Legacy of the Wizard

To do: Debug mode, (1:15:48)

Legacy of the Wizard is a port of Dragon Slayer IV, and one of the few entries in the series to be released outside of Japan. The game follows the Worzen family (or the Dragon Slayer family in the manual) going on a quest to find four hidden crowns in a massive open world to obtain the Dragon Slayer sword and, well, slay a dragon! Also contains a soundtrack by Yuzo Koshiro, of Streets of Rage fame.

The Famicom port was the first version of Dragon Slayer IV, followed shortly by an MSX2 version, and eventually an MSX version.

Sound Test#

On Controller 2 press and hold Up + Right + A + B, then on Controller 1 press Down + Left + Select. A sound will confirm correct entry. You can now cycle through the songs by moving the cursor over the picture on the wall and pressing A.

Unused Sprites#

The game's graphic tiles include 4 monsters which are never seen in the game in enemy groups 4 and 7. They do not have any associated color or behavior, so they are shown in grey here. These appear in the game data for all 3 versions of the game. This includes:

• Bee form of the giant enemy, which would show if its behaviour allowed it to climb a ladder.
• Monch, an intelligent monkey (named in guidebooks).
• An unknown humanoid with a helmet.
• An unknown goat-like humanoid.

There is a set of sprites for the family at home that is only partially used. On the character select screen each of them is shown in only one pose. In the ending sequence, they are all seen walking and waving, but only Royas faces upward when climbing the ladder out of the dungeon. Pochi is only seen lying down or facing up. Douel and Jiela are not seen at all during the ending.

On the wall of the family home is a portrait of Jiela's great-great-grandfather Lark. There is a second portrait of found amongst other background tiles which is never used, depicting an unknown character. This unused portrait is also present in the MSX1 version.

Many unused 8x8 background tiles contain what appears to be the Japanese character ア enclosed in a box. This unused marker tile appears in many places across the tile data, and is contained in all 3 versions of the game.

Unused Title Screen#

The Famicom ROM contains what appears to be data for a second title screen at $17BCA. This may have been an earlier title screen that was abandoned but never deleted from the PRG-ROM. Unfortunately its original tileset is not present in the CHR-ROM, and if loaded this screen data instead selects the tileset that is used for the finished title screen.

Japan	US

By creating a mock-up tileset and injecting a few tiles from the final title screen into it, we can get a rough approximation of how the early title screen should have looked. Tiles 7B-7D, 8B-8D, and 6C-6F would be used for a slightly bigger version of the Falcom graphic, one that preserved the larger "F" and "l" characters seen in the official logo.

Unused Music#

The 10th track in the sound test is not used anywhere in the game. It may represent a theme for Roas, who does not have a dungeon area of his own.

Regional Differences#

Title Screen#

Japan	US	Namco Museum Archives

The new name and publisher meant that the title screen had to be rearranged, though the Legacy of the Wizard logo looks quite a bit cruder than the Dragon Slayer one. Legacy of the Wizard also recolored the bricks surrounding the logo from greenish-blue to brown, with the shading being seemingly reversed on accident. Interestingly, said new brick colors are closer to those of the MSX2 and MSX versions of the game.

Credits#

The credits differences between the Japanese and US versions are minor:

• The US version starts with the word "CREDITS" at the top.
• The King Dragon has a different name.
• The '"Lightball" monster gets an accidental lowercase "l" in US.
• The "Lee" monster is renamed "Edo".
• Those credited with Scenario in Japan are "Scenario Staff" in US.
• Aside from title and company copyright changes, the name "QUINTET" appears in the Japanese version. Though Yuzo Koshiro, a founder of the Quintet game company, worked on this game, the use of this name here predates the founding of that company by two years.

All lines that differ are compared in the table below.