About
The first game (story-wise) in the Madou Monogatari series, in which 6-year-old Arle Nadja must scale a dangerous tower. The Mega Drive remake was the last official Mega Drive game to be released in Japan.
Storyline
Six-year old Arle Nadja must complete a test by scaling a large tower, collecting three magic spheres, and destroying Cockatrice (who is not present in the PC-9801 version) and Fudoushi (Mamono in the MSX version) so she can graduate from kindergarten. In the Game Gear version, Camus will appear and either help Arle (such as teaching Arle "Bayoen") or slow Arle down (by taking one of the magic spheres if the game has been played for over three hours). Just before the final boss, Fudoushi/Mamono tricks Arle into seeing a mirage of the exit of the tower and her classmates turning into hideous creatures with their faces melting and eyes leaking out terrifying her. Arle defeats him and exits afraid that her friends would be terrible creatures, but they appear normal. In the Game Gear version, there is more than one ending in the game if Camus is healed. He appears in the fight with Fudoushi, handing Arle a pair of Dragon Horns to heal her stamina and magic. Camus attempt to take down Fudoushi, but is smacked away into a wall by his old magic. Once he is defeated, Arle checks to see where Camus went, as he vanished. Falling from the tower's top floor and landing, she figures out that Camus was simply an illusion created by Teacher. The chapter ends with her graduating and showing her, over the years, growing up. There are major differences between the two versions, with the biggest difference being the final boss; Mamono in the MSX version, and Fudoushi in the PC98 release. The PC98 version also has significantly darker graphics and different enemies, and more realistic enemy designs.
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