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Another game Ruined by lazy ATLUS

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 10 / 23
Date: November 22, 2005
Author: Amazon User

ATLUS having ruined stella deus, now turn their attention to publishing Magna Carta a game with a huge number of irritations and flaws. Lets take a look at how the game is ruined.

1)There is a horrible BEEP at the end of every dialogue press and every time you move the cursor on the screen. It's absolutely horrible and serves no purpose at all. So many people have complained about these silly beeps (they were in Stella deus, DDS etc) yet arrogant ATLUS did nothing to change this before the american release..

2) If you want to turn the sound effects off you get rid of that sound, but you also get rid of all the voices and all effect sounds in the game. Sound effects and voice are stupidly listed under one setting.

3)There is HORRIBLE subtitles spread over 30% of the screen in EVERY in game dialogue sequence. It ruins them and it can't be turned off. You can turn them off in all other RPGs why not this one??

4) The battle system is awful and very badly designed. 3 people take part in combat across a free moving terrain, yet there is no AI you must control all 3 characters. Imagine playing Star Ocean while all the other players stood still as one character moved. Laughable and frankly embarrasing.

5)After EVERY kill the charcter repeats a stock phrase like "It was over before it started" again and again and again. You can't stop this. Awful

6)Hitting the opponent requires you to have perfect reflexes and perform a 3 button combo, any miss and you will fail the attack, It's very awkward to learn and makes combat unenjoyable and dull. Think of shadow hearts with a faster ring and the need to be 100% perfect.

7)No widescreen, no prog scan, only stereo sound. Banpresto are way behind the pace nowdays.

8) The graphics are below par, and some characters are blocky and don't resemble the anime portrait that is in the dialogue boxes. It feels like a game, not a living breathing world.

Atlus used to make great games like SMT:Nocturne, and now they publish this. Their flagging sales surely signal the end of their foolish publishing decisions. And it was all going so well.

I won't even grade this one.

AVOID

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 13
Date: December 11, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This is the most horrible RPG I have ever played. And it's very exspensive too. Very slow, and tedious. Poor battle simualations, as well. SAve your money

Heavily flawed, and it didn't need to be....

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 12
Date: November 22, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I agree with the flaws the previous reviewer has pointed out they destroy any enjoyment the game might offer. It's so frustrating that ATLUS has done this, because it could have been a great game. The artwork is beautiful, but the fighting menu beeps and technical flaws render it flawed.

Atlus has really gone downhill lately, a sthey insist on putting horrible irritations in their latest games. Their sales will continue to suffer if they do this.

Worst RPG of the year.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 14
Date: December 03, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This is easily the worst rpg of the year. There is almost nothing to make it even remotely decent. Utterly appaling.

Published by ATLUS, I agree with the other reviewers that it's horribly made with the worst combat system ever in an rpg. It has horrible subtitles over the screen, poor graphics that look very blocky and there is little fun factor in it.

What's wrong.

1)Poor graphics - Looking like ps1 they are a disgrace.
2)Idiotic beeps which are common to some Atlus games but they are unbearable here.
3) Dull presentation and storyline.
4)Absolutely awful combat system that is the worst ever made.
5)Horrible set dialogue after every kill which would drive you mad.

A bad mess from start to finish.

If you want high quality then look at Shadow hearts/SMT:Nocturne/Dragon quest 8/DDS 1 etc

You May Weep Tears of Frustration

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 11 / 14
Date: March 22, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Magna Carta is game I've been eagerly anticipating for some time now. It comes from ATLUS, who have a great track record when it comes to localizing niche RPGs for the dedicated player. It features fairly high production values with its detailed environments and 3D character models. The CGI is gorgeous. Unfortunately, this is one of the most sluggish, frustrating games I have ever played. I hear Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu declared Magna Carta: Tears of Blood to be one of the worst RPGs on the PS2. I wouldn't go quite that far, as for all the teeth nashing I did, I still was able to play it until the very end.

The story of Magna Carta focuses on Calintz, leader of the Tears of Blood, a mercenary group with the corniest name ever. The Tears are helping to fight a long running war with the Yason, a magically elf-like race. Things go wrong during a mission, and Calintz meets Reith, a mysterious girl who can't remember anything. They strike up a rather awkward romance- awkward in the sense that Reith is the goody-goody peace-loving type, and Calintz, while dedicated to peace in his own way, peace to him meaning destroying the Yason. Reith tries to discover her mysterious origins and Calintz searches for the Magna Carta, a legendary super-weapon that can flatten the Yason. Despite the fact that this description features a ton of story cliches, the story is actually pretty good, even though it unfurls at a snails pace. This story is not shy about presenting the unpleasant consequences of war and is refreshingly lacking the black and white morality of most fantasy stories.

