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Lost Magic for the Nintendo DS combines all the fun of drawing letters, trying to remember arcane symbols, dying repeatedly, cursing like a sailor at having died repeatedly, and getting carpal tunnel syndrome repeatedly tapping a stylus against a touch screen in order to fast-forward through a series of conversations that manage to be simultaneously inane and overlong.

Seven wands of power won’t collect themselves. As young Isaac, players take the dual role of both spellcaster and army general, directly controlling the hero’s actions and ordering a series of monster troops around a series of battlefields. In essence, Magic blends elements of role-playing games with real-time simulations, and adds to the mix a series of Pokémon-style collection mechanic. Which, all told, is sort of like putting a hard drive on a duck.

Draw, pardner!

Magic’s novel hook has players casting spells by drawing them with the Nintendo DS stylus. Players are required to press and hold the DS’ left trigger button to call up a pentagram that serves as a palette. From there, players must draw a symbol on the pentagram in order to power a spell; an upside-down “V” creates a fire spell, a looping “C” is used for a wind charm, and so forth. Once the rune has been drawn successfully—or close enough that the game recognizes it—Isaac can choose its target by tapping on an ally or foe, or select a direction in which to hurl a spell.

Copying runes with proficiency increases a spell’s power, but the game really demands players draw with quickness rather than accuracy. As Isaac becomes more proficient with his spellcasting, he’s able to chain runes together to create more powerful enchantments. In this way, Magic holds approximately 350 or so spells for the dedicated player, and although none but the most diehard will use more than, say, 25 of them, it’s still quite a nice little feature.

It’s always nice to see developers reaching and stretching to try new things with gameplay, and Magic is far more interesting than most of its turn-based, more standard menu-based spell ilk. It’s problematic, however that the developer Taito didn’t put much effort into melding its magic system with the gameplay. Calling up the pentagram, crafting a rune, and then selecting a target or direction for a spell takes a decent amount of time from start-to-finish, and the process must be repeated multiple times to defeat more advanced foes. It’s problematic, then, that Magic’s battles all occur in real-time; while the player is trying to scratch out an upside-down “4” to heal his hero, Isaac has all but bought his ticket to Stiff City.

And herein lies Magic’s great flaw: It’s just not very fun to have to draw spells. Although the game is forgiving in terms of the scribbles it accepts, the combination of repetition plus the frustration of having to accept the fact that Isaac is simply not well equipped to battle monsters from anything but a distance is really tough to swallow. More to the point, it’s just not very fun.

Gotta catch ‘em all

Special trap runes—AKA an exaggerated question mark—can be drawn and the resultant spell used to snare weakened monsters. If successfully caught, the monster can serve in Isaac’s army, battling whatever beastie they come in contact with. In this way, Isaac can recruit such creatures as golems, killer fish, and phallic mushroom men.

During battles, monsters can be selected one at a time by simply tapping on the target or in a group by tapping and dragging the DS’ stylus on the touch pad to create a circle. Once monsters have been selected, players can direct them to a destination by touching the D-pad again. Monsters attack automatically, and can be used both as a spear and shield, attacking foes either singly or in a group or serving to keep Isaac healthy. Magic keeps things simple, stupid, and earns points for doing so, but there are still some problems to be had.

No pathfinding routines have been included in their programming, which means players will have to be very precise—and vigilant—about directing them to a target. In fact, any sort of obstacle in their path will serve to trip them up. They’ll bang against walls. They’ll plod aimlessly against riverbanks when a bridge is roughly kissing distance away. And no, they most likely will not get back in time to save their master’s all-too-fragile posterior.
 
You don’t say…

Isaac’s tale is rather standard fare, and there’s not much of note to the game’s storyline save for its tendency toward verbosity. More accurately, Magic tends to suffer from Yappitis, an affliction common to most role-playing games. Here, brevity is not the soul of wit but rather Satan himself, and is routinely shunned. With great stretches of text to plow through, players will find themselves tap-tap-tapping the DS stylus with great regularity in order to move quickly to the action.

Magic finds its groove, oddly, with multiplayer action. Here, players are unburdened of the story, and can just engage in fun battles. With both players operating under the same rule set and limitations, Magic proves to be both fun and challenging. Four-player free-for-alls would have sweetened the deal even further, but the head-to-head battles are fine enough.

Article By: Greg Orlando

Video Produced By: Ross Beeley