Magna Carta 2

Magna Carta 2 (MC 2) for the XBox 360 is best summed as a 101-JRPG: Every trope you associate with that genre would most likely be in that game. That isn't to say that the game is bad, as there are some bright spots. The game looks very beautiful and you can get a lot of replay value from the game. But the flashes of brilliance are largely overshadowed by middling or cliched parts, such as the story and combat.

If you are a gamer you'd probably heard of plots similar to the one from MC 2. The region of Lanzheim is in the midst of civil war, and the guy who's going to play a big role in ending this conflict is - you guessed it - an amnesiac emo boy named Juto who has a mysterious past. He is joined by other walking cliches: Say hello to the unfeeling commando, the calm team mediator, the happy-go-lucky rookie, and a hotheaded whiner/pouter who has quite a mouthful to say to everyone around him. The princess who employs Juto is a leader who cannot think for herself and is too selfless. As the journey progresses you learn that Juto - gasp! - is not who he seems to be, and that there is more to the war than was expected [of course!] So much for cast and plot originality, but I will say this; there are plenty of interesting subplots that come in the form of sidequests.

MC 2 is played in a large overworld with several regions. You will always have a primary quest to guide your six-person-band to, but there are [as stated earlier] many, many sidequests to complete to flush out the world of Lanzheim and the origins of the playable characters. You learn about the rookie's father and his fate; dare i say there are some interesting discoveries. You also learn the tragic past of the pouter/whiner and why he's fighting this war. These quests usually can only be started when you complete other sidequests, so you start to see these long lines of quests related to one another. Thanks to these bonuses you get extra EXP, better weapons and an understanding of your crew. It is also very safe to say that if you are serious about the sidequests you will be rewarded accordingly; you can get at least 30 hours from the game in the first playthrough, which is better than most other RPGs.

Presentation-wise MC 2 has you covered. There are many [albeit partially unoriginal] landscapes and vistas such as the open plain, an elvish-esque nature village and the scorched land near a volcano. There are also urban battlegrounds like inside a castle and even within a mystical spaceship. But the bigger strength in the game's graphical aspect has to be its cast. Each playable character is rendered with detail surpassing other RPGs, from their facial complexions to their clothing. If the title cover didn't give it away already, yes there are some pretty attractive female characters; that will certainly turn some heads. Those character animations also run very smoothly. Perhaps the only thing I would dislike about the graphics is that the enemy variety can be suspect; there are multiple sightings of enemies just being recolored and renamed into a new form of enemy. Nevertheless, there is little wrong for Magna Carta 2 in the visuals department. Sound-wise the game has some good parts. While each of the characters' voice actors sound pretty much in accordance to the cliches they represent, they seem capable of expressing a wide range of emotions. The problem is when during combat [I'll get to that], character lines are repeated way way too often, often to unintentionally comedic effect. Some of the stage music can be a bit too generic, but when expressing the soul-crushing devastation caused by the war the game's music never fails to capture that somber mood.

Actually playing the game can be where you find some problems. Combat is real-time, meaning that enemies are present in the overworld and outside of boss battles there are very few instances where you actually have to fight them. Once you do fight them by entering combat stance each playable character has an action bar; the characters can fill that bar either through normal attacks or special attacks that cost Kan [Energy generated by normal attacks, although some locales generate Kan for you]. Filling the bar leaves the character overheated, unable to move and attack. But if you fill the bar by finishing with a special attack, you can immediately switch to another active character [you have 3 at all times], fill that person's bar with a special attack [whose attacks have a damage multiplier from switching this way], causing both bars to empty and permit the characters to continue the fight. This move, known as the "Chain Break" can be somewhat exciting as there is something cool and fast-paced about launching consecutive special moves. But I am disappointed that the combat system does not get any better once you get the hang of it. There are 'duo attacks' and there are two skill trees you can master from each character. You can also buy weapons and items to increase the characters' attack, HP and so on, but you are still going to spam the A and X buttons to do the same attacks. There are some clever moments like a puzzle level and a "Protect the Princess" stages near the end of the game, but those instances are too few and far between.

There are also many times when the game simply cannot keep up with the hectic action taking place on the screen. Say for instance you want to fill up the action bar of a character and you are killing an enemy with a normal attack. Too often your character will end up killing the enemy with a normal attack and get overheated even though there are still enemies around. It would make more sense that your character kills an enemy then re-engage on another enemy nearby and use a special attack at that moment. The target cursor is way too slow in keeping up with what you want to do in combat, and that can get really frustrating. I do have to admit, by the 30 hour mark I grew pretty sick of the combat and was just ignoring every group of enemy just to finish certain sidequests. But the clunky-ish combat is not just one of the rough edges. Too much time in the game is used doing just that. I cannot tell you how many hours I must have burnt by going to a certain place, realizing that I am not supposed to be in said place, then having to run back to a save point. In the second half of the game the problem gets even worse, because all of a sudden there are barriers to places that you can naturally enter freely, which wastes even more time. If you are doing a sidequest at that point there is a high chance that you are not permitted to enter an area, thus preventing you from completing the sidequest. So overall the gameplay is solid, but there are still some noticeable hiccups here and there that prevent the game from being better than it is.

Magna Carta 2 is not a bad game by any stretch. 30 hours of replay value is nothing to scoff at, and the same is true of its presentation. But the game could have used a lot more polishing AND variation in its combat system, and perhaps a new set of writers who aren't afraid to break out of JRPG convention when telling a story. If you can manage expectations for this game, you can find some enjoyment here.

3 out of 5 stars is what I'm giving to Magna Carta 2