#phantom god

Bottom Tier: Guardian (from Ibun), Owlbear

The Guardian has a great design but literally just exists to be beaten. Owlbear meanwhile… Arle’s story is the weakest of the ARS trio. Better than having Satan in the GameGear version at least, with how. 

Owlbear gets edge over the Guardian for continuously coming back each time Arle beats him, but with more scars. That was a nice touch.

Low Tier: Yog-Sothoth

A waste of a wonderful Lovecraftian creation, made into a mere plot device for the Saturn game. There’s no intelligence of a god like in the actual Lovecraft material, extremely disappointing, but at least they’re visually impressive for the time.

Mid-Low Tier: Sleeping Princess, Mamono

Recolored Wish, but she has some funny dialogue at least and has a decently done sprite. Mamono is cute and fluffy meanwhile, gets a bit of points for being a recurring Puyo character, and is super cool in the Mega Drive game. But he doesn’t leave the same impression the next guy does.

Mid Tier: Rulue, Minotauros, Fudoushi

This is where the good stuff starts, these three are all about presentation and build-up.

Rulue is the character you first meet in Madou Monogatari III, and in the GameGear version you defeat her. However, her servant is actually the superior one.

Minotauros actively chases Arle and proves to be a much more savage opponent in battle than Rulue is. If you do not grind enough, he will kill you. It feels much more satisfying to finish him over Rulue because of that.

As for Fudoushi, If it was just his PC98 incarnation, he’d be on the same level of Mid-Low, but he benefits in the GameGear version as well as the PCE version-- which is the ideal depiction imo. I only rank him above Rulue and Mino because of the face melting scene.

Mid-High Tier: Devil, the Count

Another example of build-up and presentation. Devil constantly causes problems throughout Arle’s adventure, becoming increasingly powerful after each encounter. It’s very satisfying to finally put him in his place.

The Count meanwhile, was going to drink Rulue’s blood and take Carbuncle for himself. Seeing a party that exists who is actually worse than Satan? That’s one hell of a feat, also very satisfying to kick once he’s down.

High Tier: Satan, Dark Matter / Wish

The big boys.

Satan is a classic, his appearance in Madou II is a wonderful, intimidating encounter… that is sadly ruined by future games over-exposing him. Still, he’s pretty damn cool.

Dark Matter though? He tops Satan in terms of the menacing reveal any other day. His spells have so much beautiful flair, and when he possesses Wish? It gets even more dramatic, with the mix of “Fiend Empire” playing as you fight in an attempt to repel Dark Matter.

If not for the top three, then Dark Matter / Wish would have taken the best final boss.

The holy trinity, the God Tier:

Rune Lord:

The thing about Rune Lord that puts him above Dark Matter? Unlike Dark Matter… he won. He won from the very beginning. In fact, that’s a thing he has over most of the Madou final bosses is that he didn’t lose.

No, he wanted Schezo to defeat him. The seeds of darkness were planted. It’s just like how in FF6, Kefka technically still won by becoming God and causing all that destruction. Even if death, Rune Lord was fucking victorious. And that’s what sticks out about his manipulations.

Doppelganger Schezo:

The reason I included Waku Puyo was because of him. Holy crap, there is not a character in this series more tragic than him (well maybe). His existence? It was a mistake caused by Schezo. His motives? Schezo taken to an extreme, with no understanding of fun, or life. He cannot live unless he keeps draining the power of others.

In Arle and Schezo’s ending, after you defeat him… you honestly feel sorry for the guy, and wish that there was another way. You actually want to save Doppelganger Schezo, even if at the end of the day, he’s just a crystal that became sentient and power hungry.

This is a character I want to see redeemed and given a second chance. He’s honestly one of the reasons I think Waku Puyo is better than Saturn Madou.

Phantom God:

Remember what I said about presentation and build-up? Phantom God hits all of those check-marks and more-- they even hit the “mildly sympathetic” mark like Doppelganger Schezo does.

Phantom God exists to be used as an item, to test whoever comes to take Lilith’s place… imagine how sad of an existence that is-- especially once Arle rejects their power, forcing them to remain alone with the Gem Guardians. Throughout the game, Phantom God attacks Schezo and Rulue, and when Arle finally has a chance to dispose of the Seraphim Orb rather than taking it? She doesn’t go through with it, she just leaves it.

