I'm a Princess With Cards, Don't Mess With ME!
Written: Jun 14 '02 (Updated Jun 14 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Interesting gameplay
Cons: story, sound
The Bottom Line: Worth a rental if you are a rpg fan, or enjoy card games like pokemon, and Magic the Gathering.
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| yarrick's Full Review: Lost Kingdoms for GameCube |
Lost Kingdoms or Rune as it is known as in Japan is an interesting game, considered a real time action role-playing adventure, which is viewed, in 3rd person. You control your view through the use of the c-stick. The story is a thick fog is starting to close in on your kingdom and the other 4 as well. With this fog has come an unspeakable amount of evil. After basically ignoring each other for years the kings go on their way to meet each other. You, a princess of Argwyll, left to tend the castle while your father is away, end up going and get the rune-stone, because the fog is drawing to close to the castle. The rune-stone, which enables you to control cards which I will get more in depth later. You fighting some skeletons, giving you a very basic tutorial and a mysterious old woman Gurd appears telling you about the rune stone and ends up going to the Plains of Rowahl where good old Gurd will give you a more in depth tutorial. The story of this game is pretty weak basically you are chasing after your father who is also looking for answers in stopping the fog.
Unfortunately with this game while a lot of dialog in this game you have to read it all there isn’t any voice acting. Of course, after listening to some other games with voice acting maybe its not all that bad just having to read it. There are actually some pretty funny comments mostly made by Gurd like:
“You cant just go around using cards all willy nilly and expect to survive” remember to insert an old woman’s voice there, cracked me up.
Anyway there is a certain way you are supposed to use the cards just like in pokemon or magic the gathering there are different types of cards. These cards just like in pokemon there are different attributes concerning the cards. Fire, Water, Earth, wood, and neutral, now some cards are stronger against one type while others are weaker. Water over fire, Fire over wood, and earth over water, while neutral being a more rare card has no weakness. Also there are several different types of cards magic/spell which generally deal in healing, dragon which normally come in for one big attack then be gone, and independent where the creature will come in and fight for you staying until their life depletes or you defeat all your enemies. Generally a good idea to throw several of the independents out at once to gang up on your foe or foes. This way they don’t as much life. Oh did I forget to mention that the cards have a certain value, when you choose to use the card, the value is taken from the card and the higher the value the faster the card gets used up. When an independent card is killed/used up or any other card is used up you wont be able to use it again till you beat the level. Although you can add new cards to your deck at certain stations in maps which also heal you. You can also do this in the world map. World map has such places as Gurd’s shop where you can buy/sell cards, evolve card is you have earned enough experience through fighting monsters and make duplicates of cards. Make sure you also talk to her often she will tell you something that will open up a new area on the world map. Evolving your cards is important in getting father along in the game. In order to gain experience of course you have kill the bad guys. Previous places you have beaten, you cant return to these though till you beat the game so you may want to make sure you have opened all the treasure chests(find a chest get a new card) and looked for some fairies. There is a guy who just loves fairies, no no magical fairies ok, geez. Anyway he studies them and if you bring him enough red fairies(don’t know why they have to be red, the blue ones just aren’t good enough for him I guess) then he will give you a new card to add to your deck. Blue fairies can also be found throughout the levels. Unfortunately they move around and since your so slow its difficult to catch them, and just to frustrate you more you will get a random battle right as your about to get it often. If you finally do catch the blue fairy it will give you some health back and refresh one used card. Maximum of 30 cards in a deck but you can have multiple decks and choose the best one for your mission.
The number of cards you have in your deck is what makes it so vital when choosing your cards not only in fights but also what cards you will put in your deck. The levels have symbols showing you what type of creatures are going to be in it, fire, wood, or whatever so if its fire and would you should obviously use water. You can also tell in battle, if you don’t choose the right cards you will end up running out of cards, then you cant really do anything. Abort back to the world map and start all over again. Also when you hit an enemy little crystals will fall out which get used up when you use a card, you can still use a card when you don’t have any crystals left but it will drain some of your health. When you beat an area like I said earlier you can no longer access that area but based on your performance you get to randomly choose up to 3 cards out of *(depends on the level) choices and the cards you pick can be added to any of your decks in the world map. As your card gains experience or evolves just like any other RPG your cards stats go up. You also have a capture card throw:
Line up with the target, press L in combination with A,B,X, or Y, it will to a small amount of damage. Although if it was enough to finish off your enemy then it will seal the enemy onto a card for you. Sorry if that section was confusing, its kind of hard to explain but really not all that hard once you just play the game for about 5 minutes.
