Topic: Magical Starsign and Children of Mana Coming Soon

[Jonnyboy117]

Nintendo hypes its upcoming DS role-playing tandem.

Nintendo DS the System of Choice for Role-Playing Game Fans    

               Two New Games Bring In-Depth Gaming on the Go    

   REDMOND, Wash., Oct. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Magical Starsign™?  Children of  Mana®?  To the average person, these game names might sound like they  portend the resurgence of the Age of Aquarius.  But for video game fans, they  mean something great for Nintendo DS™.  Within a one-week span, starting  Oct. 25, two epic role-playing games for the portable Nintendo DS will hit  stores.  And then the adventures begin.

    Many people consider role-playing games the most in-depth genre of games.  Games like Magical Starsign and Children of Mana involve deep storylines that  let players take on the roles of their characters and make decisions affecting  the plot direction.  Children of Mana builds on a popular role-playing  franchise, while Magical Starsign introduces a new game to the genre.

    "Nintendo DS is the growth driver for the video game industry, with a  healthy lineup of games for all types of consumers," says George Harrison,  Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate  communications.  "Role-playing games demonstrate Nintendo's commitment to  providing incredible games to yet another group of fans, especially those who  enjoy deep storylines."

    Magical Starsign takes the traditional magic and fantasy elements of  role-playing games into space.  Students from a magical academy head into  space to find a missing teacher.  Players gain experience and power as they  use the system's touch screen to choose attacks and targets.  Each character  has a sign linked to one of the planets indicating what type of magic he or  she can use.  As the planets shift in the skies, players must adapt their  attacks as one type of magic fades and another rises in strength.

    Children of Mana follows the story of a band of heroes who try to keep the  magic of the Mana Tree from being corrupted by evil.  Players use hundreds of  gems to customize their characters with new abilities suiting their  preferences and preparing them for upcoming attacks.  Both games contain  multiplayer elements that let friends play through these epic stories  together.

    Magical Starsign, Rated E for Everyone, will be available Oct. 25, while  Children of Mana, Rated E10+ for Everyone 10 and Older, will be available  Nov. 1.

[KDR_11k]

Never heard of that Starsign thingie.

[Kairon]

Star Sign is the American name for the first Magical Vacation series/style-game from Brownie Brown, a Nintendo second party composed of ex-Square employees, to make it stateside. All of their work so far has been on the handheld side, I believe, and probably not very import friendly.

P.S. I'm getting both!

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com  

[couchmonkey]

Magical Starsign is the Brownie Brown sequel to Magical Vacation...which was Japan-only.  I was pretty excited about it, but the two review scores I've seen so far are...pretty awful.  Same thing for Mana, unfortunately.  What's with all these RPGs disappointing?  Maybe I should grab Rocket Slime while I can!

Edit: Darn, beaten to the punch!

[Kairon]

YES. YES. Buy Rocket Slime FIRST.

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[WuTangTurtle]

I had hopes for Mana, I saw some videos on it and it looked pretty solid.  After some bad reviews I'm kinda doubting it now.

Seriously why are all the DS RPGS dissapointing....Hopefully the games are better than what the reviews say they are.

[Ceric]

Rocket Slime is great.  At least rent it for week and clear you schedule.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Quote
Originally posted by: ShaolinKilla
I had hopes for Mana, I saw some videos on it and it looked pretty solid.  After some bad reviews I'm kinda doubting it now.

Seriously why are all the DS RPGS dissapointing....Hopefully the games are better than what the reviews say they are.

depends on who reviewed it.  RPG "fans" around here don't seem to agree on anything.

[couchmonkey]

Of course, you can't trust every review, so I put more weight on ones I can trust...that said, looking at GameRankings...Contact is averaging something like 69% with 10 reviews, which is pretty low, Magical Starsign is even lower (but only has two reviews).  Then there's Children of Mana which I know has a couple of low scores and turned out to be more of a dungeon crawler than a "traditional" Mana game.  

FFIII seems to be well-received by most, but the PGC review was quite negative and definitely hit sore spots for me - namely the boss battles require tons of leveling or random good luck to win, which reminds me of the old-school NES RPGs...not surprising, but not good news to me.

Basically I'm waiting for PGC and/or IGN (yes, IGN) to review these.

[IceCold]

Quote
Contact is averaging something like 69% with 10 reviews, which is pretty low

Eh? I have it at a 77%..

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Mana games ARE dungeon crawlers.

Level-grind, or get your ass handed to you.

[Jome20]

 I've also heard or read dissappointing things about all 3 games (Contact, Children of Mana, and Magical Starsign).  I have been looking forward to all of them actually.

So far it looks like Children of Mana is actually averaging around 80%.  Except one reviewer "Play Magazine" gave it like a 5 out of 10.  All other places are a high 7 to a low 8.  So hopefully most reviews will stay around 80%.  I am also looking forward to the multiplayer aspect of Children of Mana with some friends.  Secret of Mana is one of my favorite and first RPGs I ever played through.  And one of the best parts was able to level up and kill bad guys with a friend or two.

I was looking forward to Magical Vacation and then it never came out in the USA.  Now we're getting the sequel but so far it hasn't been given good reviews (averaging barely above 60%).  It's only been reviewed twice though.  So there's still plenty of time for other reviewers to improve the rating.

Contact is averaging about a 77% which isn't too bad.  But has a couple down in the 60% range.  And I think one that's about 90%.  I believe Contact just came out today (or is coming out tomorrow).  So if anyone picks it up right away, definitely let us know what ya think of the game.  Because it definitely looks very interesting!

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

A compelling argument, Sir.

[IceCold]

Hmm, anyone care to analyse the data and get rid of any outliers?

[Caliban]

The latest Nintendo Power (V210-December) has a review of both of these games, CoM got a 6.5, MS got a 7.0 .

[therat]

hope i love contact, and that the other two arent better!buy all

[couchmonkey]

Guess I got contact wrong!  Good, though I would still prefer a little higher.

Edit: Now I'm conflicted and ANGSTY.  To Contact or not to Contact?  I'm very careful with my DS purchases because I prefer not to buy more games than I can finish on handhelds.  The reviews are just a teensy bit low, but the game looks great.  Then again, there are also two games coming from Orbital Media soon, which I've been waiting for for a long time.

Glad to hear Children of Mana is actually reviewing better than I thought.

[Kairon]

I guess I'll believe that these games aren't the next best thing since sliced bread and trust the reviews.

BUT, CoM has 4 player local wireless co-op, flammie makes an appearance, and the elementals seem to be the exact same ones from SoM. I can't resist.

Magical Starsign will be my first opportunity to evaluate the abilities of Brownie Brown, Nintendo's only second-party or first-party developer working exclusively on RPGs. Thus, I'm intensely curious about what it plays like.

And Contact... well, not only is iit innovative, stylish, but it has massive damage jokes. Massive damage.

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Summoning Elementals back-to-back-to-back-to-back is part of the fun of Mana.