Shaman King: Legacy of the Spirits, Sprinting Wolf

"Yugioh Sacred Cards + Pokemon + Shaman King = this game"

Introduction
This is based on a japanese anime/manga series named "Shaman King", perhaps their fans would like to play this type of game. However, another Shaman King game was already released in this console, and it was nothing special at all... Would the game suffer from the same fate? Unfortunately, yes...

Gameplay
Like I said in the tag line, this game is played almost exactly like "Yugioh Sacred Cards", except for the battles, of course. As soon as you start playing the game, you will have some long conversations and, by talking to spirits (which appear in the game just as normal people), some of them will join you, and be usable in battles. Then, you will need to travel for some different locations, which is made by picking the location in a main screen, and more locations will be available as you progress across the game. Yugioh Sacred Cards, anyone?

So, this turns out being an rpg without any searching at all. Ok, up to here you would be able to understand it, but you can also trade spirits with the other version of this game you can pick your spirits in battle, making us think... Pokemon, anyone? I mean, you can even use a certain item to be able to capture certain spirits after the end of the battles...

All this makes us think of something... maybe they were just thinking of making a game for the fans, not wanting a good or original game. So, they only took the good things that they could find in another games of this genre... Do you like that? I didn't...

Story
I can't be sure of it since I never saw much of the anime, but I think that the story of this game is exactly the same of the series. I mean, you will be controlling a kid named Yuu (I think that's his name, if I remember correctly) who can speak and interact with the world of the spirits (huh, that makes him a Shaman!), so he wants to be the best at this work, I mean, being the "Shaman King", and in order to become that, he will need to face lots of hard tasks and powerful foes...

Graphics
They also seem like the ones of "Yugioh Sacred Cards", meaning that you will see your characters in a SD way, but on the conversations you will see the faces of the characters, and there they look exactly like the ones of the series. However, in battles they look somehow worse, which isn't much understandable...

Sound
Some musics seem to have been taken from the series, and each of the places you visit have their own music, which is always a good thing, as you won't get upset with them easily...

Play Time/Replayability
You may take some time to beat this game, not because of it being difficult or anything but because of not knowing what to do/where to go next. As for replay value, this has a lot, as you may want to get as many spirits as possible, and for some of them you will even need to trade with the other version...

Final Recommendation
Personally, I guess this is only of of those games for people who really loved the series...

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 02/13/05