.
Magical Kids(?) Doropie?
In Megaman 7 you could input a password that allowed you to play a minifight game as either Megaman or Bass. In Megaman X3 you could call upon Zero occasionally. Unfortunately Krion Conquest had the secret players removed. However, go and get yourself a copy of Magical Doropie and input the Konami like Codes on the title screen and you can play as an alternate(?) Francesca or as Kagemaru!
My theories are that this is a protoform of Francesca, or maybe this is an entirely different character. The game is called Magical KIDS Doropie. I think the idea of having a multiple player game was scrapped because of time and money constraints. The programmers barely got done with Francesca's cut scenes and said "No Mas!" and decided to leave the other characters in as an easter egg. I mean, Francesca's scenes still play even though you may be using Kagemaru.
There are more similarities to later Megaman games, but I think that is enough. You guys go and sniff them out. I'll leave you with this:
1 comment:
Even though I think Krion Conquest got a lot of things wrong, I still respect it for at least allowing you to fire upwards and crouch (plus crouch-fire). Does help, though not much.
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