After 6 years, Compile finally released the sequel to the Madou Monogatari trilogy, as this game continues after Madou Monogatari III. This game is about Arle, much like in Madou I, taking her final exam by traveling through a dungeon. 

Arle explains before beginning how she was once attacked by Schezo, fought Satan, met Rulue and Minotauros, leading to where she is now, taking her final exam, which is arranged by a familiar masked principal.

This time though, she will not be the only one graduating. Lala comes back to compete with Arle with a few other students, and Rulue (who is now a student in the magic school because of the events in Madou III) is also attending.

However, Rulue is really the only student that actively tries to compete against Arle. Lala doesn’t do anything grand, which I feel is disappointing, as we still have not seen her in a fight before.

So the game pretty much… begins. Arle solves the puzzles in the dungeon smoothly, but Rulue, lacking in magic, tries to break through things with brute force and technique (it doesn’t work).

In a deeper part of the dungeon, around the 7th floor to be exact, Arle encounters Satan. At first he says “Oh no Arle, it’s me, the masked principal”… but he forgot his mask.

Arle rightfully pummels him due to her intense distrust of Satan, swiftly defeating him. Rulue finds that Arle has beaten up Satan, and angrily demands that Arle stop, which leads to the two of them fighting right after Satan did. Between Rulue’s brute strength and Carbuncle’s laser fire, a new path suddenly opens up, indicating that there is more to the final exam, and Satan was trying to seal this pathway up.

Arle jumps into the Ancient Labyrinth, abandoning the principal’s dungeon. There are plates scattered throughout the area that Arle cannot read.

Oh yes, it’s also at this point, Archan makes her debut.

Yeah, her debut wasn’t Puyo~n, it was this game. Fun little trivia for you guys.

Arle finds a bracelet while exploring the labyrinth, which allows her to read the what is written on the plates. However, this bracelet actually belongs to Schezo, who had somehow found his way inside of the Ancient Labyrinth. After saying the classic line, Arle calls him a pervert, which immediately leads to them fighting.

Arle defeats Schezo, but decides to heal him after the battle, so she can get an explanation as to what this labyrinth is. Schezo says that this ancient ruin contains treasure that are said to willingly leave the world in their slumber, as if they have dimensional powers.

Arle attempts to return the bracelet to Schezo as a thank you, but he rejects it. Since he had lost to her, Schezo believes that Arle should now be the bracelet’s owner.

Rulue is encountered again, demanding a fight with Arle. This time though, Rulue manages to get into a battle with Arle that’s so brutal, she makes Arle relearn the spell of Jugem (I guess because it’s too OP to have at the start of the game).

Arle finds out that the treasures, which have four guardians that must be pursued. Rulue catches up with Arle again, but rather than fighting, they hear a commotion. Schezo has broken a seal and ended up encountering a terrible treasure guardian.

The Phantom God, the main antagonist of our story.

This design is absolutely badass, but honestly, I think this character’s background ends up being a let down when you get into it...

Arle and Rulue jump in to help Schezo, but Phantom God is invincible. The Phantom God prepares to kill all of them, but Schezo, getting up one last time, cuts open a void for the girls to escape into, while Phantom God obliterates him with thunder magic. Arle cries out over Schezo’s self-sacrifice, absolutely distraught over it.

Crushed with anxiety and sorrow, Arle wakes up in the Phantom Zone, where she meets a woman who she refers to as her doppelganger, due to their heavy resemblance but the only difference being the doppelganger’s colored armor and eyes.

The doppelganger makes a bet with Arle. If Arle can find the doppelganger multiple times, she will give Arle the equipment needed to defeat Phantom God.

Arle does exactly that, defeating the doppelganger multiple times before coming across a mirror. The mirror breaks open, and the original “doppelganger” comes out to challenge Arle one last time, using her full strength.

This doppelganger is different from the other ones, as instead of using carbon copies of Arle’s spells. These spells are notably called “Flame Tornado”, “Dark Blizzard” and “Heavenly Thunder”.

