Sansara Naga
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Sansara Naga was a series of Japanese role-playing games. The game was designed by a number of professionals from the anime industry; Mamoru Oshii, Kazunori Ito, Tamakichi Sakura, and Kenji Kawai. The player takes the role of either a boy or girl protagonist, and is named by the player. The series is heavily inspired by Indian and Middle Eastern themes. In fact, the game's title is Sanskrit for "Cycle of the Serpent". Interesting, as the developers, Advance Communication Company, also developed another Middle Eastern-style RPG around the same time, Niji no Silk Road (FC).
The games play in a similar fashion to Dragon Warrior and Pokemon. Like Dragon Warrior, the game is seen from a top-down view and combat is in the first-person perspective. However, like Pokemon, the player gets a dragon which they must raise from its hatching. Once the player's dragon is grown up, it can help them fight. The color of the dragon will describe its abilities and behaviors.
Only three games were released, all of which were only released in Japan. However, fan translations of the first two games have been made. The third game was released for the Game Boy Advance and is simply a 16-bit compilation of the first two games.
Contents
Music
All games in the Sansara Naga series feature music by famed professional musician Kenji Kawai. The Famicom version contains a large soundtrack of 40 songs. There are many genres of music found in the series; classical, rock, jazz, and even ambient-sounding music.
It gets confusing for the Famicom title, because three other sound designers are credited: Osamu Kasai, Masaaki Harada, and Shinji Nakayama. Because of the large amount of songs, it's possible the other three sound designers wrote music, and not just arranged Kenji's music. To make it more complicated, Osamu Kasai is credited for music with Kenji Kawai in the Game Boy Advance title, though he never worked for the developer who made the game, so it's also possible Kawai and Kasai wrote the soundtrack while Harada and Nakayama did music arrangements, or it's possible Kasai was mistakenly credited. Shinji Nakayama has only been credited in three games, all of which were developed by Advance Communication and published by Victor Musical Industries, so on top of not knowing his role, it's also unknown which company he worked for. It is suspected that he served as an audio producer, but this hasn't been confirmed.
Games
Sansara Naga
The protagonist hears about the praised Dragoons; people who have mastered training dragons, and wants to become one themselves. The first game starts out by a player character stealing a dragon egg from a village, which actually turns out to be an ostrich egg. He follows the ostrich to an old man's cave, who gives the boy a dragon egg (in exchange for dragon's dung.) The player then must raise and train their dragon to assist in combat.
Along the way, the player will meet many characters, including Amrita, Dancer Tara, and even their grandmother. However, the most important character they will meet in their travels in Ala Singh, an Indian dragonmaster who will give the player various hints and advice during the player's journey. He later sends the player to Rta Sathya to slay a mystic monster known as the Chaos Dragon.
After the player reaches the Chaos Dragon, their dragon uses what is known as the Legendary Breath; something only a dragon that has been raised with the utmost care can use, to slay the Chaos Dragon. However, the Legendary Breath can be used only once, and as a result, the protagonist's dragon also dies in the aftermath. However, the protagonist finds an egg under the dragon's body. The protagonist then returns to Hoverpool Castle, where they are celebrated and the King congratulates the protagonist. After he asks the hero if their dragon left something, the egg hatches, and the dragon inside introduces itself as the same name the protagonist named their dragon.
Sansara Naga 2
Sansara Naga 1x2 (GBA)
Albums
Notable Audio Personnel
Notable Companies
Advance Communication Company
Developer of the Famicom title. Possible developer of the Super Famicom title.
