Tombor
08-05-2002, 01:22 AM
I rarely ever post, I'm one of Brian's cohorts, but better now or never.
I modded my Xbox about a month ago and have been getting into the Xbox import scene, what little there is, and have picked up a couple games. Namely Shikigami no Shiro and Magi Death Fight.
I'm pretty sure the game, like anything not named Halo DOA3 or Murakumo, sold like butt. Have yet to see it on the top 50. And Famistu pegged it with an 18/40. Its actually a really good, if entirely archaic looking, multiplayer action-puzzler in the Bomberman vein.
The game has something to do with a Summer Magic school for failing students. There are 8 characters, each with their own style. Or arguably so. None with the exception of a robot known as Raven has any differenting attribute. Raven is slow moving. Everybody else: from the Ninja Rindoh to the archtype/school girl Kyara to the I don't what the hell it is Straw all play the same.
The gameplay is pretty straightforward. There are four types of balls that bounce around the single-screen board. Each ball represents a different element: Red ball is fire, Yellow ball is Earth, Blue ball is water, and Green ball is, at best description, forest. If you get 3 balls of one type you can launch an elemental attack. Fire creates a horizontal Bomberman-like explosion. Earth launches Rocks across the screen upward vertically from the point its launched. Water launches a lazer of Ice downward vertically from the point its launched. Green explodes and launches green lasers at 4 angles. If you collect one ball of each type you launch a whole mess of balls. There's a "wild card" ball that black that rarely appears that'll launch an attack that kills everyone but the person launching it.
The object of the game is VERY simple and straightforward: pick up a ball with the B button and throw it at someone else with the A button. If it hits then when it explodes they're elemenated. Dead on attacks are labeled "strikes" or "bingos." The trick with using the balls, and becoming better player, is applying english to the balls in order for them to ricochet off walls. The more walls the ball bounces off of the faster it becomes. Managing to get it to ricochet off walls enough will cause it to violently bounce around the level like a pinball. You apply english by holding the analog stick, or the D-pad, in a direction and launching the ball.
There are 4 modes gameplay modes in Magi Death Fight: Co-op story, Battle Magi Death, Team Magi Death, and Maniac Magi Death. Co-op story has you progressing through some 50-100 some odd boards fighting slugs, pandas, and posion plants. The game is chunked up into 10 levels with a boss battle after every ten. There's a story to it all, which I don't really known since I don't know much Japanese, that's told through a bunch of static screenshots. Story mode is dreadful for the most part. Its slow going through all the levels and there's no way, it appears, to save your progress mid level. The game's real strength, were it truly shines, is in the other 3 play modes.
Battle, Team, and Maniac all function the same: 4 players compete on a level. Get hit 3 teams and you're out. The one left standing wins the round. You can play from 1-5 rounds on a single level. Battle is straightforward Magi Death Fighting. Team mode splits it into 2 teams: Players 1 and 2 are one team, Players 3 and 4 are the other. Maniac lets you control what types of power ups are allowed in game. Power-ups are fairly straight forward. One increase your speed. One decrease your speed. One slows the speed of the ball after you throw it, one allows balls to fly through walls, one changes all the colors of the balls to one color for a time, one allows you to launch an elemental attack with one ball. Other than the editing of power-ups its the same as the Battle Magi Death.
Magi Death Fight's gameplay succeed's nicely despite technical problems. I remember Xengamer's had an article up back in May that the game's developer, Takuyo, discovered a number of bugs that crashed the game when it was tested in Akhabara. Most of the bugs have been corrected. The game has never crashed on me but it has a number of simply lazy coding moments that can get in the way of the game. It takes a while a for the game to access the hard drive space when continuing a game or picking multiple players in any of the modes. In fact, it freezes the whole game for a few seconds. Loading's are PSX-painful in the story mode, and while the game has no frame rate or slow down problems, the victory cut scenes and boss cut scenes are like a slide show. The games graphics are colorful but low-poly and very Saturn-esque.
Despite this, Magi Death Fight, at least as a multiplayer game, shines. At $58, the going price at NCS and a few others, I can't recommend it. But if you can dig up a copy at $30 or 40 and have the ability to play imports on your Xbox I highly recommend it.
