| Review: Magna Carta 2 |
| Magna Carta 2 - Review |
| Written by Andrew Donnell |
| Saturday, 09 January 2010 20:36 |
Magna Carta 2 is an Role Playing Game developed by South Korean developer Softmax and published by Banpresto in Japan, BandaiNamco in the US and Atari in EU exclusively for the Xbox 360. Players may remember the previous games Magna Carta: The Phantom Avalanche released on PC and Magna Carta: Crimson Stigmata released on the Playstation 2. Released in the US on October 13th 2009 and Europe the 16th October 2009. Powered by the Unreal Engine 3 the game looks beautiful at first glance, but does this continue to show throughout the game and does the story and other aspects live up to the hot prospects of this game? Read on for more. Synopsis Magna Carta is based on a war-torn continent known as Lanzheim where two great forces (Northern and Southern Forces) are battling over the land and throne as it appears at the start. The story starts with a young male who lives in a small village who lays around and slacks as often as he can. The young male named Juto had appeared on the island years before having lost all his memories and he had a fear of lifting a real sword which already has players questioning what had happened before that caused this. His life takes a dramatic twist one day as the Northern Forces invade the island searching for a secret weapon and although the Southern Forces are there to help fight against the invasion Juto witnesses the murder of Melissa, a young female who had taken him in and looked after him when he showed up on the island. After this Juto joins the Southern Forces to get revenge for the death of Melissa, but things don't go according to his plan and as his memories start to flood back to him, as well as meeting others that share a past like his, he starts to learn the truth and everything suddenly takes a drastic change. Most people will think "Oh great.... another story about a guy who lost his memory and saves the world" but although it may appear that way to begin with the twists and turns that come in the game will have players intrigued and interested.  Gameplay Magna Carta appears to be your typical RPG style game upon first entry into the world but as time progresses players will come to notice that although it plays like an RPG there is some elements added that separate it from others. When you start the game players will go through the usual tutorial phase of the game to get you used to the combat system and menus. The battle system in this game is quite unique and it will be a make or break part of the game for a lot of players. Like usual RPG it has your combat functions like attacking, blocking and using special abilities when you build up enough power which is known as Kan in the game. The unique part of the system though that players will notice is a bar on the bottom of the screen which also builds up while you attack enemies and once it hits the max it turns into a red bar and becomes an 'Overdrive' bar. The Overdrive bar increases damage by 1.5, "Oh yay extra damage for kicking ass" I hear you say? Yes... but there is a price to pay for it. Once you enter Overdrive mode you have a limited number of times you can attack and once that finishes you will enter a state of 'Overburn', this is where players may get frustrated with the game since at the start it does cause a lot of downtime if you keep burning yourself out. The Overburn basically as you can guess burns the character out and they cannot use any of their attacks until the meter slowly goes back down to its normal state. So why put a system into the game that will only cause players to get angry and dislike it? Well when you start off in the game you are a 1 man party and it's not until you start gaining more members until the true explanation comes out for the system. When you have a full party (of three members) a new action opens up in the combat field when you go into Overburn mode which is all explained in a nice little tutorial when you gain your first party members. The other party members will do what they want depending on what you set the AI system to tell them to do, for example 'Make healing Priority' or 'Attack leader target'. However you can switch in and out of each character by making them the leader, the easiest way to do this in combat mode is selecting them using the Directional Pad on the controller, each of the 3 characters will be Up, Left or Down. Switching in and out of each character has been nicely designed and is swift and smooth. So how does this affect the Overburn? When you go all out with a character and cause them to go into Overburn and use one of their special abilities for max damage the bar changes and says 'Chain Ready' you can then switch to another character to continue with attacking using them as your main leader.  "But it's still downtime on my other character" Yes and No, when you chain to another character yes your other character stays in Overburn, however there is a way to break it. When you have chained, if you can cause your second character to go into Overdrive mode and execute one of their special abilities while in Overdrive BEFORE your other characters Overburn has cleared you will cause a state known as 'Chain Break'. This will automatically reset both characters bars back to 0, meaning you can go all out again with both of them. This system adds a whole new element to tactical thought when playing an RPG, in other RPGs you just worry about what abilities to use, when to heal and such things. In Magna Carta 2, not only do you need to worry about them but you need to worry about how to do them right and what is not only most effective on the enemy but what you can chain together to break the Overburn and cause deadly damage. If you have a character in Overburn and another incapacitated and the one left can't heal it really leaves you in a tough spot so players need to think it out right and this adds a great aspect to the game that you don't find often.  