Trivia
CD-ROM
Beside being the starting point of one of the most successful and long-running RPG series and of semi-humorous RPGs in general,
Tengai Makyou: Ziria holds another record that will never be broken: it was the first role-playing game (and one of the first games generally) that came on a CD ROM.
Extras
Tengai Makyou: Ziria comes with a thick manual (72 pages) that contain not only story summary, character introduction, gameplay explanation, etc., but also a comic-book intro to the game, and a whole "Making Of" section that introduces the developers and shows how the game was made.
Hiroshi Adachi
The
Tengai Makyou games are supposedly written by the western 18th century historian "PH Chada" who makes appearances in most of the game's manuals. Paul Hieronymus Chada is the pseudonym of
Hiroshi Adachi. "P.H." stands for "Prince Hiroi" [Japanese: "Hiroi-ōji"]. "Adachi" is the anagram (reverse) of "Chada". As an in-joke as he is credited as the main responsible for the goofy cultural misconceptions of the world of Jipang.
Jipang
The country in which most
Tengai Makyou games (except
The Apocalypse) take place is called
Jipang. Except the addition of supernatural elements and many anachronisms, Jipang is pretty much the same as medieval Japan. The modern word "Japan" is actually based on the word
Jipang, which was the way European adventurers of Middle Ages called this country. This word, in its turn, comes from the Chinese
riben, which means "the origin of the sun". The Japanese also use this word to name their country (
nippon or
nihon in Japanese pronunciation).
Release history
There are both standard CD and Super CD releases of the game. The CD version is the original commercial release from 1989, while the SCD version was released as part of a promotion for the PC Engine Duo in 1992. It was sent for free to the first 30,000 people to purchase a PC Engine Duo. The SCD version of the game is virtually identical to the CD version, except that it has fewer (though longer) load times.
Title
Starting with this very first game, all
Tengai Makyou games have an English alternate title
Far East of Eden, which appears on game covers and as a sub-title for the main title. Contrary to a popular opinion, "Far East of Eden" is not the translation of "Tengai Makyou".
Tengai Makyou can be roughly translated as "Magical Border Outside of the Sky".
Information also contributed by
jotaro.raido and
Kaminari
