"Feel the Magic: XY/XX proves that love stories can be fun!"

Opening Thoughts
Feel the Magic: XY/XX is a great game by Nintendo for the new console Nintendo DS. The game is a love story about a man who sees an attractive lady and immediately wants to spend more time with her. In order to do this, he must get her attention by performing a series of dangerous and death-defying stunts. Along with the help of a band of people, the Rub Rabbits, the hero must sail, poke, ride, and fall to get the lady of his dream's attention.

Graphics 9.5/10
The graphics in Feel the Magic: XY/XX are strong compared to the portable games of the past, but after seeing the almost incomparable portable graphics of Super Mario 64 DS, I was expecting a little more detail and color on the graphics. While the hero and heroine (as well as everybody else in the game) does not have a distinct body, their bodies are mainly silhouettes and their skin is just black. Their clothes are the only colorfully distinctive part of their attire. Instead of moving graphics, the game mostly focuses around flashing pictures, like a comic book, and has very few scenes where the characters are actually moving. Besides the lack in detail on the clothing, Feel the Magic has good graphics and definitely way above average.

Sound 8/10
The music and sound effects in Feel the Magic are nothing you will ever feel the need to buy a soundtrack to. On the other hand, the music is not unbearable, and fits the music for an action/adventure love story. There are few different background music selections which can be played in the sound room, making certain scenes seem a little monotonous with the same sound effects every once in a while. Sega was smart enough, however, to add a little extra sound effects to the ending credits, which is always a good thing. These sound effects cannot be played in the sound room, and consist of the Sega jingle theme, and assorted sound effects from Sonic the Hedgehog games in the past. Where the sound and effects lack, however, the game play makes up.

Game Play 10/10
The strength of the game lies in the game play of Feel the Magic: XY/XX. The buttons are not used in this thrilling action love story, and only your hand and the stylus can be used to control the madness. The exciting mini game type phases in the game have ten different levels of difficulty and the entire game has three different difficulty of the story mode, including normal mode, hard mode, and the ever challenging hell mode. In the normal mode, which acts as the beginning mode, you are given three lives and must complete the first five levels of each phase, which are the easiest. In hard mode, you are given the same amount of lives, but must complete the final five levels. In hell mode, you are given a life to get you through the last five levels. You use the stylus to perform the stunts, and sometimes a fine tuning of the hand will be necessary to complete the stages. From rescuing a man from choking on fish by using the stylus to force them up his throat to crunching numbers on a calculator against the clock to sliding down spiked roads on a grocery cart, the game play is filled with fun and surprises.

Another addition to the amazing game play is the use of the microphone at the bottom of the Nintendo DS. The microphone is used in numerous mini games, from yelling to your dream girl, to sensing your breath to carry a sailboat safely across shark-infested waters, the microphone is an awesome addition to the control of the game play.

Extras 9/10
The story mode itself only lasts around ten hours, but there is plenty left to do in the game after hell mode is completed. Sega has given this game several fun options during or after the completion of the main game mode, including the secret ability to record 1.5 seconds of your voice from the microphone to play in the title song. Also, by acquiring hidden rabbits throughout plot sequences in the story mode, you can get different clothes and dress the dream girl of the hero in several fashions, including green hair and a Santa suit. Also in the memories mode, players can go back and replay their old an favorite mini games from the story mode in all difficulties, challenging themselves to beat high scores.

Plot 7/10
(possible spoilers) I will say I usually do not think love story games in general have decent plots...until now. While it is not a masterpiece, it is nowhere from bad, and you have to give credit to Sega for making a good plot for a mini game based game. The plot is surely the game's lowest weakness, and is an all around great game. The plot is basically about a girl who falls in love with the hero after his performing of stunts and is then captured by a weird rival with purple hair who takes her to his lair. The hero, with some help from his rabbit friends, must infiltrate the castle and save the girl from any harm.

Closing Statements
All around, this is a solid game with solid game play and I must thank Sega for creating this great game. If you like the mini game genre of games and do not have Feel the Magic: XY/XX, I would highly recommend this to you. Even if you enjoyed Warioware: Mega Microgame$ or have played the new Warioware Touched! for Nintendo DS, Sega has masterfully made a new type of love story.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/23/05