Mystic Heroes (Gamecube) Review

Before i start, Mystic Heroes is a Gamecube Hack n' slash game released in 2002 that is actually a revamp of a Japanese only game called Fengshen Yanyi.

Story
When people start up the game they are greeted with a prologue of sorts explaining the events before the game. To some of you it may feel like you are starting halfway through and the reason is you technically are. The events you see are actually from Fengshen Yanyi 2 which like the first game was Japanese only.

In this game however the story is easily ignorable. The bad guys just happen to find a way out of their prison with an orb and want revenge on the good guys that put them there. The rest of the story is told in ultra tiny cutscenes and are really only there to tell you where you are going next. There is a tiny, tiny plot twist near the end but anyone can work it out ages before it actually happens.

It isn't all bad though, they do somehow manage to get the personalities out despite having no character development whatsoever and if you do want to know a little extra there is a Character Profiles option in the Extras Menu.

Characters
The characters are ok and seemed to use opposites with the four Playale Characters. Shiga is the confident Male who travels with Shy Female Lani where Tai, the Calm Male of the four travels with the Hot-Headed Female Naja.  It may interest you to mention that despite her appearance Naja is only Female in the Pal version of the game.

Some of the Bad guys actually look quite cool but mostly that is all they are. The lack of Cutscenes in the game only give a small idea of what the Bad guys are like and alot of them have no explanation other than they want revenge which in terms of backstory is rather plain.

However all the characters seem to have unique and interesting designs that i believe will probably be never mistaken for another character which i feel is a good thing these days.

Graphics
The graphics are kind of dull even to Gamecube standards, due to how bland and lifeless most of he stages seem (and the fact they are filled with the undead doesn't help). There is so little scenery in ANY of the stages.

Also the cutscenes, being quite unimportant, seem like they were rushed or lazily made. Characters don't seem to move much at all and if they do their animations can look a little dodgy. Being unimportant i can see why they didn't put that much effort in but i would of liked to see a little more put into them.

The characters themselves ingame are also very badly modeled. Despite the fact that characters may look quite young due to their size the official art depicts them as quite tall with shiga's sword being much smaller than it seems ingame. Conflicting sizes of this magnitude is usually only seen in 2d games and is slightly unwelcome in 3d games like this one.

Semi-Gameplaywise the Graphics engine can be overloaded way too easily by gathering as many enemies as possible into one group which causes most of them to go invisible which is almost 100% going to happen on higher difficulty settings.

The ingame enemy designs themselves are very boring. The 'mooks' consist of undead soldiers, Cyclops boxer things, Strange mummy things, Masked people, Jelly Fish, Boars and Wolves. Although some of these look ok from the start you will already find the animal based ones boring as soon as you see them and it won't take long for you to get tired of the rest once you've seen it a few hundred times throughout the game. There are 3 minibosses that appear during levels that are also quite boring .

The character bosses don't suffer what the other enemies do as they only appear once (because you kill them... again) and therefore won't be remembered for very long anyway. Their designs are quite good in my opinion and none of them look like a carbon copy of another one but that is the only thing good about them. The Big boss has an interesting design though that i actually quite like.

Gameplay
The game itself is like a normal Hack and slash game with the addition of a magic bar.

First i'll explain the controls in detail. Alonside your usual 'attack' (A) you also have a stronger sword attack (X) which infuses your sword with magic. If you use this attack when full you do a short combo. I find it annoying since it uses half of your magic bar but it can be useful sometimes.

By pressing the X button when jumping (B) you use a Jump spell, i like these as they are useful if you get yourself too surrounded but sometimes they prove pointless and frustrating.

The Y button is either a Direct attack or a Targeted attack depending on how long you hold the button. I find direct attacks rather pointless and it gets even more so on harder difficulties. The targeting spell however is useful for quite awhile. What i liked about it was the fact you could attack from afar and lure them over to you.

There is a block button (R) but it is shit. Like normal blocking in games it only shields in front of you but with the sheer amount of enemies you face at once one will ALWAYS sneak behind you. If you choose a direction while blocking you do a dodge roll, unlike the block this can be useful for getting out of trouble but sometimes even that doesn't work. The only real use of the block button is if you press and hold X as well which causes you to recharge your magic at the cost of no longer guarding. Its very useful but it can be a major time waster.

The element of your attack depends on runes you equip before you enter a stage. You are allowed 2 runes which come with a few attacks of various levels and usually a stat boost as well. The level of rune attacks you can equip depends on the level you have for that attack type. To level them up you just need to use them alot and is the reason the Mana Recharge (R+X) is useful. Something that i slightly liked was the ability to equip an attack 1 level higher than the ability level you had if its the same level as your character. The problem with that though is how it makes Tai a bit too easy as he has the same element as the most powerful targeting spell in the game which in my opinion is way too easy to unlock compared to how useful it is.

Despite being a hack n' slash game the enemies still annoy me, althoug there are small diefferences between the stages there are no diffences in the enemies at all. You fight the same enemies for the entire game. The last stage is basically a short boss run but even that has a massive problem, it is too easy compared to the rest of the game. The final boss can be killed with a barrage of Target attacks even on hard which makes the long trek through the game quite dissapointing.

Sound
If you've read up til now you may have noticed how dissapointing everything is. The sound in the game is the same. I can't say that the music is bad but it is unbelievably forgettable. Despite playing it not long before writing this all i can remember is that the menu music loops forever and gets annoying. I think the same music is used alot ingame but like i said its just that forgettable.

The voice acting is ok but i've never been able to get over the fact Naja sounds like she has a permanantly blocked nose. Thats really all there is for voice acting.

The sounds in the game are just as forgettable as the music. Hitting an enemy will always sound the same. Enemies dying also sound the same unless they special (they'll do a little death cry as well). I think the reason why they are so forgettable is because of how much you hear them throughout the game that at some point you start to automatically start ignoring them.

Other
Something that will definitely put you off buying at least the Gamecube version of the game is the fact that the PS2 version not only has a mission mode but you can also unlock 4 more characters.

Summary
This game just hasn't aged well at all. All the flaws it had back then now stick out like thorns and it really isn't worth playing anymore other than for nostalgia purposes. If you are actually interested in this game though get the PS2 version. The PS2 version has more stuff and therefore must be better.