Software:The Krion Conquest

From HandWiki
Short description: 1990 video game
The Krion Conquest
Cover art
Illustration by Lawrence (Lars) Fletcher
Developer(s)Vic Tokai
Publisher(s)Vic Tokai (NES)
Genki (mobile)
Programmer(s)Satoru Okada
Composer(s)Kiyoshi Yokoyama
Masaki Kase
Platform(s)Family Computer, mobile phone
ReleaseNES
  • JP: December 14, 1990
  • NA: January 25, 1991
Mobile
Genre(s)Action/Platform
Mode(s)Single-player

The Krion Conquest, known in Japan as Magical Kids Doropie (まじかるキッズどろぴー, Majikaru Kizzu Doropī),[2] or more simply Magical Doropie (まじかるどろぴー),[3] is a side-scrolling action-adventure video game for the Nintendo Entertainment System, developed by Vic Tokai in 1990. Later, Genki Mobile ported the game to Japanese mobile phones.

Gameplay

Players control a wand-wielding character that fires different types of projectiles based on the wand type the player has selected. The wand selection is signaled by the changes in the player's outfit color. The powers included are the normal shot (red outfit), the phoenix ability (pink outfit), the freeze shot (blue outfit), the bouncing ball shot (green outfit), the shield ability (orange outfit), and the broom ability (purple outfit). The game play resembles Capcom's Mega Man series,[4] while the cutscenes resemble the ones in Tecmo's NES version of Ninja Gaiden.[5]

However, unlike the first three Mega Man titles, The Krion Conquest allows players to shoot directly upward, crouch to dodge enemies and projectiles, and charge attacks. (This action was later incorporated in Mega Man 4 and most of the later Mega Man titles that feature the charging "Mega Buster".)

Plot

Story

In the year 1999, the Akudama Empire (known as the Krion Empire outside Japan) rises suddenly and attacks the Earth with an army of robots. No conventional weapon is able to stop them; they are, however, totally vulnerable to magic. A hired mercenary, Kagemaru, summons the only non-sealed witch, Doropie (known as Francesca outside Japan), to stop the Akudama Empire's offense.[1] As she assaults the empire's hidden bases, Doropie discovers the army is led by the Machine God Emperor, whom Doropie had previously sealed away in the human world. The Emperor kidnaps Kagemaru and blackmails Doropie into breaking her seal. Kagemaru appears to die from his injuries, and Doropie sets out to stop the now-free Machine God Emperor. After a final battle aboard the Akudama Empire's space base, the dying Machine God Emperor confesses that she begun the invasion in response to humanity's destruction of nature. The base explodes shortly thereafter, but not before Doropie escapes it. She is contacted by Kagemaru, who has survived the wounds previously inflicted on him, and Doropie makes her way back to Earth.

Characters

  • Doropie (どろぴ～) (known outside Japan as Francesca): A witch that was summoned from a place full of demons. To save the world, she takes six magic abilities along with her and fights against the robot army corps, the Akudama Empire.[1]
  • Kagemaru (カゲマル): The boy who summoned Doropie to fight against the Akudama Empire. He holds the secret of the Heavenly Machine God Emperor, the commander of the robot army.[1] Unlike Doropie, Kagemaru doesn't have an official name in the North American version.
  • Heavenly Machine God Emperor (極楽機神帝, Gokuraku Ki Shintei): The master of the Akudama Empire robot army corps and the one responsible for the declaration of war against the whole world. She is closely connected with Doropie, who sealed her away in the human world in the past.[1] Like Kagemaru, no official name was given to her in the North American version; an unofficial English translation patch names her Empress Elysia.

Development and release

According to its designer, the development of the Magical Kids Doropie project took approximately 10 months to finish. The title was originally planned to be a licensed game based on the 1986 anime The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. However, the anime's copyrights for Japan were held by TV Tokyo, so the designers were unable to use it. They decided to develop their own basic design, which ultimately became Doropie. The name Doropie is a transliteration (or gairaigo) of Dorothy of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz anime.[6] The rest of the Doropie design did not contain any other references to Dorothy or Oz.

