Tengai Makyou: Ziria (TurboGrafx-CD)

Long, long ago, the great thief hero Jiraiya Ziria and his companions journeyed across the mystical lands of ancient Japan Jipang on a sacred quest to stop the Cult of Daimon from resurrecting the ancient demon Masakado and destroying the entire country. So writes revered scholar Dr. Paul Hieronymus Chada in his classic book Far East of Eden...though, well, perhaps a detail or two might have gotten lost in translation...

Tengai Makyou: Ziria was both the first game by Red Company and the first RPG ever released on CD-ROM, with the new technology allowing it to have high-quality visuals and sound on a scale far surpassing any of its contemporaries. Perhaps unsurprisingly for a game with so many "firsts" attached, its creation was also an unholy mess, with the game developed nearly to completion as an ARPG before being reworked into a Dragon Quest clone at the demand of Hudson Soft.

Luckily, the power of the newfangled CD-ROM meant that throughout all the tumult, the programmers never had to delete anything.

Sub-Pages#

Prerelease Info Unused MapsThis moonshine's great. Don't tell my boss. Old CutscenesTsunade's face when she finds out they're cutting half the game.

To do: Despite the already-considerable length of this article, it currently consists of nothing more than stuff found by chance while making a translation of the game. The game's chaotic development has left so much unused material that comprehensive coverage and analysis would easily fill a book. Anyone who wants to document it all, you've got a long road ahead of you.

Debug Room#

The map at disc sector 0x1773 is a small room with several useful features for debugging ("Check"ing).

The tiles in the four labeled rows have various effects when stepped on:

• Area: When a tile is activated, the game sets various memory flags, presumably marking the events of the corresponding continent as complete. Stepping on a tile a second time will deactivate it and clear the same set of flags.
• Toku (徳, Virtue): Awards the party the shown amount of Virtue. The "infinity" tile grants 65,535 Virtue, the maximum amount the game can give at once.
• Otomo (お友（達）, Friends): Each tile corresponds to a possible party member (from left to right: Tsunade, Orochimaru, King Akurou, Kogama, Black Shadow, the corrupt priest, and Kinta). Stepping on the tile adds or removes that party member.
• Gold: Increases player's money by the shown amount.

The three NPCs in the room offer several additional services:

• Left: Gives a full heal, running through the same sequence as if the player had stayed at an inn.
• Center: Opens the warehouse menu.
• Right: Starts the gambling minigame.

Notably, this is the only unused map that was converted to the new compressed map format for the Super CD-ROM² version of the game, indicating that it was (unsurprisingly) still being used by the developers up to the end of production.

Unused Graphics#

To do: This is not even a tiny fraction of what's in the game. Just as a start, all the unused maps have their own graphics data, often with unused NPC sprites or older versions of tilesets. And even a casual look at VRAM often shows all kinds of weird stuff getting loaded, so there's far, far more to do here.

Title Screen#

Graphic	Notes
	The title screen loads graphics reading "START" and "CONTINUE," as well as what seems to be a selection cursor. None of these are used; instead, starting a new game was folded into the menu for loading a game.
	The title screen only displays copyright notices for Hudson Soft and Red, but it also loads graphics for a copyright for music producer Ryuichi Sakamoto.
	The game loads sprites that would spell out "ZIRIA" on the title screen, and even has a sprite state defined that assembles them. However, they aren't used. (This palette is probably incorrect; none of the title screen palettes seem to be a perfect fit.) While prerelease coverage shows that the title screen seen in the final was in use from quite early in development, these graphics don't seem to have been used even in very old versions. It's interesting to note that within the game, the title is only ever presented as "Tengai Makyou," not Tengai Makyou: Ziria, despite the fact that the Ziria subtitle was widely used just about everywhere else (the box art, ads, magazine articles...). It's a rather strange omission.
	Graphics for three larger versions of the orbs on the title screen are loaded to VRAM, but never shown. Like the "ZIRIA" graphic above, these have defined sprite states that mean the game could display them; it just doesn't.

