Madou Monogatari 1-2-3

About

Madou Monogatari 1-2-3 follows young magician Arle Nadja through three distinct dungeon-crawling adventures. Each chapter casts her as a first-person protagonist navigating 2.5D mazes filled with monsters and puzzles. Instead of traditional stats, the game uses visual cues like Arle's portrait to show damage and gem counters to track progress. Turn-based spellcasting handles combat while exploration reveals NPCs tied to the Puyo Puyo universe. All three self-contained stories share identical mechanics but vary in setting and challenges. The game stands out for its minimalist approach to RPG systems, relying on text and imagery over numbers. Voice acting was unusually prominent for its era, adding character to dialogue-heavy moments. Though largely forgotten outside niche circles, its experimental design influenced later magical girl and dungeon-crawler hybrids. The trio of campaigns remains a curious artifact of early 90s RPG experimentation.

Storyline

Madō Monogatari is a three-chapter first-person RPG that chronicles the adventures of the young apprentice sorceress Arle Nadja with all three chapters made as independent games but released under a single package. The first game starts as the little Arle attempts to graduate from her magic school by conquering the evil Satan tower. The second game jumps forward in time to a 16-year old Arle, now an accomplished magician, who must escape a dungeon and defeat those that imprisoned her. The third and final game in the package faces Arle off against an evil sorceress that aims to avenge the deeds Arle did on Satan tower back in the first game. She must now escape a dungeon and defeat the evil minotaur that has been sent to destroy her. All three games share the same engine and gameplay mechanics, playing as first-person RPGs in which your main view is composed of a 2.5D view of the dungeons you are trapped in, and the rest of the interface is used to give graphic feedback to the player instead of relying on stats and numbers (for instance, a picture of Arle serves as the means of telling how damaged she is, and a group of gems that encircle the screen show how closer you are to advancing a level). Combat is turn-based and involves selecting and casting spells to obliterate the many baddies in the dungeon. There's also a fair amount of puzzle solving and plenty of NPCs to run across in each dungeon, all being characters from the Puyo Puyo series.