Magic Pengel is a fun, short (~13h for me), cute RPG game where you draw your monsters and fight battles in the arena to help a girl win her house back. It's also very much a budget title, and you can see it in every aspect of it.
The small OST, repeated (and low quality) voicelines, rudimentary... everything. And long, loooooong loading screen between the few areas in the game. And the simplistic gameplay loop that goes like this:
Cutscene at home -> walk to the plaza (load) -> walk to arena (load) -> battle -> walk back (load) -> walk back (load) -> cutscene -> repeat
If doodling wasn't fun and the game wasn't so charming I would take off a lot more points for how obscene the loading screens are, even for a budget title.
The battles are doable, it's rock paper scissors which means there is some luck involved, but you can strategize your way through once it clicks. It's a very kid-friendly easy game, which means you don't lose anything if you die, even the final boss gauntlet lets you pick up from the phase you were at just to spare you any possible headache.
It's worth a try if you think RPG where you fight with your doodles is fun, but the loading can absolutely kill it for some people.
The small OST, repeated (and low quality) voicelines, rudimentary... everything. And long, loooooong loading screen between the few areas in the game. And the simplistic gameplay loop that goes like this:
Cutscene at home -> walk to the plaza (load) -> walk to arena (load) -> battle -> walk back (load) -> walk back (load) -> cutscene -> repeat
If doodling wasn't fun and the game wasn't so charming I would take off a lot more points for how obscene the loading screens are, even for a budget title.
The battles are doable, it's rock paper scissors which means there is some luck involved, but you can strategize your way through once it clicks. It's a very kid-friendly easy game, which means you don't lose anything if you die, even the final boss gauntlet lets you pick up from the phase you were at just to spare you any possible headache.
It's worth a try if you think RPG where you fight with your doodles is fun, but the loading can absolutely kill it for some people.
really great game
just about anything your cruel, wicked hands can make using funny, rudimentary drawing tools is available here tightened together with both a charming artstyle and ost (when it isn't complete dead silence, sfx included). apparently ghibli had a hand in this and it shows with the magical design of the game's city hub and its simple but cute cast of citizens. the dialogue they spit out's bone dry unfortunately, but i'm figuring this is more of a case of cleaned up we-don't-give-a-shit machine translation than it is the japanese dev's fault.
anyway you make hideous or cute or both rock-paper-scissor fighting pokemon and battle in of two arenas for four hours--i didn't venture past that much. and it's not as if the gameplay loop isn't funny, but it's less so when grinding is inevitable and the sameyness dulls your excitement. the voice actors sound about as excited as the story writer
but frankly for those four hours, i had a ton of fun. victor frankensteining red limbs and blue teeth and calling it "DENTIST" is fun, and seeing him and an among us melon clobber a bunny earns way too much a smile. it's just i could sense the writing wasn't going to get any better, the location wasn't going to change any time soon, the educated guessing games were running together, and a glitch crippled "DETER" the well dressed corn
https://imgur.com/a/DBdgBGk
anyway you make hideous or cute or both rock-paper-scissor fighting pokemon and battle in of two arenas for four hours--i didn't venture past that much. and it's not as if the gameplay loop isn't funny, but it's less so when grinding is inevitable and the sameyness dulls your excitement. the voice actors sound about as excited as the story writer
but frankly for those four hours, i had a ton of fun. victor frankensteining red limbs and blue teeth and calling it "DENTIST" is fun, and seeing him and an among us melon clobber a bunny earns way too much a smile. it's just i could sense the writing wasn't going to get any better, the location wasn't going to change any time soon, the educated guessing games were running together, and a glitch crippled "DETER" the well dressed corn
https://imgur.com/a/DBdgBGk
I will be upfront here and admit that my initial impression of Magic Pengel was underwhelming. The first couple of hours felt extremely plodding, thanks to the opening glut of story cutscenes with awkward voice acting, the lack of part variety to attach to your Doodles (your drawable monsters for battle), and the initial grind for more colors necessary to both draw and further develop your Doodles. This initial grind can be a nightmare because a lot of the fightable villagers will easily outclass you in terms of sheer stats and stall you out by using Charge every other turn to heal off more damage than you can inflict, so you’ll end up wasting your arena time if you happen to challenge a super tough villager since there’s also no way to forfeit a match. It also doesn’t help that there’s a half minute loading screen every time you need to move to a new area in the overworld, so you’ll end up sitting through over a minute of loading screens moving between the two main arenas alone since there’s no fast travel and you’ll have to pass through the market every time. Not a great start for a seemingly great premise!
Get past this initial roadblock by winning a few arena matches and gaining enough resources to thoroughly flesh out your Doodles with better stats, however, and the game starts to find its footing. Combat is almost entirely turn-based rock-paper-scissors (magic trumps attack, attack trumps block, block trumps magic) with some degree of mind games. This fortunately does get a bit more complex later on; landing magic spells can inflict status effects such as paralysis and sleep upon foes, as well as temporarily lock or punish types of attacks depending on the spell used. This essentially adds another layer to the mind games, aside from the aforementioned Charge for healing/powering-up the next attack/resetting neutral; thus, combat isn't just mindlessly following the advantage triangle specified above. In addition, the colors and parts used (i.e. adding limbs, wings, a held weapon, etc) drastically change both your stat and skill distribution (explained in more detail here and here ), and since your drawing capabilities and max capacity are increased with each arena win, you’ll likely be redrawing your Doodles all the time anyways to keep up with the tougher fights while tinkering with new and expanded loadouts. Simultaneously, it becomes a lot easier to farm resources since your Doodles will finally have enough attack power to deal more damage than opponents can heal off with Charge, and you’ll earn significantly more of each color (a few thousand as opposed to a few hundred in the early game) upon victories. While Magic Pengel’s combat never reaches the depth of similar monster battling systems such as Pokemon, I nevertheless found it easy enough to get into the rhythm of the progression loop once I got past the opening grind, and it served as a solid podcast game that vaguely reminded me of my days laddering on Pokemon Showdown.