I do have a few gripes with the gameplay though, one thing is your character is just to damn slow. Its like one of those horror films where they are running from the scary creature they always manage to hit something, are limping, and of course they fall to make it more dramatic. While your character is healthy she is still extremely slow moving throughout the levels and the levels are generally a decent size. Also I don’t really like how the battle system is set up. When you go into battle the screen turns somewhat blurry and you are set in an area just like the surroundings you were just in, except you can’t leave. You have to win. This proves a disadvantage when running low on cards and you want to save some for the big boss but you have to use them on these weaklings. I assure you nothing is more frustrating then running out of cards when you reach the boss, and having to abort the mission and start all over again. You have 4 cards in the bottom right hand corner top card represents the Y button, right represents the X, A the bottom, and B the left. Now you can either choose from one of those cards or you could hold down R and press A, B, X or Y dropping that card (makes it no longer useable for that fight) and brings the card in the bottom left to your 4 useable cards. Cycling through the cards to find the right one to use in the situation is annoying and you have to watch the amount of cards you have available because you don’t want to find yourself all out and with enemies still running around. Level design isn’t very good a lot of the maps while large are very linear and often require backtracking to go to the station where you add new cards to your deck. Backtracking gets very tedious. Also the fact that most of the time when approaching a chest you go into a battle, the chest will be on screen but you cant open it since your use key is A and pressing that will respond in using your bottom card. Trust me I have done it, if they are going to show the chest in battle I want to be able to open it damnit. One last thing that took me awhile to figure out, you can only save in the world map, I kept thinking that I didn’t have enough room on my memory card and ended up erasing some stuff. Also if you get too many creatures on the screen at once I have noticed some slow downs not anything major really and they normally don’t last long.
As you travel throughout the world map going from one place to the next you will get the chance to collect There is also a two-player mode in which you can have your guardian card collection against one another in a battle to the finish. I haven’t gotten to do this since I don’t know anyone else with this game.
Graphics: 6/10
While visually this is not near the graphics of Resident Evil or say Rouge Leader it does have its nice things. I was kind of disappointed in the world map visually, but since this affects gameplay in no way therefore it doesn’t really matter. During the game you can watch your clothes sway back in forth, but it seems to sway back and forth in the same way all the time as you run. It was pretty cool to see the lightning flashes and see the rain hitting around you. Some of the creatures do look pretty cool and have some really nice looking attacks graphics wise although some others are just really basic and dull. Also depending on what type of surface you are running on you may have dirt fly up in the air as you plod through at your slow pace. Most of the characters look pretty good, at least the main on due some of the less important ones could have been done a little better but since they are not of any real importance I don’t mind. A few of the characters are kind of blocky. There are some short FMV scenes let’s just say that this game is no Final Fantasy. They are decent but they are really short. Of course shadows do show up and that is one of the better things done in this game. Graphically Lost Kingdoms isn’t anything all that great and I cant think of much to rave about on here, simply decent graphics.
Sounds: 7/10
The sounds are pretty darn good in this game, the clank of a knight’s boots on the hard granite floor. Listen as you go from one type of surface to the next, the way your footsteps sound will have change. The storm was very nice. Some of the monsters make some really interesting noises, yeah ogres with fart noises, who emit green gaseous fumes from they’re anus. Music department isn’t really all that great though while in some games I can remember a certain tone that sticks out in my head and I remember for the rest of the day even when not playing with this game I don’t remember doing that with any of the songs. This games songs are just not that great, some are pretty decent I can somewhat remember one of the castles but most as soon as you’re done playing unless you set your mind to it you will not remember the games music. Also the music for the battle sequences are either the same or are very similar, they are just repetitive. The music does fit the level though, creepy music for the graveyard and sewers, and etc.
Overall: 6/10
This is a kind of interesting game, it does have a few flaws some of them being major like your running so slow among other things. The control system is pretty good and its easy to get a hang of but I don’t like how you have to cycle through your cards to get to the right one for the enemy your facing. If you don’t use the attributes while you may get lucky sometimes, you will find yourself out of cards, especially on the first few levels when you don’t even have a full deck. Although the fact that it involves strategy and isn’t just a hack and slash game is nice. The graphics and sounds are only so-so while gameplay in my opinion just isn’t that great. I’m just not a fan of the system they have set up here. While I like pokemon, which this game kind of reminds me of, in this game you don’t get to choose attacks. Nor do you get to have your character duke it out with the baddies. I myself would enjoy an rpg where I along with my party get to fight, but this game is not set up like this it has a card system somewhat resembling pokemon. Maybe if there were more things you could do with the cards like choose different attack etc. of course that would make the game turn based, but I would have been willing to sacrifice that. Overall I don’t like the style of play in this game, the 3rd person view throughout the levels is ok, but when moving through the level it just takes to long, plus the inability to really do all that much with your cards just turns me off. This is just an average game, nothing great. if you like rpgs then I suggest you rent this one first before making a purchase.
Special thanks go out to Steve and Rick for making this review possible and adding this game so promptly
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
yarrick
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Member: Matt
Location: Baltimore, MD
Reviews written: 70
Trusted by: 136 members
About Me:
It is that season again, MIDTERMS. Look for more reviews when I have time again
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