#madou monogatari 4

[evajellion]

We have a release date for Madou Monogatari 4. It's not exact, but it's going to come out in Summer of 2024. Could be somewhere between June to late August!

No idea if this is gonna be released to the west, I mean, Compile Heart/Idea Fuck is known to release to the west but SEGA might fight them on it.

[satoshi-mochida]

Madou Monogatari: Fia and the Mysterious School launches November 28 in Japan - Gematsu

Madou Monogatari: Fia and the Mysterious School, formerly Madou Monogatari 4, will launch for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Switch on November 28 in Japan for 8,580 yen, the latest issue of Weekly Famitsu reveals. A limited edition will also be available for 17,380 yen, which includes an art book, CD, acrylic diorama, and card game, among other bonuses.

Published by Compile Heart and developed by Sting in cooperation with D4 Enterprise, with participation by former Compile staff, Madou Monogatari: Fia and the Mysterious School features a game cycle of life in a school of sorcery, command-based battles in automatically-generated 3D dungeons, and character development through a grimoire skill tree.

The game’s staff and cast include:

Staff

Producer and Director: Hikaru Yasui

Advisors: Kazunari Yonemitsu, Kenji Oda

Character Design: Sunaho Tobe

Sub-Character Design: Shinichirou Otsuka, Katsumi Enami, Ichi

Music: k.h.d.n

Devleopment: Sting

Cast

Fia (voiced by Saya Aizawa) – A girl with good fortune who enrolled at the school of sorcery.

Will (voiced by Maki Kawase)

Lina (voiced by Nichika Oomori)

Totto (voiced by Shun Horie)

Escha (voiced by Moe Kahara)

Carbuncle (voiced by Tomoko Kaneda)

Suketoudara (voiced by Hisayoshi Suganuma)

Banshee Trio (voiced by Mariko Honda)

Momomo (voiced by Jun Osuka)

Skeleton T (voiced by Kenichi Ono)

Owlbear (voiced by Youji Ueda)

Zoh Daimaoh (voiced by Hiroki Yasumoto)

Jurk (voiced by Kaito Morita)

Garreldo (voiced by Kouta Suzuki)

Mew (voiced by Aoi Nagatsuki)

Vesta (voiced by Mana Nakatomi)

[eway]

NONE OF THE HUMANOID CHARACTERS ARE IN MADOU 4!?

No Arle, no Schezo, no Dark Prince, no Rulue, no Ragnus NO ONE!? NO WITCH NO DRACO NO SERILLY!?

An entirely new cast but Carbuncle's there without Arle!?!?!?!

Man, I was hyped for nothing...

SEGA IS LETTING THEM USE ALL THE PUYO CHARACTERS AND THEY CAN'T EVEN BRING ARLE BACK WITH CARBUNCLE!?!?!

But I have hopes for the new characters. Maybe the new guys will be good? Maybe I can write some fanfics of them interacting with Arle and co.

I can salvage this. This isn't even the first time they've released a Madou game, hyped it up, only for it to have at most a CAMEO from Arle and no other characters. So like, this is an improvement, so maybe Madou 5 will bring back our beloved humanoid characters.

[madelynhimegami]

Important fact about the next Madou Monogatari:

It has Our Friend Momomo.

Be sure to say hi to my friend Momomo!

[klug]

『魔導物語 フィアと不思議な学校』インタビュー。世界観を踏襲した正当なシリーズ最新作はなぜ生まれたのか。オリジナルスタッフ集結や、ぷよ、カーバンクルが登場する理由は？

　11月28日発売予定のPS5/PS4/Nintendo Switch用ソフト『魔導物語 フィアと不思議な学校』安井光プロデューサー兼ディレクターのインタビューを掲載します。

Did my best to summarize some points of interest from this article. This is not a comprehensive translation and is mostly a summary.

Interview is with Mr. Hikari Yasui who is the producer and director of the game

Discussion around reviving Madou Monogatari as an IP started ~2021. The company's president, Naoto Tominaga, said that if they did do it, it would be best done with people who previously worked at Compile.

