********************************************************************************
*                       Madou Monogatari I (Mega Drive)                        *
*                          English Translation Patch                           *
*                              v1.1 (13 May 2020)                              *
*                                                                              *
*                        TheMajinZenki -- Translation                          *
*                               Supper -- Hacking                              *
*                               cccmar -- Editing and Testing                  *
*                               Filler -- Original Script Dump                 *
*                             Xanathis -- Testing                              *
*                          Oddoai-sama -- Testing                              *
********************************************************************************

It's the day of the graduation exam at Magic Kindergarten, but only one person 
has qualified to take it: the promising mage but uninspiring student Arle Nadja, 
who fluked into passing the preliminary by choosing random answers. Now, Arle 
finds herself unexpectedly facing the school's terrifying final exam: to escape 
from the massive, monster-infested Magic Tower in the playground. Will Arle make 
it out? And more importantly, can she earn enough points to pass her exam and 
graduate from kindergarten?

Sorcery Saga I (Madou Monogatari I) for the Mega Drive is a 1996 dungeon crawler 
by Compile. It's nominally a remake of the first episode of the Madou Monogatari 
1-2-3 trilogy, originally released for the MSX2 home computer in 1990, but aside 
from the basic story premise and a few gameplay concepts, it's essentially a 
completely new game. Turn-based combat has been scrapped in favor of a fighting 
game-inspired action battle system, the dungeon layouts are completely 
different, and a new system for catching and battling with monsters plays a 
prominent role. It also holds the distinction of being the very last game 
officially released for the Mega Drive in Japan.

This patch fully translates the game into English.

                    ****************************************
                    *          Table of Contents           *
                    ****************************************

  I.   Patching Instructions
  II.  How to Play
  III. Known Issues
  IV.  Authors' Comments
  V.   Version History

                    ****************************************
                    *       I. Patching Instructions       *
                    ****************************************

You'll first need a ROM image of Madou Monogatari I for the Mega Drive. It 
should match the following specifications:

  No-Intro filename: Madou Monogatari I (Japan).md
  CRC32:             DD82C401
  MD5:               41B8BA3569E3F4F98155DEA64318D223
  SHA-1:             143456600E44F543796CF6ADE77830115A8F2F99

The patch itself is a standard IPS patch. Use a tool such as Lunar IPS to apply 
the IPS file to the ROM. The patch will expand the ROM to 4 MB, so don't use 
ancient patching utilities that don't support that.

                    ****************************************
                    *           II. How to Play            *
                    ****************************************

    This is the story of a young girl called Arle Nadja.
    It's just a little after lunch. Having just filled her belly,
    this is a very pleasant time for Arle.
    As you might expect, she's taking her nap right about now...

    She's inside a building she's never seen before.
    As she takes a few small steps, a terrifying shadow looms over her!
    Before she can act, the shadow deals a mighty blow over her head.

    She wakes up. She's inside a classroom in kindergarten.
    That's right. Arle just dozed off... while taking the written test
    for graduating kindergarten. It was the principal who tapped her head.
    This written test is hard, and she has to pass if she wants to take part
    in the final graduation exam.
    
    However, Arle is very bad at written tests.
    She grips her pencil and just starts filling the answers in.
    It's not like she really cares about graduating anyway.

    The following day. Logically, you'd think that Arle would have
    failed the exam, and only the other kids would take the exam now.
    However, we wouldn't have a story to tell if that was the case...
    Well, let's just say she passed the written test somehow.

    And so, Arle is ready to take the exam to graduate from kindergarten.
    As you might imagine, Arle is not particularly talented, so whether
    she passes this exam or not will depend on YOU.
    Do your best!
  
        - Sorcery Saga I manual

  Sorcery Saga I works a little differently from your run-of-the-mill dungeon 
crawler. This section explains how to play the game.

  **************************
  * Health and Magic Power *
  **************************
  
  The most important thing to note about Sorcery Saga is that concepts like 
health are not expressed using "points". Instead, status is conveyed indirectly 
through graphics, sounds, and descriptive messages.
  
  Arle has two different attributes: health and magic power.
  