Folk Tale Classics#

Graphic

Notes

Pressing Run on Pad 3 (via a multitap) while on the title screen plays a silly bonus scene. The title screen for this sequence loads background tiles for several messages to VRAM, but doesn't display them. They read: てんがいまきょう Tengai Makyou – The game's title written in hiragana, giving it a "kiddy" look. There's a very obvious blank space on the title screen where this was meant to go, but it seems that someone really didn't want the game to be identified as "Tengai Makyou: Ziria" anywhere. 幼児向 for preschoolers ￥３５０ （ウソ） (a lie/fake) – This is probably referring to the 350 yen price. あは aha

Unused Audio#

Due to the PC Engine being the first console to use CDs, its games usually store data on the disc in a very primitive and low-level way compared to almost every subsequent console (to the tune of "consider youself very lucky if a game has a filesystem"). The tools used to create the disc for Tengai Makyou were particularly rough; any part of the disc that wasn't assigned data seems to have simply kept whatever was last written there.

When the game was being massively overhauled into its final, turn-based RPG form, the disc layout was significantly altered. This meant some parts of the disc that had previously been used became unallocated, and those unallocated portions retained whatever data had been there previously. In particular, the first part of the disc seems to have been used to store ADPCM audio data in earlier versions before falling into disuse, and several substantial chunks of this old audio remain intact in the final game.

Unfortunately, most of the rest of the audio was overwritten with the final game's map data. Aside from the intact chunks presented here, many, many tiny fragments (less than a second each) can be found in the unallocated gaps between maps, but it's hard to glean much of anything from them.

Music#

Beginning at disc sector 0x10B0, right before the first block of map data on the disc, is an ADPCM clip containing a 30-second recording of music from Ys, most likely the PC-88 or PC-98 version. This is particularly striking not just for being from an entirely different game made by another company, but because the finished game doesn't use ADPCM for music at all!

It contains a full two-loop recording of "Rest in Peace," which fades out. It's then followed by a split second of one of the unused tracks, "Shining Star," which is cut off by the start of the map data. Some of the audio fragments between maps consist of small snatches of more music from the game, indicating that there was a substantial amount of its soundtrack present on the disc at one point.

Presumably, music from Ys was being used as a placeholder during development before the actual soundtrack was created...but the fact that there's no ADPCM music in the final game makes this rather strange. It's possible there were plans to use ADPCM for music playback at some point, but due to the limitations of the ADPCM hardware, there would be very little reason not to just use CD audio instead. It's also possible this was done as a quick way to insert music into the game for testing without having to program tracks for the PSG sound driver, though what reason there might have been to do that isn't clear.

Dialogue#

Old Dialogue Chunk

To do: This really should be split up into individual files for each voice clip, transcribed, translated, etc. etc., but that's a great deal of work that's going to have to fall to someone with more time and interest

'...But what does it mean?' This game has text or audio that needs to be translated. If you are fluent with this language, please read our translation guidelines and then submit a translation! Notes: Formal/archaic speech plus heavy voice filtering plus low-quality compressed audio, get me out of here

Beginning at disc sector 0x4CFD is a block of just under four minutes of dialogue from the ARPG incarnation of the game.

The first segment is by far the most interesting: it's a lengthy monologue from Ba'al Daimon, who in the original plot (as seen in the novel version) was the demon god worshipped by the Cult of Daimon and the story's true antagonist, with the resurrection of Masakado merely a means to the end of empowering Ba'al Daimon. The content of this clip indicates that Ba'al Daimon and Masakado would have merged together, presumably to form the final boss. This entire character was dropped when the story was rewritten, with the plot simplified to the Cult of Daimon trying to resurrect Masakado to destroy Jipang as the first step toward establishing their own "utopia."

