The Legend of Heroes II: Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch

Overview

The Legend of Heroes III: Shiroki Majo (英雄伝説III 白き魔女), which literally translates to "White Witch," follows the adventures of a young boy named Jurio on his quest to complete his warrior initiation rite by traveling to five shrines. The game is the third entry in Falcom's long running RPG franchise and the first entry of the "Gagharv Trilogy" in the series. The White Witch was originally created for the NEC PC-98 on March 18, 1994 and was later ported to other platforms. A follow up to the White Witch was released in 1996 called The Legend of Heroes IV: A Tear of Vermillion.

The White Witch was remade for the Saturn in 1998 by Hudson, for the PlayStation the same year by GMF and finally a PC port was made by Falcom themselves in 1999. Years later, a PlayStation Portable version of The Legend of Heroes III was created by Namco Bandai and MiCROViSion in 2004 which was released in North America on June 20, 2006. The English release was re-titled to "The Legend of Heroes II" since it was released after A Tear of Vermillion, which caused some confusion as to where the game fit into the franchise.

Legacy

The original PC-98 version of The Legend of Heroes III was one of Falcom's most successful titles in the mid-90s, selling over 180,000 copies by 1997, and its story was highly praised by fans [4]. The White Witch was nominated for many awards in Japan as well with the title winning Login Magazine's "Best Ending" award as voted by readers. Comptiq magazine also awarded The White Witch the "SOFT Grand Prize" award in 1995 [1]. Additionally, the game was one of Toshihiro Kondo's favorite PC titles during his time as a college student in the 90s which inspired him to make a fansite dedicated to the game called “The Saga of Tirasweel” in June 1996 [3]. The website became so popular that it eventually led to Kondo getting in contact with Falcom, being hired by the company in 1998, and eventually becoming Falcom's third president in 2007 [2].

References

1. The Legend of Heroes III History (The First Light, 1999).
2. AX2019 - Toshihiro Kondo, From Fan to President (NIS America, 2019).
3. Site Introduction (The First Light, 1999) - Mentions when "The Saga of Tirasweel" was founded.
4. Falcom Hot Information (Nihon Falcom, 1997).