  Arle's health must be kept above zero, or it'll be game over. When not in 
battle, Arle's health is indicated by her face on the side of the screen. If 
Arle is happy and smiling, she's in good health! If she looks tired or hurt, 
it's probably a good idea to heal her with an item or spell.
  
  Magic power is used to cast most spells. While Fire, Ice Storm, and certain 
other spells don't consume magic power, running out will prevent Arle from 
casting any spell that requires it. Arle's magic power is not explicitly shown, 
but can be determined by reading the messages shown when a spell is cast. If 
Arle is totally out of magic, the music will change to indicate this.
  
  It's also possible for Arle to become poisoned, causing her to lose health 
simply by walking around. If this happens, it'll be indicated by the appearance 
of an abnormal mark on Arle's face and a change in the music.
  
  Note that these indicators only apply outside of battle. During battle, you'll 
need to pay attention to the messages that appear in order to figure out the 
status of both Arle and the enemy.

  **********
  * Spells *
  **********
  
  At any time, in or out of battle, Arle can cast spells.
  
  In this game, spells are not cast from a menu! Instead, you must input special 
commands using the D-Pad to specify the spell you want to cast.
  
  To cast a spell, first, hold down the A Button. Arle will begin chanting. 
While continuing to hold the A Button, press the directions on the D-Pad 
corresponding to the spell you want to cast. To unleash the spell, release the A 
Button.
  
  At the start of the game, Arle knows the following spells:
    
    =========================
    =   Spell   =  Command  =
    =========================
    |   Fire    |  ^ < v >  |
    +-----------+-----------+
    | Ice Storm |  v < ^ >  |
    +-----------+-----------+
  
  Over the course of the game, Arle will learn many more spells. To get a list 
of all spells Arle currently knows and their commands, press the Start Button 
during battle.

  ***************
  * Exploration *
  ***************
  
  After starting a new game, you'll find yourself in the Magic Tower. In order 
to get out and pass the exam, you must guide Arle through the Tower.
  
  When exploring, the screen is laid out as follows:
    
    Top-left        Arle's face.
                    This indicates Arle's current status (see "Health and Magic
                    Power" section).
                    
    Top-center      Area view.
                    This shows what Arle is currently looking at from a first-
                    person perspective.
                    
    Top-right       Directional stones and gold display.
                    Though initially empty, the crystal ball on the right will
                    eventually get filled in with a set of four stones that act
                    as a compass, indicating which way Arle is facing.
                    The numeric value below them is the amount of gold (money)
                    Arle currently has.
                    
    Bottom          Experience meter and message windows.
                    During normal gameplay, this is a meter indicating Arle's
                    progress toward her next level. The series of holes will
                    gradually light up as Arle defeats enemies, and when all
                    of them become lit, Arle will level up.
                    
                    When an event occurs, or someone is talking, messages
                    will appear in this area. Messages relating to Arle will
                    appear on the left, while those relating to someone else
                    will appear on the right.
  
  Here are the controls for this mode:
  
    D-Pad Up        Move Arle forward.
    
    D-Pad Left      Rotate Arle to the left.
    
    D-Pad Right     Rotate Arle to the right.
  
    D-Pad Down      Turn Arle around to face the opposite direction.
    
    A Button        Hold this down to begin casting a spell.
                    See "Spells" section.
    
    B Button        Open the item menu.
                    From this menu, you can select an item to use.
                    Select one of your item bags and press the C Button to
                    open it, then choose an item and press the C Button again
                    to use it.
                    
                    Press the Start Button after highlighting an item to
                    to view a description of it.
    
    C Button        Open the map.
                    This shows a map indicating Arle's current position and
                    the direction she's facing. The map is automatically
                    filled in with the locations of walls and doors as Arle
                    moves around.
                    
                    Press Up and Down on the D-Pad to move between different
                    floors of the map.
    
    Start Button    Open the save menu.
                    Here, you can choose one of two slots to save your
                    progress to.

  **********
  * Battle *
  **********
  
  While previous games in the Sorcery Saga series used traditional "turn-based" 
combat, this one introduces a completely new system. Battles now take place in 
real time and are totally action-based. Enemies won't just sit around and wait 
for Arle to attack, so speed is key!
  
