Mystic Heroes was not a fun game, well I did have fun with it for the
first couple stages, but after that it just got so boring and
repetitive. By stage 3 I was dreading the whole game. Fighting some
bosses was a long and painful process, rarely hard, but just annoying.
The platforming elements was frustrating and just about everything else
annoyed me about this game. The only positive thing I can say is the
graphics were awesome, but the cutscenes were really short, almost to
the point where they didn't make any sense at all. You can play this
game 4 times and get a different story, but one was enough for me. I
doubt it will sway my opinion, it will probably make it worse. There's
a co-op mode and a Survival mode add to the length of the game, but
it's still short and most of those modes are worthless.
----------Battle System----------
Mystic Heroes is a 3rd Person Hack and Slasher with some slight RPG and
RTS elements. At the start of the game you get to choose between 4
different characters, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.
Each character will start off with their own special magic abilities
(called Runes) that relate to different elements. Within battle your
characters can pull off 4 different magic attacks, but only before and
after battle is the time when you can customize your Runes. When you
want to customize, you can pick between 2 sets of Runes (each ranging
from 1 to 4 magic attacks) and mix and match into one Rune that you can
use in battle. Some Runes give you a stat boost aswell.
Within battle you'll find various chest type objects that can be
destroyed. You'll find health and magic within them, but on occasion
you'll find new Runes, or even upgrade items that boost your max HP and
MP or even your attack and magic powers. This is the only way to get
stronger is by trying to find all the special chests in the game, some
are hidden, but most are obvious. Enemies drop health as well, but
rarely upgrade items.
When you go into battle you might get a party, depending on the stage.
Each party will be lead by one of the main characters, and then they'll
have 3 nameless / faceless soldiers follow them for backup. You have no
secondary controls over these characters. The AI is VERY dumb in this
game, so they'll run after a group of enemies and stand around for 10
minutes, slowly attacking each other. This reminds me of fight scenes
of old 70's films where the main good guy is taking on a group of
people beating the crap out of them one by one while the rest of the
gang just stands around aimlessly. Within this time I'm running around
the entire battle field taking on various groups of enemies and then
have to run all the way back to help finish off their original group
that they been working on for 5 minutes with little progress. If one of
your groups happen to take a beating before you can support them, then
they'll retreat to the start of the map and sometimes regenerate new
allies.
Before battle they'll lay down what you need to do to win, either
defeat the boss, get to the exit, or defeat all enemies. The lack of
variety is very weak, there's really no puzzle solving at all in this
game, but there is some platforming. To bad that the platforming in the
game is completely frustrating. During the game you'll be fighting with
the camera most of the time. The controls aren't very responsive, and
while your character might jump very high, he doesn't have a good jump
distance. So the platforming in the game is pretty much awful.
----------Characters / Story----------
The story is about as uninteresting as you can get. The editing is
terrible, it seems as if they cut out large parts of the story because
most of it doesn't make sense. The story just moves so fast that you
won't understand most of it. The biggest problem I had with it is
there's no story within the stages, just before and after. I would try
to tell you about the characters and about the story, but none of it
made sense to me.
----------Graphics----------
The character models look great. The battlefields are huge and contain
a ton of enemies on the screen without any slow downs that I've
noticed. The cutscenes are all made with the game engine, but they look
very polished, probably on par with Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles.
The special attacks aren't spectacular or anything, but some of the
bosses look awesome and can be extremely huge. There's really nothing
bad that I can think of with the graphics.
----------Sound----------
The voice work is pretty bad... really bad actually. All the characters
talk in a slow, pause-y type way like a stereotypical Native American
would sound like on a cheesy 70's tv program like Bonanza or whatever.
The music is forgettable and hardly worth mentioning. When one of your
team mates is in trouble they'll scream out to you. They'll compliment
you during battle, which is very annoying because it's the same
catchphrases throughout the entire game.
----------World Map----------
The game flows with chapters, with separate stages within the chapter.
Before you move into a new stage you'll get an overview of the map, a
brief look into the story, and you can change up your Runes, check your
stats and save.
----------Time to Complete Game----------
Time: 4:20:44
Enemies Defeated: 1977 KO
Allies Defeated: 55 KO
Best Combo: 111 Hits
Total Points: 89451 Pts
