A traditional yet innovative must have for any RPG fan and DS owner.
The story begins as a beloved magic teacher at the Will O'Wisp magical academy disappears. After a while of not hearing from Miss Madeleine, six of her students decide to go looking for her. Their adventure turns out to be much more than they expected, as their quest for the teacher's rescue turns out to be a "save the entire galaxy from an evil wizard" kind of task.
To begin the game, you are given a choice of two main characters: a girl who commands light magic and a boy who commands dark magic. Light magic gives you healing and protection spells, while dark magic allows you to drain life from monsters.
Aside from this character, there are five other apprentice magicians, each with his/her own elemental spell ability. A robot that casts Earth spells, a salamander that commands Wood magic, a dog-like spunky creature that possesses some powerful Wind magic, a somewhat grumpy Water mage and a hot-tempered Fire caster. Obviously, each spell is more powerful against a certain element and weaker against another. Dark and Light are strong against each other, but not particularly outstanding when used against any of the other elements.
So far, it seems like your regular RPG, right? Fantasy, magic users, save the world... But that's probably as far as the familiarities go.
The most interesting concept in Magical Starsign is how the movement of the planets and day/night cycles affect your casters. Your characters signs (the symbols for their elements) represent a planet. As the planets orbit around the sun, the spells become more or less powerful depending on which sign the planet is on. For your main character, the magic boost is dictated by day or night. If you want a magic boost, make sure you wake up at the time that benefits your character (you can pick to wake up in the morning or in the evening when staying at the inns). The game is made for constant magic use. As you can imagine, you won't be using physical attacks unless you find an extremely resistant monster. Magic is also used outside of battle in certain key spots. At times, you will reach spots where it may seem you're stuck. That means you must use one of your character's magic while on the world map. You can use Lassi's wind to dissipate a storm, Chai's wood magic to sprout a giant beanstalk, Sorbet's water abilities to put out a fire and so on. It's an interesting feature that I quite liked.
The stylus is your only means of control for this game. Tap, touch and drag for everything and then some: equipping characters, changing battle formation, re-aligning planets, move, pick up objects, use recovery items. It's a very interactive process that takes away that turn-based RPG feeling because you're right on top of the action during fights, since you can dodge attacks and boost your spells by tapping the right character at the right time. Takes a bit getting used to, but it's well worth it. I'm not so good at dodging, but I have my spell boosts down to perfection. Changing your party members' positions allows you to create different strategies for fights. Keep in mind that those in the front row can only cast single-target spells while those in the back row hit multiple targets (but less efficiently) with one spell. You will want your support magic on the back row so they can heal and protect everyone at the same time.
Although the controls are unique for this genre, the gameplay is what we are used to. Turn-based fights, kill for experience and items, level up, grow powerful. Your characters can have up to five spells of their element, plus one more learned from a book. So aside from having all attacks and buffs, you can teach your characters one extra spell that doesn't belong to any school of magic. A very useful one is Celestial Swap, which lets you use your MP to move a planet to the position you want, obviously to change the boosters. It can totally turn a fight around.
As you progress through the game, you will travel to all the different planets in the Baklava solar system, initially to save your classmates and later on you can explore them freely before progressing with the story. Each of the seven planets has its own unique look, monsters and inhabitants, and it's worth to explore every little bit of every planet even if just to see how things are. You will find a frozen planet with pirates and otters, save a forest planet from burning, visit a village whose inhabitants are ceramic pots, help moles with an ant problem, fight robots, talk to dwarves, confront the corrupt Space Police, get a consultation with a psychic twig, get hints from radishes and travel to the insides of a stone giant. Humor is a constant in the dialogs, and I actually laughed out loud several times, particularly with the pyrites who insist on saying weird stuff and convincing you to take them with you. Even just to sell them later. An example: a pyrite says: "Shiggitty shiggitty shwa". Your options are Yes or No. Another pyrite says "Your pocket looks cosy". Again, Yes or No. Regardless of how the answers don't fit in, if you pick yes, the crazy pyrites will be added to your inventory. But in the meantime, if you talk to every single one of them, you get to hear some weird things from oddly-named little cubes. That's not to say the game doesn't have its serious moments. A brave dying stone golem and the sacrifice of another character had my eyes watering. Everything is very well written, and there is a good mix of feelings throughout the plot. The music greatly helps conveying those feelings, everything from cheerful village tunes to the urgency of a battle theme.
Graphically, Magical Starsign is another RPG featuring cute little sprites, but the environments are crisp and well rendered, and there are some impressive animated cut-scenes for certain events that are extremely well done.
On top of it all, there is even a multiplayer Wi-Fi mode where up to six players can gather to explore a dungeon together and exchange eggs which will then hatch into creatures that you can add to your party.
Great stylus mechanics, original magic system and an interstellar storyline spanning through at least 20-25 hours make Magical Starsign a traditional yet innovative must have for any RPG fan and DS owner. Review text part of Grrlgamer.com. Full text and screens can be found at:
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