is a Japanese role-playing game released by Square in 1996, and the company's last developed game for the Super Famicom.

The plot incorporates elements from Indian religions, centrally the concept of the wheel of time - every 4000 years the world is destroyed and recreated by a Rudra - the name taken from an aspect of the Hindu god of destruction, Shiva. With several races of beings already eradicated and replaced, the story takes place during the final 15 days before humans are scheduled to be wiped out as well; this forces the four main characters who were chosen by fate - Sion, Surlent, Riza, and Dune - to go on a quest to avert the scenario whilst uncovering the source of it all.

While the gameplay alludes to many Square games like Final Fantasy and so on, one notable deviation from the games is that of custom magic system (aka mantra system), in which players can freely create their own spells either by using both prefixes and suffixes contained within the game or just by trial and error. This negates the need of leveling up characters to learn spells automatically rather than manually, but despite its creativity, the overall usefulness contained within each imputed spell varies.

Gameplay

thumb|right|Riza using a Dark mantra against a Future.

The gameplay is divided into three main areas: the overworld map, the towns and dungeons, and battles. When in the overworld map, the player directs their characters to different locations in the game. Towns contain the prerequisite shops and villagers who offer information, while dungeons are mazelike affairs where random enemy encounters may occur. These battles may also strike on the overworld map and follow a typical RPG pattern: the player makes choices for their characters (such as whether to fight, cast a magic spell, or run away), and then the enemy takes a turn. This pattern repeats until the characters on one side all run out of hit points and die. There are 15 turns, accounting for each of the 15 days. Whereas most console RPGs give the player access to a limited number of precreated spells, it allows the player nearly total creative freedom. The company is best known for RPG franchises like Final Fantasy and SaGa. Many of the staff members for Treasure of the Rudras had previously worked on Final Fantasy Legend III (SaGa 3) and Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, notably director Kouji Ide. Production began in 1993 and would last three years. Ide revealed that his team started by conceiving its magic system, basing the inclusion of kotodama on the cultural appreciation for word play in Japan. Battle planner Masahiro Kataoka proposed that gamers could exchange discovered words with their friends as a way to progress through the game. He was originally set to design everything and magazines had advertised his involvement from the start, but Amemiya did not become officially attached to the project until a year and a half before its conclusion. A rough outline for the characters and world were already decided and he and his studio Crowd Inc. amended these illustrations. alongside Bahamut Lagoon, Super Mario RPG, and Treasure Hunter G, which were all released within four months of each other. Treasure of the Rudras was never localized outside Japan, though an English fan translation was completed. The game's unique magic system was considered to be a major obstacle for translators and required not only the text to be converted but the game's coding to be altered.

Music

Ryuji Sasai composed the game's music. A 58-song soundtrack CD was released in Japan by NTT Publishing shortly after the game on April 25, 1996. A sheet music edition was released by Doremi on April 30, 1997, and features every track transcribed in simple arrangements for solo piano. The original version of the soundtrack was re-released digitally on August 8, 2008.

Songs from the game have made their way to various Square Enix compilation albums: the regular battle theme in 2007; the opening theme in 2021; and an arranged version of the Surlent scenario boss battle theme in 2012.

Reception

Upon its release, a quartet of writers for the Japanese magazine Famitsu awarded Treasure of the Rudras an aggregate score of 31 out of 40 points, placing it in the publication's "Silver Hall of Fame". The reviewers commended Square for continuing its track record of excellent RPGs and for making complex mechanics like the mantra-based magic system easy to understand, though one member of the panel felt that instantly switching between the game's three storylines could be disorienting to the player. Retro Gamer also complimented the magic system and its approach of having three branching stories that players could exit and enter at will, labeling the title a "hidden gem". Destructoid compared the plot and its many shifting perspectives to Game of Thrones, but noted that the game did not appear to have been made with the same large budget as contemporary titles, and noted the difficulty of using the linguistic magic system.

References

  • Rudra no Hihō at Square-Enix.com