Doropie's design, however, exhibited one unusual feature: the lack of eyelashes. Even though drawing eyelashes is typically used as a primary form of expression for anime-style female characters, the character designer tried to make it cute without symbolic parts. According to the main designer, her witch costume with a magical broom was the heroine's oldest design used in arcade and home video games of that time. Some developers had an opinion that "NES is for boys" and objected to having a girl as the protagonist of the game. The rest of the game's staff told the character designer that most video games during its release had male characters as protagonists because players couldn't relate to female protagonists as playable characters.[6]

Due to the limited memory capacity of the cartridge, as well as hardware and technical problems, the final stage was cut short. It also prevented one of the designers from making magic abilities more useful in attack, defense, and movements. For instance, the "Freeze" ability was originally planned to allow players to create footholds and platforms out of enemies, while the "Shield" ability was originally planned to allow players to lay it out and allow the character to move downward.[6]

Release

The game was released in Japan for the Family Computer on December 14, 1990.[7]

The North American version of this game, The Krion Conquest, excluded some features from its Japanese version, Magical Kids Doropie. Due to the perceived popularity of difficult video games in North America, Vic Tokai removed the "continue" feature. The most obvious difference between the original Japanese release and the North American version is the removal of every cutscene except the slightly modified introduction sequence and several redrawn in-game graphic elements. No official English names were given to other characters. The circled hexagram (resembling the Star of David) at the end of each stage in the Japanese version was removed in the North American version because Nintendo of America did not allow religious content in video games at the time.

A sequel was planned, but Nintendo had just released the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The new developer kit was too expensive for the designers to use to create the sequel.

Fourteen years later, Genki Mobile released the mobile phone version on January 14, 2004, exclusively in Japan through the Vodafone service. Its difficulty from the original was altered in the mobile phone version, allowing players who found the original too difficult to easily beat the mobile phone version. Other differences from the NES version included the shrinking of several graphics to fit the small screens of mobile phones and the introduction of two new modes: "Easy" and "Upload".[1]

Reception

Famitsu gave it a score of 23 out of 40.[7]

1up.com noted the similarities to Mega Man, but stated that it wasn't as fun.[4]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 "元気トリキリゲームランチ☆まじかるキッズどろぴ～". http://www.genkimobile.jp/slunch/torikiri/doropie/index.html. 
  2. ↑ Front cover of the Japanese version.
  3. ↑ Title screen of the Japanese version.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Hidden Gems: The Rest of the NES". 2016-03-05. http://www.1up.com/features/hidden-gems-rest-nes?pager.offset=1. 
  5. ↑ (in en) Magical Kids Doropie (NES) Playthrough [English - NintendoComplete], 12 March 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CubTbCSn3wQ, retrieved 2023-03-12 
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 "開発者様インタビュー". http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/snake-02/doropie/Q&A.htm. 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "まじかるキッズどろぴ〜 [ファミコン / ファミ通.com"]. https://www.famitsu.com/cominy/?m=pc&a=page_h_title&title_id=20240. 
  • Official Genki Mobile webpage (in Japanese)
  • MobyGames is a commercial database website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes over 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms.[1] Founded in 1999, ownership of the site has changed hands several times. It has been owned by Atari SA since 2022.

Features

Edits and submissions to the site (including screenshots, box art, developer information, game summaries, and more) go through a verification process of fact-checking by volunteer "approvers".[2] This lengthy approval process after submission can range from minutes to days or months.[3] The most commonly used sources are the video game's website, packaging, and credit screens. There is a published standard for game information and copy-editing.[4] A ranking system allows users to earn points for contributing accurate information.[5]

Registered users can rate and review games. Users can create private or public "have" and "want" lists, which can generate a list of games available for trade with other registered users. The site contains an integrated forum. Each listed game can have its own sub-forum.

History

Logo used until March 2014

MobyGames was founded on March 1, 1999, by Jim Leonard and Brian Hirt, and joined by David Berk 18 months later, the three of which had been friends since high school.[6][7] Leonard had the idea of sharing information about computer games with a larger audience. The database began with information about games for IBM PC compatibles, relying on the founders' personal collections. Eventually, the site was opened up to allow general users to contribute information.[5] In a 2003 interview, Berk emphasized MobyGames' dedication to taking video games more seriously than broader society and to preserving games for their important cultural influence.[5]