While the world of Magna Carta is quite the visual treat, the same can't be said of the aural experience. The background music is adequate but unmemorable. The game opens with a terrible song called Tears of Blood. The lyrics on this thing are really embarassing and cheesey. Voice Acting is usually a nice touch, unless its done wrong. Here its done really really wrong. This stuff could curdle milk.

While story is a very important factor in these types of games, Magna Carta drives home the point that you also need a good battle system to carry you through 50+ hours of gameplay. This is were Magna Carta gets really sluggish. It uses a quasi-real time system were you can move freely about the battle screen. A meter fills up and when it reaches a certain point you can attack. There is no such thing as simply bashing a monster with your sword. You must correctly time a series of three button presses, then the character will glow, say some line like "I have been trained to kill!", and then launch into a complicated looking attack. Sure it looks cool, but after the first few hours you'll wish things would move faster. Did I mention you can only control one person at a time and the others stand there like fools?

This system is also effected by a myriad of other things like how much the characters like you at the moment, which is effected by things like what sort of gifts you give them and what the local fortune-teller said, the number of enemies and allies currently on the field, what kinds of chi is currently available, and how many times a friend or foe can block attacks. All attacks are based on one of eight types of chi. If your attack is based on a chi type that isn't available you can't do anything unless you happen to have a chi restoring talisman. The system is not difficult, but sluggish and cheap. A normal enemy encounter can last well over 30 minutes. That should not be!

Adding to the sluggish battle system is a sluggish system of exploration. You can explore in detect mode, where you roam at a snails pace but can surprise or avoid enemy in encounters, or run mode, where you move faster but will miss treasure chests and will be surprised by the enemy, effectively letting them pound you into Game Over. In Magna Carta, if you have to go somewhere it will be by foot. It takes a long time to get anywhere, because the world is expansive and you will be traveling the roads at the speed of a turtle. Couple this with the slow battle system, and it takes forever and a day to get anything done. More than once I wanted to rip my hair out.

Magna Carta is a game only for people with extreme patience. I imagine the vast majority of people who pick it up, will throw it down after a few hours. When I saw the end credits role, I for one was filled with great relief that it was over. Games should fun. Magna Carta just isn't.

Help, my thumb is caught in the controller.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 12 / 15
Date: June 25, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Last year, I bought tears of blood and played about one third of the way through it before running into a bug when the game allowed me to do several things out of sequence. I wasn't all that thrilled with the game and put it aside for some day when I would feel more motivated. It only took a year for me to come back, invest some 80 hours in game play to realize that not only was I not thrilled, but I disliked it intensely.

Let's start out with the good things. The general level of animation and graphics is very good. Although there is not nearly as much CGI as the trailer promised. The story, which is about a long conflict between humans and elf-like race galled the Yason is a good one, with complex characters who have many sides. So - a pretty face, an interesting plot, and, unfortunately, a director (Yeon-Kyo Choi) from hell. This is the first game that I can honestly say feels like the development staff was dedicated to irritating the player. The game suffers from interface woes, in particular, a live mapping system which often shows the player moving in the opposite direction from the camera shot. Something to which I never quite got accustomed. And the story is full of those strange moments when characters do something that makes no sense.

The story is interesting, but the flow through the game is forced. There is a level of parallelism, since there are usually two teams in the field and you can switch between them, but the progress is really inexorable - there aren't any alternative branches. For example, you can kill a boss who is supposed to beat you - the game just ignores the whole event and continues on. On fault of the two party approach is that you are often forced you through exactly the same paths twice, complete with the same tired monsters.

Many of the characters are unlikeable. Antagonistic streetfighters, bossy, paranoid priestesses who dress up as eight-year-olds, and starry-eyed, overdeveloped waifs complete for your attention. The star of the show is Callintz, a cross-dressing mercenary, and Captain of the Tears of Blood, consumed with hatred for the Yason. Don't get me wrong, the Yason are just as bad as the humans - everyone gets demonized equally. To top this off, the voice acting is positively wooden. The battles are full of little phrases that, after a while, will drive you crazy. That and several not quite hidden Bronx accents.

Most of the blame for the game's failure is due to the battle system, which depends on the mix of eight powers (or chi) in the area of the battle and uses a fight wheel which requires that you enter a combination of X and O buttons at specific moments. This is a little like Shadow Hearts, but Tears of Blood carefully varies the timing to throw the player off stride continually. In addition to this standard mode there are two alternative modes that have you combining moves (12 keystrokes and up), or guessing what your opponent is doing to counter it. Both of the latter require a lot of finger coordination and hours invested into getting them right. Unfortunately one of them is required to progress through the game and it was only the discovery of a line of instruction in a downloaded walkthrough that kept me from giving up on the game for the second time.

