Magic Knight Rayearth (Saturn)

[Iron Draggon]

I just now finally got this game after I recently discovered much to my totally surprised horror that I had never gotten around to getting it way back in the last days of the Saturn, like I thought I did several years ago! So now that I finally have it, I'm wondering if anyone knows if there were any variations of the artwork painted on the CD, like Working Designs typically does for all their RPG's, and if so, how many different variations are there? It would be really great if someone could point me to a website or something that shows them all. I've already checked on the official Working Designs site, and they don't have any pictures of any disc variations for it posted there, or any sort of information about whether or not they released it with more than one variation of the artwork on the CD or not. However it seems very likely to me that they did release it with at least 3 different variations, because my CD has Fuu on it, in the same spellcasting pose that she's shown performing in one of the screenshots pictured on the back of the case. So this leads me to believe that there's also a CD with Umi on it, and a CD with Hikaru on it. These are the 3 main characters of the game, so I would think that if there was only one variation then it would have all 3 of the main characters on it. So there may be more than 3 variations, but it's almost certain that there's at least 3 variations. Mokona could possibly be a variation as well, but I'm not really sure if they would issue a variation with him/her/it on it as well or not.

So, if you own this game, please check your disc and tell us what's painted on yours! Or better yet, take a pic of it if you can, so we can see it! I'll take a pic of mine and post it here later, but the site is moving really slow for me right now, so I don't wanna bog it down even further with an image to load!

[Iron Draggon]

OMG! What the hell happened? I have 4 identical threads about this! Could somebody delete the other 3 threads for me please? Man, I knew the site was screwed, but SHEESH!

[Cryomancer]

I have Umi myself, I'm willing to bet there is surely a Hikaru, and probably a Mokona as well.

[Richter]

seen a Hikaru, mine's Fuu

[Needle]

Yea there are three, one for each girl. I have three copies of the game, one with each girl. I'm a bit compulsive

EDIT: since someone asked, it's generally accepted that the Hikaru label is the rarest, although there doesn't seem to be any hard proof to back up that claim.

[roxybaby]

I have Umi and Fuu on my copies of the game. Is one of the disks rarer than the other two, kinda like with Lunar for Sega CD?

[Push Upstairs]

I think Fuu is the most common one.

There were two (NEW) copies at a game store last year and both ended up being Fuu (one ended up being mine).

[Iron Draggon]

Great. Just what I thought. And no way in hell to tell which one you're gonna get, unless you buy a used copy, is there? So I could spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on new copies, just trying to get a complete set. God damn you, Working Designs! Oh well, I'm quite content with Fuu. I think that she's the coolest one anyway. She's the only one who uses a bow & arrow, instead of a sword or a blade; she uses wind magic instead of fire magic or water magic, which are much more cliched; she's a healer, which makes her the most valuable character in the game; and she shows alot more leg than the other two girls do, so she's secretly the sluttiest of the three! Notice her ankle boots. Hikaru's boots go all the way up to just below her knees, and Umi's boots go all the way up to just above her knees. But Fuu's boots stop just above her ankles, showing us the most flesh between her boots and her miniskirt! So I'm quite happy with Fuu. She's the brainy one too, so she's probably read all the sex books and knows all the tricks. That's why she's so shy. She's afraid that people can tell all her secrets! Also, she's the only one with a normal hair color. No funky anime dye job for her!

I would like to see what all the other discs look like though, and a Mokona disc would be the coolest. If there was a Mokona disc, I'd want that one the most, but I'm perfectly pleased with Fuu. If there was a way that I could get the other two discs brand new without having to spend a fortune and opening dozens of sealed copies, thus lowering their resale value, then I'd go for it, but for now Fuu will do just fine. Umi would be cool too though. I'm not especially fond of Hikaru for some reason though. I guess she's just too wild and firey for me. The red hair, the huge sword, she's just too much. I do like her ability to talk to Mokona though. That's cool. But if I could only have one other variation, then I would want Umi. I guess it's just the long flowing blue hair, flowing like the water magic that she uses. Plus blue is my favorite color, so I'm kinda biased towards anything blue. But green is just as nice, so Fuu is just as cool, if not cooler. And I might as well love Fuu the most anyway, because without her, no one else can heal or revive the other two girls! That makes her the most significant and important character, and the one who's the most worthy of protection, so no wonder she's the most common one. I imagine that all of my WD discs are the most common ones. I know that my Sega CD copy of Lunar is the most common one for sure.

So how about it? Can anyone post some pics of all these discs, or point me to where I can find some pics of all 3 discs? I'd really like to see all 3 of them together, just so I could see all 3 in one place at least once in my life. I kinda doubt that I'll ever bother trying to get the other two discs myself, but I might. That would be a little cheaper than trying to get all 4 variations of Dragon Force, but not much cheaper. So I dunno, I probably won't bother. I do like Fuu though. That pose is awesome, and she just has that siren look about her. Like, come one step closer, and you'll get it too! Very seductive, in a very non-confrontational way, and yet it comes across as being very confrontational. I like that in a girl. She looks very vulnerable, but I bet she'd slap the shit out of you if you moved too fast on her! I think her glasses are sexy too. There's just something intriguing about chicks who wear glasses.

