Ancient Magic

''Ancient Magic: Bazoo! Mahou Sekai!'' is an obscure console RPG released for the Super Famicom in 1993; it was never released outside of Japan, but an unofficial fan translation is available.


 * Alas, Poor Villain:
 * Artifact of Doom:
 * Arbitrary Headcount Limit: For most of the game, fate conspires to limit your party to four people. When it's time for the big final assault, though, it's revealed that Palu's Mirror can only teleport four people.
 * Ascended Extra: At one point in the game, a random castle guard, Garland, joins you for a single battle. Some twenty to thirty hours of play later, near the very end of the game when you're assembling your party for the big final assault, you have the option of magically summoning him to bring him with you. He reacts with suitable shock to someone he barely knows yanking him out of his life to save the world.
 * Awesome but Impractical: The titular Ancient Magic spells tend to be overpriced and not very useful against bosses, which are the only really hard part of the game.
 * Boring but Practical: The 'Charm' spell (which inflicts sleep very cheaply and with almost no chance of failure) remains useful throughout the entire game.
 * But Thou Must!: You can actually accept an offer to stay and become the heir to your uncle's title rather than become a wizard... but the plot won't advance until you go back and tell him you've changed your mind, at which point it proceeds as if you'd refused originally.
 * Dropped a Bridge on Him: at the start of the playable stinger.
 * False-Flag Operation:
 * Gondor Calls for Aid: Near the end, you have to go from kingdom to kingdom meeting with leaders to gather support.
 * Hidden Elf Village
 * Immortality Immorality: The mages at the mage guild immediately react with horror to the fact that Jerah would use his magic to seek something as crass as immortality. When you actually meet him, Lot instantly demands to know how many people died in order to let him live forever.
 * Optional Party Member: You can get the archmage-king of Selas and the and the king of your elves on your party near the end of the game, if you reject every other character when they're presented as options.
 * Required Party Member: The game pretends to give you the option not to bring Romal with you near the end, but even if you say 'no' to him, he'll force you to take him anyway.
 * Sealed Evil in a Can: Played with twice.
 * First, there's Emperor Jerah.
 * And then there's the entire Veranede Tribe,
 * Shout-Out: If you use a magic pool to summon the barbarian-type character for the final assault, he exclaims "What sorcery is this?!"
 * So Long and Thanks For All the Gear: Happens constantly, since for the vast majority of the game you have no control over your party, and people leave or join without warning. Not only do you have to buy gear for people, but spells as well, and spells can't be swapped between characters once they've been learned.
 * Spanner in the Works:
 * The Chessmaster:
 * The Stinger: A playable stinger with one final dungeon follows the credits, set several years after the end of the game.
 * What the Hell, Hero?: The player gets a lot of flack for.
 * Who Wants to Live Forever?: Jerah doesn't seem particularly happy with the eternal undeath that his immortality serum got him.
 * With Great Power Comes Great Insanity:
 * Wizarding School: Most of the game revolves around one of these.
 * Wizarding School: Most of the game revolves around one of these.