Another great element of the game is the points system for gaining new abilities and attributes. Each character has 2 styled talent trees for different weapons. The main character can have a 1 handed sword and defensive item or a 2 handed sword for example, as you gain levels you get points to spend in the talent tree to unlock new abilities for whichever weapon you choose to play with, although the talent tree appears small it's because each ability will have several levels to it, so if you upgrade it once it may cost less Kan to use in battle and cause more damage on the second upgrade. It's a nicely designed system and players will be happy with it as rather than worrying about an overcomplicated talent system they can enjoy the game more. Also simplified in the game is the items that can be equipped, you can equip a weapon slot, a pauldron and 2 accessories. Each weapon can have its own enhancements by using gems. When you get a weapon (first weapon excluded) there is an option to enhance it from the main menu, each weapon has a Kan board and has slots to add gems which are gathered throughout the world via buying from vendor or from loot on mobs. Each gem will have a certain attribute like Strength +10 or special gems that increase Kan gained during battle and if they are equipped correctly on the Kan board (with their correct color) then bonus attributes will be unlocked increasing the power or survivability of that player. When fighting throughout the game players will have to use each of their characters multiple times, unlike other games where you can just form a party of 3 and level them, Magna Carta 2 requires that you use the other characters for specific abilities or quests. For example, there will be some monsters where you can only use your axe wielding character as he has a 'Break Armor' ability and if you just try to do it without him.... well lets just say it would take awhile to kill the monster. Fear not though, you do not need to level those characters separately, as long as your character is with you (not left the group choice and went off looking for lollipops) then they will also gain the experience and level with the others. Obviously some characters will vanish from time to time and they may lack in levels when they return but it's never too many and they always catch up quickly. The game also grows with the player as they level, what I mean by this is when you start off in a zone where you are level 9 and you start killing level 10 enemies, if you return to this area at 39 then the enemies will have grown to level 40. This helps players advance in the game easier than having to run around to specific locations just to grind out levels so they are strong enough to move on. As well as the main story there is plenty of random quests that can be found around the world that players can pick up and do along the way to help with levelling and gaining money to buy new items.  Graphics, sound and UI Using the Unreal Engine 3 the game has developed some beautiful characters and rich worlds that players will truly enjoy throughout the game. Most of the time players will just stand around and stare at the beauty of the scenery and the characters within it. The UI is clean and simple and very easy to get to grips with as are the menus. There is a great musical score in the game but what is most interesting in the game sound department is the cast of voice actors. Excluding the main bad guy voice actor the others all have one thing in common and that is they all are voice actors for the dubbed anime Bleach. Juto voiced by Johnny Yong Bosch who anime fans will know as Kurosaki Ichigo puts on a great performance for his character Juto, others include Michelle Ruff (Kuchiki Rukia), Kate Higgins (Kurosaki Karin & others), Yuri Lowenthal (Keigo Asano), Jamieson Price (Yasutora Sado) and Stephanie Sheh (Orihime Inoue & others). So having all these guys together on the game seems to have paid off as they have been able to give the characters the feeling of a bond that random voice actors may not of been able to pull off. Value A great story once it begins to unfold and a rich world that will have players wandering around exploring for hours. The game should give most gamers roughly 40+ hours of gameplay and with the lush worlds, great music and many other things to keep you entertained it definitely has the value if your willing to give it the effort. Conclusion As stated earlier the battle system will be a make or break element whether players will enjoy the game. It's a thin line between love and hate for people because of this, but if players are willing to give the battle system a little practice and little time to get used to it and perfect it, then they will enjoy the game a whole lot more. Players that get frustrated at the game and give up on it will miss out on what the game has to offer once it starts to open up story wise and combat will become easier with the passing of time. Overall it's one of the better RPGs you will find on the Xbox 360 if your looking for something different. Rating 81/100 |
| Last Updated on Saturday, 09 January 2010 20:55 |
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