"I don't know about Magical, but it's not bad."

In case you don't know who Brownie Brown is, they made Magical Starsign. The company is comprised of ex-Sqauresoft employees. This will become apparent after playing the game for about... 10 minutes.

GAMEPLAY (7/10)
To be perfectly honest, the gameplay is very very old-school RPG. Attacks are turn based, you can place your characters between two rows on the battlefield, your characters levevl up every 100 EXP points, and there's really no character customization at all except for picking between Light and Dark magic at the start. These flaws make the game kind of charming though. It plays like the old Final Fantasy and Breath of Fires. The first planet is quite easy, but the game does get progressively harder. Your spells change in strength based on planetary positions, or in the case of your main character, night or day. This is about as deep as it gets, with the same options you've seen in 1000 other RPGs rehashed here(Fight/Magic/Item/Defend/Run)
Where the gameplay shines is it's weird and comedic storyline.
Your tasks in the game range from saving your classmates to getting toilet paper for a space-cop. The dialogue is funny bordering cheesy-on-purpose. The whole thing is lighthearted and a nice break from storylines trying too hard to be epic.

SOUND (8/10)
The music is not memorable by any means, but it is crisp and unique. You'll be humming the main battle theme for a bit, but it doesn't really stand out. The music sets the right setting and doesn't seem out of place, and it doesn't get grating or overbearing.

GRAPHICS (9/10)
Holy cow the graphics are gorgeous. Everything looks well-thought out and detailed. You'll play a field over and over again and still notice little details in the backgrounds. The scenery changes from night to day (but not by much) and the spell effects are just pretty. The character design looks alot like the Mana series, but cuter. The only downside is the CG cutscenes seem a little below-par, even for the DS.

CONNECTIVITY (5/10)
There's not alot here folks, but what is here is pretty fun. With Amigo Dungeon you get to race against a friend (or friends) through a dungeon while fighting enemies to collect points and get hints as to where the goal is. This is actually quite fun, but you have to find someone who owns the game as it is not at all Nintendo WiFi compatible.
In Tag Mode you "send out a signal" to contact other spaceships and exchange eggs and little messages. The eggs eventually hatch into characters you can use in certain dungeons and the messages are just sort tacked on. The problem with this is Tag Mode only works if you are near someone else in Tag Mode. It's just not likely you'll meet too many people with their DS on and loaded with MS in Tag Mode just walking down the street. The Egg feature is really cool though, so if you have friends that own it get them to Tag you.

OVERALL (8/10)
The graphics are gorgeous, the sound is nice, and the storeyline is light and enjoyable. It just doesn't add anything new to the RPG genre at all. It's a very cut and dry game, with little option to make it less linear. If you're a fan of old-school RPGs you'll really like this, it's like playing your old favorites for the first time with really pretty visuals. If you want something fresh and unique from other RPGs, I'd suggest picking up Contact instead. Magical Starsign is enjoyable and memorable, even if it's just to hold you over until Final Fantasy III comes out.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/02/06