Legacy of the Wizard (Nintendo Power - Nov/Dec 1988)

[ColecoFan1981]

In the Nintendo Power Nov/Dec 1988 issue, which is the first in which Legacy of the Wizard (Xanadu 4: The Drasle Family) is given coverage here, obviously some spellings of the character names don't match:

"Roas," the character who can use the Dragon Slayer sword to destroy Keela the dragon, is spelled "Loias."
Likewise, his grandmother's name, "Jiela," is spelled "Zeela" in the same issue.

It is obvious that the game wasn't actually released until April 1989 in the US. It is also obvious that the corrupted spellings mentioned are due to the difference between English and Japanese pronunciations/romanizations.

The Japanese Kana spellings of the Worzen (Drasle) family clan (correct if I'm wrong):
Roas (Loias) = Royasu
Xemn = Zemu
Meyna = Meina
Lyll = Riru
Douel = Du'eru, Dao'eru (latter if pronounced like "dowel") or Dō'eru
Jiela (Zeela) = Jīra

~Ben

[Aussie2B]

I guess they previewed the game based on the Japanese version or an English prototype. It's not unusual for pre-release US coverage of Japanese-developed games to use different spellings than what's in the final version. The romanizations are just as valid, but there are always multiple valid romanizations for character names so there's no knowing what the localizer will go with. The only way to get it "wrong" is if there is already an official romanization issued by the Japanese developers, although localizers still might make a change if they think the official Japanese romanization won't go over well in the US (for example, in Star Ocean 2, the official romanization of the main character's name is "Crawd", but the localizers chose to change it to "Claude" for the Western release). I don't know if Legacy of the Wizard ever had official romanizations for the character names in Japan. Many games don't.

[ColecoFan1981]

In the U.S. release, the portraits Roas must use to advance between parts of his sister Lyll's stage (to obtain the Dragon Slayer Sword necessary to defeat the final boss, Keela) have the face of Princess Celina. For the Japanese market version called Dragon Slayer IV: Drasle Family, her name is transliterated as "Serina."

Keela's Japanese name is actually Dilgyos, or Dirugyosu (sometimes even Jirugyosu using the Hepburn Romanization system) (Katakana: ぢルギョス)

~Ben