Game:

Magic Knight Rayearth (1995)

Duration: 10:44

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Original Air Date: December 22nd, 2009

This game has such a ridiculous encounter rate that there will be at least two samples for this game. I've discovered something, but I'm doing some research. There is a puzzle in this game that has stumped many people, but I haven't seen a REAL solution to the puzzle on YouTube...however, I have FINALLY figured it out and I will post up how to get through the forest maze of silence (called such because you can't use magic for the most part) on YouTube.

Anyway, this is one of two Magic Knight Rayearth games for the Sega Game Gear. This one is an RPG (a short one at that) where you control Hikaru, Umi, and Fuu and use a limited set of spells. To its credit, the game has large and colorful sprites and the visuals are pretty decent for a Game Gear RPG. The music is also pretty good...a lot of it strongly reminds me of the music in an excellent SRPG, Royal Stone...I'm wondering if the music composer is the same. I may look into it eventually.

You gain levels like traditional RPGs, but you don't necessarily know WHEN you level up...there is no numerical experience value. However, I can tell you that you level up fairly frequently at the start. When you level up, your HP and MP is restored, which lessens the need to have a full inventory of healing items, though you can stock up if need be. There are inns to restore HP and MP as well as save your game (on 2 data slots) and item shops to buy healing items, support items, and combat items (which are items that cast fire, ice, and wind magic).

The game is very "random", in the sense that enemies can seem really weak at one moment, and really powerful at other moments. For this reason, you will want to train often, or try not to run from any random encounters. However, training can become a major chore. As stated before, the encounter rate is insane...which is unfortunate because it really "artificially" extends the length of a super short game. Even with the encounter rate as it is, you can finish the game within a few hours...I'd say four or five.

The last thing I want to explain is combat. The game actually uses a sort of "ATB" system like Final Fantasy VI and the like. What that means is even if you don't act, the enemies will still keep fighting in real time. The battles seem perplexing at first, since your characters slide on the bottom of the screen in a "roulette" fashion. When a characters' large portrait appears, it means that they are ready to attack. You can attack in whatever order you like...so long as a character's large portrait is there. For example, let's assume that you want to use Fuu to heal. If all of their portraits are large, you would wait until Fuu's portrait is close to the middle and push the action button. If it's a roulette, you might think that it's based on chance...but not really. You can speed up the process by pressing the right directional key (which speeds up the rate in which you and the enemy can act) and slow it down by pressing the left directional key.

Every now and then, you might get a "Lucky Card" when trying to command a character. Most of the effects are good, but the effect of a Lucky Card cancels that character's turn. Some LC effects include:

Restoring HP of all characters
Dealing damage to a character
Instantly killing enemies
Instantly fleeing battle
Blinding the enemy
Putting the enemy to sleep

There are a couple more effects too...SO WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN? Well, nothing really. It all sounds cool on the surface, but it quickly boils down to being a so-so affair, at least for me. I think the game looks decent and sounds nice, but it's bogged down with an annoyingly high encounter rate and limited gameplay mechanics. If you like Rayearth though, you may like this game.

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