Found DS Magic For Sure
When you think of an RTS title, most people don’t usually associate this with any handheld currently on the market. But Ubisoft and their latest game, Lost Magic shows that an RTS can in fact work well on a portable system especially with the use of the stylus on the Nintendo DS. Lost Magic places the combat style similar to Age of Empires with the control and movement of games such as StarCraft and Diablo. Using the stylus allows the player to control the main character and units with ease while not forgetting the classic D-Pad when it comes to scrolling through the battle field and over-world map.
Moving and controlling units with the stylus is great and makes the game that much simpler to handle. But what makes Lost Magic special is the fact you can use the stylus to draw symbols, and cast spells that weaken, destroy, and even capture other monsters. The “Symbol System” is a DS first and hopefully future games will come out with a similar use for the stylus. Don’t get me wrong, the standard way of combating on a handheld RPG was great. Selecting the attack name, and then selecting the target in a Turn Based battle format. But now instead of choosing the spell name to activate it, you are drawing the symbol to activate the attack, making the game that much more interactive. Which in most cases, people who play games find that more interaction in a game makes the game that much more enjoyable to play as you feel that closer to truly being part of the experience.
The storyline for Lost Magic is common in most RPG titles. The forces of darkness have taken over the world, and monsters are becoming the more prominent force. A chosen hero must battle the darkness and take bring back the light of the world. The story has its charms with the names of the characters being nice and elaborate. For example the main antagonist is called the Diva of the Twilight. Even that becomes very repetitive when the names are being mentioned each time you begin to take up the storyline again after completing a quest or when you get to a certain part in the game.
The “Symbol System” is the main reason that people will flock to this new undertaking by Ubisoft. Although a close second reason would be the fact that you can connect it to the Nintendo Wifi Connection system. This allows those who play the DS to connect using a wireless internet connection to play certain games with and against others from around the world. With Lost Magic, you can link up to the WFC and battle in two modes, Duel and Free Duel.
In Duel, you can battle anyone using your own saved game data. This means you use your current level, current spells, and current monsters captured. There is no rank matching so a level 40 character can still go against a level 7 or lower. This does have a little unfair advantage but it is also nice to see how the stronger characters play and vise versa. Another nice aspect of this battle mode is the fact that you can gain experience and level up your character and monster team. So you still get a great gain even if you are not playing in the story mode although it is still important to go into the story mode as you gain new spells and items that make your online battles that much more interesting.
In free duel, you are battling in the same fashion but you are using pre made game data, spells and monsters. You get all of the spells to use at your disposal so that is nice, your character is level 40 so there is no unfair advantage there. Your team of monsters are also all at level 40 as well. This means that in free duel, the only way you can win is by using the right spells and monsters at the right moment. Making the strategic aspect of Lost Magic truly come out. Both forms are equally fun and rewarding.
One last feature in this game that is very nice to have in this type of game, is the leveling up and training. Besides having the main character do the combating, you can capture monsters to add to your arsenal. Along with leveling up the main character as well, you have to level up the monsters you have in your line up too. This adds a different challenge as not only must you be strong, your monsters must be as well to effectively defeat the enemy threat. In a lot of RPG games on the Gameboy, there are very few areas where there are monsters to train with that match your current level. This makes it very hard to train for the final boss if you are a very high level above the monsters but the final enemy is much stronger then you are. Not only does it take more time to train, it becomes very frustrating when you want to beat the game right then. This is not the case in Lost Magic. The monsters get stronger as you and your line up do. Even if you are back in the starting area of the world, you can still effectively level up. This makes it not only faster to train, but much better to get that level you need.
With all games, no matter how great it seems, and how much time and work that goes into the game, there are always things that could for sure be improved on. Lost Magic is no exception. The largest let down of all in this game seems to be the movement patterns of the characters. In most RTS games such as StarCraft, when you tell a unit to move to a location, even if it is on the other side of the game map, past several obstacles such as cliffs and water, the units always take the best path to reach the designated area. In this game, the units always move in a straight line pattern. Meaning if you want then to go around something, you literally have to highlight the unit, and move them around the obstacle. This drastically cuts down on the respond time, and makes the player have to focus constantly on moving the character rather then actually attacking. Since you are using the stylus to cast your spells, you need lots of attention to do this, so with the movement system the way it is, it makes it very difficult to do both moving and attacking, especially in boss battles.
Another flaw in this game is the in the monster training system. Due to the fact enemy monsters are leveling up with you, there really is no need to build up your line up monsters strength. Why take the time to build up your teams power when you can just capture a monster that is at the level you need to beat the boss. Yes you need a strong monster to capture that higher level creature, but if you train your main character at least two levels above the target creature, you do not need to do much to weaken it for capture. Again, if they do come out with either a sequel or a variation on this game, the publishers truly need to do some minor changing to the monster training side of the game.
Although these problems do slow down the game, Lost Magic still is an amazing game considering it is bringing the Real Time Strategy aspect into a handheld game. This title uses the stylus well when controlling the characters, scrolling through game options, but most importantly it excels immensely in creating and casting spells. After someone who truly enjoys the interactive aspect of a video game plays Lost Magic, it is highly doubtful they would want to go back to your standard handheld version of an RPG or other types of Gameboy based strategy game.
The movement system of the units can with out a doubt deserve an improvement, as it slows down the game play entirely. Also the storyline could do with some miner changes as well due to the repetitive and “common” similarities it has with other fantasy games. Yes, problems with a game slows down the enjoyment one gets while playing, but as Lost Magic is venturing into new portable territory, hopefully most people will still give it a chance and find it a great game. All and all, this game is a keeper in my book and I personally will be playing it for a long time to come, and I know others will too. This writer gives Lost Magic a score of 8.0