Mahou Daisakusen

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

The Mahou Daisakusen series is a series of arcade Shoot'Em Up games made by Eighting Raizing taking place in a medieval fantasy steampunk world.

There were three games in the series:

  • Mahou Daisakusen (Arcade 1993): A kingdom is under attack, and great rewards are promised to any who come to its aid. A battler, a necromancer, a witch and a dragon samurai come to the rescue.
  • Shippu Mahou Daisakusen (Arcade 1994, Sega Saturn 1996): A big multi-stage race is being held, and the winner will be granted one wish. In addition to the protagonists from the first game, four more characters join the fun and many NPCs attempt (and fail) to at least make it through the first stage.
  • Great Mahou Daisakusen (Arcade 2000): Some kind of war is going on but there is little else in the way of plot.
Tropes used in Mahou Daisakusen include:
  • 108: The number of treasures you can retrieve in Grand Mahou Daisakusen.
  • Absurdly Sharp Blade: Miyamoto's sword, which is shown to cut stone in Shippu Mahou Daisakusen and is the basis of his bomb technique.
  • Anachronism Stew: Rule of Cool is very much in effect. For example, Chitta's ending in Shippu Mahou Daisakusen is to become a pop idol.
  • Badass: Miyamoto. Dragon samurai. End of discussion.
  • Batman Can Breathe in Space: Miyamoto the samurai doragon dragon and Nirvana the gigantic fairy are able to survive in outer space.
  • Battleship Raid: If not a big flying steampunk battleship, then some other massive orc-engineered thing.
  • Boss Rush: Inside a stadium with a cheering orc/goblin audience, in every game.
  • Chest Monster: In Stage 3 of Great Mahou Daisakusen, although there are no legitimate treasure chests in that game anyhow.
  • Cute Witch: One of Chitta's titles is "Witch" and she is quite certain that she is cute.
  • The Ditz: Chitta in the first game: she trips and falls after trying to do a pre-launch dance routine. She has greatly improved in Shippu Mahou Daisakusen.
  • Dragon Their Feet: In the first game, the red mecha refuses to quit until you finally blow him up for good.
  • Drop the Hammer: Honest John's bomb is to hit the air with a hammer so hard that it hits almost everything on the screen, three times.
  • Dungeons and Dragons: Beholders are a recurring enemy throughout the series.
  • Engrish: The translation quality (for the games that have any translations at all) is classic early-90's.
  • Everything's Better with Monkeys: Gain the battler has pet monkeys.
  • Everything's Better with Samurai: Miyamoto the samurai doragon dragon definitely makes things better. It helps that he is one of the best characters in the whole game series, and is also upper-tier in other 8ing/Raizing games.
  • Evil Is Visceral: The boss of the Forest of Dead stage in Shippu Mahou Daisakusen, Akuma Apocalypse, is a naked woman connected to a three-faced Eldritch Abomination via meat-tentacles.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The title roughly translates to "Magical Big Dogfight".
  • Fairy Sexy: Nirvana the gigantic fairy from Shippu Mahou Daisakusen.
  • Fantasy Kitchen Sink: To the point where creatures from other settings (such as Beholders) are in the game.
  • FemBot: Honest John's ending in Shippu Mahou Daisakusen is to wish for one.
  • Genie in a Bottle: Chitta's bomb in Shippu Mahou Daisakusen, Battle Garegga and Armed Police Batrider is to throw out one of these. In Grand Mahou Daisakusen, her charge-up move is to deploy two of them.
  • Genki Girl: Chitta, although she has no dialogue in Grand Mahou Daisakusen.
  • Guest Fighter: Birthday the criminal and Golden the prince, from Armed Police Batrider, are secret playable characters in Grand Mahou Daisakusen.
    • In the other direction, the full cast of the first game appear in Battle Garegga. Car-Pet (a disposable NPC from Shippu Mahou Daisakusen) and many bosses also appear in Armed Police Batrider.
  • Guide Dang It: Uncovering treasures in Grand Mahou Daisakusen. GOOD GOD.
  • Humongous Mecha: Many of them, usually as bosses. Some of them are so big and complex that they require three orc pilots.
  • Idol Singer: Chitta becomes one in her ending in Shippu Mahou Daisakusen.