A number of other, unrelated audio clips follow. Because of how drastically the story changed during development, many of them have no context and can't really be made much sense of. The fact that dialogue is organized by speaker, meaning we're usually only getting one side of a conversation, doesn't help matters.

• An unknown woman asking "What's wrong?" or "What happened?" and exclaiming "The monsters are gone!".
• A character thanking the player for helping Orochimaru, claiming that "the successor family to the Shogunate is now done for" and "Jipang will be unified by the Tycoons, and if it is not, I believe a peaceful world will never come." He asks for help with this, but his reaction of "How unfortunate...Then go, Orochimaru" suggests that he gets a negative response.
• Some lines that are obviously for the perverted Minister of the Left Kiyomasa, who is mentioned in unused maps as part of a cut plot involving him kidnapping Tsukihime and imprisoning her in a brothel: "You're mine now, Tsukihime, you cutie!" "Who're YOU!?"
• Various lines for Genoumaru, notably including him ordering a Clockwork Soldier to attack the player, a situation which appears in one of the scenes from the intro demo reel but was cut from the final game.
• Some dialogue for the cut character Bashou, who was based on the poet Matsuo Basho.

To do: Aside from the hundreds of tiny inscrutable fragments already mentioned, there are a few other long-ish clips in the data that could go here; have a look around sectors 0x2C00 and 0x3800...

Narration

ジライア　ツナデ　オロチ丸は
ついに　大門教を　倒し・・・

よみがった　マサカドも
ふたたび　地中深くに　封じ込めた

そして・・・

This text is used (it's the message shown after defeating the final boss), but the audio for it is not. It's located immediately before the audio for the early ending, suggesting this was originally going to be a lead-in to it.

Unused Demo Reel Clips

There are three unused clips of Ziria found among the other audio clips for the first set of attract mode demo scenes (which are themselves unused cutscenes from an older version of the game). They were clearly copied over for use in the demos, but weren't used for some reason.

Interestingly, the first of these is exactly identical to a message found in the old boss dialogue.

These three clips of warfare sounds are also found among the attract demo audio block, and were obviously intended to play over the scenes of the burning city (the third one in particular prominently contains the sound of a baby crying, which is shown in one of the scenes).

Early Ending#

The module that handles the game's intro contains resources for an unused early ending sequence. It uses the same "slideshow" format as the intro (and indeed, runs off the exact same code), complete with audio narration.

　　　ながい　戦いが　おわり
　　ジパングに　平和が　訪れた　　　

　　　邪悪な　心が　消え去って
　　ふたたび　山や　川や　湖が
　　　輝きに　つつまれると

　　人々は　笑顔と　やさしさを
　　　　取り戻したのだった　　　　　

　　　　　　　こうして
　　　　火の勇者の　活躍は

　　　おおくの　人々の　心に
　　勇気と　愛と　根性の　力を　　　
ふかく　残していったのだった・・・

　　　そして　いつの日か・・・
　　　　平和が　あやういとき

After this, the game shows the graphic of the three orbs shining that appears at the end of the "Bonus" segment viewable after the credits. It would then show the used scene of 完 (The End) being slowly drawn onto the screen, but the orb animation actually puts the game into an infinite loop, so that never happens.

Generic as it is, this actually provides a more conclusive tone than the used ending, which just sort of trails off on a lot of "congratulations, you're the hero."

The unique graphics created for this scene were ultimately folded into the post-credits "bonus" segment.

Edo Easter Eggs#

Watch on YouTube

Edo, the final area of the game, is chock full of unique shops and events. However, there are actually even more scenes that are locked behind requirements so obscure, they weren't found until decades after the game's release!

All of these events seem to be developer jokes, which is probably why they're so difficult to access.

Activation Method#

To be able to access the extra events, follow these steps:

• Start a new game. Play normally, but don't free the White Deer in Kashima Shrine.
• Continue through the game all the way to Edo.
• Go to the Show Tent (見せ物小屋) in Edo. Do not leave the building or interact with anything in the room before following the steps below! Many actions in this room set a flag that permanently disables the rest of this procedure. (Incidentally, this is the same flag that allows Ziria to stay at the Edo inn and proceed to the endgame.)

