Unique was conjured up without a wand, but a DS.
Master of Illusion is an unique game for the Nintendo DS. Basically, you do magic tricks. The game comes in a box with a deck of Nintendo playing cards. The cards have very well obscured readings (a symbol to tell what card it is) which set most of the tricks. Overall, this game took a shot and did it decently.
The game is split into three categories. The first is Solo Magic, where the DS amazes you with tricks. The second is Magic Show, where the game will teach you how to do tricks to show off to an audience. The third is Magic Training, where you do odd mini-games.
There's not much to the game. Artistically, the game does good of 2D graphics. In Solo Magic, there are different magicians talking to you. One of them is a sketched, and another one is animated like Dr. Kawashima in Brain Age. Each magic trick also looks very different, even if some of them repeat themselves.
A few of the tricks are very memorable, like the Today's Special where there are 16 numbers, and you choose 4. Then you add them up, and then they become today's date. Another is when you make a shape with your left hand, and then hold it for the rest of the trick, until it guess what it is.
Magic Show actually tells you how it's done, which defies what magic is. One of them is pressing one of the shoulder buttons to switch if roles, another is tapping a certain part of the screen. One of them requires you to draw a face in a certain way where the game will recognise the way and convert it to the card. Another requires you to tap the buttons in a certain position to select the card, for as the buttons are non-relevant questions.
Only one of the tricks is REALLY amazing. You draw the four sides of a card and then the game recognises which card it is. It is very difficult to do, especially since the game is trying to recognise one of fifty-two cards in four motions. If you do get to master it, then you've got yourself something to show to your friends.
The game is decent, but since it's the first and only of it's type, it deserves some thumbs up. The tricks are pretty good, and it's fun to show it off at people. Especially since nobody really has this game. It's not really a game which you should get because you're going away and you can't bring your Wii, but it's good for bragging rights.
Overall, this game get's a 3.5 of 5. The gameplay's tricks are good, and the graphics are appealing to look at. Sound design is not really outstanding, with no music that's really catchy, but it's got the deck of cards, which has a very good collecters value.