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Lagrange Point [Model RC851]

Nintendo Famicom cart. published 33 years ago by Konami Industry Co., Ltd.

Listed in MAME

Lagrange Point [Model RC851] screenshot

ラグランジュポイント © 1991 Konami Industry Company, Limited.
(Lagrange Point)

Lagrange Point is a science fiction role playing game developed and published by Konami. In the 22nd century, humanity has begun to explore and colonize the worlds of other stars. Three outer-space space stations were built by the ISIS corporation at the Lagrange point between the Earth and the Sun - Satellite Base, Land 1 and Land 2. One day, after coming under attack by strange and mysterious mutant-like creatures, the Lands turn into hostile wastelands. Earth decides to send several expeditions to investigate the situation, but none returned. Lagrange Point stars Jin, a member of the third expedition on a mission to discover the truth behind the attack. But, as they reach their destination, he and his team are stalked by heavily armed robots and only Jin survives the attack. Lagrange Point follows a traditional RPG formula laid out by similar games at the time, such as top-down exploration, round based battles, stores, experience points and so forth. However, Konami added new concepts and valuable ideas to the mix. Although the player can control up to four characters at the same time, a total of ten different heroes can be played throughout the game, from humans to cyborgs and robots. Additionally, Battery Points (BP) replace the traditional magic points and are used to fuel attacks - however, although Health Points (HP) do increase after each level-up, Battery Points don't and B Tanks must be purchased throughout the game in order to do so. The player also doesn't automatically gain money after each battle and must instead visit Terminal Rooms to collect his loot - thankfully, these rooms can be found at every corner of the game's numerous cities and are also used to save the game in progress or heal the party. Lagrange Point's content is vast and expansive, and special vehicles give the player ample chance to roam the world in various degrees of style, from the Solar Car, the all-terrain Mobile to the Cruiser boat or the flying Hoverplane. As the game progresses, many more features are made available, such as the ability to combine and create new weapons in Factories or the option to leave characters behind for later use (both only available in the Satellite base).

Goodies for Lagrange Point [Model RC851]
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TECHNICAL

Cartridge ID: RC851

Lagrange Point uses an onboard FM synthesis soundchip called the VRC 7 and it was apparently the only Famicom game produced by Konami to take advantage of the chip. The six extra sound channels of the VRC 7 give Lagrange Point's soundtrack an unique depth and definitively a 16-bit bit feel not found in any other games released for Nintendo's 8-bit system.

TRIVIA

Lagrange Point was released on April 26, 1991 in Japan for 8500 Yen.

Lagrange Point is especially interesting for a fairly unusual reason. In the fall of 1990 and to commemorate the 100th issue of the Japanese Family Computer Magazine (also known as 'Famimaga'), Konami apparently offered the readers the opportunity to send their opinion and ideas, and to contribute to the design of Lagrange Point. The project, called 'Game Kobo', allowed players to design some of the enemies, various character dialog and texts, parts of the soundtrack and even the final name of the game and the title's logo. After the game was released, Family Computer Magazine praised its numerous qualities and a four-episode comic even appeared within its pages (it was curiously never published as a stand-alone comic and only the first half was included in the offical guidebook).

Apparently, Lagrange Point wasn't a huge success - the 'late' release of the game (the Super Famicom system was already available in Japan in 1991) and the high production cost of the cartridge may have contributed to the low sales number. It was however later referenced in other Konami games, such as Motocross Maniacs Advance (Game Boy Advance, 2002) where a race track is named 'Lagrange Point', and two rearranged tracks can be found on the Kukeiha Club & Konami Kukeiha Club Best Vol.1 CD soundtrack originally released in 1997.

STAFF
SOURCES

Game's ROM.
Game's description by Laurent Kermel; http://www.videogameden.com