  Battle begins when Arle encounters an enemy in the dungeon. When this happens, 
the screen will switch to a side view and battle will begin. In this mode, the 
screen is laid out as such:
    
    Top-left        Arle (or an Amigo monster; see "A-Capsule" section).
    
    Top-right       The enemy.
    
    Bottom-left     Arle's message window.
                    As battle progresses, messages relating to Arle will be
                    displayed here.
                    
                    Because this game doesn't use "hit points", the only way
                    to tell how much health Arle has is by reading the
                    messages that appear here! The same also applies for
                    Arle's magic power.
    
    Bottom-right    Enemy message window.
                    As battle progresses, messages relating to the enemy will
                    be displayed here.
  
  Here are the controls for this mode:
  
    D-Pad Up        Jump.
    
    D-Pad Left      Hold this down to block.
                    While blocking, the damage you receive will be halved.
    
    D-Pad Right     Tap this twice rapidly to perform a physical attack.
  
    D-Pad Down      Duck.
    
    A Button        Hold this down to begin casting a spell.
                    See "Spells" section.
    
    B Button        Open the item menu.
                    See the corresponding entry in the "Exploration" section.
    
    C Button        Run away from the battle.
                    Note that this may fail.
    
    Start Button    Pause the game.
                    While paused, the a list of all spells Arle currently
                    knows and their commands will be displayed. Use Left and
                    Right on the D-Pad to scroll through the entries.

  *************
  * A-Capsule *
  *************
  
  At a certain point in the game, it will become possible to obtain the 
"A-Capsule" (Amigo Capsule). The A-Capsule is a special item that can be used to 
turn monsters into "Amigos" who will fight for you in battle.
  
  When you first get the A-Capsule, it will be empty. To fill it, while you are 
in battle, open the item menu (B Button) and use the A-Capsule. An angel will 
then appear and fire an arrow at the enemy. If the capture is successful, the 
enemy will go into the A-Capsule and the battle will end. (The capture may fail 
if, for example, the arrow doesn't contact the enemy.)
  
  With a monster captured, you can now summon it to fight for you! During 
battle, simply use the A-Capsule and the monster will emerge. You are now in 
full control of the monster, just as though it were Arle.
  
  Amigo monsters are controlled similarly to Arle. However, instead of casting 
spells, they can perform various attacks specific to that type of monster. To 
use these attacks, input a spell command just as you would for Arle (see 
"Spells" section). Amigo monsters use the exact same input commands that Arle 
does for her spells, but with different meanings. For instance, the input "v < ^ 
>" will make Arle cast Ice Storm, but will make a Blue Puyo drop a snowman on 
the enemy. You'll need to experiment with each monster to learn its attacks.
  
  If an Amigo monster loses all its health, it will disappear permanently, so be 
sure to call back monsters if they're close to being defeated. Amigos can be 
called back by pressing the C Button, returning control to Arle and fully 
healing the Amigo. Note that Amigo monsters cannot be summoned to the same 
battle again after being recalled.
  
  To release your current Amigo, use the A-Capsule outside of battle.

                    ****************************************
                    *          III. Known Issues           *
                    ****************************************

    "While we have striven to release a perfect product, there may be unforeseen 
issues in the final release."
    
      - Sorcery Saga I manual

While the translation patch itself is not known to cause any issues, the 
original game has a laundry list of weird bugs. Some of these are fixed by the 
patch; others have been left as-is, because at the rate they kept popping up, 
we'd never have been able to release the thing if we tried to fix them all.

The following bug was encountered during testing of the translation, but 
couldn't be replicated and thus hasn't been fixed. This is most likely an issue 
with the original game, not the patch, but if you can find a way to reproduce 
it, please contact us so we can see about fixing it too.
  * At the start of the second floor, Camus is supposed to give Arle the 
compass. Under unknown and apparently very rare circumstances, the compass 
object may fail to spawn during this scene and it will never get added to the 
HUD. If this happens, don't save the game; reload a save from before this event 
and try again.

