I received a copy of "Hadou no Hyouteki: Legend of the Melvel" for MSX2 from eBay a while back, but the disks were rather moldy, so I hadn't had a chance to test it out. Recently, though, I learned in more detail how to clean moldy disks, and was able to apply that knowledge to these successfully (as far as I can tell).
I had a little trouble getting the game running at first, though, so I downloaded a DSK image of it from MSX Games World at the following link in order to see how it's SUPPOSED to look when it's working properly:
https://www.msxgamesworld.com/gamecard.php?id=4003
Once I finally did get my own copy working, I immediately noticed quite a few differences between my version and the DSK images on MSX Games World. The ones that immediately stand out include:
- My version has extra load times at the start, accompanied by the text, "Wait a few minutes."
- Screen transitions are different between the two versions: the DSK image version uses a wipe effect between scenes, while my version just fades out.
- There's a text-typing effect accompanied by typewriter sounds when the name of the first chapter and setting are first printed onto the screen in the DSK version. This is not present in my version.
- The DSK version's intro reads, "199X年 新宿" (Year 199X, Shinjuku). My version's intro simply reads, "1999 東京" (1999 Tokyo).
There may be other differences as well!
Turns out, the reason for these differences is because my version is a newer release, with a sticker on the front of the box that reads, "漢字ROM不要版" ("No-Kanji-ROM-Necessary Edition"). Theoretically, this means that players with an older machine, or a machine from a country other than Japan (meaning, a machine that doesn't have built-in support for displaying kanji characters), can play the game -- which is good! And probably explains the extra load times at the start, since kanji routines likely have to be read into memory.
The loss of some transitional effects, however -- and especially the altered text in the intro -- is a bit harder to explain, as the newer version feels slightly less complete with these changes.
Since there doesn't seem to be any documentation of these changes online anywhere, I figured I'd post about it here with a comparison video, captured directly from my Panasonic FS-A1WX MSX2+ machine.
I also took photos of the front and back of my box, if you're interested in seeing what this game looks like physically:
I'm going to attempt to rip the disks shortly, in order to preserve this alternate version of the game for posterity -- I tried to do so with Disk Manager, but I believe the disks are copy-protected (either that or I wasn't as successful as I thought in cleaning them up!), so I'll need to use something else to rip them -- possibly this?
https://www.msx.org/news/en/dmk-creator-47-was-unleashed
Let me know what you guys think, and I'll keep you updated if I discover anything new or successfully manage to rip these disks!
-Tom

Sadly, though, I no longer have access to a nice flatbed scanner like I did when I sent you the scans of Robo Crush and La Valeur -- in fact, I'm living in Japan right now, on a rather small salary, so the best I could realistically do would be to take my game into 7-11 and scan it there, which not only might get me some strange looks, but it would also cost me a bit of cash to do!