Games - Magicant

	Games - Magicant

Magicant is the name of a fictional town and area in the role playing game, Mother for the Famicom/NES, and its sequel, EarthBound/Mother 2 for the Super NES/Super Famicom.

Magicant in Mother

Magicant is discovered early on in this game by the lead character, Ninten. After using his telepathy ability on a strange rock-like structure marked "XX" in a cave, he is transported to this mysterious "dream world."

This land plays a very important role throughout the rest of Mother. In Magicant, Ninten and his friends first visit an extremely helpful town located there with free hotels and hospitals. It also has three item stores which sell very useful items. Upon leaving the town area the party fights various strange enemies unique to Magicant. The party will also meet the mysterious Flying Man, a limited supply of bird-like creatures that will help join the team in battle until they die. (Described further in Magicant in EarthBound below).

The party will visit a palace which is home to the sad Queen Mary, possibly the Mary that disappeared in the 1900s. All the different music the party collects throughout the game is part of a tune that Queen Mary is trying to remember. When Queen Mary remembers the tone, she and Magicant disappear, and Ninten is able to use the song to defeat Giegue.

To leave Magicant, the party must adventure through a well maze. In this well, they will find the Onyx Hook. This item, once in their inventory, will warp them back to Magicant from wherever they are in the game. This is very useful to get the party out of sticky situations. When the player are lost in a dungeon or low in HP, PP and party members are passed out, the player can warp to Magicant to escape and recover.

Magicant in EarthBound

The player reaches Magicant near the end of the game, after completely activating the Sound Stone, in order to conquer Ness' Nightmare. In Magicant, Ness encounters many strange things, as it is actually Ness' "dream world". These things include people he has met before, monsters, and random people saying strange things (perhaps what he imagines them saying; the Pokey in Magicant admits feelings of jealousy towards Ness, and this may be what Ness believes is the root of his animosity, or perhaps slight egotistical tendencies on Ness's part). Ness is able to buy two items: Magic Pudding, a fairly good healing item, and the Earth Pendant, a powerful accessory.

Among the strange things are a group of five beings, each known as Flying Man, and each being an incarnation of the courage of Ness. When Ness talks to one of the Flying Men, he will join him, but he does not appear on the battle screen like Paula, Jeff, or Poo, and cannot be controlled. If Flying Man dies while in Ness' party, he cannot be revived. The player can recruit one of the remaining Flying Men after the one in the party dies. A grave will appear in front of the Flying Men's house, near Buzz Buzz's grave, and the number of Flying Men that die decides how many graves that are shown in the ending credits.

Ness will be able to leave Magicant once he travels deeper into his subconscious, through the Sea of Eden, and defeats his nightmare, a boss that looks like the Mani Mani Statue; due to its high power, many players choose to outlast it until it runs out of PP, at which point they attack it. Once he does so, he receives huge stat boosts from the Power of the Earth (unless he is at level 99), and the Sound Stone is broken. At this point, EarthBound progresses into the end-game.

In Mother 2, the Japanese release of EarthBound, Ness' Magicant sprite is completely naked, wearing nothing but his hat (as shown in the picture to the above right). Many of the characters of Magicant also make comments about Ness being in the buff. Due to the strict censorship rules of Nintendo of America, the sprite was changed to Ness wearing pajamas, as he does in the prologue sequence.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Magicant ]

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