Treasure of the Rudras
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| ルドラの秘宝 (Rudora no Hihō) | |
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| Developer(s) | Squaresoft |
| Publisher(s) | Square |
| Release date(s) | JPN April 5, 1996 |
| Genre(s) | Role-playing game |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Platform(s) | Super Famicom |
| Media | 32 megabit cartridge |
| Input | Game controller |
Treasure of the Rudras (ルドラの秘宝 Rudora no Hihō?) is a role-playing video game released by Squaresoft in 1996, and among the last they developed for the Nintendo Super Famicom. The plot incorporates flavours from dharmic religions, centrally the concept of the wheel of time - every 4000 years the world is destroyed and recreated by a Rudra - the name taken from an aspect of the Hindu god of destruction, Shiva. With several races of beings already eradicated and replaced, the story takes place during the final 15 days before humans are scheduled to be wiped out as well. While gameplay in many respects follows the traditional Square RPG model, similar to the better known Final Fantasy series, Treasure of the Rudras is best know for its innovative magic system, where 'spells' are freely constructed according to kana spelling (in the English translation, you can also use English words in addition to kana, like "FIRE" will actually give you a fire-elemental spell, and "FREEZE" might give you an cold status effect). The soundtrack was scored by composer Ryuji Sasai, a 58 track CD of the game music was released shortly after the game on April 25, 1996. The game was never localized for American or European markets, and has only become known to non-Japanese speakers through fan translation.
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[edit] Story
The story of Treasure of the Rudras is divided into three major scenarios, each with a different main character: the soldier Sion, the priestess Riza, and the sorcerer Surlent. As the player enters new areas and accomplishes different tasks, the human race's final 15 days slowly ebb away in a predetermined day/night cycle. The player is free to play the scenarios in any order, and may even leave one storyline to follow that of another character for a time. The actions of the characters in one location and time may have an effect on the others, as well, both in the general story and in gameplay. For example, if one group of characters leaves a sacred relic somewhere, another character may come and find it on a later day in his own part of the game. After successfully completing all three scenarios, players must take on a fourth, featuring the roving thief Dune and the heroes from the previous three chapters in their final confrontation with the game's major villains.
[edit] Gameplay
The gameplay is divided into three main areas: the overworld map, the towns and dungeons, and battles. When in the overworld map, the player directs his characters to different locations in the game. Towns contain the prerequisite shops and villagers who offer information, while dungeons are mazelike affairs where random enemy encounters may occur. These battles may also strike on the overworld map and follow a typical RPG pattern: the player makes choices for his characters (such as whether to fight, cast a magic spell, or run away), and then the enemy takes a turn. This pattern repeats until the characters on one side all run out of hit points and die.
[edit] Magic System
The game's most innovative feature is its magic system. Whereas most console RPGs give the player access to a limited number of precreated spells, Rudras allows the player nearly total creative freedom. The player can enter various "words of power" (called "mantras" in the English translation) into his grimoire. Every one will have some effect, although most are not useful. There is an underlying framework to the system, however, which is based on the gameworld's elements.
A complete mantra generally consists of a prefix, elemental core, and suffix, although the core alone is enough to produce an effect. There are eight elements (plus healing), and of these, six are arranged in mutually antagonistic pairings: fire vs. water, wind vs. electricity, and light vs dark. The remaining two offensive elements, earth and void, have no strengths or weaknesses. Since spells are formed from letters, there are specific patterns corresponding to each element. Certain spells that use the root word tou for example, will produce lightning-based attacks, while those containing aqu will create water-based effects.
Additionally, there are prefixes and suffixes that can be added onto the base elements to change their attributes. Most of these influence the base power and cost to use the spell, but others add abnormal status effects (for example, poisoning the target) or change the mantra's range so that it only targets a single enemy instead of multiple ones or vice versa. Prefixes and suffixes with similar effects can be used in tandem to produce amplified effects.
Other mantras consist of unique words, many of them in English, that create certain effects and skip the naming system entirely. Many of these strange words are learned from in-game characters or by reading books. For example, geo is an earth-related mantra, and kingcoast is a water spell. Adding prefixes or suffixes to these usually makes something completely different (and often useless).
This use of spelled-out mantras allows the player to learn magic from even his enemies. When an enemy uses magic, the player has but to write down the spells used and then to enter them into his or her own grimoire after the battle in order to have access to them. Some of these enemy spells are extremely powerful, although many are not as cost-efficient as the basic spells described above. Some are more space-efficient versions of regular spells.
A little known fact is that using this system, you can create your own spells from English words without the need of the word combinations listed above, or by combining some of the prefixes from the formula with your own words. For instance, ANGEL is a light spell, and OMEGAANGEL is a mass powered-up light spell(broken up: O-MEGA-ANGEL with O being the mass target command, MEGA for the power boost, and ANGEL for the light spell), HEAVEN produces a similar effect with less cost. Likewise, HELL is a mass powered-up Dark elemental spell. The English words have more erratic format however due to their trial-and-error method of forming the spells. This trial and error method appears to work with some other languages, such as Chinese or Japanese (RAI was was inputted and it displayed Electrical damage, FU displayed wind damage).
[edit] Localization
Treasure of the Rudras was never localized to the United States; it was released late in the life of the Super Famicom, and American video game developers were already gearing up for newer systems such as the Sony PlayStation. The game had a second chance at trans-Pacific life with the growth of the fan translation community on the Internet in the late 1990s. Some early members of the community claimed to have played the game in Japanese and ridiculed its storyline, however; a rumor even surfaced that the director, Keita Amamiya, was fired from Squaresoft for creating such a "bad game". Added to that was the difficulty in hacking the game's magic system to be usable to an English-speaking audience. The one translation group that decided to tackle the game, J2e Translations, fizzled and failed. The game seemed like a lost cause.
However, in 2002, a French translation group called Terminus Traduction put out a French-language translation patch for the game. Later in 2003, the prolific ROM hacker Gideon Zhi of Aeon Genesis Translation Proclamation announced that he had successfully hacked the game's magic system to work with English words. Aeon Genesis then translated the French script into English, and in July 2003 they released an English-language translation patch entitled Treasure of the Rudras. A second patch with a more accurate script was released July 4, 2006.