So what about the rest of you? Are you happy with the disc that you have, or would you rather have another one? Have any of you traded them to get the one that you want? Anyone have a complete set or planning to go for one? I would try to get all the WD variations if I could afford it, but I just can't do that right now. And the whole CD media thing really pisses me off. If they were on carts, it wouldn't be such a big deal to get used ones, but being on CD's makes buying used ones a huge risk, unless you can actually examine the discs in person before you buy them, and how many people are gonna be able to do that? I should've had a job at WD, then I'd have a nice minty perfect copy of every variation of every game they ever made. Just think what a collection like that would go for! You could collect nothing but WD games and make a bigger profit on them than most of us could make on much larger collections! There's always gonna be a demand for their games. In fact, I'm very happily surprised that I was able to get a factory sealed copy of Rayearth after more than 5 years since it's release, and that they're still very readily available in mass quantities on ebay for a fairly reasonable price. Mine was only about $50 shipped, so it still only cost me about what it would've cost me when it was first released, which was a very pleasant surprise for me, since it's the very last Saturn game released in the US, and since Dragon Force goes for about double what it cost when it was first released. I was expecting it to be impossible to find it factory sealed, and if I did find it factory sealed, I was expecting it to cost me about twice that much. So I'm just very glad that I was able to get a brand new copy of it, since I'm so anal about all my games having to be bought factory sealed.

[allsport11]

Mine is a Umi. Haven't seen any others. Might have to look into it.

[Cryomancer]

I'd rather have Fuu, but a Mokona would be best if it exists. I'm gonna go for a set EVENTUALLY, but it'll be ages off i'm sure.

[soniko_karuto]

i have 1 fuu. Had another one wich was also a fuu.

[maxlords]

Which girl is which? I had the red-haired girl for a while, and my copy that I bought new has the blonde with glasses. Never seen the 3rd one.

[Push Upstairs]

I'm fine with Fuu.

But i like Umi more because the stuff she says most of the time is hilarious.

[Richter]

Which girl is which? I had the red-haired girl for a while, and my copy that I bought new has the blonde with glasses. Never seen the 3rd one.

Red = Hikaru
Blue = Umi
Green = Fuu

[maxlords]

Ah, then I had a Hikaru, and have a Fuu. And I like hte Fuu much better....Hikaru doesn't do anything for me.

[Needle]

Due to popular demand, here are scans of the three discs. Just by examining this thread, the old thoughts that the Fuu label is most common and the Hikaru label is most rare seems to hold true. My first copy of the game was also a Fuu; I then actively searched for the others on eBay several years later.

(I don't know why the Fuu label scanned so crappily)

Hikaru:


Umi:


Fuu:

[Iron Draggon]

COOL! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR POSTING THOSE PICS FOR US, NEEDLE!

I figured that the other two girls would be in the same poses that they're shown in on the screenshots on the back of the case, and sure enough, I was right. So now I'm even more glad that my disc has Fuu on it. At least her disc shows almost her entire body, and she's in the coolest pose too. The other two are very cool also, but just not as cool as Fuu's disc, IMHO.

Of course I haven't had a chance to start playing the game yet, so I dunno which one I'll grow to love the most as I play it, but as far as I'm concerned, I still have the best one, even if it is the most common one. The only thing that could be any better would be one with Mokona on it, which I would definitely want more than any of the others, or one with all 3 of the girls on it, which I certainly think that they should've done, that would be awesome.

In fact, I was expecting that since this was the very last Saturn game ever released here, and since Working Designs obviously only released it because they had invested too much time and effort in translating it to not release it, that they would've only done one variation of the art on the disc, instead of going all out on it like they usually do on their games. But I guess they just wanted to send the Saturn out with a bang, since they knew that it was gonna be the last game ever made for it in the US. You'd think that as mad as they were at Sega at that point, and that considering how everyone else including Sega themselves had jumped the sinking Saturn ship by then, that they would've just slapped the cover art on the disc and be done with it.

But in any case, we're certainly very lucky that we still even got an English translation of it at all. It's a shame that we never got the sequel as well, but at least we did get the first game. BTW, speaking of the sequel, was it ever released on the Saturn at all, or even on the Playstation, or another system? I know there's part 1 & 2 in Japanese for the Game Gear, but that's the only other versions of this series that I know about. And I don't know anything else about them. I've been tempted to get them both and check them out on the GG for a long time now, but I've still never gotten around to it yet.

So, the mystery is solved, now guess what game I'll be playing this weekend!

[atomicthumbs]

I don't think a sequel for the Saturn version was ever completed for any system.

Anyway. Mine's Fuu.

[Cryomancer]

I need to try and finish this game too, I'm probably pretty close as most of the generals are dead at this point. Yet I still have two machines to find I think, so who knows.

And for anyone who doesn't know, this game is based on the anime of the same name, and there's a lot of differences between the two story-wise. there's also a manga, and a limited edition red game gear (complete with live action commercial!) in Japan. This game also features one of the nicest things ever, the illustrated diary, which makes it damn easy and entertaining to get back into the game if it's been like 3 years and you don't remember what's happened.

[Push Upstairs]

So now I'm even more glad that my disc has Fuu on it. At least her disc shows almost her entire body, and she's in the coolest pose too. The other two are very cool also, but just not as cool as Fuu's disc, IMHO.

Someone has a crush on Fuu :P

In fact, I was expecting that since this was the very last Saturn game ever released here, and since Working Designs obviously only released it because they had invested too much time and effort in translating it to not release it, that they would've only done one variation of the art on the disc, instead of going all out on it like they usually do on their games. But I guess they just wanted to send the Saturn out with a bang, since they knew that it was gonna be the last game ever made for it in the US. You'd think that as mad as they were at Sega at that point, and that considering how everyone else including Sega themselves had jumped the sinking Saturn ship by then, that they would've just slapped the cover art on the disc and be done with it.

I'm just glad that this game didnt turn out like "Silhouette Mirage" on PSX. :/