Lost Magic

Believe it or not, I found out about this game on the DMCV board. That place was good for something after all!

This came up due to talk on Astral Chain and V's gameplay. Apparently, you can summon monsters and use tons of magic spells. I'm currently bidding on a copy.

I saw the topic in question, aside from the glorious 'typical DMCV' board shenanigans, that was good mention. I'm especially charmed by its art-style, very good! Let us know if you manage to snag a copy, is it a rare title?

Not sure how rare it is worldwide. I'm bidding for it on an NZ site, and there's only one without a case available. DS games aren't sold here anymore unless you find them used, and even then there's not that many.

It's probably common on Ebay and Amazon.

Check out how magic is cast. It's pretty much the same as how you do it in Okami. They were both released around the same year. Hmmm.

Check this out.

Got it for $10. No case or manual. Still waiting for it to arrive.

Just bought FF12 Revenant Wings.  I totally forgot this game existed until recently when I sold my PS4 version of FF12 Zodiac Age because there's no sign they're releasing the Switch content.

In RW, you can summon monsters to fight for you. Not sure how customizable it is but looks decent.

Forgot this was the Lost Magic topic and thought it was the DS/3DS one.

Roy, if possible you can move it? I guess it doesn't really matter though.

Got Lost Magic today.

Started playing immediately after getting home. I've done a few stages and made some quick notes on the mechanics. I'm finding it pretty fun.

To move, you click the character or your monsters and it puts a box around them, then you click where you want them to go. Last game I played like this was some old Warcraft game.

Magic is cast exactly like Okami. You press L to bring up a screen you can draw on, then draw the symbol for the spell you want. LM takes it a step further by letting you cast double and triple runes, which can be combined to create hundreds of variations as I understand it. I don't have the ability to cast more than one basic spell, but the system sounds very similar to how you form attacks in Destrega.

Another big difference is in LM,  is that the game doesn't freeze when you cast so you need to be quick.

You can capture monsters by weakening them first, then casting the capture spell. You can set them up based on how many points there are worth or something. Not too sure on this yet. They level up and you can equip them with items.

I'm only in chapter 1 but got my ass kicked a few times already. You move very slow and can't really outrun enemies because you stop when you cast and I got totally overwhelmed by only a few monsters.

Looks like there are some interesting status effects like freeze, burn, knockback, etc. They don't trigger every time though, but I guess that makes sense so early in the game.

Another interesting feature is apparently, the strength of a spell is influenced by how well you draw it. With the basic goblins, I noticed sometimes I did over 300 damage with a fireball, but other times it was just under that so they weren't killed instantly. I haven't noticed any indicator as to whether or not my drawings were optimal at the time of drawing.

That's all for now.

Well, this is annoying.

I'm in a stage with multiple enemies and a boss mage that can attack long range, and absolutely destroyed me and my monsters easily. I can't do shit to him, at all.

It's weird. I remember much earlier, there was a map I could replay and level up, seemingly as much as I wanted, but now I'm completely stuck and can't go back. I haven't been capturing monsters because I keep forgetting the mechanic exists, and you can't equip anything in battle; everything is done on the map screen.

It might be possible to go back somehow due to something I'm missing, but so far you can only enter maps that have the blue arrow icon. I haven't been able to enter others.

Anyway, it looks like it's a 'level up and win' type game. I can't beat the guy and all the monsters at my current level of power, so I'm going to start over and see if I can level up a bit and catch some better monsters, or see if I can have multiple teams of the same type.

Started over which wasn't a huge loss, and I'm currently grinding on the first repeatable level against a few goblins. Simply take out all 6 and the stage is done. Fireball kills them instantly but I'm messing with the ice shot though it does way less damage. Three shots sometimes but now and then triggers freeze which is a far more useful state than burn. These barely trigger though.

I'm also using ice more because it seems the more you use a spell, the stronger it gets. There's this circle thing shown at the end of the stage which widens toward the elements you used in a stage.

I'm still playing this on and off.

Caught a lot more monsters but aside from appearance and element/stats, they aren't much different in terms of attacks. Just get up close and start bashing the enemy until it dies or they die.

I got one type that can fly, so it can get out of reach treasure boxes, but they attack the same way as the others.

The only unique one I have is Purple Cap. These guys shoot something but they dont have the best range.

When I fight them they can be kind of annoying because they run when you get close and your monsters go after them. This can cause your monsters to split up and get isolated if you don't manage them. Not sure if they behave this way when used by the player. Will check that later.