Ancient Magic: Bazoe! Mahou Sekai
The one where you get stuck on wallsGenre: rpg - japanese
Publisher: Hot-B
Year: 1993
System: SFC
Gameplay Score: 2
Gameplay Notes:
Absurd encounter rate. You can't walk more than 5-10 steps between battles. Those fights are far too long, too, so I all adds up to a frustrating slog. An interesting magic system is the game's central theme. You must learn magic spells by traveling to different magic schools. You can only hold a limited number of them so you have to pick and choose those you want to hold onto. The battle system reminds me of Romancing SaGa, where your location on the grid limits which enemies you can attack. In practice, this means magic attacks are the quickest way to hit those guys in the back, although the magic attacks are slow. Actually everything about the game and battles are slow. It's just a slow game. It's ok, but not a very exciting entry in the genre. One other complaint is that you can move in half increments on the grid. This leads to being stuck on walls all the time. Super annoying.
Level Design Score: 3
Level Design Notes:
There is no way to save. At least non that I could find. Thank goodness for save states because after almost 2 hours I still hadn't found an in-game means of saving my progress. The areas are separated by an overworld, on which you don't have battles. Thankfully. You get plenty of those in the dungeons/areas. Besides that, it's pretty standard fare of castles, towns, forests, caves, and the like. The world is small and uninteresting.
Theme Score: 3
Theme Notes:
Other than the magic focus, the only noteworthy aspect of this game is that it lets you customize your story by choosing your gender and one of four kinds of mage as your father's profession. Other than that it's your typical - kid turns 16 and wants to save the world trope. I've read that your character ages over time but I didn't play long enough to see what this does.
Art Style Score: 2
Art Style Notes:
Subpar graphics. The overworld stories are tiny and hideous while the battle stories are much larger but are not well drawn. You can at least make out what the artist was trying to express.
Audio Score: 3
Audio Notes:
Pretty standard, forgettable music.
Overall Score: 48
Review ID: 1550
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