• Walk directly north from the entrance and use the Talk command on the pedestal. This should cause the water-spraying animation to appear on it.

• Go to the position shown in the screenshot and, while facing west, use the Talk command.

If all steps have been performed correctly, the normal message that appears when Talk is used on a member of the audience will show up. Otherwise, no message will be shown.

Once this "code" is successfully entered, the "Easter egg flag" is set, making it possible to view the following events in various locations around Edo.

To achieve the same effect without the complicated setup, set bit 6 of the byte at memory location $2724, e.g. by setting it to 0x40.

Developer Room#

Go to the Kabuki Theater and watch the performance. If the Easter egg flag is set, then afterwards, it will be possible to walk through the wall shown in the screenshot to get onto the center part of the stage.

Follow the path upward and go backstage to find a very out-of-place office full of NPCs representing various members of the game staff. Talking to them causes them to say their names.

As a final secret, using the Check command on the top-right keyboard will cause all the characters to "panic" and start running around the room at top speed.

Stonemason#

An extra NPC will appear in the corner of the Stonemason's workshop. At first, he's asleep, but triggering the event where Tsunade carves her own statue will cause him to wake up and attempt to perform the same feat.

ぐー　ぐー

あいやっ！
そこの　ムスメ！
待たれい！

ふっふっふっ・・・・
石柱を　にぎり　つぶすとは・・・・
しかし　まだまだ　若いのぉ

どれ　わしが一つ　お手本を見せよう
わしは　極東流の
ミスター　笹川・ミディ・敏左衛ェ門

では　いくぞ　若いの！
よーく　みておれよ

ハアァァァァ－－－－ッ！！！
ターッ！

アハハハ・・・・
なに　これ
バカじゃないの　このジジイ！

・・・・・・

This character's name is an exaggerated "samuraification" of Toshiyuki Sasagawa (笹川敏幸), who is credited as a supervisor on this game.

Mushrooms#

Go to Hoteimaru's earthquake experience room and choose the third setting, 激震 (extreme). Normally, this will cause the ladder in the room to fall on the ground, but with the Easter egg flag set, it will instead fall into a physically impossible position leading out of the building, prompting a comment from Tsunade (which is even voiced!).

ジライア！
はしごが　あんなところに
落ちたわよ・・・　ふしぜんね！

After taking a few steps into the small room the ladder leads to, it will disappear, leaving the party stuck. Talking to the NPC there yields the following dialogue:

あっ　ここは
関係者以外　立入禁止なんですよ
まいったな！　秘密にしてたのになあ

じつは　火消し仲間と　話をしていたら
マサカドが　復活したら　食いモンも
なくなるんじゃ　ねぇかって　ことで

キノコなんすけどね！　栽培してるんだ
そしたら　へんな　キノコが
できちゃいましてね

いやあ　話して　いいのかなあ？
幻覚　見ちゃうんですよ！　ゲンカク！
死んじゃうようなことは　ないんですよ

どうです
ひとつ　ジライアさんも
召し上がりやすか？

Answering "no" yields this:

そのほうが　イイですよ
あっしも　このキノコの　おかげで
この部屋の　出口を　忘れちまった！！

Answering "yes," on the other hand...

ジライアたちは
キノコを　食べた

...will cause non-interactive mushrooms to sprout in the room. It also removes the NPC that's blocking the door, making it possible to leave. The exit just leads back to the front of the earthquake building.

1UP#

At the Coffin Maker, using Check on the place shown in the screenshot will normally give the standard "there's nothing unusual here" message. Suspiciously, however, it's white instead of the normal blue.

With the Easter egg flag set, examining this spot will cause a "1UP" to rise out of the barrel, complete with a little sound effect. There don't seem to be any other consequences.

