Maharaja

Nintendo Entertainment System · 1989 · JP

Sunsoft Quest Adventure

Publisher: Sunsoft · Developer: Quest · Genre: Adventure

Maharaja is an adventure game with RPG elements published by Sunsoft and developed by Quest. The protagonist is a young man who recovers a mystical treasure box belonging to the Maharaja from the river Ganges. He is rewarded with a feast for recovering the item, but the princess warns him later the same night that the Maharaja's generosity is a ruse and that he is being controlled by an evil wizard and plans to kill the hero in the morning. The hero escapes the palace to look for a way to free the Maharaja and rescue the princess, acquiring the assistance of the gods along the way. Maharaja features an adventure game interface with a small viewing window for whatever the player character is seeing as well as a list of commands on the side that the player character can try. Speech and other descriptive text appears below the picture window. In addition, the player can also find themselves embroiled in random battles which play out like other turn-based RPGs of the era. The player can find and equip new gear as well as learn new spells as the game continues. The game was never officially localized into English nor was it ever released outside of Japan. A fan translation was created in 2009, however.