The Mysterious Backstory behind Treasure of the Rudras + opinionThe Mysterious Backstory behind Treasure of the Rudras (and what I think of the game) WARNING: There will be SPOILERS for the Super Famicom/SNES JRPG, Treasure of the Rudras (Rudra no Hihou). If you don't want anything here spoiled for you, please press the back button. If you want to know more about this obscure Japan exclusive JRPG, go read. Ah yes, Treasure of the Rudras.... An obscure JRPG with a very divisive fanbase, even in Japan. It could also be considered an“acquired taste” type of video game to many who have played it. Some love Treasure of the Rudras, others loathe it, and a few have mixed feelings about it. I, myself, have mixed feelings about Treasure of the Rudras, as I do with Final Fantasy VI. Where to start here? Hmmm.... Let's start with the good, shall we? The Good things about Treasure of the Rudras: I love the set up and concept of the story line. It is very unique and different from the elemental crystal stories and evil empire stories that Square was famous for back in the days. It starts out with the Majestic Four divine heroes, Mitra, Meifa, Saizou, and Hauzen, fighting the creatures of the void, and being successful at temporarily banishing the foul beings. But knowing the void beings will come back one day, the Majestic four are tasked with restoring life to the world the destroyers demolished in the battle, and set up a cycle of rise and downfall for the beings inhabiting the world. The cycle is put into use every 4,000 years. It starts out with four mortal beings: The Danan Mystics, The Merfolk, The Reptilians, and The Giants. After those 4,000 years between the beings, the creatures have all run their course, leaving Humans in charge of the world. But alas, with the environmental disasters and warfare that took place over the years, it isn't just the end of the world that concerns humanity this time around. Now it is up to four heroes, The Knight Sion, The Sorcerer Surlent, The Cleric Riza, and the Thief Dune, to finish the job of the Majestic Four. On their way, they inherit a sacred stone, known as a Jade, to bring them closer to divinity. I love the story line of the first two scenarios, led by Sion, the brash, but well meaning Knight, and Surlent, the polite, yet naive, Sorcerer. Sion's party members, Foxy, Ture, and Ramyleth/Ramirez, as well as Surlent's party members, Legin, Sork, and Lolo, are pretty fun and endearing characters overall. The antagonists, Gomorrah, Lord of Evolution, and Mitra, the leader of the Majestic Four divinity, are also pretty interesting, likable, and somewhat sympathetic antagonists. I say Rudra made the trope of sympathetic antagonists done right for once (Bahamut Lagoon is another example of dark gray vs. light gray morality done right, but that is another story). The only major complete monster villains in the game are Mayor Culgan of Babel city, and Hauzen, the rogue member of the Majestic Four. Other than that, Rudra follows the dark gray vs. light gray morality with its characters, and pulls that trope off with great success. With Surlent's scenario, I feel quite a bit of pathos for this guy. Where to start with Surlent's character? Well.... SPOILERS FOR SURLENT'S SCENARIO! His mentor, Dr. Munich, gets killed by the Rudra of the Reptilians, known as Lazm, while researching the Lago Stone that the creature sleeps from within it. As Surlent tries to talk peace with this aggressive being, the Rudra kills Surlent, leaving the sorcerer to inherit the “Rebirth Jade” that lodged itself in his chest. But that is not the end of Surlent's story. Oh no. He gets put through the ringer big time. Surlent gets killed and revived, over and over again, with two of those bodies kept safe by Gomorrah. Surlent inherits one body, the knight Rostam, and loses his life the first try. Then the other body, Huey the court mage, is inherited by Surlent, to give him a second chance at restoring his default body, which is possessed by the evil Mayor Culgan. Over time, after losing the people Surlent cares about, the harried mage and his friends defeat Culgan, helping Surlent return back to normal again. There, Surlent goes through yet more trials, and depending on what weapon he gives to Sion's party near the end of his scenario, there are two endings. One involving Surlent getting possessed by the fallen hero Hauzen, as he is forced to reawaken the foul being against