Unused Enemies#

A number of the game's enemies never appear anywhere. Some are just palette swaps of existing ones, but others are entirely unique.

ID	Graphic	Name	Level	HP	TP	ATK	DEF	SPD	EXP	Money	Drop	Notes
0x0C		しびれコウモリ Electric Bat	32	43	57	97	82	123	739	100	Antidote (16%)	A more powerful recolor of the 血ぞめコウモリ (Bloody Bat).
0x13		ガワラッパ Gawarappa	35	66	67	115	140	97	1212	129	Antidote (16%)	A more powerful recolor of the ショウジョウ (Xingxing).
0x1E		しのざきギツネ Shinozaki-gitsune	13	40	10	21	12	36	49	13		A differently-statted recolor of the 鬼ギツネ (Oni-gitsune).
0x25		怒鬼 Doki	25	47	36	58	91	52	604	59	Iron Helmet (8%)	Uses a unique graphic.
0x27		賞金かせぎ Bounty Hunter	32	43	28	123	66	112	746	104	Samurai Sword (16%)	Uses a unique graphic.
0x2D		ボーンゴーレム Bone Golem	46	150	163	266	178	192	2001	341		Uses a unique graphic.
0x36		鬼兵士 Oni Soldier	25	61	48	81	65	67	607	60	Shinobi Katabira (8%)	A more powerful recolor of the 大門鬼 (Daimon Oni).
0x38		殺人鬼 Killer Oni	25	34	18	99	43	48	609	61		A more powerful recolor of the 鬼侍 (Oni Samurai).
0x3D		ベニグモ Benigumo	29	46	23	67	111	61	674	78	Kunai (8%)	A differently-statted recolor of the クモ兵士 (Spider Soldier).
0x40		鬼グモ Onigumo	29	70	63	117	65	104	788	81	Gunpowder Orb (16%)	A differently-statted recolor of the クモ男 (Spider Man).
0x55		あくま大僧正 Devil Priest	36	88	99	192	93	95	1283	148	Elixir (4%)	Uses a unique graphic.
0x59		しびと食らい Corpse Eater	30	40	25	93	78	80	925	115	God Elixir (4%)	A differently-statted recolor of the ガキ (Gaki) and スダマ (Sudama) enemies.
0x67		大グモ Oogumo	30	88	51	146	73	75	694	82		A differently-statted recolor of the ツチグモ (Tsuchigumo).

Aside from these, a number of enemy slots (0x5E, 0x7E, 0x80, 0x94) are blank. These have their name filled in with the ASCII string "(null)" (which the game can't actually display, since it only supports Shift-JIS).

Unused Items#

• Item 0x7B is named アト (which has no obvious meaning and might be "At" or "Ato"). It has no apparent use.
• Items 0x80-0x83 are a series of placeholders named 綱ギ５ through 綱ギ８ (a strangely miswritten form of ツナギ, meaning "Filler"). The four items that directly precede them are the foreign-import items sold at the Daimon-run shop in Shuzenji, so these slots may have been intended for four more import items that were never implemented.

Unused Text#

Developer Message#

ばかやろう
武具屋で売っているリストが
前回もらったリストと大幅に違うぞ

おまけに　武具屋やよろず屋の数が
あわないぞ

一体　いつになったら　正しいリスト
が　手元にくるんだ？
おまえら　表もつくれんのか？

この　タコ！

As seen in an unused map, there is an unused Armory intended for Edo. Its shopkeeper doesn't sell anything, but does offer some choice words from a developer who was evidently very frustrated with trying to set up the large number of shops found in Edo.

Genoumaru#

お・・おのれ！　ジライア！！
こんどは　この　大門教１３人衆の
１２番手　幻王丸が　相手だ！！

The Kawagoe Castle map contains dialogue for an intro to the Genoumaru boss fight. Strangely, it isn't used, nor does the boss battle itself contain any kind of introductory dialogue.

