Magician Lord, a well-known and much-loved NEO-GEO game, was famous for its difficulty. This ROM hack brings some welcome balance adjustments, a redesigned HUD, and several graphical improvements. Below is a copy-and-paste list of all tweaks and changes as stated on the project’s GitHub page.
Magician Lord is a fantastic game, featuring outstanding graphics and music for its time. Unfortunately, it suffers from an extremely high difficulty level, the result of last-minute changes made to increase profitability for arcade operators.
The goal of this patch is to rebalance the difficulty to bring it closer to the average difficulty of 16-bit era games, so that everyone can enjoy this excellent title without having to spend dozens of hours on it — time being the most precious resource for retro gamers. It’s also a good warm-up for those who wish to later take on the brutality of the original 🙂
The patch applies to the ROM from set 2 (the version released on Neo-Geo AES), as it offers a more console-like experience: there’s an introduction to the story, and each death sends you back to the last checkpoint.
List of Changes
Gameplay
- 8 HP max (6 in the original version)
- 5 lives per credit (2 in the original version)
- Invincibility time doubled after being hit
- Global level timer removed (normally hidden), which used to spawn an invincible monster after a few minutes
- Disabled automatic monster spawns when staying in the same area for several seconds
- You now need to get hit twice to lose one power level. This is visually represented by the power cell cracking after the first hit before disappearing
- You can drop off ladders by pressing the jump button
- When transformed, pressing
Callows you to return to Elta’s base form while keeping the extra HP - In his base form, Elta can now fire 4 magic missiles simultaneously on screen (2 in the original)
- Reduced HP for certain enemies that required too many hits to defeat
- Removed the time limit for Gal Agiese’s dialogue before each boss, allowing you to enjoy the full music. Press any button to skip directly to the boss
Visuals
- The power gauge design has been completely redone to match the HP bar’s style
- Realignment of the orbs at the top of the screen
- Improved character shadows for better contrast and consistency
- Removed the score and hi-score display. Let’s be honest: NO ONE plays Magician Lord for the score — especially not a modded version! The remaining lives counter has been moved to the top-left corner to maximize space for those gorgeous graphics
Translation
- Complete French translation of the game based on the Japanese script
- Complete retranslation of the English version, known for its infamous lines (“Again changes to hell”), to better match the Japanese script
- Fear not, fans of the Engrish original translation: at the title screen, you can switch between the two translations by pressing
D
Cheats
- For those playing without a memory card who wish to resume from the last reached level, you can press
UP+C+Dat any time to automatically skip to the next stage
To make the generating the new ROM easier. Use this easy patching tool.
I’m on board with every change here. This might actually get me to try to complete it after all these years.