The game simply lacks the magnetism to make you want to overcome all the difficulties that the Choi throws in your path. Which is one of the reasons it has never sold very well. There have been a lot of good RPG releases in the past two years. Unless you have lightening reflexes and the patience of a saint, save your money for one of those - you'll be happier for it.

ugh

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 9
Date: May 24, 2006
Author: Amazon User

ive heard the battle system was innovative. ok lets get one thing straight. for something to be innovative in an rpg it both has to be new and adds to the gameplay. Magna Carta's needlessly complicated battle system doesnt add to the game it makes it tedious. If you can stomach through it i give you all props. Dull soundtrack, bad voice overs, and the half assed FFX wannabe visuals. The one shining moment is probablly the team interaction is interesting curve....even though its nothing new (that dates back to Vanguard Bandits)

disappointed

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 09, 2007
Author: Amazon User

First the good points about this game it is visually stunning for the most part. I think the female caracters could use a down size is the breast department other then that the scenery was stunning.
I started playing this game and got frustrated about 4 hours into it the battle system pretty much sucks along with a few flaws with the camera system and not being able to see the enemys at all times. However I decided to try the game again and was actually kind of getting the hang of it until about 20 hours into it I hit a fatal bug, in order to advance the game you have to fight the invisible boss on the water isle and thats where the flaw comes into place the only thing I could do was walk right thru him and continue on to the other islands which needless to say your not suppose to be able to do. Which put an end to the game rather quickly. If you are thinking of getting the game keep this bug in mind because if it happens the only thing the game will leave you with is extremley frustated and out 50 bucks.

I wanted to love it but I just can't

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 10 / 11
Date: December 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Just to clarify, I have been waiting for this game since the first incarnation (Magna Carta The Phantom of Avalanche) was released in Korea years ago. I too am a big fan of Hyung Tae Kim's artwork so I will not be discussing whether or not the character designs and art style are appropriate enough. You either like it or you don't. I wanted this game to be better than it was but crippling gameplay has soured me to the whole experience.

First, let's start with what I was expecting. What I was looking for in a game this time around was a good story to tide me over until FF 12 will be released. I have previously played Star Ocean 3: Till the End of Time and Radiata Stories which had excellent battle systems but slightly less satisfying story lines. This game is probably the complete opposite of those two because it excells in story telling and character developement but completely massacres itself in the battle system. Even reading the directions and going through the useless in game tutorial, this battle system will punish you mercilessly. Once, you've messed up i.e. missed a button or let a character die, you're pretty much screwed even in regular enemy battles. In fact, regular enemy encounters can be tougher than boss fights for the sheer fact that there are more enemies and if you are suprise attacked and your characters don't love your leader, you won't even get a turn in to correct any mistakes. A status effect will handicap you to the point of rendering the rest of your party useless as the enemy's attack bar gets shorter and yours gets longer. Once things have gone bad, they will probably stay that way. That said if you always get the first attack, your characters love you, there's the right kind of chi in the area, etc. then you will go through the same repetitive botton pressing series that you've done in nearly every other fight. You cannot customize the order of your moves so oyu will do the same lame attacks in order to get to the stronger ones. I will admit, this is the first button pressing trinity drive game I've played myself. After I got used to it, the only mistakes I've made is when switching between characters and styles.

There is no open ended gameplay to be had. Trivial sidequests for getting weapons by fighting more enemies in your area just about covers it. Also, it is hard to just go out and level up because enemies don't regenerate unless you reload your game. Plus, there aren't enough different enemies in the game to prevent this from just becoming a chore. Basically, gampeplay is just the vehicle for propelling the story without being an end in itself. Maps are simplistic and don't invite you to explore much besides just getting from point A to point B.
Basically, I just thought I would suffer through the battle system to get to the end of the story because it is very engaging and I would like to see the conclusion. However, the Counter mode has now made that hope impossible. At one point near the end, you are forced to use the Counter mode, which I have never used in regular battle because I have found it too bothersome, to advance in the storyline. Well, even with help from the guide, I keep missing button presses because they fly by quickly. There is no in depth tutorial either in the books provided or in the game itself to tell me what I am doing wrong and how to correct it. Right now, I am at a complete standstill and don't think I will ever finish the game because of this. I will admit that I am not very good at Judgement Wheel type controls but for me to spend 70+ hours on a game that frustrates me at every turn and to get stuck like this, is just wrong.

As much as the story itself is well thought out and enthralling, I just can't reconcile the fact that I should be frustrated like this over a game that is supposed to be fun. I'm giving it two stars because of the story and collectable art extras provided but I would recommend for any consumer to try this game out for yourselves before buying it. $55 is still a lot for a poster and a mini artbook.

big disappointment

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: November 08, 2006
Author: Amazon User

While the big-breasted women didn't offend me, it didn't excite me either. I still found the game to be a rather big disappointment.

Having only one character fight at a time was a big disaster. It makes the game feel old and unappealing.

Many times the enemies appear to be hidden when you're inside a dungeon. I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. The run button practically doesn't exist because the second you run, an enemy will find and kill you.

You might want to look for another RPG because this one didn't work for me.

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