is a Japanese

role-playing video game A role-playing video game (commonly referred to as simply a role-playing game or RPG, as well as a computer role-playing game or CRPG) is a video game genre where the player controls the actions of a character (or several party members) immers ...

developed and published by

Square In Euclidean geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral, which means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90-degree angles, π/2 radian angles, or right angles). It can also be defined as a rectangle with two equal-length adj ...

for the

Family Computer Disk System The commonly shortened to the Famicom Disk System or just Disk System, is a peripheral for Nintendo's Family Computer home video game console, released only in Japan on February 21, 1986. It uses proprietary floppy disks called "Disk Cards" f ...

, and released in Japan on 24 July 1987. The game's music was composed by

Nobuo Uematsu is a Japanese composer and keyboardist best known for his contributions to the ''Final Fantasy'' video game series by Square Enix. A self-taught musician, he began playing the piano at the age of twelve, with English singer-songwriter Elton Jo ...

Gameplay

Players explore an

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

ian town and ruins from a

first-person perspective A first-person narrative is a mode of storytelling in which a storyteller recounts events from their own point of view using the first person It may be narrated by a first-person protagonist (or other focal character), first-person re-teller ...

. The game combines role-playing game elements with an

adventure game An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and/or Puzzle video game, puzzle-solving. The Video game genres, genre's focus on story allows it to draw ...

-like interface. Players may purchase items from shops, though some shopkeepers must be defeated in battle before trading. Battles are

turn-based In video and other games, the passage of time must be handled in a way that players find fair and easy to understand. This is usually done in one of the two ways: real-time and turn-based. Real-time Real-time games have game time progress cont ...

, with options to fight, use items, or flee. Players accumulate

experience point An experience point (often abbreviated as exp or XP) is a unit of measurement used in some tabletop role-playing games (RPGs) and role-playing video games to quantify a player character's life experience and progression through the game. Experi ...

s by succeeding in battle and "level up" after gaining enough experience, which increases their stamina. Randomly encountered battles with enemies may happen at any time, including when paused to examine the inventory.

Plot

The

player character A player character (also known as a playable character or PC) is a fictional character in a video game or tabletop role-playing game whose actions are controlled by a player rather than the rules of the game. The characters that are not control ...

, Daisuke Kusano, is the son of an archaeologist who disappeared while searching for the Tears of Isis, artifacts once owned by

Cleopatra Cleopatra VII Philopator ( grc-gre, Κλεοπάτρα Φιλοπάτωρ}, "Cleopatra the father-beloved"; 69 BC10 August 30 BC) was Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51 to 30 BC, and its last active ruler.She was also a ...

. During the man's excavation for the Tears, demons appeared and abducted him. The boy soon learns that he must find the Tears in order to save his father. Over the course of the adventure, Daisuke visits the

Great Sphinx of Giza The Great Sphinx of Giza is a limestone statue of a reclining sphinx, a mythical creature with the head of a human, and the body of a lion. Facing directly from west to east, it stands on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile in Giza, E ...

, the

Temple of Kom Ombo The Temple of Kom Ombo is an unusual double temple in the town of Kom Ombo in Aswan Governorate, Upper Egypt. It was constructed during the Ptolemaic dynasty, 180–47 BC. Some additions to it were later made during the Roman period. Architectur ...

, a tower of sand, and an underground

labyrinth In Greek mythology, the Labyrinth (, ) was an elaborate, confusing structure designed and built by the legendary artificer Daedalus for King Minos of Crete at Knossos. Its function was to hold the Minotaur, the monster eventually killed by the ...

. At the end of the game, he discovers that the demons had been disguised as the kindly shopkeeper. Daisuke receives the last Tear of Isis upon defeating the demons, which summons the ghost of Cleopatra, who releases Daisuke's father from imprisonment.

Development

composed the music for the game. When developing the game for both the Famicom and the Famicom Disk System (FDS), there were technical differences such as a smaller amount of memory on the FDS which led to a more difficult process creating the same graphics.

Reception

Famitsu formerly ''Famicom Tsūshin'', is a line of Japanese video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly formats as well as in the fo ...

'' appreciated the game's graphics and animations, and called the characters "cute". ''ITmedia Gamez'' also complimented the game's animations, though felt that too much of the disk's capacity was devoted to these animations at the cost of game length. However, the reviewer thought it was not a bad game, even though it was short, and compared it favorably to ''

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain ''The Warlock of Firetop Mountain'' is a single-player adventure gamebook written by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, and illustrated by Russ Nicholson. Originally published by Puffin Books in 1982, the title is the first gamebook in the '' ...

'', an

adventure gamebook A gamebook is a work of printed fiction that allows the reader to participate in the story by making choices. The narrative branches along various paths, typically through the use of numbered paragraphs or pages. Each narrative typically does not ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cleopatra no Maho 1987 video games Cultural depictions of Cleopatra Famicom Disk System games Famicom Disk System-only games Japan-exclusive video games Square (video game company) games Video games developed in Japan Video games scored by Nobuo Uematsu Video games set in Egypt