In mid-2010, MobyGames was purchased by GameFly for an undisclosed amount.[8] This was announced to the community post factum , and the site's interface was given an unpopular redesign.[7] A few major contributors left, refusing to do volunteer work for a commercial website.{{Citation needed|date=June 2025} On December 18, 2013, MobyGames was acquired by Jeremiah Freyholtz, owner of Blue Flame Labs (a San Francisco-based game and web development company) and VGBoxArt (a site for fan-made video game box art).[9] Blue Flame Labs reverted MobyGames' interface to its pre-overhaul look and feel,[10] and for the next eight years, the site was run by Freyholtz and Independent Games Festival organizer Simon Carless.[7]

On November 24, 2021, Atari SA announced a potential deal with Blue Flame Labs to purchase MobyGames for $1.5 million.[11] The purchase was completed on 8 March 2022, with Freyholtz remaining as general manager.[12][13][14] Over the next year, the financial boost given by Atari led to a rework of the site being built from scratch with a new backend codebase, as well as updates improving the mobile and desktop user interface.[1] This was accomplished by investing in full-time development of the site instead of its previously part-time development.[15]

In 2024, MobyGames began offering a paid "Pro" membership option for the site to generate additional revenue.[16] Previously, the site had generated income exclusively through banner ads and (from March 2014 onward) a small number of patrons via the Patreon website.[17]

See also

  • IGDB – game database used by Twitch for its search and discovery functions

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Sheehan, Gavin (2023-02-22). "Atari Relaunches The Fully Rebuilt & Optimized MobyGames Website". https://bleedingcool.com/games/atari-relaunches-the-fully-rebuilt-optimized-mobygames-website/. 
  2. ↑ Litchfield, Ted (2021-11-26). "Zombie company Atari to devour MobyGames". https://www.pcgamer.com/zombie-company-atari-to-devour-mobygames/. 
  3. ↑ "MobyGames FAQ: Emails Answered § When will my submission be approved?". Blue Flame Labs. 30 March 2014. http://www.mobygames.com/info/faq7#g1. 
  4. ↑ "The MobyGames Standards and Practices". Blue Flame Labs. 6 January 2016. http://www.mobygames.com/info/standards. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Miller, Stanley A. (2003-04-22). "People's choice awards honor favorite Web sites". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 
  6. ↑ "20 Years of MobyGames" (in en). 2019-02-28. https://trixter.oldskool.org/2019/02/28/20-years-of-mobygames/. 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Plunkett, Luke (2022-03-10). "Atari Buys MobyGames For $1.5 Million". https://kotaku.com/mobygames-retro-credits-database-imdb-atari-freyholtz-b-1848638521. 
  8. ↑ "Report: MobyGames Acquired By GameFly Media". Gamasutra. 2011-02-07. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/report-mobygames-acquired-by-gamefly-media. 
  9. ↑ Corriea, Alexa Ray (December 31, 2013). "MobyGames purchased from GameFly, improvements planned". http://www.polygon.com/2013/12/31/5261414/mobygames-purchased-from-gamefly-improvements-planned. 
  10. ↑ Wawro, Alex (31 December 2013). "Game dev database MobyGames getting some TLC under new owner". Gamasutra. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/game-dev-database-mobygames-getting-some-tlc-under-new-owner. 
  11. ↑ "Atari invests in Anstream, may buy MobyGames". November 24, 2021. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-11-24-atari-invests-in-anstream-may-buy-mobygames. 
  12. ↑ Rousseau, Jeffrey (2022-03-09). "Atari purchases Moby Games". https://www.gamesindustry.biz/atari-purchases-moby-games. 
  13. ↑ "Atari Completes MobyGames Acquisition, Details Plans for the Site's Continued Support". March 8, 2022. https://www.atari.com/atari-completes-mobygames-acquisition-details-plans-for-the-sites-continued-support/. 
  14. ↑ "Atari has acquired game database MobyGames for $1.5 million" (in en-GB). 2022-03-09. https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/atari-has-acquired-game-database-mobygames-for-1-5-million/. 
  15. ↑ Stanton, Rich (2022-03-10). "Atari buys videogame database MobyGames for $1.5 million". https://www.pcgamer.com/atari-buys-videogame-database-mobygames-for-dollar15-million/. 
  16. ↑ Harris, John (2024-03-09). "MobyGames Offering “Pro” Membership". https://setsideb.com/mobygames-offering-pro-membership/. 
  17. ↑ "MobyGames on Patreon". http://www.patreon.com/mobygames. 
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