The Krion Conquest

The Krion Conquest
Front cover of The Krion Conquest package.
Developer(s)	Vic Tokai
Publisher(s)	Vic Tokai (NES) Genki (mobile)
Platform(s)	Family Computer, Mobile phone
Release date(s)	NES JP December 14, 1990 NA January 1991 Mobile JP January 14, 2004[1]
Genre(s)	Action/Platformer
Mode(s)	Single-player
Media/distribution	Cartridge (Physical)

The Krion Conquest, known in Japan either as Magical Kids Doropie (まじかるキッズどろぴー^?),^[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, made by Vic Tokai in 1991. Later, Genki Mobile ported the game exclusively to Japanese mobile phones.

Gameplay

The Krion Conquest only allows a single-player to struggle through each stage while avoiding and defeating numerous enemies as much as possible, or the player will lose health points in the lifebar. When all health points are lost, the player will lose a life. When all lives are lost, the game is over.

Players control the wand-wielding character, who can fire different objects based on the wand type the player has selected. The gameplay resembles Capcom's Mega Man series, while the cut scenes resemble the ones in Tecmo's NES version of Ninja Gaiden. Among other things, her outfit color changes when a different wand is selected (using a similar style menu). 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).

There is also at least one enemy which resembles a Mettool (the hard-hat enemies; officially spelled "Mettaur" in the U.S.). Unlike the first three Mega Man titles back then, The Krion Conquest allows players to shoot directly upward, crouch to dodge enemies and projectiles, and shoot charged magic, which was later used in Mega Man 4 (December 6, 1991) and most later Mega Man titles that feature the charging "Mega Buster".

Plot

The following plot summary is translated from the mobile versions' website:

The year is 1999. The player is put in the middle of a war already lost when the Akudama Empire (known as the Krion Empire outside of Japan) attacks the Earth with its army of robots. No conventional weapon in existence is efficient against this opponent. The robots are however totally vulnerable to magic. A hired mercenary, Kagemaru, summons the only non-sealed witch, Doropie (known as Francesca outside of Japan) to stop the Akudama Empire's offense.^[1]

The imperial army, led by an old nemesis of Doropie, Empress Elysia, does not surrender though. Elysia captures Kagemaru and blackmails Doropie into breaking her seal and setting her free. It seems that the mercenary lost his life and Doropie sets out to stop the now-free Empress. After the battle, the dying Empress Elysia confesses of the reasons behind the invasion and apologizes. The imperial warship explodes shortly thereafter, but not before Doropie escapes it. She is contacted by Kagemaru, who apparently survived the wounds that Elysia inflicted on him. Doropie comes back to Earth shortly afterwards.^[1]

Characters

• Doropie (どろぴ～^?) (known outside of Japan as Francesca): A witch full of cuteness that was summoned from a place full of demons. To save the world, she takes 6 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 has the secret of Gokuraku Kishin Tei. Unlike Doropie, Kagemaru didn't have an official name in the North American version.^[1]
• Gokuraku Kisin Tei (極楽機神帝^?): 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. Like Kagemaru, no official name was given to her in the North American version.^[1]

Development

According to its designers, the development of the Magical Kids Doropie project took approximately 10 months to finish. The title was originally planned as a licensed game based on the 1986 anime, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, because the main designer wanted to. However, in Japan, the anime's copyrights were held by TV Tokyo. Therefore, the designers were unable to use it and decided to think up their own basic design until Doropie came about like that. Doropie's name is a remains of Dorothy specifically in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz anime.^[4]

The rest of Doropie's design didn't have any other Dorothy nor Oz references nor model in particular. But the character designer gave high priority to the point that quite a few people noticed in her design. Which is, Doropie lacking eyelashes. Drawing eyelashes is an expression method of a female character. But the character designer tried to make it cute without symbolic parts, and she was created. According to the main designer, her witch costume with a magical broom was the oldest heroine's design used in arcade and home video games back then. During its release, there was a tendency, "NES is for boys", among game developers. So there were many objections to set the 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 people didn't have an empathy with female protagonists as playable characters.^[4]

Due to the 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 let the character move downward.^[4]

A sequel was planned, but during the switching over from the NES to the SNES, the SNES's developer kit was too expensive for the designers to use, so they had no margin to create its sequel. The main designer felt regrets.^[4]

14 years later, the mobile phone version was released by Genki Mobile through Vodafone service exclusively in Japan on Jan 14, 2004. Its difficulty from the original was rearranged in the mobile phone version, allowing players who couldn’t beat the original at the time of its release to easily beat the mobile phone version. Other differences from the NES version were several graphics being down-sized to fit the small screens of mobile phones, while two new modes were introduced: "Easy" and "Upload".^[1]

Regional differences

The North American version, The Krion Conquest, excluded some features from the Japanese version, Magical Kids Doropie. Due to the perceived popularity of difficult video games in North America, Vic Tokai removed the "Continue" feature, and disallowed players to pick lives up. The most obvious difference between the original Japanese release and the North American version is the removal of every cut scene, except the slightly modified introduction sequence and several redrawn in-game graphic elements. Also, no official English names were given to other characters. The circled hexagram seen at the end of each stage in the Japanese version was removed in the North American version due to Nintendo of America's rules not allowing religious content in video games.

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} "元気トリキリゲームランチ☆まじかるキッズどろぴ～". http://web.archive.org/web/20070927222646/http://www.genkimobile.jp/slunch/torikiri/doropie/index.html. Retrieved 2010-06-19. 
2. ^ Front cover of the Japanese version.
3. ^ Title screen of the Japanese version.
4. ^ ^{a b c d} "開発者様インタビュー". http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/snake-02/doropie/Q&A.htm. Retrieved 2010-06-19. 

External links

• Official Genki Mobile webpage (Japanese)
• Fan site with developer's interview (Japanese)
• The Krion Conquest at MobyGames
• The Krion Conquest at GameFAQs
• The Krion Conquest vs. Mega Man by FlyingOmelette