The following bugs in the original game were found but not fixed due to being 
rare, mostly harmless, and/or funny:
  * Get in a battle with a Green Puyo. Charge up with Diacute either 2 or 4 
times, then make the motions for Ice Storm but don't release the cast button 
yet. Wait for the Puyo to launch its "Puyo Puyo Super Mega Attack" (it's rare, 
so this may take a while), then immediately release the cast button to cast Ice 
Storm. The Puyo will vanish, but the battle will not end. The only way out is to 
run away.
  * Using an Egg Bomb on the Demon enemy will often cause the Demon to drop off 
the bottom of the screen and remain there indefinitely.
  * Under very rare circumstances, casting spells can cause the music to stop.

The following bugs are fixed by the translation:
  * In the original game, the message shown when Problem 4 is solved was 
slightly bugged and could cause corrupted text or graphics if certain buttons 
were pressed quickly enough. A similar issue also occurred after learning 
Heedon.
  * When Lala bursts out of the wall during her introductory cutscene on Floor 
2, pressing a button to advance the text too quickly would freeze the game.
  * When attempting to capture a monster with the A-Capsule, there was a very 
rare issue where, if the Capsule's arrow hit certain enemies on the exact frame 
that they launched an attack, the capture would be considered successful but the 
monster would not actually go into the Capsule, causing the game to get stuck in 
an infinite loop waiting for the non-existent capture animation to complete.
  * When combining items, backing out of the menu too quickly after selecting 
the second item would cause some of the text to become garbled.
  * The messages for defeating enemies were originally displayed very 
inconsistently (sometimes disappearing at the end of combat and sometimes not), 
and would occasionally get partially erased if Arle's victory animation 
triggered at the wrong time.
  * The message displayed after four Green Puyos stack up and self-destruct 
would cause a semi-permanent black box to get stuck on screen after battle if a 
button was not pressed to manually clear the text quickly enough.
  * When the true final boss used its HP drain attack, casting certain spells, 
such as Ice Storm charged four times with Diacute, would result in the boss 
object despawning, making the fight impossible to finish.
  * Viewing certain effects and then triggering the karaoke sequence would cause 
the color-changing text effect to appear incorrectly (not covering the whole 
text) and make the final line of text display erroneously.
  * On floor 11, a bug caused the friendly Ms. Eve to leave the screen 
prematurely and the game to get stuck if certain scenes had been viewed 
immediately beforehand.

                    ****************************************
                    *        IV. Authors' Comments         *
                    ****************************************
  
  ------------
  -- Supper --
  ------------
  
  We decided to release this to coincide with Valentine's Day... which means 
we're also releasing it to coincide with the Sonic movie. Well, uh, hope 
everyone's enjoying that.
  
  So here it is: the Madou Monogatari game that some people apparently actually 
wanted to play, judging by how many people kept asking if we were going to 
translate it every time we put out a patch for one of the Game Gear games. Hope 
this sates your appetite.
  
  We started working on this game long enough ago that I've forgotten exactly 
how the project came about. I think Zenki got interested in it at some point 
after working on MM2 around the spring of 2019, and filler had previously put 
together a kanji conversion table and an unformatted text dump, and somehow or 
another things spiraled from there. The whole thing is very chronologically 
confusing to me because I basically worked on this game, MM3, and MMA all at 
once, often interrupting hacking on one project to dump a script for another, so 
the whole thing is all mixed up in my memory.
  
  But however it came about, here we finally are. This is definitely our most 
polished release to date -- not that I was slacking on past projects (I hope), 
but we spent a lot more time than usual repeatedly testing and improving it. 
It's a bigger and more complicated game than most of our projects have been, as 
well as one I think we all really liked personally, so it ended up getting a lot 
of extra love.
  
  I'm quite pleased with the results; I think this is the nicest I've ever 
gotten a translation to look. I implemented a proportional-width font and went 
to great lengths to try to make it look good instead of merely being functional 
-- compared to my earlier releases, this one uses proper typesetting practices 
such as variable kerning between individual letter pairs to achieve a more 
professional look. You can also thank TheMajinZenki for pushing me to use the 
nice font you see in the final product, which is a heavily modified version of 
Stanberry by Jayvee Enaguas (CC-BY-SA 3.0). I initially used a bland homebrew 
serif font, and while I was reluctant to drop it at first, the replacement looks 
a million times better.
  
