Years ago, I played The Magic of Scheherazade just because it was there. I discovered this obscure Culture Brain RPG on the shelf at my parents’ video store, took it home, and was amazed. This was an Arabian-themed action RPG with some real-time battles, some strategic turn-based battles, and a linear storyline that ended each of five long varied chapters with a big real-time boss battle.

When I was browsing around for collectible items recently, I nabbed this game for my collection for very little money, then discovered that despite the rough condition of the box, the manual and even the fold-out map were not only included, but in great shape. I grabbed it when I did because I don’t expect we’ll see anything from Culture Brain on Virtual Console, which is a shame. This game is still surprisingly deep. There was a reasonably complex party system in Scheherazade. You could visit universities within the various towns to learn about the local monsters. Specific combinations of monsters would be called by a special name, and these groups would be best fought with special formations, which you would choose during battle. Selecting the right formation against the right enemy would boost your offense and defense.

I scanned and pieced together the original map that came with the game. You can check that out here, and click to see it larger. A lot of NES games came with maps like these right in the box. You’ll see a lot of empty little rectangles, where the player was encouraged to fill out the look of each screen. Ah, good times.