Taito's LostMagic is a game I picked up in high school for cheap at Gamestop, and never finished. Like most of the games I include here, I've finally circled back around to this bad boy and finished it! The game is a real time strategy game for the DS that uses touch screen controls to control your monsters, but its real novelty is its magic system, in which you must draw magic runes on your screen to cast spells using your primary character, who cannot attack in any fashion other than with spells.
The magic system in this game is really cool and different, and actually works really well! You have a wide range of spells at your fingertips to start with, including a fireball to damage enemies, a spell to heal your allies, one that creates a wall between you and your enemies, and so forth. As the game advances, so does your ability to use magic, unlocking new and more advanced runes, as well as the ability to combine two runes into your own unique spell. So, for example, you can write the healing spell rune and then the explosion rune, which give you an area of effect heal instead of the usual localized one. There are over 300 different spells you can discover in the game, and some of the advanced ones are really cool! There is a tremendous amount of strategy involved in your spells, as you have a limited amount of magic you can cast before you need to rest, requiring you to prioritize only the most vital spells to turn the tide of battle. However, the system of casting also takes some strategy itself, as spells are more effective when drawn neatly, but you also need to stand still to cast and can't control your monsters while casting, meaning that you need to cast somewhat quickly to ensure that you can continue to position your troops effectively. You'll find that you have plenty of cushion to cast lots of spells, and that casting them remains fun and fresh throughout the game. If you're like me, you'll probably focus on and master a few spells and ride them all the way through, as remembering all of the different combinations of spells is onerous, but there are nearly endless tactics you can take with your spellcasting. The game also supports a more limited approach to spell casting, as the more you use any particular branch of magic, the stronger that magic gets. This means that casting tons of different types of magic will ensure that none of it is particularly strong.
The visuals of the game are pretty nice, especially for a fairly early DS title. The characters are cutesy cartoons, and most of them are pretty appealing. There's nothing special about the game's looks, but nothing bad either. The sound and music are fine as well, with nothing excellent to speak of.
The game's story is a tired trope of a boy fighting against impossible odds to save his world, assembling a hodgepodge of oddball characters along the way to stand against the evil one. It was more tired and dull than most JRPGs, and utterly unremarkable.
The basic controls of the game are pretty poor, with the exception of the casting. In typical RTS fashion, you can click on a character to select them, and then click somewhere else to command them to move and attack. You can also drag around a group to select them all. The problem is that if you want to micro (selecting individual units out of a group to move them around to your advantage), the stylus is extremely inaccurate, especially when picking them out of a group. This is particularly difficult when you're trying to get a last minute heal on a character, or moving a damaged character out of harm's way. It's also annoying that there's no button to select all characters, or to select all of one type. This makes dividing your forces to handle a two-pronged attack really difficult, and makes the game feel frustrating.
The actual RTS mechanics of the game are pretty annoying as well. There are generally two things on the map to interact with-crystals that will heal your units when captured, and portals which spit out enemies endlessly unless you leave a unit on them. The portals are particularly annoying, as you must leave a unit to stop their spawning, and in a game where you probably have 9 units at a maximum, this severely cuts into your units, especially when there are multiple portals in the level. The best strategy in the game almost always ends up being rushing past all enemies to go right for the win condition (capturing all crystals, defeating the boss, escaping the level, etc.), which doesn't make for a very rewarding experience. This is especially exacerbated by the fact that the levels also have extremely low time limits on them, requiring you to move very quickly through the level.
All in all, LostMagic is a fun little diversion of a game with a neat twist that is executed well. If you're like me, however, the slog of unit management and the weak RTS mechanics, combined with the lack of a compelling story, will make finishing this game a chore. This one is best experimented with for fun and dropped, unless you really love drawing magic runes and having fun. But it is definitely a delightfully experimental game, and any RTS fan should check it out. It's also one of the more clever uses of the DS touch screen, that oft-relegated to menus gimmick. I'll give it a 7.5/10.
Up next on the handheld section of What I'm Playing is a game I've been dreading playing for a long time, but must for duty's sake. Check out below for a teaser...
-TRO
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