They wanted to make this one a proper continuation so they talked to D4 in the process early about that, and got help from SEGA so that it would properly fit into the universe of Madou Monogatari

Since Fia is a proper continuation, he didn't really give any consideration to Sei Madou Monogatari. Sei Madou was an attempt at making a "new" madou monogatari so that's why the item names/magic spell names are all different

since Fia was planned to be a true continuation from the start that's why they really started with " Madou Monogatari 4" as the temporary name. They changed the title later on to emphasize that Fia is the protagonist .

In terms of selecting characters, Carbuncle and the Puyos were highest on the priority list of like getting rights for/appearing in the game. All of the returning characters from Madou were selected based on advice from Yonemitsu and they're making sure not to stray too far from like, intention/writing? under Yonemitsu's supervision and Sega's.

Biggest influences are Yonemitsu and Oda, and the ways they wrote/designed their respective games are pretty different… Yasui talks about how Yonemitsu'sis a lot more stoic/self-disciplined while Oda's is more entertaining

Basically Yonemitsu joined the project first and the idea that Oda should participate as well just popped up naturally and was suggested by Yonemitsu himself. Oda also has history with compile heart's president and he mostly helped to oversee the setting/worldbuilding and the story

Not sure if I got this part right, I think this part says that because Yonemitsu and Oda have very different outlooks on Madou Monogatari, there are some parts that have probably been reconciled between their perspectives?

安井 先ほども少し触れた通り、米光さんと織田さんにはそれぞれの『魔導物語』観みたいなところに違いがあるので、結果的にお2人の『魔導物語』観を融和させたような部分はあったかもしれません。

when asked if he feels there are any gaps between Fia and previous Madou Monogatari works, Yasui says that Madou can be both heartwarming and dark, but because of the game's rating and how this story is more about Fia's growth, they had to keep the dark elements within certain boundaries

regarding the parameters, I think they have sadly had to make them more explicit and give numerical stats because they modernized the game, but they felt like the motto of (original) madou monogatari was that even if you don't understand the system at first, you will grow along with your character by just experiencing it…so theyve tried to capture a similar feeling in Fia.

yasui says something to the effect of "you can think of this game as part of madou monogatari's chronological continuity, but i don't really have a specific timeframe where it takes place" when asked if this fits into the games' continuity.

――改めての質問となりますが、本作は『魔導物語』のシリーズの年表の中に正式に組み込まれた作品だと考えてよろしいでしょうか。 安井 具体的に「何年の出来事」とは明言していませんが、そう考えていただいて問題ありません。

[evajellion]

So… Madou 4… or Fia rather?

On one hand, I'm happy at least the non-human characters are coming back! They were my favs! It might be good to breathe new air into the Madou world with a new protagonist.

Skeleton-T as a teacher/staff member? Pog. That's a cute development for him! Seems all the returning characters (that SEGA allowed to relinquish) are staff members. And I love the non-humans so that's a W for me.

On the other hand, not telling fans that the OG main cast was not returning until now feels kind of… deceitful.

Japanese users seem to have that sentiment.

So that's not a good sign. Well, okay! It doesn't need Arle and co. to be a good game, just needs to have that nice old Madou tone and old school gameplay that people loved!

Oh… it… doesn't have that either, huh? It's another 3D game with visual novel cutscenes with a more complex elemental spell system…

And with copypasted dungeon layouts, joooooy-

Yeah, okay, I'm gonna pull off the optimism mask. I'm sorry, but as someone who has poured hours into Neptunia and Compile Heart's other work, this is just… them retreading the same mistakes they did ten years ago.

To which at this point-

Why not just make a sequel to the previous Sorcery Saga?

You would be telling the truth to people on what they should expect, you would bring back the roguelikes that are taking off in popularity in recent years- you could do something with Pupuru and co. rather than leaving them to rot since the game bombed by being Vita exclusive for a long while.

If SEGA cannot relinquish the rights of Arle and co, that's fine. Pupuru was still right there to use. If they didn't want to affiliate with Pupuru, that's also fine, Fia seems cute.

The problem here, is not that there is a new protagonist. Amitie and other characters worked just fine because Puyo Fever was fun and the characters were good! Sorcery Saga could work if it leaned more on having its own identity rather than reusing the Madou characterizations.

The problem is that this is yet another typical Compile Heart / Idea Factory game. Nine months ago, I literally said "Compile Heart being involved is worrying given their track record."

