Magna Carta: Tears of Blood

"The sum of of it parts should be be greater but ends up less then its whole."

To me this game came out of no where on the radar to suddenly be on sale this holiday season, both a nice surprise and a bit of a letdown. Its good to see a developer pumping out some very lavish resources and great artistic stylings in the late cycle of the PS2, especially with the RPG genre low in games for the last couple of years but picking up well this fall.

Ill not bother splicing this game into sections, graphics, sound, etc since the parts are very well done but when added together does really nothing in giving us a polished or playable rpg to warm up our palms during the cold winter months. For one thing, this is a port that many U.S. domestic gamers will either love it or hate it or be strangely confused by it. Heavily east anime inspired art direction pulls you into the fantastic world, but the story keeps kicking you out. Characters, towns, friends, fights, are graphically lavish and gorgeous at times but usually uneven/unbalanced. As for the story - entertaining but nothing new or fresh and really lags in certain areas, wraps up nicely not leaving many loose threads.

Biggest problem with the game though is the direction of the story against the battle system. Many people complain games are to open or to linear, while either is fine depending on the story. But this game offers no direction when you need it, (after a story progression cut scene) or put you on stiff tracks (unopenable doors, or roads) when you would want to explore. While the above is easy to progress through if you have played rpgs before the battle system progression leaves you too strong or too weak at many parts of the game causing frustration. While some like the complicated battle sytem most other, will only feel like tossing the controller. At times i found myself fighting the menu- battle system more then the enemies. Why a game with a deep fighting system and strange learning curve doesnt have custimizable controls is beyond me. And waiting for me is a pain- long load times, waiting for action V to engage is sometimes exciting more times frustrating. Even the animation of opening a chest seems too long. While this may seem petty wait till you try it.

Many people who buy the game will be sold on the box alone, but before you pay 50+ bucks for this rpg rent it first or borrow. Amazingly beautiful artistic directions will do nothing to bring shallow 2-dimensional characters to life. Metro-sexual male leads, vacuous female co-stars will draw most players attention more then the lack of unique enemies or strategies.
This game is too complicated, lacking direction and flow for new players to RPG's and much to aggravating for seasoned players so im not sure who atlus planned this game for. But im sure yourll find out if this is your cup of tea or not after just 10hrs.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 12/21/05