AUTHOR: SEGA RELEASE: 1989 TYP: RPG SPIELER: 1 LEVEL: - SPRACHE: Englisch Partnumber: 9003 EAN: 4974365635237 WERT: 40 Euro

It's a Sega quest of a lifetime featuring graphic text adventure and high-powered action scenes! You are Kane, the SpellCaster warrior of Summit Temple. You have mastered the art of shooting Ki Force from your finger-tips. With magic spells you have the power to call down the strength of the Gods! Now an army of evil is sweeping the countryside, destroying temples and villages. You have been called into battle to discover who the enemy is…and what is at the heart of their evil plans. It's an adventure that will take you above and even below ground, across time, space and even into the Land of the Dead! As you battle strange creatures and gain the use of magical weapons, you'll learn the truth behind the attacks and much about your destiny as an eternal warrior of truth and justice! Live through the final battle and you'll discover what it really means to be called SpellCaster!

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You are Kane, the warrior monk. You have spent all your life studying and training with your wise master Daikak at Summit Temple. You can cast fireballs of pure ki at your enemies or call the gods to do your bidding. Never have you cherished pretension in your heart nor had other purpose than the pursuit of virtue. Yet a higher destiny awaited you amongst all others, and now the time is finally come. The utmost evil is about to awake and only you will be able to stop it! (Disclaimer: I kind of made that up myself.) You're sent by your master to investigate some strange goings-on, and you'll gradually unveil events that menace the very peaceful existence of your world. Your journeys will take you across many regions of a fantastic world, and beneath its seabed, riding an ancient spaceship to an alien pyramid, to the Underworld where you must convince the gods themselves to aid you willingly or by force, and finally to the sky where you must face the ultimate battle. Rock'n roll! This is a very engaging game with a very nice mix of genres. It's actually made up of two modes of play, both of which would be nothing so special on their own, but together make a great combination: adventure and action. The story advances in a kind of graphic adventure interface with limited options, and some manga pixel art that greatly adds to the quality. Be warned that there are puzzles and you're likely to get stuck in some of them at some times. The story is actually not very original (save the Universe), but then again most RPGs have unoriginal plots–if they can be called plots at all. On the other hand it's very well developed, one of the game's strong points is the world it's set in. Frankly, the fantasy found in this game is very hard to find outside Japan. Anyway keep in mind that this game, and the manga it's (loosely) based upon, are from the 80s, so it graphically resembles for example Knights of the Zodiac (Saint Seiya) more than present manga. Besides all this there's the action mode. When you travel from one place to another you're likely to encounter opposition, and then the mode of play changes completely and you won't have menus any longer, instead you must manoeuvre Kane within a side-scrolling display (the last stage is an exception but I'll disclose no more about it!). You can jump nimbly, and shoot fireballs from your hands, being also able to charge for a while so that they're more powerful. What's more, you've got an array of spells available, or actually gods you can pray to, although their usage is limited unlike the standard attack. The effects of these spells are varied, some are special attacks, while others are protective, or healing, or enable you to fly! By the way these spells are equally available in the adventure mode, but then they will be only useful for specific puzzles, and you must know what each spell is about and what you want to do. (For example if you want to burn something praying to the god of fire may do the trick, but he won't help you to exorcize evil spirits, for that you need to open the path to the Temple of the Phoenix–duh!.) The enemies you'll fight are mostly diverse forms of evil spirits, actually very diverse, I mean there are dozens of different ones throughout the worlds you travel–which is good. But of course no classic action title would be complete without the spice added by bosses, and of course every once in a while you must defeat a boss to progress, be it an enemy warrior with powers no less amazing than your own or a nightmarish apparition of whatever sort. Some of them are tricky, but most aren't difficult; actually I miss some more serious challenge in this area. This game is usually regarded as a RPG, but it does certainly not adhere to the standards of hard-core RPGs. It's not as long and there isn't such a strong component of character development, it's more like an adventure. When battling enemies, success or failure won't depend on just having amassed „more XP than Microsoft“, but on the player's skill above all. Still this game may appeal a lot to RPG fans, as well as pretty much to anyone with a sane taste. […] I must admit this is a personal favourite, because of the rich gameplay and great atmosphere. In my opinion the reason why it didn't become very famous is because of the limited circulation the Sega Master System enjoyed, otherwise it would likely have got up there into the RPG hall of fame. Still it's held very dear by many people who got to know it back at the time. There was a sequel after all, for the Mega Drive/Genesis, purely action platformer (boo). - www.Mobygames.com