つよいな・・・　ジライアよ！
だが　マサカドは　すでに・・・
われらの　もの　もうおそいわ・・

この　ジパングは
大門教が　すべて　支配するのだ！！
ハハハハ・・・・

Similarly, there's text in the map that's clearly meant to be used after the battle, but isn't. Neither these lines nor the one above are even referenced in the script data. Genoumaru fights and dies in utter silence in the finished game.

However, the audio for the last line actually is used: it's played as part of the attract mode demo sequence, where it accompanies the very last scene in the final demo reel.

Battle#

ホテイ丸

Hoteimaru's name appears among the list of characters who can be in the player's party. While prerelease coverage states that Hoteimaru was indeed planned to be an "assist character" like Kogama and King Akurou, he never has such a role in the finished game.

仲間をよぶ

炎１

炎２

毒

At the end of the list of enemy spell names are four placeholders. There are spells or abilities with all of these effects in the final game; "Call Ally" and "Poison" both have dedicated messages instead of using the generic "[name] used [skill]" message, so these aren't needed for that, while "Fire 1" and "Fire 2" presumably became the final game's "Mago" and "Magmy" spells.

[number]番目

ＢＧ

失敗

Some debug text or error messages for use in battles. The "[number]" part of the first one is a command that displays a numerical value when the text is printed.

Miscellaneous#

マップ用スタックのエラーです

敵ナンバーのエラーです

Error messages that can be displayed on the overworld. The first one will appear if the player attempts to leave an area through an exit that's programmed to go back to the "previous" map if the stack used to keep track of which maps the player has been on is empty. The second shows up if the game tries to start an encounter with an invalid enemy formation (it specifically validates that at least one of the enemy IDs is nonzero, and that none of them are 0xC2 or greater). If this happens, the encounter is cancelled and the game continues.

０１２３４５６７８９０１２３４５６７
０１２３４５６７８９０１２３４５６７
０１２３４５６７８９０１２３４５６７

This placeholder string, which is repeated 12 times, was probably used to reserve space for additional messages in case they were needed.

Additionally, there exists an exact duplicate of the dialogue between Ziria and the Toad Hermit found in the intro, but formatted for display in-game. In fact, it's fully programmed to show up when talking to the Toad Hermit, but the intro sequence sets a flag that marks it as having already been shown, causing it not to appear. This can be seen in-game by clearing bit 0 of the byte at memory location $2701 (e.g. by setting it to 0x00) after starting a new game, then talking to the Toad Hermit.

Old Boss Dialogue#

Disc sectors 0xABD-0xAF9 contain what seems to be data for boss fight dialogue from an older version of the game. Their format is similar to that of the final game's boss dialogue, with text pointers for the same three scenarios (boss appears, boss wins, player wins); however, they're different enough to no longer be compatible with the finished game.

The data doesn't include the enemy name, graphics, etc., and some of them refer to characters and scenarios that were removed for the final game, so the context of many of these is unclear. Also, some aspects of the scripting system seem to have been changed after this version, so the text dump itself may have errors. Take all of these with a healthy dose of salt.

