Makai Kingdom : Chronicles of the Sacred Tome

Reviewed by Carl Custodio
July 2005

Developer: Nippon Ichi Software Website: Click here Publisher: NIS America Players: 1 ESRB Rating: T (Teen)

Screenshot from Makai Kingdom. Courtesy of NIS.

With the summer season in full swing, some of you readers will be finishing up that game you acquired before summer came about. Others might just be looking for a new game in general. Introducing the latest from NIS America, Makai Kingdom: Chronicles of the Sacred Tome, puts you in the shoes of the overlord “Lord Zetta”. As Lord Zetta you are the biggest and maddest overlord ever to rule the universe and nothing can stop you, nothing at all, or so he says. Trying to tell the story without spoiling it is pretty hard; I'll just go into the other fine details of this game. The game system and control schema are in the same vein as the previous titles that you may have played from NIS America , such as Phantom Brave or Disgaea. You have your bird's eye view of the battlefield and are able to rotate/zoom in and out. If you have played any Phantom Brave at all you would totally recognize the movement system, since it is a free roaming battle system and not tile based, which is a bit unusual for strategy RPGs. Newly introduced in the game is the use of vehicles and buildings. Vehicles will appear when you summon them, and then you can pop a unit into them and have a fully functioning vehicle ready to do damage. Vehicles do take up a unit slot on the battlefield, and I'll go into detail on this in a bit.

The other new addition is the use of buildings; the buildings can be used for a whole assortment of functions, ranging from passive effects to storage space. Just as in Phantom Brave, where you would receive the passive effect attribute from an object if you summoned your ally from that object, the same applies to the buildings in Makai Kingdom : If you place one of your units inside a building, then call that unit out, the unit would receive the structure's passive effect as a benefit. The effects vary from building to building; you can use a hospital that gives you a percentage amount of HP back every turn, or a building that strengthens your attack or defense. Before the battle begins you can pre-assemble units into buildings, and then during battle summon the structures onto the field, along with the units contained within them. When your buildings are out on the battlefield, they can also be occupied by the enemy. If the enemy enters a building occupied by your units and the turn ends, there will be a battle between the units inside the building with four factors; Strong, Buff, Norm, Weak. A “strong” unit would be one that is way over-leveled compared to all the other characters involved, “buff” would be one slightly higher level than the rest, and continuing to the lower leveled end of the scale the descriptors “norm” and “weak” are used.

There is a limit to how many units you can have out on the battlefield at any one time just like in any other strategy RPG. Lord Zetta, in the form of a book, is the source you draw upon to summon your units, the buildings, and even the vehicles.

Different from the other games is the score system. Each enemy and environmental item has a set amount of points, and as you kill or destroy them, their points will be awarded towards your score. Sometimes all the enemies will be worth zero points and the only enemy that is worth any points will be the boss. Also, if you replay a level, you will not get the same layout, as it is randomly generated with every play through.

The character creation is just as good as before, with many different variations of classes, demons, and monsters. There are your commonly seen classes - warrior, healer, mage, thief, merchant. Then you have hybrid classes like a ranged class with healing abilities. Also in this game you get to call upon the book to grant you different kinds of wishes, kind of like the council in Disgaea minus the voting. You can ask for many different things like having a specific unit become the group leader, renaming characters, even calling for new buildings - but do remember that with bigger wishes, not only do you need a lot of mana, your character asking for the wish might just die as a sacrifice. To ‘upgrade' your character you would need to sacrifice him or her, and then remake them from another item with their spirit. You can change their class, or if you like them as they are, just take on the more advanced upgrade.

All points considered, I highly recommend Makai Kingdom to everyone that enjoyed Disgaea, La Pucelle and Phantom Brave. Be sure to check it out when it is released later on this month!