Upon being defeated, the doppelganger gives Arle some important advice for her battle against Phantom God, leaving Arle literally asking who the hell this doppelganger is.

Arle is pushed out of the Phantom Zone, and back into the Ancient Labyrinth, where she ascends to the Guardian’s Floor. Here, Arle defeats the Gem Guardians, and takes the treasure they are holding onto.

Red Ruby, a spirit immune to fire magic.

Yellow Diamond, a spirit immune to lightning.

Blue Sapphire, a spirit immune to ice.

And Green Emerald, a spirit immune to jugem.

After defeating all of them and collecting the treasure they were protecting (the Ruler’s Mantle, a sacred cloth), Arle meets up with Rulue one last time, wishing her the best of luck against the Phantom God.

And so… Arle avenges Schezo.

After Phantom God has taken enough damage, they show their hideous form-- proving to be one of the most difficult final bosses in the Madou franchise.

Phantom God’s defeat leads to them becoming tame, Arle now holds the Seraphim Orb in her hands, thus holding Phantom God themselves in her hands. Arle says she’ll never forgive Phantom God for taking Schezo’s life, until Phantom God says they had never killed him, just temporarily eliminated him.

Despite being heir to the Seraphim Orb, Arle forces the treasure to be forgotten about, rejecting the destiny to hold it. Instead, Arle graduates her final exam, moving on to continue her hard work and adventures with Carbuncle and Rulue. 

Phantom God laments over the rejections with the Gem Guardians, as they find it amusing how much Arle was very similar to “that person”, as they are closed within space once again.

… This is only a loose translation of the events because this last part is a mess, dear lord!

So yeah, that’s Final Exam / Final Test / Nonsense Exam / whatever.

I think the story in this in enjoyable… for the first half anyway, the later half getting into stuff that only makes sense if you read the novels, is irritating. Especially when this is the only game in the franchise to follow the novel story, while the rest go off on their own. To make it worse, years after this, it didn’t even matter, because the Madou Monogatari franchise died, with no continuation to this story. All thanks to Compile’s poor business decisions.

Phantom God is an excellent antagonist, and one of the hardest bosses from what I’ve seen. But them suddenly turning soft at the end kind of kills it, because you spend so long being angry at them for what they did to Schezo. Heck, Schezo’s popularity kind of kicked off even more after this game, people were already in love with him from ARS and the Puyo games, but this sealed the deal.

One of the biggest criticisms towards Final Exam is the graphics, and the non-human characters like Skeleton T, Mamono, and Phantom God look fantastic. Humanoid characters though…

I once saw someone compare this to the Zelda CD-i games. Not far off, but I think that’s an insult to the Zelda CD-i titles. They weren’t as stiff looking, and at least had some cartoonish characteristic style.

The weird thing is, the opening and ending animation videos look amazing. So I’m guessing they blew the budget on that, as opposed to making the rest of the game look good.

The soundtrack also leaves a lot to be desired compared to other Madou games. It sounds like it was done with a MIDI keyboard, especially when compared to how nice the PC98 games sounded.

So while this was the sequel to Madou III we had been waiting years for, it… didn’t entirely pay off. It’s not terrible, there are things I love about it, such as the battle system being improved, but the latter part of the story, the visuals, and the soundtrack are a turn-off.

However, on the plus side, the next game would prove to be one of the best in the Madou franchise, if not the best. One reason for its acclaim popularity being that Compile listened to the fan demand and popularity contests, where they decided to make a game for the most liked character.

Guess who that character was?

When does this game take place?

This game is not listed in the Shin Madou timeline, being that this game was made by the Compile branch is South Korea, it can be completely discarded from canon if one wanted… but that’s not fun, now is it?

By release date, we could say that this game takes place after Final Exam and Tower of the Magician. But personally, I see this game taking place before Tower of the Magician.

I imagine that this game takes place after Phantom God’s defeat, but before Dark Matter came back to haunt Wish, and I have two reasons to think this, and I will get to it in a moment.

Who is the Sleeping Princess?

The easy answer is just a princess who lives in a castle that just happened to be woken up by Arle, and fought her. She is a powerful mage as well.

But… what if there’s more to that? I’m going to list the theories I’ve seen, and add one or two of my own.

