Miramon
11-16-2005, 09:44 AM
Magna Carta is a Japanese-style (Korean, actually) RPG along the lines of Shadow Hearts in terms of elementary combat mechanics (spinning disk thing to which you have to time your attack-clicks), but with the added complexity of an 8-fold element system that uses environmental mana to power attacks. I played it a little last night. Just considering the early part of the game that I saw, I thought it was pretty good in some respects and just so-so in others, with many nods towards a variety of Japanese games.
Oh, those wacky Korean artists. I was convinced the main character was female for the first few minutes until he opened his mouth. He's got these sort of hip-thigh cutout things that seem unmistakeably feminine, plus many of the male characters have these sort of thrusting pectorals and ribcages that look much like breasts drawn by a more restrained artist. However, the ambiguity goes away when you compare the actual females, all of whom have incredibly large gravity-defying breasts which range from mostly bare to covered in some kind of medieval spray-on bra. Not that there's anything wrong with that....
I mentioned the combat system. It's really quite interesting in terms of the many factors that go into any combat, but it's also a bit annoying in that only one character can act at a time, and in that your entire party doesn't get a turn -- in many fights, it's best to use only one of your three characters, as they all use essentially the same time-slot (modified by various factors like how much time you spent flattering them in conversation). So you can't usefully have two damage dealers in a fight most of the time, since one will be better in any given situation. There are various tactical considerations that modify this in interesting ways, but it's still an irritating design feature that most of the time you have two characters standing around watching the third do something.
The story is so far very routine and rather humorless. Two opposed racist sides who are clearly fighting for no good reason, a mysterious amnesiac girl of unknown (but obvious) origin, blah blah blah. Of course the name Magna Carta has nothing whatsoever to do with the real Magna Carta. It's some kind of random super magic thing, not a document limiting the powers of the King....
Anyhow, though it has its shortcomings, I've played a lot of worse RPGs in the last couple of years, including for example Bard's Tale and Sudoki. In the absence of superior games coming out around the same time (e.g. Digital Devil Saga 2 and hopefully Dragon Quest bignum) I might be a bit more enthusiastic.
Oh, those wacky Korean artists. I was convinced the main character was female for the first few minutes until he opened his mouth. He's got these sort of hip-thigh cutout things that seem unmistakeably feminine, plus many of the male characters have these sort of thrusting pectorals and ribcages that look much like breasts drawn by a more restrained artist. However, the ambiguity goes away when you compare the actual females, all of whom have incredibly large gravity-defying breasts which range from mostly bare to covered in some kind of medieval spray-on bra. Not that there's anything wrong with that....
I mentioned the combat system. It's really quite interesting in terms of the many factors that go into any combat, but it's also a bit annoying in that only one character can act at a time, and in that your entire party doesn't get a turn -- in many fights, it's best to use only one of your three characters, as they all use essentially the same time-slot (modified by various factors like how much time you spent flattering them in conversation). So you can't usefully have two damage dealers in a fight most of the time, since one will be better in any given situation. There are various tactical considerations that modify this in interesting ways, but it's still an irritating design feature that most of the time you have two characters standing around watching the third do something.
The story is so far very routine and rather humorless. Two opposed racist sides who are clearly fighting for no good reason, a mysterious amnesiac girl of unknown (but obvious) origin, blah blah blah. Of course the name Magna Carta has nothing whatsoever to do with the real Magna Carta. It's some kind of random super magic thing, not a document limiting the powers of the King....
Anyhow, though it has its shortcomings, I've played a lot of worse RPGs in the last couple of years, including for example Bard's Tale and Sudoki. In the absence of superior games coming out around the same time (e.g. Digital Devil Saga 2 and hopefully Dragon Quest bignum) I might be a bit more enthusiastic.