RPGs on The DS

Lost Magic...The one DS game I've bought thus far I've regretted.

The game's lone selling point (the screen-based spell casting) was old by the time I got to my 4th scenario. It's quite gimmicky actually (as in, sounds cool, but frantically drawing on the screen does little to enhance the experience...This would still be a bad game if you were selecting spells with a cursor) If an enemy catches the hero, he dies because he can't fight back, he can't cast anything while being pummeled and he normally can't get away fast enough. And on top of that, my hero normally runs out of magic after 3 chants and has to be at a dead stop to recharge...Not good if you have monsters on your tail to begin with. Of course, most of the monsters are downright stoopid once they settle onto their set trails...This is negated by the need for a timer on each scenario. As if the spells and monsters weren't annoying enough.

And I don't see the characters or storyline making up for the game's gameplay shortcomings anytime soon. That's probably an understatement, although the characters have sort of a Miyazaki-anime look to them.

I love a challenge, but the game's difficulty comes from the shoddy (and gimmicky) mechanics and not well-designed scenarios. I played it for 3 hours and I have no desire to go back to it. Sorry in advance to anyone who enjoys this.

Jam it back in, in the dark.