Surlent's will. With this ending, it is up to Sion's party to rescue the hapless mage from the Rudra's clutches. END OF SPOILERS! With the spoiler and best parts of the story out of the way, now it is time to talk about the graphics, artwork, and character designs. Rudra shines brightly with its graphics, artwork, and character designs. The artwork is done by one of the masters of Tokusatsu media, Keita Amemiya, and his company, CROWD inc. Amemiya is the talent behind the movies Zeiram, Zeiram 2, and Moon over Tao: Makaraga. He also worked on various Super Sentai shows and Kamen Riders shows, as well as the movies based off of these same properties. Those properties were childhood favorites of mine growing up. Also, did I mention that Keita Amemiya, alongside Yoshitaka Amano, and Tomomi Kobayashi, are three of my artistic inspirations growing up, influencing my art style in the process, over the years. Oh, FUN FACT: The Super Sentai series, starting with Kyoryu Sentai Ju-urenja (Dinosaur Squadron Beast Rangers) was edited into a show for the Western English speaking audiences, known as the wildly famous Power Ranger series. Also, the graphics are very lovely, with highly detailed sprites, complete with fluid animation in their movements. Both in battle, and in cut scenes. Like with many Squaresoft games at the time, the enemy monsters and bosses are quite detailed, with the player character sprites being portrayed in a cute, “chibi-style” graphics. The soundtrack also has a lot of catchy tunes as well. The soundtrack is composed by Ryuji Sasai, most notable for his works in the infamous Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest, and the lesser known Bushido Blade series. The music fits the tone of most of the scenes, and doesn't feel out of place, that's for sure. The Bad things about Treasure of the Rudras: Sadly, just like with Final Fantasy VI, the game's major downfall, is the second half of the game (Just like with Final Fantasy VI's infamous “World of Ruin”), Treasure of the Rudras falls apart at the seams with both Riza's scenario, and Dune's scenario. Also, just like with Final Fantasy VI, the ending to Rudra is also very anti-climatic, and disappointing, but for different reasons. First off, with Riza's scenario, it felt like a cheap discount “Mockbuster” version of Hayao Miyazaki's “Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind” manga series (or, at least a loose fanfic adaptation of “Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind”, as written by a 15 year old Japanese adolescent on Pixiv). But unlike with Nausicaa herself, Riza herself is just a very unlikable, and boring main character, who is somewhat a borderline canon Mary Sue to boot. Riza is up there with Terra Branford from Final Fantasy VI for being a cute character design with poorly executed writing (Is it me, or does Riza look like she could be a long lost Valkyrie sister from the “Valkyrie Profile” series?). Say what you may about Yoyo from Bahamut Lagoon, at least she is not a boring character. Yoyo is an interesting character, in a love to hate her sort of way. At least Yoyo faces repercussions to her foul behavior. And at least Yoyo made me feel things other than boredom and apathy, unlike with Riza and Terra. With Riza's party members, they are meh at best. Garlyle is a simp that drools over Riza, while Riza herself just merely tolerates him in return (Bro, you can do so much better!). Pippin, while having a cute character design, is quite a hyperactive chatterbox that never stops blabbering (he is also friends with Lolo in Surlent's party). Marina is the most likable character in Riza's scenario (plus, she is a very cute mermaid), but Marina herself is not enough to save Riza's story for being a total slog to get through. SPOILERS FOR DUNE'S SCENARIO! With getting through all three scenarios, Dune is the next in line to the heroes. Dune himself is an okay character, but little is done with him in the game, which is a crying shame. I do like the parts in his scenario, where the Danan Brasnir gets mercy killed, and Ramirez takes his place as being one with the Danan flying ark. That was a rewarding payoff to Ramirez's character. And I also like the part when the main characters face off against Hauzen yet again, and Surlent is like, “Oh good Lordy, just die already Hauzen! I had it with you!” It shows that Surlent has gone through some form of character growth in a