Magna Carta: Tears of Blood

"Atlus could do a little better..."

Magna Carta: Tears of Blood was released in late 2005. This is an RPG that was made by SoftMax and published by Atlus; the same people who published the OgreBattle or Tactics Ogre series. They also published Riviera. Atlus is my second favorite RPG producer, and going by my standards, Atlus makes some pretty kickass games. "Magna Carta" would happen to be the most interesting Atlus game I've ever played.

Gameplay - 7/10
SoftMax designed this game (I guess). The movement on terrain is very different than any other game published by Atlus. There are two movement modes, "Dash Mode" and "Detect Mode". During dash mode, your speed on the field is pretty mediocre. You aren't very fast, but your not a turtle either. Your detect field (used to see enemies and chests) is narrowed down to a small circle around you. You can easily get surprise attacked during this mode. I'll explain the battle stuff later. During detect mode, you can see a field of like....10 times what you see in dash mode. You get a larger view around you, but your movement is very sloooooow. You can easily jump enemies and get something called a First Attack battle. There is also Rest Mode, in which you stay in one place, kneel down, and start regaining HP very slowly. Atlus did a good thing with Rest Mode because you don't have to go searching for an inn or a place to stay all the time. The only thing bad about Rest Mode is that your vision is really bad and if an enemy jumps you, you'll be at a disadvantage in battle. That rarely happens if you hide somewhere where there are no enemies.

The Battle System is completly unique, since it looks like a bunch of battle systems from different games combined into one. First off, both you and your enemy party has a leader bar. As battle progresses, the bar rises. Arrows point to where you can take an action. Once the bar reaches an arrow, you are allowed to take an action. An action consists of attacking or using an item or whatever else. The same thing goes for your enemy. You can only have 3 people in your party, but you can only control one of them at a time. The other members aren't AI controlled like Star Ocean; instead, they just sit there and do nothing. They can be used as shields for blocking enemy attacks, but that requires you to move behind them so your enemy can attack them.

If you want to attack an enemy, you have to move close to them and have your leader bar risen to an arrow in which you can initiate an action. When you're in range for an attack, a circle-looking thing will appear in the middle of the screen. This circle consists of three icons, consisting of two buttons; the Circle and Cross button on your controller. Say the top icon is Cross, the rightmost icon is Circle, and the leftmost icon is Cross. As soon as you hit Cross, the circle begins to rotate. You'd have to hit Cross first, wait for Circle to get to the top, press Circle, wait for the Cross to get to the top, and then press Cross. This results in a completed attack. If you miss one of those button presses or press the wrong button, the attack failed and you have to wait until your leader bar reaches an action arrow again. There are more mechanics, but this is just the basics.

Sound - 8/10
Not too bad. The music for this game sets the mood of the scene and is put in quite nicely. I wouldn't buy a soundtrack to it because I barely listen to it; I always have my CD player on.

Graphics - 9/10
They aren't quite like Final Fantasy or Star Ocean, but they'll do for a 3D game. The CG scenes are prettyful and are some of the best graphics of it's time. However, if you look closely at the scenes, I see them to lag a little bit. In other words, the CG scenes weren't put together smoothly. They aren't bad, just a little annoying for a CG scene. Otherwise, everything from the field terrain, battle terrain, and character designs are really nice-looking. Although, the character artist should watch out for what he draws the male characters like.

Replay Value - N/A
It's really your opinion if you thing this game is fun or boring. I think it'll keep me busy for a little bit, once I get Radiata Stories or something new that has good reviews. Magna Carta has some good points in the game that'll make you want to replay it, but then going through all the maps just sounds boring because of the slow movements. The loading times are also horrible. This game can get old really easily.

Rent or Buy?
This will depend on your loyalty to RPGs or more importantly, Atlus Co. I'd rent it first so see how you like it. If you really like it, then buy it, but it'll get really old if you don't like it as much as you'd want to. I buy anything published by Atlus, so I didn't hesitate to rent this game before I bought it.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/12/05