written in the translation notes in the instruction manual of the North American version, some of the source code to the original Japanese version had been lost due to a hard drive crash. The missing code was completely rebuilt for the US version. Three versions of the opening song were recorded, two of which are accessible on the game disk. Working Designs was unable to acquire the original Japanese opening theme, "Yuzurenai Negai" by Naomi Tamura, for the English release, and instead used the melody of the Japanese version with different lyrics. The original version was only released on Working Design's website, and had an entirely different singer and instrumentals than the two versions of the song that were released on the game. This version was a lot closer to the original anime's theme, but with Working Designs' English lyrics. The game, as with most of Working Designs' translated titles, was packaged with different artwork on the CDs to increase their value among collectors. The CDs came with three different designs, one for each of the game's heroines. Reception The game currently holds a 70.03% average on GameRankings. On release in Japan, in 1995, Famitsu magazine scored the game a 26 out of 40.<ref name=fami>New Games Cross Review - 魔法騎士レイアース. Weekly Famitsu. No.352. Pg.29. 15 September 1995.</ref> The localized version received mild to positive scores upon its release in North America in 1998. The game received a 5.1 mediocre review from Andrew Vestal of GameSpot. Though he found no problems with the game itself, he considered the localization of a three-year-old game to be a wasted effort due to the aging of the graphics, concluding that "Magic Knight Rayearth is too little, too late". Game Informer scored the game 7 out of 10, and called it rather dated. EGM scored the game 7.12 out of 10.Retro Gamer'' included it on their list of ten essential Saturn imports as "easily the best playable import RPG, thanks to a highly entertaining localisation by Working Designs, its fun combat system (you effectively control one character at a time, switching between them tag-team style) and some delightful 2D visuals". Notes References External links Magic Knight Rayearth at GameFAQs Magic Knight Rayearth at Giant Bomb Magic Knight Rayearth at MobyGames 1995 video games Action role-playing video games Magic Knight Rayearth Video games about magic Video games about mecha Science fantasy video games Sega Saturn games