The Sleeping Princess is a headmaster/teacher hired by Satan the Masked Principal.

Probable, but then the Sleeping Princess acted rather… cocky, when Arle woke her up. She mocks her when Arle says that she will “put her back to sleep”. I don’t think she would like being pushed around by the Masked Principal.

I do think that the Masked Principal knew about her though.

The Sleeping Princess is a witch.

This comes from the fact she uses the same spells as Wish. I feel that she doesn’t really resemble a witch though, due to her fashion sense and pointed ears. She could be a wicked comet summoner of some sort perhaps.

Worst case scenario, she is like Schezo, and has drained the power of powerful comet summoners for her own use.

The Sleeping Princess is being controlled by Phantom God.

I believed this at first before getting the further context of both games. Phantom God’s presence is plastered over the moon, but he has no connection to the princess, other than them both being in games that were forgotten by time. (except for their ugly graphics)

So no, the two have no connection.

However, I do think the possession is a probable theory, just with a different character.

The Sleeping Princess is being used by Dark Matter.

You could easily chalk it up to the game’s laziness, but this is actually the headcanon I may stick with for a while, and I actually have evidence for it. 

So barring the fact that the Sleeping Princess is a blatantly recycled Wish, down to her poses, voice, and spells, she could possibly be a comet summoner. Wish is also a comet summoner, and Dark Matter, we are uncertain as to how long his spirit was around, holding a grudge against Wish.

How long did he plan it? And did he have another host? I believe he did, just to see if it could work.

In the usual tales of Sleeping Beauty, a king will visit the titular princess, I believe that Dark Matter found himself in that exact kind of situation, and decided to use the Sleeping Princess’s vessel for a while, mainly because he needed to see if it was possible, and who better than a victim that slumbers?

On top of that…

This is Dark Matter’s spirit leaving Wish, it explodes afterward, leaving his fate uncertain.

After you defeat the Sleeping Princess…

It is the very same spirit, exploding in the same way.

Why didn’t they just give her a basic death screen? It would have been much easier and would take less recycling. Because it was more bombastic and memorable?

It’s too fishy if you ask me. Perhaps the Dark Matter of Madou is no different than the Dark Matter of Kirby, he won’t die!

… Alternatively, perhaps it takes place after Tower of the Magician, and he’s just chilling with the Sleeping Princess.

Gotta say, these Dark Matters sure got a thing for possessing people. Comet summoners in Madou’s case.

Who was the moon? Why did it understand Carbuncle and speak to Arle?

I really have no idea who thought this was a good idea to end a Madou game, it’s so goofy honestly. But it’s still better than the ending to the GameGear version of Madou 3 if you ask me.

The moon is Satan, he understands Carbuncle.

This is the most obvious one. The whole task is set-up by the “Masked Principal”, Arle comes out defeating the Sleeping Princess, and he wants to grant her wish… more like Carbuncle’s though. Only Satan would have a one-track mind and listen to Carbuncle’s curry desires.

The moon also seems to panic when Arle asks how it can understand Carbuncle, as if it would be a dead giveaway, so the moon says it understands all languages.

Yeah, it’s most obviously Satan, though I don’t how he projected himself to the moon.

But… I had a funnier theory in my head.

The moon is Phantom God.

We’re constantly shown the image of Phantom God’s hands over the moon, like so.

His hands hovering over the castle, and the moon itself…

Once again, we could chalk this up to laziness, and those hands were meant to symbolize something else, but this leads to the theory of this game taking place after Final Exam.

After not taking rejection very well, since Arle refused to have the Seraphim Orb in her hands, Phantom God is left to lament with the Gem Guardians, perhaps still wondering about Lilith’s descendant.

Perhaps… they got too attached to Arle, like Satan did, and just wanted to have an excuse to talk with her again, so Phantom God decided to speak with Arle again after the secret of Elysium was found, hoping she would make a request for power or the Phantom God’s aid.

But she didn’t, instead, Carbuncle wished for curry. Phantom God granted it reluctantly, nearly getting caught due to having the ability to understand all languages.

This isn’t likely at all, it’s obviously Satan… But the thought amused me too much, so I had to share it.