SNK Neo-Geo MVS cart. published 36 years ago:

Magician Lord (c) 1990 Alpha Denshi Company, Limited.

Magician Lord is a side-scrolling platform shoot-em-up in which players take on the roll of a wizard called Elta - the last Magician Lord - on his quest to save his homeland from the evil Gul-Agieze, who plans to resurrect the God of Destruction using 8 tomes of mystical power.

Elta has to jump, shoot and climb his way to the end of each of the game's 8 levels where he must beat a servant of Gal, along with one of Gal's sinister boss creations. To complete the game Elta must reach the final stage and defeat Az Atorse himself. If the player takes too long to complete a stage, Elta will be harassed by an invincible monster.

Elta's primary form of attack is a weak but fast-moving energy projectile that can fired in one of four directions, but by collecting the special colored orbs that occasionally appear, he can transform into a different form, making him more powerful and giving him new attacks.

These are the six different forms that Elta can assume by picking up the colored orbs:

* Dragon Warrior: In this form Elta attacks by breathing fire; a continuous short-range attack that, unlike the standard attack, can also be aimed diagonally.

* Waterman: The Waterman-form attacks with water grenades – blue bubbles of water that burst upon touching the ground and form into water pillars. The attack can hit several times for additional damage but only covers a small area.

Player layout in our catalog: 2P alt.

If you are exploring by feel rather than by title, jump from the tags above into the matching genre rooms, or return to the Arcade hall for the full wall.

Open Play on this page to start Magician Lord (NGM-005). Keyboard, USB/Bluetooth pads, and the on-screen touch gamepad all work inside the emulator bar. Save states and fullscreen live on that same bar so you can pause mid-session and resume later.

Magician Lord (NGM-005) is filed in our catalog as a 1990 release.

Player layout on this cabinet: 2P alt.

Genre tags on Classic Arcade Games: Platform.

Credit line lists Alpha Denshi Co. as developer.