way, unlike with Riza. That is also why Surlent is one of my favorite JRPG lead characters ever. I also liked the final boss battle with Mitra at the end. Sure, her final boss theme may not be as epic as “Dancing Mad” from Final Fantasy VI, but it is memorable in its own right. I also like how Mitra explains her motivations and why she does all these things in the 4,000 year cycle of rise and downfall. But the ending, man, the ending, it is very disappointing. If I tell you the ending to the the very first “The Legend of Zelda” game, was much better than Treasure of the Rudras' ending, then, you would be right. Because Treasure of the Rudra ends on an ambiguous cliff hanger note. And unlike with the first “Legend of Zelda” game's ending, there is no sequel, prequel, nor spin off title to follow up with it, which is a crying shame. I DESPISE unresolved cliffhanger endings so much. It is just as bad as Final Fantasy VI's cop out sudden twist ending, if not a bit worse. But at least it did not end with everything all being a dream, without there being foreshadowing the dream world to begin with (The Rosemary's Baby sequel novel comes to mind). END OF SPOILERS! The “Meh” of Treasure of the Rudras: The game play is rather interesting, but a bit convoluted and rather unfair at times, given the enemy monsters are infamous for having cheap AI in battles. The game play uses a magic system known as mantras/kotodama. You spell the name out yourself, creating a spell in the process. It is a very interesting system, but you definitely need a walk through with this magic system, or else, you are going to get easily lost in the game. There are the main four magical elements in the game: Earth, Fire, Wind, and Water. But there is also the Lightning, Dark, Light, and Void elemental magic to go alongside the main four elements. You can also create healing mantra, buff mantra, and de-buff mantra alongside attack mantra. You can also equip elemental weapons as well, making certain boss fight more tolerable. But the flaw with this game play system, is, similarly with Final Fantasy VI, everybody can use the same magic, which makes the characters blend in with one another game play wise. Yeah, yeah, I know in Final Fantasy VI, there are abilities like Steal, Mug, Tools, Runic, etc., but the magic system in that game makes those characters unique abilities obsolete over the course of the game play. And sometimes, the monster fights can be a bit unfair at times, whether they are boss enemies or not. Enemy monsters have their own unique abilities in battle, but the playable characters do not, which makes the game play somewhat uneven. But it could be worse... It could be Unlimited SaGa style game play, but thankfully, it's not. The game play is passable, but lop sided. The Mysterious back story behind Treasure of the Rudras' creation: There is one thing that Treasure of the Rudras is known for in Japan, and it is not just the small, but loud minority, of the rule 34 hentai fanbrats of the game. I am talking about the mysterious story behind the games conception, complete with rumors of cut content and things that are rumored to not to make it in the development of the final product. (NOTE: I get a lot of this information on a lot of old time Japanese websites, which are now, sadly defunct. But on the Japanese internet, the legends and rumors live on.) First Legend (and the most well known legend): Squaresoft executives hated Treasure of the Rudras, and would not let Keita Amemiya, nor CROWD inc, work for Square ever again. This one was proven to be debunked, since Square-Enix now, had Keita Amemiya work on character designs for the various side stories to the MMORPG, Final Fantasy XIV. The real story is, that Rudra's release was due to bad timing, coming out in the shadows of Super Mario RPG, and Bahamut Lagoon, which were the far more successful Super Famicom games Square RPG video games released in Japan in 1996. You know, if Square waited for the Sony Playstation One to come out, they could have made Treasure of the Rudras on that system, so the game could possibly reach its full potential, but alas. It was not meant to be. Second Legend: Dune was going to get a full blown character scenario, alongside Sion, Surlent, and Riza. Yes, this one was actually true. Dune was to get a full blown story scenario, with Cid/Kidd being a playable, among side other unused characters. But due to the limited technology