Mystic Heroes

"A game that's fun it first but lacks depth and replay value"

I rented this game at first thinking it was an RPG, and in a sense it is. You can upgrade your magic stats to get stronger spells. Outside if that, this is more of an adventure game with RPG elements. On to the review.

Story: 3/10
Pretty nothing of a story. Some evil, magical warlords escape from their prison using the power of the Dragon Star jewel. As they wreak havoc, the jewel become evil as well. It's up to the heroes, for whatever reason, to stop them.

Music: 9/10
The music in this game was by no means terrible. During the various battles, especially with the bosses, the music actually fit quite well. While playing through the levels the music flows along smoothly with the feel of the game. No problems here.

Sound: 2/10
In this department the game failed miserably. Not so much for the sound effects, because the slashed, hits, and magic blasts all sounded fine. It was the horrible voices during the cinematic sequences. It has to be one of the worst dubbing jobs I've ever seen in a game. The voices talked all quickly, and the lips always moved when they finished. Just a pain to listen to.

Controls: 10/10
The controls are beyond simple in this game. You press 1 button to target, 1 to hit with your sword, and the 4 C directs to do magic. Easy for even gaming novices.

Graphics: 6/10
I wasn't to terribly impressed by the graphics in this game. The creators seemed to avoid using bright colors to keep it simple. On the whole the game was very dark, and this annoyed me. During the cinematic sequences the motion, just like the talking, seemed to be way to fast.

Gameplay: 7/10
At first this game can be quite fun. Slashing up guys and seeing the biggest combo you can. How is that not fun? But you soon realize every single level is the same. They just throw in more guys, with occasional upgrades to some of them. One player mode was really boring because of this. This category would be lower if not for the mini-quests and the two player mode. The mini quests are basically a survival mode, but this can hold up for a while. Fighting against an actual person is very fun, because they don't have the same attack pattern like every other bad guy in the game.

Replay value: 2.5/10
The replay value is very, very low. Once you beat this the first time, you won't really want to do it again. The only advantage you'd get is more runes, but the spells are all slight upgrades and take a while to get.

Rent/buy?
Rent it, definitely. Maybe a week after you buy this, it will sit on your shelf collecting dust(well, it's box will, I certainly hope you don't leave the disks laying around :Þ)

Overall score: 7/10

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/08/03, Updated 06/30/03