Things like mediocre gameplay, frequent crashes/lag, and very, very uncomfortable perverted jokes. SEGA may not have trusted them with Arle and the rest for a good reason. (if SEGA was the reason for the main charas being barred from use, rather than some other issue)

So please be aware of that. I'm not trying to be a hater here, I'm just… someone who has played these games and them being super grindy/crashing a lot. I would love to be proven wrong and for this to just be cute with some random horror final boss moments. I really would!

If not, then I think it's time for some indie game creator to make a Madou successor.

[eway]

With Madou 4 coming out, it made me think. That game (better) focus on only the Compile characters.

Now, both Madou Monogatari and early Puyo games had a good mix of low and high stakes. You had Madou Monogatari: Michikusa Ibun and Puyo Puyo Sun with low stakes for example. The Madou game has Arle and Carbuncle go dungeon crawling for fun, and Puyo Sun is just "Dark Prince wants to get laid. He enlarges the sun so he can get a tan to accomplish this. Beat him up."

But there was also games like Madou Monogatari 2 or Puyo Puyo~n. Madou 2 has Arle get captured by Schezo, and need to fight her way out, outright decapitatating two people, and struggling to survive. And Puyo Puyo~n has a dopplegaenger of Arle brainwash the Dark Prince (a very strong character), kidnap Carbuncle, and try to kill and replace Arle.

Good mix of high and low stakes for the games in The World Of Sorcery

But the games in Primp and Suzuran? Not so much.

Ringo's games, 7, 20th Anniversary, Tetris, and Tetris 2 are all high stakes. She has no low stakes games.

Amitie's games, Fever and Fever 2, are low stakes. Even though Fever 2 had the potential to be high stakes.

So with Madou 4 coming out for us Compile Era fans, I think there should also be a game that takes place solely in the Primp universe, with high stakes.

How to do this? Easy. We already have a Demon that was split in two for its crimes, sealed away due to its evil. Its spirit in a book, its body gaining a will of its own.

Basically, MAKE STRANGE KLUG EVIL AND A THREAT!

It annoys me that he's a joke. He wants to merge with Sig which would result in a death of personality for Sig, effectively KILLING HIM!

And in Puyo games, beings aren't sealed away for no reason. The Crimson Spirit is evil. Also, maybe we can learn it's name. The fandom (at least in the west) calls it Ayashii, but Ayashii is just the Japanese word for strange.

So my suggestion? Klug is with Amitie, maybe helping her study or something, when they stumble upon a way to unleash the Crimson Spirit, not knowing that will happen. Klug gets possessed and the spirit makes its intentions clear - first, merge with Sig, then enslave/take over/destroy/whatever the world!

Amitie sees Klug as a friend. And any harm done to this body will effect him, so she can't *kill* the spirit (not that she would think to do that. In fact, maybe Raffina suggests killing the spirit and Amitie brings this up). Strange Klug flies off, taking the book with him, maybe Klug's little spirit gets used as a hostage later or something I dunno. And Strange Klug reappears multiple times throughout the story!

So Amitie goes on a journey to find out how to reseal the demon, learning more about herself, her friends, her allies, and the dangers in her world. Maybe she finds out about her Puyo hat and why Ms. Accord gaslighted her into thinking all its magic was in her head.

But that's my pitch. As for a low stakes Ringo game, maybe Suzuran thinks Ecolo is a cryptid and a bunch of cryptid hunters try to attack Ringo because she's the only link to Ecolo. I dunno

[evajellion]

So Madou Monogatari 4 is happening.

I honestly jumped off the Puyo-Madou boat a long while ago (way too much toxic shit happened ever since the Western release of PPT), but I am interested to see how this will turn out. We haven't had a real, proper Puyo game in a long while, so this is a good way to keep people sated!

Although the original staff is involved, having them doesn't guarantee the game being good (as we have seen time and time again), and Compile Heart being involved is… worrying given their track record.

Worst case scenario, it's an extremely budgeted game much like most of Compile Heart's titles, filled to the brim with outdated perverted jokes, or just a nostalgia bait grab like Sonic 4 was.

Best case scenario, it's adapting some of the ideas from the novels and feels exactly like the first-person-dungeon-crawler I loved.

Edit: I will say, if this is a way to keep the main Madou characters away from the gacha shit SEGA has been pumping for the past decade, then… that's good lol.