of the Super Famicom, it never came into full tuition. This is why I think Rudra would have made a better Playstation One game. Third Legend: The minor character, Miemyl/Mimir was originally going to be given a bigger role (as well as being a possible love interest for Surlent). I'm not sure if this is true or not, but it does make sense to me. I guess Square wanted to do the whole ship-tease thing with Surlent's character, leaving it up to shippers to use their imagination, and fill in the blanks (and to add fuel to the rule 34 hentai cannon, sadly enough). Normally, I am not a fanatic about shipping (Shipping wars, IMO, are so stupid, immature, and petty), but since I write both original stories and fanfiction stories (as well as writing crossovers of my original stories with various pre-existing canon intellectual properties as well.), I prefer to ship Surlent and Mimir as a romantic couple in my fanon universes, one of the reasons being based off of this rumor. Fourth Legend (Not well known outside of Japan): There was going to be a subplot hinting at Gomorrah and Surlent having a mysterious connection with each other (as well as explaining Hauzen's grudge against both characters). I don't know what they meant with Gomorrah having a mysterious connection to Surlent. I dunno if Gomorrah and Surlent were to be related, or Surlent being the personal servant of Gomorrah, or if Gomorrah is the patron guardian that both Surlent and his father figure Solon look up to. But it is still in interesting rumor none the less. It could also possibly explain why Gomorrah is kind and helpful to Surlent in his quest, as well as Hauzen carrying a grudge against those two. Without spoiling anything in my fanfiction, I will explore this mysterious plot point in my Rudra fanon universe. Fifth Legend (Possibly true): There is lost media of prototype character designs for Treasure of the Rudra, before the final draft designs were created. I can actually believe this is true. Keita Amemiya was said to have prototype character designs for Treasure of Rudras. It was even explained in a Japanese magazine article dealing with video game artwork. But sadly, no one, not even Japanese fans, have seen Keita Amemiya's rough draft concept art, as it is said to be lost to time. My Final Thoughts: Overall, I think Treasure of the Rudras is a mixed bag of a video game. It has both satisfying ups, and dissatisfying downs. To me, I agree with some Japanese fans that Treasures of the Rudras is not for everyone, and is definitely an “acquired taste” type of video game. Yeah, despite its low points, I have some nostalgic attachment to Treasure of the Rudras. Though It is a game I don't play too often, I at least play it for Sion's scenarios, and Surlent's scenarios. Sort of like how I play Final Fantasy VI for the wonderful first half of the game, and leave everything else past that point up to my imagination. Though the great thing about this game, is that it is major fanfiction fuel. But alas, most of the fanfiction of Treasure of the Rudras I've come across, are either incomplete, or “Plot? What Plot?” type of lemons. I know, I know, a lot of my fanfiction has some form of mature audience themes and situations, but I try to have these mature themes fit in with the story, characters, conflict, and world building. The highest rating that I will be putting on some of these stories, is a M for Mature Audiences rating. After all, I write for fun, pleasure, and self expression. So Do I recommend this game? Well, I recommend you play Treasure of the Rudras at least once, to form your own opinion on it. It has been fan translated, and available in ROM form and fan made cartridge form (NO, I AM NOT GIVING LINKS! I don't wanna get in trouble.) The available language options of Rudra's fan translations, are in English, Spanish, and French (though I heard rumors that there might be a Korean fan translation out there. Who knows?). Treasure of the Rudras, the game itself, I give it overall, a 3 out of 5 score, or a 5 out of 10 score even. And that is also the same score I give Final Fantasy VI. Yeah yeah, I know, I know. I have an unpopular opinion here. But if we all have the same opinions on everything, the world would be a lame, boring place. To me, Treasure of the Rudras has a lot in common with Final Fantasy VI, in both a good way, and in a bad way. This is my 0.02 cents worth. Have a great day everyone!personperson