Makai Kingdom: Chronicles of the Sacred Tome

"Disgaea.....I....am your father (No spoilers)"

Notice how I didnt say son? That would imply that this was the next generation in the NIS srpg series, but sadly this is not quite true. Makai Kingdom (MK) is 2 steps forward and 3 crucial steps back.

Whats new and good?

Movement:
Well the free movement system has improved hugely compared to Phantom Brave (PB). The difference is that you have a circle (radius) of movement that you use the analog to move your character anywhere within. The problem with PB of constantly having to cancel a movement (cuz you slipp) is practically all but forgotten with this new movement system.

Vehicles/Buildings:
Possibly the coolest new feature this game has to offer. Vehicles are exactly what they sound like and do what you expect: let you put characters in them and blow stuff up. Vehicles are "summoned" (I will discuss this later) just like a regular character and use up one "pop" (max population limit) spot. Buildings are places where you can store characters (and vehicles) and also apply bonuses to whomever was just inside that building but was taken outside to fight. This add very key elements of strategy because you can move injured characters inside a building, lower your max pop, and summon a fresh one. You can also switch around bonuses to characters (for example change a 40% attack bonus to a 40% defense bonus) by having them enter and leave buildings. You are allowed to summon 3 buildings per map.

The Tech Stat:
This is a new stat for each character which determines how well they fucntion with...well...tech things like vehicles and tech weapons like bombs. Its pretty cool.

Characters:
Too many to name but some key ones are professors, engineers, and my personal favorite, an alien guy with blubs on the side of his head.

What's new but should have been better?

The Invite system:
In this game you play as a an entitity that "invites" characters to play for you. This is kinda cool and kinda bad. Its kinda cool because you can place characters more strategically outside the start area. Its bad becuase you have to see the word "INVITE" and the screen smash to the ground everytime you summon a new guy and if your summoning up to 11 (or maybe more!) things per battle, seeing that same screen smash can get very annoying.

No super characters:
At least not the first time you play through. This is really good in a way because you are forced to use your own characters that you make to fight through the game (until the very end or a new game). Its bad because trying to level up a whole bunch of characters can be annoying and hard espically if you cant find the right items to make decent guys (I will discuss this below).

Character creation and reincarnation:
In this game you use items which have "confine" stats (sound familiar?...cough cough PB). Your best bet is to use plants and rocks to confine new characters into as they usally have 100%+ per stat associated with it (mean if you are creating a new character who has lets say 12 str, if he is confined into a rock that has say 200%x Str you will have a new guy with 24 str instead but the opposite is true and you can get items that have less then 100% stat "bonuses"). You then also get a few bars (like all other NIS srpgs excepy La Pucelle) to add to stats. The annoying part is, and pay attention, to create a building you have to sacrifice a character. The higher level the higher level the higher the building level. However this also means it costs more mana (which you get from killing enemies). This MEANS that lets say you wanted a new shop, you would need to kill off a junk trader (or anything in that class as they are, as far as I know, the only ones who can make shops) . The hard part is that you need a LOT of mana, meaning you have to kill alot of enemies with your junk trader and then kill her off. This is annoying as it takes A LOT of mana to make buildings and some characters are not built for killing (aka junk traders, clerics etc). Now for the rebirth, when you sacrifce a character (to make a building) he or she is now able to reincarnated into whatever you want. This is cool becuase you can add whatever skills they had, and a certain stat bonus, to whatever new guy you want. The down side again is it costs MANA of the dead guy! Meaning you have to PREPARE enough mana for the soon to be dead guy to both create the building you want (or just use it on a cheap one) AND the needed mana to make a new guy (which can be as high as 2000 mana for the upper class good guys). This process is also affected by STAR items, which add even more bonuses as you reincarnate the same guy over and over, but thats more complex and its better if you figure that out yourself. This process may sound cool, but it can be taxing sometimes and the rewards arent always worth the effort in my opinion.

Whats BAD?

Well the graphics arent AS good. And since it was so rushed (6 months in the oven) you can see where they skimped on things, like when your character runs by a column or a hard surface you can see the guy glictch over chunks of the surface which IMO (in my opnion) is not cool.

The movement system:
Well whats bad ABOUT it that is. The problem of getting to many characters bunched up and having a hard time selecting them is still a makor pain in the butt.

The mass leveling needs:
Even more so in this game (at least to me) is the need for power leveling, and its hard for you to just be in natural balance (and by that I mean the enemies usually seem to be on par with all your characters) with the enemies becuase you almost ALWAYS will have 1 or 2 power houses and 6 weak characters filling up the ranks and it usually becomes a routine of trying to use the big boys as cannons and the rest as fodder. Its fun yes, but nothing new and there isnt THAT much thinking required.

Story:
Weak....weak....it has its funny moments yes. But dont expect anything serious (and I guess in this series you shouldn't be by now anyways). Still its pretty weak compared to the rest and it could have used more depth. You dont get a real sense of purpose for arbitrarily making guys kill other guys.

The random maps:
All the levels are randomized which IS cool but also bad. You need to get a cerain amount of point (by killing enemies) to pass the map. Certain bad guys hold keys, which when you kill them, opens up a new area. Sometimes the new area isnt even attached and you have to open up a section before it to reach it (and you can do this by throwing items out of bounds) but its a real pain if you have to get across and are forced to waste one of your characters or items to open up a small part of the map (it doesnt have very often though). Another flaw is the point distribution. For no apparent reason some guys will be worth 100+ points and others like 4. You usually need about 500 or 800 points to pass a map. (HINT: you can destory ITEMS, thats right, items found lying around on the map, for points too)

THE BREAK DOWN AT A GLANCE:

Story: 5
Not good, but funny at times. Its only really here to push the game along IMO.

Graphics: 7
Better then PB worse than Disgaea. Still not bad IMO

Gameplay: 8.5
Dont let all the bad stuff weigh you down. They tried some new stuff and I think its important that we as gamers give new elements a fair chance before passing judgement. This game is quite fun when you get used to it, and I fully support this game as a whole. Its not easy to combine as many elements as they did in this game and I feel its worth playing.

Sound: 9
Not because its great, but because you can set up anything you want in the options. You can turn up or down or off the back ground, the sound effects, and the movie volumes. Becuase it lets me customize what it plays, thats all I care about since all I like to do is turn off all the sound except the movie volume and put my own music on. So becuase of this I give it a high rating.

Re-playablility: 8
Its fun to replay this game espically after the first time. Of course you'll eventually get tired of overkilling random baddies, but by that time im sureeeee the next game in the series will be out.

Rent or Buy? If you have never played an srpg before I suggest you rent this game AND rent Disgaea: Hour of Darkness. They are both great games. If you love srpgs and liked Disgaea, then I assure you that you will find much of what made you love Disgaea is what will make you take MK to your heart and that it will be worth the 70$ (CAN) you spend on it.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/10/05