Backstory
Thousands of years ago, there existed a powerful magician named Ballos, whose powers were far beyond those of ordinary mortals. He used his powers to help and guide people, and so the people loved and trusted him more than even their own king. Over time, the King became jealous, and had Ballos imprisoned. Subjected to horrific tortures, Ballos was finally driven to madness. The magic inside him ran wild, and the King and the castle were destroyed instantly in a wave of fiery destruction. Ballos was unable to regain control of his magic, and, under its compulsion, murdered his wife and children and burned the kingdom to ashes. There remained but a bare trace of his sanity, and as he watched his family die, he was horrified even as he laughed.
When Ballos's sister, Jenka, a witch also possessing powerful magic, learned that her brother had gone mad, she confined him to an island that floated in the sky. Even though Ballos could not be freed from his magic and his insanity—except through death—Jenka loved her brother too much to kill him.
The floating island was held aloft by its Core, which lived deep inside the island. To defend the Core, Jenka constructed a labyrinth around its entrance and sealed the entrance itself with a large boulder. In the labyrinth she imprisoned the Gaudis, a race of giant insects, both as guardians and so that they would not be able to attack the Mimigas, a race of flower-eating, rabbit-like creatures who also lived in the island. Her powers exhausted, she retired to the Sand Zone, a desert-like cave on the island, and began to raise dogs.
Jenka had a daughter named Misery. Misery, who gained magical powers of her own, forced Ballos to create the Demon Crown, which would channel his power to the wearer. However, as the unwitting creator of the Crown's curse, she was bound for all eternity to serve any who would wear the crown.
Ten years before the game begins, the countries of Earth sent robots to bring back the Demon Crown. The robots killed indiscriminately, and many of the Mimigas were slain. To defend themselves, the Mimigas sought out the Red Flowers.
Although the Mimigas rely on flowers for sustenance, the legendary Red Flowers are toxic to them. The flower itself contains two chemical compounds: one to incite massive muscular growth and mutation; and the other a deliriant that causes total loss of the faculties of reason. This second compound has shown to form a crystalline substance when purified—the Red Crystal—and it is believed that this is what gives the flowers their distinctive red color.
Finally, a man from the surface gained possession of the Demon Crown. The robots fell silent. The Mimigas, however, were still frenzied from the Red Flowers, and the master of the Crown turned them loose upon the Earth.
Quote (the protagonist, whose name is only revealed through special effort on the player's part) and Curly Brace were two 'special' robots sent to the island to assassinate the master of the Crown and destroy it once and for all. Their superior skill and strength allowed them to wound him, but before they could defeat him they were rendered unconscious and scattered among the island's network of underground caves.
Shortly before the beginning of the game, a research party of humans came to the island by helicopter. It consisted of research scientist Momorin Sakamoto, her children Sue and Kazuma Sakamoto, Professor Booster, an engineer named Itoh, and a medical doctor named Fuyuhiko Date (whose name is only revealed through special effort on the player's part). The doctor knew the Crown existed and joined the party merely for the opportunity to find it. After the party landed, he immediately began to search for it. The opening sequence of the game shows the Doctor finding the Crown with Misery and Balrog, the two servants of the Crown, floating in the background.
Once the Doctor had the crown, he began a plan to take over the world: he would force the Mimigas to cultivate and ultimately eat the Red Flowers, and use an army of enraged Mimigas to attack the "surface" (Earth). The other members of the research party did not want to cooperate, so he ordered them to be destroyed. Sue Sakamoto and Itoh were turned into Mimigas by Misery before escaping. Kazuma Sakamoto teleported away, but found himself trapped in a room with no exit and a broken teleporter. Reluctantly following the Doctor's orders for fear of her life, Momorin Sakamoto was eventually thrown off the edge of the island once the Doctor found the Red Flower seeds. Hiding out in the plantations, she planned in secret for a way to defeat the Doctor from the security of an underground laboratory.
Sue hid out in the Mimiga village. The village was at one point very large, but had only six inhabitants after the Doctor began abducting Mimigas for use in his experiments, his army and to work in the Plantation. In the past, Toroko's brother and hero of the Mimigas, Arthur, had driven back a demon from the village and who gallantly saved the Mimigas, was killed by the Doctor during his rise to power. The new Mimiga leader, King, disliked Sue and attempted to exchange her for Toroko (after Toroko was kidnapped) with disastrous results.
When the game begins, Quote awakens in a cave near the Mimiga village.
