"A Pretty Good RPG for the DS"

Well I just beat Magical Starsign and I must say that it was a pleasant journey. I've been thirsting for an old school turn based style RPG, and Magical Starsign was a great choice. Here's a more in depth analysis of the game.

Graphics
I found the graphics in MS to be pretty good for a DS game. I would not put them up there with a PSP game, but they were pretty good old school cartoony style graphics. Everything seemed pretty clean, and there was not a graphical slip up that I noticed throughout the game. I did like how some of the spells took up both screens on the DS. It was pretty cool watching your spell gain power on the top screen, and then rain down upon your enemy.

Sound/Music
I found the music to be very fitting for the game. It had some catchy tunes and was overall pretty good in this area. Sound effects were about normal, nothing special, but nothing to complain about.

Story
I really enjoyed the story in MS. It was the main thing that kept me going. All of the characters were represented well, and given interesting back stories, and none were left out. Even th NPCs had lots of spunk and kept things interesting. Being able to travel to the different planets was a nice touch and made every step of the journey seem new and refreshing. The story was very linear, with only 1 side quest that I know of (which was really hard BTW). I don't mind linear stuff, but a lack of side quests is one area where MS needed some work.

Gameplay
Gameplay was standard turn based RPG gaming, with a few twists thrown in there for DS users. Menus are all navigated with the stylus, targeting was done with the stylus, as were all of the battle magics/attacks, etc. I found MS to be a good showpiece for how an RPG can be done with using the stylus for the most part. The one area that I had issues with was the spell strikes. They are a great concept and I was able to pull them off with ease at the end of the game, but it takes some practice to hit spell strikes on the higher level spells. Nothing like missing a spell strike on a boss battle and watching a 1000 hit spell, taking away 700 instead. I wish there was an accessory that you could equip that would make them automatic, much like in Legend of Dragoon for PS. You could equip the Ultimate Wargod accessory, and it did your combos automatically, easing much pain.

Another area that I had problems with were the boss battles in the 2nd half of the game. Every time you came to a boss battle, the enemy gets the first hit no matter what, putting you on the defense right off the bat. It would not be so bad if this happened once or twice throughout the game, but it gets really annoying when it happens every time you start to fight a boss.

Aside from those minor gripes, I really enjoyed playing Magical Starsign. I would recommend it to anyone that likes old school turn based RPG games like I do. Magical Starsign definitely made the purchase of my DS worthwhile.

My Magical Starsign score
8/10

My Personal stats:

Time of completion: about 38 hours
Favorite party character: the main hero
Least favorite party member: Mokka
Favorite boss enemy: Brie Pourri
Least favorite boss enemy: Master Chard
Favorite spell: Absolute Zero

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/23/07