El-Hazard Ports to PC and GBA

GENERAL DISCLAIMER

Short and sweet: I'm not responsible if this makes your computer system die, your workplace network fry, or your younger sibling cry.

Also, this game makes some generic religious references, but nothing any real worse than the original El-Hazard OAV. Explained in greater detail below, Jinnai sees himself as a "messiah", but this is not meant to be slanderous or supportive of ANY denomination of ANY religion. Quite frankly if you see Jinnai as (mis)representing your religion, you're in worse shape than any of us. Unless it's one of those fangirl worship religions I've heard about...

The Good and The Bad

Q. How close it this thing to the Saturn version?

A. It all depends which part you'd like to be closest. If it's 100% accurate translation, forget it. The original english player's guide written by Lucan Duran (available at GameFAQs.com) was our only basis to the game, besides our basic El-Hazard knowledge. So basically, anyone familiar with El-Hazard will get the concepts like the Eye of God, the priestesses, etc.

As far as technically, it's nearly dead on. The engine and all the [limited] effects that it produced are matched as close as we could eyeball any of it.

Saturn (via TV capture card)


PC

As you can see, the screenshots are ESSENTIALLY the same, save for a bit of positioning error. However, this is partly due to trying to convert on-screen results to numerical forms in an efficent manner. The Saturn may also have had a more precise method than my 16 pixel-block design.

Q. [I'm an El-Hazard fan, so I notice...] What's with the characters?

A. Well, the original Saturn version was virtually The Wanderers with an additional priestess, and Galus doing his Eye of God thing. Eventually by about the third chapter, we decided to have more fun with this game, and we created additional facets to the characters that are not by any means 100% accurate to their typical cartoon counterparts. Many of these were based on things that seemed funny to us from that Japanese version, such as Jinnai's accusation of Makoto performing black arts turned him into a religious zealot.

We all know Jinnai is supposed to be the dillusional nutcase of a school president who's after Makoto for whatever active reason it was that he thinks or knows that Makoto had tried to oust him from office... but honestly, that doesn't seem all that far off from a religious zealot who's after him for accusation of being a demon, now does it?

Q. I'll show you, I know Japanese, I [will] own a Saturn, and I [will] own El-Hazard for the Sega Saturn, and do the dialog properly!

A. That's not really a question, but go right ahead! I'll even give you the script sources if you want to pursue that project.
If you just know Japanese but don't own the Saturn/game, I can't at this time really help with such a project, because the only thing I can think to do is take over a thousand screenshots and send them in bulk, and that's just on the edge of insanity. A Saturn and a copy of the game can come up cheap on eBay, so I recommend you go out and purchase both. (You'll probably also need either a Japanese Saturn or a modified Saturn, for this game is Japan-native only.)

Q. How should I work to get all 9 endings in my measly 3 save slots?

A. Once the game gets to about Chapter 8, there's nothing really left for you to do except watch the outcome of all choices you've made up to that point. Therefore, there's no reason to keep a savegame there. So, once you've seen an ending, you'll be given a chance to save. Save on to the slot you've been using up to that point, and it'll give you a count of how many endings you've achieved.

After you save on that slot, reload from it to continue your quest to obtain all 9 endings! If you don't reload from it, it won't remember your ending counts...