Having survived an onslaught of
monsters when he was very young, our hero Isaac escaped only by running away
from his village and getting himself lost in the forest. Fortunately Isaac was
found by a kind and grandmotherly magic user who took him in taught him the
ways of magic. Years have past and Isaac has become a headstrong young man who
has always wondered if his parents survived that fateful attack. Now through
the magic of happenstance AND plot development, Isaac’s father miraculously
runs into him and hands him one of the seven magic wands that were scattered
across the lands many years ago. Isaac must now come to grips that he will
need to do battle with a powerful Diva witch who is collecting all of the
wands in an attempt to turn the world into her own twisted version.
"Quick! Draw a reverse question
mark so’s to fool all monsters learning basic English!"
Now this is the second DS title
that I have played where you only use the stylus. Not that this is a bad
thing, as you adventure (again, this is an RPG), Isaac will begin learning how
to defend himself by using magic. Magic is done by pulling the left trigger
(OK, so maybe it isn’t totally stylus controlled) and then drawing the symbol
of the magic that you want to cast. The better job you do of drawing the
symbol, the more powerful the magic will be. For example, one of the first
magic attacks you will learn is the fire attack. This is done by pulling the
trigger and then drawing an upside down "V". The straighter you draw the lines
in the symbol, can mean the difference in taking two shots to destroy a
monster, or one. And you should also know that you must touch the stylus to
the real time combat map that is occurring in order to aim your attack at the
correct monster. It’s all rather clever and I really enjoyed the heck out of
this thing.
The further you get along, the
more magic will be at your disposal, but you should know that your magic
abilities are temporary. Firing off several attacks will deplete your mana and
you must wait briefly for it to recharge. This makes battling several monsters
at once a bit more strategic. Approaching a group at an angle’s so’s to anger
only one of the group is one way that I discovered in how to deal with them,
pick them off one at a time if you will. But, if you get really good, and you
will need to, you can fire off several shots at multiple monsters and when
your mana has run out but before the monsters reach you, you can touch young
Isaac and have him start running away while your mana returns. Trust me, this
take a bit of practice.
"I tried for ten minutes to come up with
a funny caption, sorry."
LostMagic is a decent-looking
title, I recall that Castlevania also involved the drawing of runes in order
to unleash magic on the problems that come crawling after you, and I also
recall saying that the game reminded me of how the character’s in Full Metal
Alchemist (the cartoon) do the same kind of thing in order to perform their
magic. Well, LostMagic is definitely more of the same, emphasis on more. The
arcane symbols are decidedly effective looking and do a good job of making the
gamer feel like a spellcaster plus, according to the booklet, there are 400
total spells in which to use. The game looks like an early Zelda game only
with a bit more cleaner lines and a bit more detail in the lay of the land.
Don’t get me wrong, the look of the game isn’t bad; in fact it kind of felt
right too considering that the game is rated E for everyone. I liked how the
character anime faces pop up at the bottom of the screen when they are
talking, but if you have played any RPG lately, you will note that this is
quite a common theme. The monsters on the other hand are pretty simplistic and
un-scary. But I guess that too kind of rolls with how the game is presented.
If anything, the sound too is kind
of cutesy in a saccharine-sweet way. I know that voice acting is rare in these
types of games, especially on a platform like the DS, but something more audio
wise is needed for this title. The light music that plays as you go from point
A to point B is pretty much standard fare and the dramatic sound that pops up
when something surprising happens is pretty much fluff. It’s not horrible mind
you, but you can tell that the developers were just using some tried and
true music for this one. Hey what can I say, it’s what it is.
Now back to the in-game action. As
time rolls on and you are traveling from one place to another (fairly linear
game here and getting lost is not on the menu) you will run into others who
will offer advice or need help or need help offering advice, whatever, you get
it. The point is that you will be sometimes given a choice on how to respond
to a question or a choice involving some sort of decision. These choices are
somewhat odd, since they inevitably seem to bring you to the same conclusion.
Sure there is some variance and the right choice can certainly help reap
rewards but still, the whole thing seemed a bit out of place to me.
"Mmmmm, M and M’s."
Probably the thing that surprised
me most about LostMagic is that there are some heavy strategic elements
present in the game. Early on, you discover the ability to trap monsters and
have them fight on your side, which leads to some quick stylus whipping as you
discover that the only way to continue on is to have monsters go into battle
with/for you in order to take on the action scenario, which is usually
precluded by a bit of plot "Oh no, the village is being attacked!" The point
being, in order to capture the monsters, you must first beat the snot out of
them and then use the capture spell, once that is done, you will need to
figure out what monsters are most effective against other monsters. The game
is based on that whole yin-yang thing, water-based monsters do well against
fire-based, earth against wind, you get it. Eventually you will have quite the
menagerie of critters rolling with you and through trial and error should have
a good enough experience battling your way through the game’s surprisingly sly
plot.
|
Review Scoring Details for LostMagic |
Gameplay: 8.6
The game is darn near controlled entirely by the stylus. How well you
can draw the rune has an effect on how well the spell is cast. The whole RPG
with strategy involved battles is a great way to bring out a new title.
Graphics: 7.9
There is a lot of information
contained in this game, the graphics aren’t bad, they look somewhat retro and
I mean that in a positive way. Some simplistic-looking monsters but you never
forget who or what you are looking at. The niftiest visuals is the magic
symbols that are drawn on a cool looking arcane symbol.
Sound: 7.0
Nothing new or riveting. It sounds
good, clear and crisp, but there wasn’t anything I could get really excited
about.
Difficulty: Medium
The game has some challenging
battles, and you will realize quickly that you need to be fast on the draw
with your stylus. But some elbow grease and figuring out which monsters you
need to bring into battle will help out considerably.
Concept: 8.8
This is great; easily one of the
games that has embraced the stylus-based gameplay and done it right.
Multiplayer: 8.0
With a second copy of the game,
you can do duel battles against one another with full-scale monster wars and
magic-symbol drawing. It’s cool.
Overall: 8.2
A really strong contender for dark horse game of the year. If good
word of mouth can get out there then the game will see a deserved sequel.