  There are also a lot of neat touches in there I expect no one will ever 
notice. Items are prefixed with the correct form of the indefinite pronoun where 
needed; same with the plurality of demonstrative adjectives. And much care was 
taken to respect that, contrary to every other enemy in the game, the Cait Siths 
are two monsters rather than one and should be addressed as such. No one would 
notice or care if I didn't do this stuff, but I'd never be satisfied otherwise. 
Still, try to appreciate it a little as you play? Please?
  
  Chronologically speaking, this is the last Japanese Mega Drive game that could 
ever possibly get translated, since Compile somehow managed to delay it all the 
way to March 1996 -- it was the very last Mega Drive game to come out in Japan, 
with only a handful of additional games coming out later internationally. As it 
happens, this translation may also be one of the last for the Mega Drive, as it 
turns out we're running very low on games actually worth bothering with. Most of 
what's left is just the dregs ("this game technically needs its title screen 
translated"). Well, maybe now people will start expanding into the unexplored 
territory of the Mega CD!... most of whose games are no better and take 10x more 
effort to hack.
  
  Anyway, hope you enjoy this release. With it, I've hacked all four of the 
ported-from-computer Madou Monogatari games into English in some form or 
another. I still can't believe that no one ever bothered translating the series 
until now, considering its connections with Puyo Puyo and all, but I guess we've 
fixed that. For now, I'll definitely be taking a break from Madou Monogatari, 
though I wouldn't rule out doing more someday if the opportunity arises...
  
  P.S. That whole A-Capsule thing may seem like a Pokemon knockoff, but this 
game actually came out only a month after the original Japanese release of Red 
and Green. Given cartridge manufacturing times (and that Pokemon didn't make it 
big until the next year anyway), that means the game was done well beforehand 
and it's just a coincidence. Funny one, though.
  
  -------------------
  -- TheMajinZenki --
  -------------------
  
  For one reason or the other, lately I've been working on multiple games in the 
Madou Monogatari series, and here we are with another neat release, the Mega 
Drive version.
  
  This game feels a little more "anime" than the previous games, possibly due to 
the presence of Lala and Camus. The developers also tried many things to make 
the game different from their other games in the series. Battles are more 
"action", there's a pokemon-like mechanic, multiple endings...
  
  Apparently this was the latest official Mega Drive release in Japan, which 
gives it a certain historical value.
  
  Personally I enjoyed working on this game. The team worked hard to make sure 
everything was nice and proper. Please enjoy!
  
  ------------
  -- cccmar --
  ------------
  
  Madou Monogatari I (or Sorcery Saga I) happens to be the last Japanese 
exclusive for the Mega Drive. It’s a remake of the first part of the series, 
released earlier on PC-98/MSX. The remake introduces many new elements into the 
mix, including some new spells and items. Also, the battle system is completely 
different – instead of turn-based battles there is a semi-active battle system 
in which you can avoid incoming damage by dodging/jumping over attacks. You also 
have to use key combinations in order to cast spells. Interestingly, there are 
monsters and cameos from all over the franchise present in this remake, probably 
because it was released in 1996, after all the GG remakes of the original series 
had already been completed. In my opinion, this game is probably the most fun to 
play, due to all the changes, and it is one of if not the best version on the 
consoles. Editing wasn’t too difficult in this case, but the game has some new 
characters you’re not going to see in any other port. Overall, it’s a worthy 
effort. I hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed working on it!

                    ****************************************
                    *          V. Version History          *
                    ****************************************

v1.0 (14 Feb 2020): Initial release.

v1.1 (13 May 2020):
  * Fixed yet another original-game bug: the conversation with Ms. Eve on Floor 
11 didn't initialize a script synchronization variable, causing it to freeze the 
game if certain arbitrary events were viewed immediately before triggering it. 
Thanks to ZaRR for discovering and reporting this.
  * Fixed the message for eating a Dragon Tail -- an error in the original game 
caused the last line to disappear immediately after being displayed instead of 
waiting for the player to press a button, unlike all the other eating messages.
  * Also, this bug was already fixed in v1.0, but wasn't mentioned in the 
readme: the karaoke sequence in the original game would display incorrectly 
under certain circumstances due to the game failing to switch scrolling modes 
correctly.
  * Minor text updates.