Boss 0xABD

よせ！俺、おまえと戦いたくないよ！

Boss 0xAC0

勝負しようぜ！

どうってことねえな
いつでも相手になってやるぜ
待ってるぜ

うへぇまいったまいった
俺の師匠は塚原ト伝様だ
おまえもならうといいぜ

さきに行って話しといてやる
気むずかし屋だがいい先生だ
じゃあな・・・

Boss 0xAC1

ほほうガマ仙人の育てていたガキかい！
どんだけ強くなったか見てやろうぞい！

まだ修行が足らんぞい！
出なおせ！
出なおせ！

まいった、まいった
これだけ強ければ
毛の国でも修行ができるじゃろう

行ってこい　小僧！！
ほれ　タヌキのワラジを履かせてやろう
これがあれば山あるきができるぞい！

けんど山んなかにゃ
怪物がウヨウヨでるで
気いつけにゃいかんぞい

Boss 0xAC2

カッパと戦ったと
ほほうムム・・もしや
お主ガマ仙人の弟子か

よし一手指南してやろう

まだまだ修行が
足りないようだのお
出直してきなさい

なかなかいい手スジじゃ！
鹿島新当流一の太刀を
さずけるぞ！

Boss 0xAC5

佐竹のヤツラは許せん
おまえも佐竹の者か！
死ね！！

ウッ！ワシは火の一族のマツエイじゃ
城に奪われた火の紋章を取り返えせず
辻斬りをしてウラミをはらしておった

おヌシ、ガマ族の者らしいな
ガマもまた、火の一族の血を引く者
同じ火の一族のマツエイじゃ

この紋章さえあれば
幻の火の術が使えるという
奪え！　火の紋章を奪ってくれい

Boss 0xAC6

見たな！　きさま！！

Boss 0xAC9

ざまあ見ろ！
二度と来るなよ
ワハハハハ・・・

ま・・・まいりました！
どうかカンベンしてください
これはほんの気持ちでござる

Boss 0xACF

われこそは　たまも姫
口おしや！　よくもわれのたくらみを
ジャマをしてたもうたな！！

小僧！　かくごしよ！
ギャオーン！

Boss 0xAD0

コーン　コンコン！
われはこの世にかくれ住む
九尾の狐なり！

この姿　見たなー
生かしておかぬぞ！

うううーん　くちおしや
われは殺硝石となりて
汝のゆくてにあだなさん！

Though the plot point about the player's path being blocked by a Sesshou-seki was kept, it's not explicitly stated in the final that it's Kyuubi who becomes it.

Boss 0xAD5

見たな〜

今こそ我ら鬼族が
恨みをはらす戦の時
武器をそろえん！！

その為には何をおいても軍資金
安達ヶ原の一つ家は
事をなすためのワナと知れ

Boss 0xAD9

誰だ！ここは大門教の教会となったんだ
みだりに入る者には
バールダイモン様の天罰が下るぞ！

This line is particularly notable for having another one of the few remaining mentions of Ba'al Daimon in the game.

ひえっ！覚えていろ！

Boss 0xAE0

あなたは剣術を使いますね
夢想流居合いの術の創始者　林崎甚介！
一手お相手いたしましょう！

まだまだ修行がたりないようですね
また　来てください
いつでも　お相手いたしましょう

みごとです　わたしのあみ出した
月崩しの技を教えましょう
しかしこの技を持っても弾正のネズミの

妖術は破れないのです・・・
ネズミの妖術を破る方法を
何とか見つけなくては・・・

Boss 0xAE2

ガマがネズミに勝てるものか！
はははは・・・

This is clearly Danjou/Hamelin, whose true form is a giant rat.

よ　よ　よくもーっ・・・

Boss 0xAE4

まだまだ力がたりぬなガマの者よ
ワシは何度でも受けてたつ
また来るがいい

見事だ！
ガマ族の若者よ！
いやさ！自来也！

人間どもが鬼と言うのは　おのが
邪悪な部分をうとましく思うがゆえ
我らを鬼と呼んで滅ぼそうとするのだ

ガマの者にも我らが血が流れておる
人間の卑劣さになじむなよ
これを持って行くがよい

その鬼のはちがねが
おまえの身を守ってくれるだろう
さらばじゃ！　自来也！

These lines are obviously for King Akurou. Though he is also fought in the final game, this battle seems to be taking place in a different context; the final has him reluctantly attacking Ziria due to coercion by the Cult of Daimon, who have kidnapped his son.

He does ultimately give the player with an Oni Headguard in the final, but it's as a reward after rescuing his son and defeating Hamelin rather than after fighting him.