  • Ill Girl: Shizuka, who features into Miyamoto's ending in Shippu Mahou Daisakusen.
  • Impossibly Tall Tower: One stage is the Kobold Tower, so high, it extends into outer space.
  • Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninja: One of the recurring bosses is a ninja, although not the same guy in each game.
  • Kill Sat: The boss of the Kobold Tower stage from Shippu Mahou Daisakusen.
  • Large Ham: The announcer in Grand Mahou Daisakusen. "SHOT... LEVEL UP!" "MAGIC... LEVEL UP!" "WARNING! WARNING! BE CAREFUL!"
  • Love Transcends Spacetime: Kickle and Laycle's ending. "She became part of the family", indeed.
  • Master Swordsman: Miyamoto is so good with his sword that, well, you'll have to look at what happens when he uses a bomb to fully appreciate it.
  • Medieval European Fantasy: Mostly, with some humorously-anachronic elements.
  • Mind Screw: Stage 4 of Mahou Daisakusen begins as a barren wasteland, becomes a dilapidated modern city (think Tokyo) and then ends in outer space. All this, mind you, in a supposedly Medieval Fantasy game.
  • Mix and Match: Shippu Mahou Daisakusen is also a multi-stage racing game. Racers get 9 points for 1st place, 6 points for 2nd place, 3 points for 3rd place, and 1 point for 4th place, for each stage.
  • Necromancer: Bornnam is one. He gets a Suspiciously Similar Substitute in Great Mahou Daisakusen.
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Miyamoto, who is a gigantic samurai doragon dragon with a goatee, moonlighting as an actor in Armed Police Batrider.
  • Non-Standard Character Design: Car-Pet from Batrider looks like a character from some kids' anime, to further emphasize her status of Guest Fighter and Lethal Joke Character.
  • Our Dragons Are Different: See the other tropes relating to Miyamoto. Dragons also carry huge war machinery on them.
  • Our Orcs Are Different: Orcs, goblins and kobolds are recurring enemies throughout the series. They are even capable of building steampunk contraptions, including and not limited to rockets with Apollo capsules and weaponized satellites in outer space.
  • Razor Wind: Miyamoto's bomb has him doing this technique a lot of times at once.
  • Recurring Boss: In every game, there is a fight against a ninja (optional in Shippu Mahou Daisakusen) and a fight against a fortress mounted on a gigantic turtle.
    • The red mech Bashinet in Mahou Daisakusen.
  • Samurai: Miyamoto is a samurai, amongst other things.
  • Say It with Hearts: Chitta sometimes speaks like this in the first game.
  • Schizo-Tech: Not all of the technology in the game can be explained by steam.
  • Secret Character: Gain the battler and Chitta the sorceress return as secret characters in Great Mahou Daisakusen, leaving Bornnam as the only guy missing.
  • Seppuku: The ninja in the first game does this upon defeat.
  • Steampunk: In addition to the usual cannons, tanks and such, there is also a steampunk satellite.
  • Stripperiffic: Nirvana, the gigantic fairy from Shippu Mahou Daisakusen. Her in-game sprite barely shows any clothes, even though she is clearly wearing clothes in the artwork.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Great Mahou Daisakusen replaces Gain the battler, Chitta the wizard, and Bornam the necromancer with new characters, leaving Miyamoto the samurai doragon dragon as the only point of continuity, besides the bosses. Gain and Chitta are only available as secret characters.
  • Tank Goodness: Driven by steam or mounted on gigantic turtles, no less.
  • Time Travel Romance: For Kickle and Laycle in Shippu Mahou Daisakusen.
  • Transforming Mecha: Honest John from Shippu Mahou Daisakusen.
  • Trapped in the Past: Kickle from Shippu Mahou Daisakusen, hence he has built the only plane that is more typical of shmups.
  • Turned Against Their Masters: Honest John, rather than getting money for his creator, instead gets himself a robot wife.
  • Turtle Power: In this game series, turtles bear cannons, tanks and sometimes whole fortresses.
  • Wave Motion Gun: The boss of the Kobold Tower stage from Shippu Mahou Daisakusen is built around one of these.
  • Youkai: Naturally, present in the Japan-themed stage of Shippu Mahou Daisakusen, Yashiki of Ninja.

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