"An above-average anime-licensed action/RPG."

This game is over 3 years old. Most of you already know that and the fact that it's about 3 school girls from Tokyo who were transported to another planet in order to save it. You should also know that I don't really like RPGs anymore because they rely on cinematics and music to keep the players interested instead of clever puzzles, dungeons, or bosses. Let's just get to the game.

Graphics

The animations for the sprites are smooth and plentiful. Colors are vibrant among sprites, but seem to lack in the backgrounds. There's plenty of transperency and distortion, but then again, the SNES could do the same. For some odd reason, the game slows down to a drag at random times even when there doesn't seem to be much going on. Working Designs says that they have reduced it in the domestic release. To put it short, the graphics aren't bad, but they're not gonna make you soil your pants. FMV's not bad, smooth, but slightly pixelly and slightly letterboxed.

Music/Sound

Music is standard RPG music. It's done in PCM so it has sort of a 16-bit feel to it. Voices and sounds seem clear, but the sounds aren't anything you haven't heard before. For those of you who couldn't stand listening to Lunar(SCD)'s intro because of the terrible singing, rejoice. I HATED WD's singing efforts in older games, but now it seems tolerable in Magic Knight Rayearth. As for the voice acting, in the beginning, I thought Hikaru and Zagat were the best voice talent in the game and that everyone else was extraordinarily bad. Now I just don't care because I'm used to them now.

The Game

For a game based on an OAV, it's pretty darn good, but that doesn't mean it's worth shelling out $50 for it. MKR is rather short, and the beginning of the game is boring. You watch and listen for about an hour, kind of like Panzer Dragoon Saga, but even more tedious because of the lack of WD jokes. Later on, they eventually add a few jokes which makes the game much more fun to read. The dungeon designs are nothing spectacular, but at least they're aren't rehashes of older ones(Zelda64 *cough* Zelda:LttP *cough* Zelda: Link's Awakening *cough* Zelda *gag*). There is no experience system, no armor/weapon system(kind of), so it's pretty simplistic, which is probably the reason why the game isn't that great. Puzzles won't require a brain to figure out so no need to get out a pen and paper.

So if you're really bored, go ahead and buy it, otherwise buy something worthwhile, like Radiant Silvergun, NiGHTS, or something that isn't an RPG.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/01/99, Updated 11/01/99