Boss 0xAEE

眠りをさますのは誰ぞ
我は汝らがために
宝を守るものぞ！

氷の巻物は戦闘でも使うことができるが
この陸奥を無事に抜けた後も
必要だろう

Boss 0xAF7

おめェツガルアメ
持ってるだべエ！
くれェー！

Boss 0xAF9

いくぜ！

どうってことないな
それじゃあ大門教に
勝てないぜ

なかなかやるな・・・
大門教は手ごわいそうだぞ！
煙の巻だこいつをやろう！

Miscellaneous#

Somewhat notoriously, Defense bonuses from equipment are bugged and don't actually work, leaving their listed stat increases technically "unused." As a result, armor and helmets are completely useless and a waste of both money and inventory space. (Kinta isn't so wrong when he tells you not to bother with weapons and armor!)

Revisional Differences#

As a result of its popularity, Tengai Makyou: Ziria has seen at least four different revisions on PC Engine hardware (or an emulation of it).

Revision 6#

The original release of the game.

Revision 7#

A minor update; all changes seem to be related to bugfixes.

• In Revision 6, the game save NPCs found at some hot spring inns are bugged. They work fine if "Yes" is chosen to save the game, but choosing "No" causes them to spew garbage text. The map data was corrected in Revision 7 to fix this. The fix was even applied at hot spring inns that don't actually have a save NPC.
• The routine in the game's kernel that is located at $82C6 in the CPU memory map in Revision 7 is supposed to return the carry flag clear if the ADPCM hardware is not currently busy. It was expanded in Revision 7 with extra code that seems to work around some sort of bug present only in the v1.0 system BIOS.
• A few very minor code optimizations were made in the game's kernel, such as replacing jsr commands with the shorter bsr. This was most likely done to free up space for the ADPCM bugfix, as the kernel has very little spare room.

Super CD-ROM²#

In 1992, the game was ported to the Super CD-ROM² hardware. This version of the game wasn't intended to be sold at retail; 30,000 copies were produced as giveaway prizes for a PC Engine Duo sales campaign, where customers who sent in a copy of their warranty card would be given a free copy of the game. The campaign was not as successful as hoped: copies of the game soon popped up in stores for cheap, and in an effort to burn through leftover stock, a further 2,000-game giveaway was later held in conjunction with the unrelated game Magicoal.

In terms of game content, this version appears to be unchanged from the original release. However, it has numerous alterations under the hood that attempt to leverage the expanded memory of the Super CD system to reduce load times. Keyword: "attempt." Somewhat incredibly, this upgrade was so badly bungled that many of the load times are actually longer than in the original! Overall, it's a remarkably poor way to show off the upgraded hardware.

Later Releases#

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: The differences listed here are just a couple that happened to get spotted while working on a translation of the game. A more thorough look might turn up more.

Many years after its original release, the game appeared in emulated form for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable. The PS3 version, and probably also the PSP version, made some changes to the text for legal reasons:

「ふるいけや
　いけいけ　ひゅうま　ドンといけ」
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　六茶

「ふるいけや
　いけいけ　ピューマ　ドンといけ」
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　六茶

One of the old men in Atami Village who compose terrible haiku has a poem that contains the line ike ike Hyuuma, don to ike ("Go, go, Hyuuma, go with all your might"). This is a very direct reference to the opening theme of the 1968-1971 baseball anime Kyojin no Hoshi, whose final lines are yuke yuke Hyuuma, don to yuke (yuke being a more formal version of ike). Apparently, the use of "Hyuuma," the name of the show's protagonist, was deemed too legally dubious, as the PS3 version substitutes ひゅうま (Hyuuma) with ピューマ (puma).

ねー　おにいちゃん
ミニよんく　かってよー

ねー　おにいちゃん
チビよんく　かってよー

A child at one of the Edo inns begs Ziria to buy him a Mini 4WD toy (anachronisms be damned) using the brand name ミニよんく (Mini Yonku). That name is a trademark of toymaker Tamiya, which resulted in it being changed to チビよんく (Little Yonku) in the PS3 version.