Magic Knight Rayearth

Three teenage girls meet by chance at Tokyo tower when their respective schools all take field trips there. Suddenly they are whisked away to the far away fantasy land of Cefiro. They learn they have been summoned there by the Princess Emerald, whose very thoughts and prayers hold their world together. She has been imprisoned in a floating castle awaiting the legendary Magic Knights, whom the three girls are destined to become, to rescue her.

Dont be fooled! These three are more than JUST your standard SMUGs. They can weild some pretty wicked weapons befitting any rippling-biceped, large build, D&D-type fighter characters.

GRAPHICS: For a game made WAY back in '95, the graphics still get the job done. Character sprites are small and SD, but well animated. The numerous anime cut scenes are a VERY nice addition.

SOUND: Standard adventure flare, with one..really..weird tune used numerous times for multiple dungeons. Song used in opening cinema is quite a memorable piece, though.

CONTROL: Zelda meets Secret of Mana. Characters are controlled and can be moved in 8 directions, and switching between them is a cinch. Good too, cuz you need each of the three's unique spells and abilities to solve many of the puzzles.

GAMEPLAY: Ok, here's where it really starts to fray. While the storyline is defintely above-average for most action/RPG's, the games extremely short length, about 10 hours, gives little time for us to truly "care" about what the fudge happens to ANY of the dozen-or-so main characters. Too bad, because they all had personality and I REALLY wanted to feel for them. The dungeons are all suprisingly short and easy, with very few puzzles venturing even into the intermediate difficulty range. And the ending is just plain..well..disappointing and confusing. Well, it seems to be a just reward for the little time you will invest to complete this brief and relatively easy romp through the world of Cefiro.

GRAPHICS: 6 SOUND: 7 CONTROL: 8 GAMEPLAY: 4 OVERALL: 5½

Cheers to Working Designs for sticking with this project for so long, and finally seeing it through. Jeers to them for spending 2½ FRIGGIN YEARS getting it done and adding VERY LITTLE to improve the original game. Tis truly a shame...

-Ragnarok the Red