I modded my Xbox about a month ago and have been getting into the Xbox import scene, what little there is, and have picked up a couple games. Namely Shikigami no Shiro and Magi Death Fight.
I'm pretty sure the game, like anything not named Halo DOA3 or Murakumo, sold like butt. Have yet to see it on the top 50. And Famistu pegged it with an 18/40. Its actually a really good, if entirely archaic looking, multiplayer action-puzzler in the Bomberman vein.
The game has something to do with a Summer Magic school for failing students. There are 8 characters, each with their own style. Or arguably so. None with the exception of a robot known as Raven has any differenting attribute. Raven is slow moving. Everybody else: from the Ninja Rindoh to the archtype/school girl Kyara to the I don't what the hell it is Straw all play the same.
The gameplay is pretty straightforward. There are four types of balls that bounce around the single-screen board. Each ball represents a different element: Red ball is fire, Yellow ball is Earth, Blue ball is water, and Green ball is, at best description, forest. If you get 3 balls of one type you can launch an elemental attack. Fire creates a horizontal Bomberman-like explosion. Earth launches Rocks across the screen upward vertically from the point its launched. Water launches a lazer of Ice downward vertically from the point its launched. Green explodes and launches green lasers at 4 angles. If you collect one ball of each type you launch a whole mess of balls. There's a "wild card" ball that black that rarely appears that'll launch an attack that kills everyone but the person launching it.
The object of the game is VERY simple and straightforward: pick up a ball with the B button and throw it at someone else with the A button. If it hits then when it explodes they're elemenated. Dead on attacks are labeled "strikes" or "bingos." The trick with using the balls, and becoming better player, is applying english to the balls in order for them to ricochet off walls. The more walls the ball bounces off of the faster it becomes. Managing to get it to ricochet off walls enough will cause it to violently bounce around the level like a pinball. You apply english by holding the analog stick, or the D-pad, in a direction and launching the ball.
There are 4 modes gameplay modes in Magi Death Fight: Co-op story, Battle Magi Death, Team Magi Death, and Maniac Magi Death. Co-op story has you progressing through some 50-100 some odd boards fighting slugs, pandas, and posion plants. The game is chunked up into 10 levels with a boss battle after every ten. There's a story to it all, which I don't really known since I don't know much Japanese, that's told through a bunch of static screenshots. Story mode is dreadful for the most part. Its slow going through all the levels and there's no way, it appears, to save your progress mid level. The game's real strength, were it truly shines, is in the other 3 play modes.
Battle, Team, and Maniac all function the same: 4 players compete on a level. Get hit 3 teams and you're out. The one left standing wins the round. You can play from 1-5 rounds on a single level. Battle is straightforward Magi Death Fighting. Team mode splits it into 2 teams: Players 1 and 2 are one team, Players 3 and 4 are the other. Maniac lets you control what types of power ups are allowed in game. Power-ups are fairly straight forward. One increase your speed. One decrease your speed. One slows the speed of the ball after you throw it, one allows balls to fly through walls, one changes all the colors of the balls to one color for a time, one allows you to launch an elemental attack with one ball. Other than the editing of power-ups its the same as the Battle Magi Death.
Magi Death Fight's gameplay succeed's nicely despite technical problems. I remember Xengamer's had an article up back in May that the game's developer, Takuyo, discovered a number of bugs that crashed the game when it was tested in Akhabara. Most of the bugs have been corrected. The game has never crashed on me but it has a number of simply lazy coding moments that can get in the way of the game. It takes a while a for the game to access the hard drive space when continuing a game or picking multiple players in any of the modes. In fact, it freezes the whole game for a few seconds. Loading's are PSX-painful in the story mode, and while the game has no frame rate or slow down problems, the victory cut scenes and boss cut scenes are like a slide show. The games graphics are colorful but low-poly and very Saturn-esque.
Despite this, Magi Death Fight, at least as a multiplayer game, shines. At $58, the going price at NCS and a few others, I can't recommend it. But if you can dig up a copy at $30 or 40 and have the ability to play imports on your Xbox I highly recommend it.