Magic Kinght Rayearth
Action/RPG
Working Designs
Sega Saturn
1 disc
Best Feature: Anime cut scenes
Worst Feature: Awful loadtime
Buy or Rent?: Rent or Borrow
Maybe it's because I love Working Designs or
maybe it's because I'm an anime fan, but
whatever the reason I like Magic Knight
Rayearth. Note the term like.
I hate to say it but there's plenty of
things I don't like about this game. But let
me break everything down first.
Magic Knight Rayearth is based on a popular
anime series of the same name. In the game
you play the role of the show's three lead
characters: Hikaru, the good-hearted leader.
Umi, the Egotistical Snob and Fuu, the
intellectual (nerd). Your mission is to save
the magical world of Cefiro by rescuing
Princess Emerald from the hands of the wicked
Sorcerer Zagat.
Gameplay is typical of most Action/RPG
titles. You run around and use your weapons
to kill enemies. Each girl uses a different
weapon: A sword for Hikaru,An epee for Umi
and A bow for Fuu. Fuu has an advantage over
the others in that her bow has tracking
capabilties. Each girl eventually learns
three magic attacks. Leveling up is done in
a number of ways. Health and magic levels up
by finding items similar to the heart
containers in Zelda that are scattered
throughout Cefiro. Ablities are leveled up
by completing missions and finding "mirrors".
Everything okay so far? Good.
Now, for the control. It's a bit iffy. You
can configure the controller to three
different settings, but that's not really
necessary. The controls are very responsive.
There are however things that I don't like
about it. Dashing for instance is done
either by charging up with a button or
holding in the same direction for a while.
Once you start dashing though, the girls tend
to glide like they're on ice so you'll have
to take care they don't run off of a
cliff!
Sound and Music. The game has some great
voice acting. It also has some bad voice
acting. My favorite voice in the game when
it comes to acting has to be Clef. It's just
seems so fitting! The music is nice, but it
is edited badly in some areas, Actually in
alot of the load transitions is where most of
the problems occur. It really mars the game
in annoying ways.
Graphics and loadtime. The graphics
are beautiful in this game. You've probably
never seen such a graphically beautiful game
on the Saturn. The colors are bright. The
characters are cute and the girls on screen
pictures (the ones you see when they search
or talk) actually change armor as they level
up! We all know Saturn has bad video
compression, but the anime scenes still look
great! Very nice. But, the load time in the
game is terrible. Sometimes you can end up
with 5 or more seconds of plain black screen!
That is almost inexcusable for a game so long
in the making!
Bottomline: If you're a Working Designs or
anime fan, get this game. It's full of the
trade mark WD humor, anime cutscenes, voices
and those lovebale outakes (if you complete
the games' sidequest.) However, if you're
just another gamer. Try it out at a friends'
house first. This may not be your cup of tea
due to loadtime and easy play. You can beat
this game within 3 days probably 2. But, I
enjoyed it so much I'll probably play it
again.
Musica Star
"Magic Knight Rayearth" is a trademark of Kodansha/TMS. Original Game © Sega 1996. English Translation © Working Designs 1997.
