Idea Factory Internationalhas announced that the dungeon RPG series that inspired the popular puzzle-based Puyo Puyo franchise, Mado Monogatari, is making its way to the west with Fia and the Wondrous Academy this year. Technically, this isn’t the first time as Sorcery Saga: Curse of the Great Curry God is technically the first to find its way to North American and European stores.
A New Adventure on the PS4, PS5, and Switch
In this game, we play as a student named Fia attending an academy to master the Magic Artes alongside her classmates. While there, she’ll have to “get through the many challenges of schoolwork, strict professors, and mysterious happenings, all in pursuit of her goal to become a Great Mage herself, while also making friends with other students in her class,” according to the press release. We’ll meet a bunch of different characters, including Will (voiced by Maki Kawase), Leena (performed by Nichika Omori), Totto (Shun Horie), Eska (Moe Kahara).
Idea Factory has also published Record of Agarest War.
The Banshee Trio will also star in the game and will be voiced by Mariko Honda. As you could probably tell, Mado Monogatari: Fia and the Wondrous Academy is likely not getting a dub cast.
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As you’d probably expect, there will be randomly generated dungeons to crawl through as we fight our way to victory in turn-based battles. We’ll be utilizing spells called Magic Artes and collecting Elemental Orbs to vanquish foes with Great Magic Artes. There will be treasure to find as we go up each floor and fight the likes of the Puyo, Skeleton T, and other monsters in our way.
Along the way, we’ll be completing assignments, keeping track of Fia’s Magic Artes, completing Help Quests, and earning Learning Points to unlock new Artes in the Grimoire.
The dungeon crawling might not be the highlight for you. We’ll also be playing mini-games, growing ingredients, cooking curry, and getting to know fellow classmates like Will and Leena in between dungeon exploration sessions. Additionally, we’ll be synthesizing items in the Storage Room to create new equipment for Fia.
A Brief History of the Series
The Mado Monogatari series began all the way back in the 1980s on the MSX and PC-98 and was developed by Compile. It is well-regarded among hardcore dungeon crawler RPG fans, but the spinoff Puyo Puyo has more cache within Western territories. It evencrossed over with Tetrismultiple times.
According toNintendo Everything, when Fia and the Wondrous Academy launched in Japan, the touted outletFamitsuscored the game with ratings of 7/8/7/7, which hopefully makes this a decent RPG to try out.Idea Factoryis known for localizing lesser-known RPGs like theFairy Fencer Fand the Neptunia series alongside visual novels, such asSympathy Kiss.
Mado Monogatari: Fia and the Wondrous Academy launches later in 2025 for the PS4, PS5, and Nintendo Switch.
