MagnaCarta 2 Hands-On

MagnaCarta 2 has nothing to do with the original MagnaCarta game, nor does it have anything to do with the English charter. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, this game is an action role-playing game by Korean developer Softmax, which also worked on the PlayStation 2 game Magna Carta: Tears of Blood. Up until now, all we've had a chance to see is a bit of gameplay and some good-looking trailers, but now that we have our own preview build, we've been able to play through the first few hours of the game to get a feel for what it's like.

We learned from our last visit with Namco Bandai that the story deals with typical RPG themes like love, hate, betrayal, and politics. Our hero, Juto, also has a relatively standard backstory from the start, as a young man who washed up in a village without his memories. It's clear that Juto has a past that is worth looking into when he discovers that he has enormous uncontrollable powers hidden within, even though he can't bear to wield a real sword. Early in the game, he meets Zephie, the rightful heir to rule the Kingdom of Lanzheim, but the throne was stolen by a usurper. Together they embark on a journey to discover themselves and claim what is rightfully theirs.

While the story may be a bit cookie-cutter, the combat system is a little different from combat in most action RPGs and takes some getting used to. Enemies are seen onscreen, and you have the freedom to enter combat mode by pushing the left trigger. Once you're in combat mode, you have a stamina meter at the bottom. You'll have to watch it closely because it's very easy to build it up to enter an overdrive state and then overheat, which will render you useless for several seconds. At first, this can be a bit frustrating because it limits the number of attacks you can do, and you'll have to back off to prevent yourself from overheating. But later in the game, once you have your own party members to swap around, you can use this to your advantage by chaining skills in the overdrive state, which makes battles a lot more fun and interesting.

You can have up to three active party members at any given time, but you'll only have control of the leader. The leader can be switched with the D pad, which is what you'll need to do to start chaining attacks. Only the leader can execute special skills and use items, and your overdrive gauge will carry to the next person, so as long as you time it correctly, you can keep swapping leaders and keep the chain going. Your damage dealt is increased by doing this, so it's to your benefit to learn how to use this technique. If you mess up, though, you could leave a couple of your characters in an overheated state, so there's definitely a risk.

Magic is also handled a bit differently in MagnaCarta 2. Instead of dealing with mana, you're working with four types of kan: fire, wind, water, and lightning. You'll eventually have a wizard join your group who can absorb kan in their environment, and a bar by your health meter indicates how much useable kan there is in the area. They can also use special skills to convert kan into items. Next to the minimap in the top right corner, environment kan is also highlighted to let you know how rich the area is so you can determine whether or not you should use your wizard more aggressively.

We got a chance to experience this only once, but during special events in the game, you can do specific field actions, such as heal people, lay down traps, or toss Molotov cocktails. Pressing the right trigger will bring up a menu of the various actions you can do. We're not sure how often these special events will happen throughout the game, but it's an interesting diversion from the usual combat and watching sporadic cutscenes.

The dialogue is generally delivered with two character models standing across from each other, similar to how some RPGs have an anime portrait appear to give you an idea of what their facial expressions are like at that point in time. It feels a bit disconnected here, because you have two 3D models that could interact in a short cutscene, but you're just watching them talk to one another from across the screen. There are short cutscenes as well, but most of the time, the story is delivered in this form. Visually, MagnaCarta 2 looks pretty good, and the characters, which are a blend of realism and anime, were designed by a well-known Korean artist, Hyung-Tae Kim.

Optional side quests are available from the non-player characters that you'll encounter along the way. The ones we've come across are fairly easy, and you'll be rewarded with items and experience points for taking the time to complete them. For those who are looking for a new RPG to dive into, MagnaCarta 2 is set to come out on October 13 for the Xbox 360.