was published in Japan and features all the game's party members. Culture Brain's North American division chose to release the game as it fit the company's business model for international releases. Culture Brain USA announced the game in mid-1988 with a tentative release set for January 1989. It was delayed but was showcased that month at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show (CES) with other Culture Brain USA games for the NES, including Kung Fu Heroes and Flying Dragon: The Secret Scroll; it was showcased once again at 1990's Winter CES, this time alongside Baseball Simulator 1.000. The game was released in North America on January 15, 1990. Culture Brain made numerous changes for the English-language localization, including the alternation of character and monster sprites, changes of the facial features in the characters to look more nondescript, simplification of the overworld map, the usage of character text during gameplay, and the inclusion of new music. Reception The Magic of Scheherazade received mixed reviews at release. Opinions of the game's graphics and musical score have been mostly positive. Both William R. Trotter of Game Players and Rusel DeMaria of VideoGames & Computer Entertainment commended the game's visuals but DeMaria simply characterized the music and sound as "fine." Trotter was specifically impressed with the magic spell effects, characters sprites, and environments, and stated, "If there's a Nintendo game that's prettier to look at, we haven't seen it." Game Players awarded the game "Best Graphics" for console titles first previewed in the US in 1989. Contrarily, reviewers from a 1990 EGM panel discounted the game's presentation as either average or not up to the standards of the game's contemporaries. The gameplay and challenge were also high points for many reviewers. Trotter applauded the amount of content and compared the time-consuming yet intuitive learning curve for the game's mechanics to the Ultima series. He said, "Everything is clearly organized, so what at first seems unwieldy soon becomes natural and logical." DeMaria found the game easy yet satisfying, summarizing that it might offer fun for new and intermediate players while experience players could still find "enough plot twists and interesting challenges to make the game fun to play." GamePro likewise recommended the game to beginner, intermediate, and advanced players alike. EGM found the game as an overall mediocre diversion to other RPGs of its time, but similarly acknowledged the gameplay as being "nicely handled" and "easy