Red Earth (released in Japan as Warzard) is a 1996 fantasy fighting game that holds the distinction of being the first title to run on Capcom’s CP System III (CPS-3) arcade hardware. 

The story of Red Earth (released as Warzard in Japan) is set on an alternate, medieval-style Earth in either the 14th century or a post-apocalyptic 1999. The world has seen no Renaissance or Industrial Revolution, leaving it dominated by swords, magic, and religious governments. 

Core Narrative

A mysterious military state, the Varuda Empire, suddenly rises and conquers the planet’s nations using an army of magic-infused “super beasts”. Led by the villainous Scion (Valdoll), the empire reduces civilizations to ruins and plunges the world into darkness. Four heroes emerge, each with personal stakes in defeating the empire’s eight monstrous generals. 

The Four Heroes

Each character’s journey is a self-contained quest with a unique motivation: 

• Leo: The King of Savalia, who was cursed and transformed into a half-lion warrior when his kingdom was invaded. He seeks to reclaim his throne and find his kidnapped subjects.
• Kenji (Mukuro): The leader of an elite ninja squad serving the Shogun of Zipang. He is sent to investigate invading “blackships” but secretly suspects his own Shogun of betrayal.
• Tessa (Tabasa): A “sorcerologist” from Icelarn who studies the scientific properties of magic. She investigates the cause of unnatural, destructive thunderstorms appearing across the land.
• Mai-Ling (Tao): A young martial artist who returns from a tournament to find her home village in ruins and its children missing. She travels the world to find the culprit and rescue the survivors.

Hardware Impact: CPS-3 Capabilities

The CPS-3 was Capcom’s final proprietary arcade board and was roughly four times as powerful as its predecessor, the CPS-2. Red Earth was used as a graphical showcase for these new features:

• Massive Sprites: The hardware allowed for exceptionally large, highly detailed character sprites with fluid animations.
• Color Palette: It could display up to 32,768 colors on-screen simultaneously from a total palette of 16.7 million.
• Scaling and Zooming: Red Earth utilized hardware-based sprite scaling and framebuffer zooming to enhance the visual scale of battles against its enormous boss monsters.
• Storage and Security: Unlike previous boards, the CPS-3 used CD-ROMs to load game data into the system’s SIMM RAM. It featured a “security cartridge” with a battery-backed decryption key; if the battery died or the cartridge was tampered with, the game became unplayable. 

Unique Gameplay Features

• Quest Mode: Primarily a single-player “boss rush” where players choose one of four heroes to battle eight massive, non-playable monsters.
• RPG Elements: Players earn experience points (XP) to level up, which increases attack/defense and unlocks new special moves.
• Password System: A 10-digit system allowed arcade players to save their character’s level and progress to continue later.