A word of warning though: as much fun as it is sketching crude creatures with your Pengel and watching your crayon abominations destroy developer-drawn Doodles with much more effort put into sketching, that is unfortunately just about all that this game has to offer. Magic Pengel’s narrative touches upon some interesting lore and story beats concerning both the world of color and the supporting cast (such as your friend Zoe’s connection with her missing foster father, a renowned Doodler that once worked for the king), but the game never goes into too much detail with its sparse storytelling, and it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger as your friends decide to set off on another adventure. While you can sell spare colors for gold gems, there’s not much to purchase from shopkeepers; you can buy a few brushes to further adjust your line thickness, but the only other items on offer are Doodles, and there’s no point in buying those when you’ll get far more utility out of drawing your own (especially because you can’t delete any part of a Doodle drawn by an NPC). Finally, the game is a bit lacking in post-game content. The only unlocked features are a new arena where you can engage in 1 v 3 or 2 v 3 fights for higher rewards, as well as a hidden boss that can be fought if you somehow grind one million gold gems. As such, I have to concede that a lot of the Magic Pengel’s surrounding elements could have used some more time in the oven.
Ultimately, I prefer the game’s spiritual successor Graffiti Kingdom for its more succinct runtime and expanded drawing utensils. Even so, I mostly enjoyed my time with Magic Pengel (the quaint charm and artstyle admittingly a big reason why), and I’d say it’s worth checking out if you want a taste of one of more creative monster collecting/creating games out there. I think Taito had something really special on their hands with this formula, and it’s a shame we’ll never see a game in this vein from them again.
Get past this initial roadblock by winning a few arena matches and gaining enough resources to thoroughly flesh out your Doodles with better stats, however, and the game starts to find its footing. Combat is almost entirely turn-based rock-paper-scissors (magic trumps attack, attack trumps block, block trumps magic) with some degree of mind games. This fortunately does get a bit more complex later on; landing magic spells can inflict status effects such as paralysis and sleep upon foes, as well as temporarily lock or punish types of attacks depending on the spell used. This essentially adds another layer to the mind games, aside from the aforementioned Charge for healing/powering-up the next attack/resetting neutral; thus, combat isn't just mindlessly following the advantage triangle specified above. In addition, the colors and parts used (i.e. adding limbs, wings, a held weapon, etc) drastically change both your stat and skill distribution (explained in more detail here and here ), and since your drawing capabilities and max capacity are increased with each arena win, you’ll likely be redrawing your Doodles all the time anyways to keep up with the tougher fights while tinkering with new and expanded loadouts. Simultaneously, it becomes a lot easier to farm resources since your Doodles will finally have enough attack power to deal more damage than opponents can heal off with Charge, and you’ll earn significantly more of each color (a few thousand as opposed to a few hundred in the early game) upon victories. While Magic Pengel’s combat never reaches the depth of similar monster battling systems such as Pokemon, I nevertheless found it easy enough to get into the rhythm of the progression loop once I got past the opening grind, and it served as a solid podcast game that vaguely reminded me of my days laddering on Pokemon Showdown.
A word of warning though: as much fun as it is sketching crude creatures with your Pengel and watching your crayon abominations destroy developer-drawn Doodles with much more effort put into sketching, that is unfortunately just about all that this game has to offer. Magic Pengel’s narrative touches upon some interesting lore and story beats concerning both the world of color and the supporting cast (such as your friend Zoe’s connection with her missing foster father, a renowned Doodler that once worked for the king), but the game never goes into too much detail with its sparse storytelling, and it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger as your friends decide to set off on another adventure. While you can sell spare colors for gold gems, there’s not much to purchase from shopkeepers; you can buy a few brushes to further adjust your line thickness, but the only other items on offer are Doodles, and there’s no point in buying those when you’ll get far more utility out of drawing your own (especially because you can’t delete any part of a Doodle drawn by an NPC). Finally, the game is a bit lacking in post-game content. The only unlocked features are a new arena where you can engage in 1 v 3 or 2 v 3 fights for higher rewards, as well as a hidden boss that can be fought if you somehow grind one million gold gems. As such, I have to concede that a lot of the Magic Pengel’s surrounding elements could have used some more time in the oven.
Ultimately, I prefer the game’s spiritual successor Graffiti Kingdom for its more succinct runtime and expanded drawing utensils. Even so, I mostly enjoyed my time with Magic Pengel (the quaint charm and artstyle admittingly a big reason why), and I’d say it’s worth checking out if you want a taste of one of more creative monster collecting/creating games out there. I think Taito had something really special on their hands with this formula, and it’s a shame we’ll never see a game in this vein from them again.
Will forever hold a special place in my heart and is a fun game if you can see past it's glaring flaws. Drawing dudes is incredibly fun.. but the rock-paper-scissors combat is entirely luck based and can make the game drag on for no reason. It also takes a while to unlock enough to really make use of the tools they give you. The sequel expands on the concept a bit more and is worth a try.
Drawing dudes is a cool idea but uhh... still not great.