Have you ever wanted to play a classic dungeon crawler where you're a kindergartener who gets concussions and experiences her friends get their skin melted off in a horrific cutscene? If you do, that's pretty fucked up, but this is the game for you.

So, starting off with the basic story preview, you play as a little girl known as Arle Nadja. Yes, THE Arle Nadja from Puyo Puyo. She's 6 years old in this game, and in order to graduate kindergarten, she must enter a dangerous tower and collect the 3 orbs. Pretty simple premise, but it works. You'll run into some wacky characters as you go along; Mizuchi is my personal favorite. She's pretty cute, I hope she gets to see Puyo Puyo someday.

So, what's the gameplay like? Well, it's a pretty straight-forward first person dungeon crawler, think classic Shin Megami Tensei or Etrian Oddysey. You run around floors, solve puzzles, find the way to reach the next floor, the typical stuff. The combat is where things get a little more interesting; you get to use a bunch of spells and whatever items you can get your hands on. There's also an odd quirk where you sometimes cast a spell twice, but the requirements on what causes it are pretty nebulous.
I'll give a rundown of every spell.
Fire, Ice Storm, Thunder: These are the main 3 spells you start off with, and they are all very basic attacking spells that don't cost any mana to use. There's not much difference between them, they're all mostly a "pick your flavor of attack". I think some enemies might have different weaknesses, but I don't think this ever really came into play.
Healing: Heals you for a little mana. It's good in the earlygame, but it definitely falls off in favor of the fully restoring items later in the game.
Diacute: For the longest time I had to idea what this did, but apparently it boosts the power of your next attack. I cannot attest to whether or not it's efficient or worth using since this game uses some pretty nebulous methods of discerning how much damage you do, it'll be up to you whether or not you want to Diacute.
Sleep: A spell that puts your enemy to sleep; it's good for buying a turn to use an item or heal up, but otherwise not worth using because your enemy wakes up when you attack them.
Braindumbed: This spell is supposed to make your opponent braindead for a couple of turns, but it just feels like a worse Sleep honestly.
Bayoen: THE classic Arle Nadja move; once you get it, both Sleep and Braindumbed are made irrelevant because this move does damage AND stuns. If you've ever wondered what the hell Bayoen even means, don't worry! This game doesn't either. From what I can tell, it's some sort of prayer spell that covers the enemy with light that "moves" them, which gives the enemy these really glossy eyes that makes them skip turns. I'm not sure what being "moved" feels like, but from what I can gather, it's more like being "overwhelmed with emotion".
Jugem: Probably the most useless move in the game; it's supposedly this powerful move that is hard to hit, but it never landed during my playthrough, so I'm gonna say it's bad.
Revia: This spell returns damage recieved for a set amount of turns, and it is a GODSEND during boss fights because it's passive damage, meaning you can do other stuff and still do damage.
Lwark Void: This one is by far the most confusing one. Supposedly, it "lowers" the defense of the opponent, but I have no idea whether or not it actually does lower the enemy's defense. That said, this spell has another property that isn't mentioned when inspected: it actually attacks twice quite frequently, meaning you'll be doing a lot of double damage when using this thing. Unfortunately it does drain a lot of mana to use this, so use it with caution.
Warp: Available only outside of battle, this baby teleports you directly one floor up. It's a good way to get around the tower once you're typing up loose ends to get the crystals.

Alright, so with that out of the way, a couple miscellaneous thoughts about the game.
- The game is pretty much FULLY VOICE ACTED. That's pretty damn novel for the time! The fact you can hear every character's voice adds so much charm to this game. If hearing the characters talk a lot seems like it would bother you, you can always turn it off.
- The music is INSANELY good. Every theme is super memorable and catchy with the exception of the ailment music which is... annoying.
- The puzzles (with the exception of one) are all pretty good. Maybe not the most challenging, but definitely make sense.
- Given how many gags that only work in Japanese there are in this game, the translation team knocked it out of the park. The original JP script must've been a nightmare to work with, but the end result is fantastic.

Tips if you're ever gonna play:
- Carry around an Antidote Herb, Deworming Herb, and Exorcising Flute with you at all times. You don't want to get stuck with a status ailment you can't cute and have to deal with hearing the awful status music.
- The manji puzzle has to be done in a specific order that you need to have specific knowledge of that isn't explicitly told to you (or at least I didn't run into it). You must enter the portal in a specific order and place the tile appropiate to the portal you enter. MAKE SURE YOU SAVE BEFORE STARTING THE MANJI PUZZLE. SAVE STATE, GO UP TO SAVE, DO ANYTHING BUT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SAVE BEFORE YOU DO THE MANJI PUZZLE SO YOU DON'T GET POTENTIALLY SOFTLOCKED!! The order you input them is the following: bottom right is one, bottom left is 2, top left is 3, top right is 4. Make sure you stick to the "path of the manji".
- There will only be two-trhee parts where you potentially have to grind. One is maybe Mizuchi, the other is Behemoth, and the last one is the final boss. Grinding shouldn't take too much time, but make sure to not step into the door once you finish the Manji puzzle as it will force you into the cutscene for the final boss. Make sure to grind before taking him on.
- Buy all the Accuracy Herbs you come across. This game has TERRIBLE hitrates and you'll need the most accuracy you can get because you're otherwise going to miss, miss, and miss all the goddamn time.

So yeah, that's Madou Monogatari I for the Turbografx-16. A super charming and fun game that's a great entryway into classic dungeon crawlers with it's shenanigans. It's a pretty short experience overall, so I urge you to try it when you can!

Colorblindness Rating: A?
I'm not too sure on this one, because the gems change color every now and then and I have no clue what that's supposed to mean. I presume it means how kind your soul is, but I really don't know. Please tell me if you can figure it out.