Softmax desperately wanted to make South Korea's answer to FFX, and in shooting for the stars they created a game so messy that it had to be recalled. As someone who had the game crash twice, spent days trying to get it to run, three softlocks, and had every fade to black not render correctly, I can see why.
At it's heart, Magna Carta is a JRPG using, what is effectively, a modified version of the battle system from Quest 64. You move within a predefined circle (size is determined by your DEX stat) and all of your attacks have a radius, and any enemy in that radius is targetable. What actually defines an enemy as being in the radius is hard to determine. I think it's based on the position of the model in 3D space, and the rendered model itself. This means like half of the model could be inside the AoE, but not register because you didn't include the magic pixel that represents their location. You spend points to do actions, and any points not spent heal you. This is the only way to heal beyond single character having healing magic. You heal after every fight, so this isn't really any issue outside of boss fights.
Fight's at the beginning of Magna Carta suck because you have no abilities and enemies do a shit ton of damage, making most fights feel insanely tough. Fight's at the end of Magna Carta suck because you are so powerful the enemies are a joke. Truly the difficuly curve of all time. Pro tip for the early game, talk to every NPC three times. Almost every NPC gives an item after this, and these can really help you get an edge on the earlier fights. No, the game does not tell you this is a thing.
Environments in Magna Carta are pretty linear. You mainly walk through admittedly pretty hallways. Even dungeons are just winding hallways with some branches for goodies and a boss fight at the find. There aren't many interactable objects
or puzzles in these dungeons, outside of one where you have to defeat multiple smaller enemy groups to spawn the boss. Really, the highlights of the dungeons are getting new weapons and abilities, as it is admittedly quite fun seeing what moves you get, since you actually decide between a couple of choices.
Bolstering this is the game's namesake Carta system. Instead of traditional EXP, you gain points for seven elements. Each element can be attached to stat of a character, and then those earned points can be used to enhance said stat. Now, since the pool of points is shared, every point distribution becomes a zero sum game. If one character gets a fire point to up their HP, that's a fire point that can't go another character to up their STR. It becomes a fun balancing act especially as you try to get builds right and keep everyone battle ready stats wise. This system also allows for easy respeccing, which I did on occasion with certain trickier boss fights. It also means extra party that aren't fighting aren't completely useless, as the points they join the party with can be removed from them and given to the characters you are using.
The game's story is really the highlight. It's a windy tale, and it's even got some decent voice acting behind it (even if the some of the voice acting clip the mics waaaaay too much). I don't want to give too much away here since I do genuinely want people to experience it. They even did the FF thing of just throwing in some FMV every now and then, although not too much. They didn't have the budget for it. It gets a little nutso by the end, but honestly it's not out of the realm of anything you'd see in a typical JRPG plot. Clearly, of everyone on the development team, the writers got the most time to craft the world and characters and make this story shine.
If you ever get the game to run, I highly recommend playing this game. It's unbridled ambition held back by budgetary constraints and the developer's own limitations. The game's intro cinematic shows a lot of stuff just not in the game, so I wouldn't be surprised if tons of things got left on the cutting room floor.
Magna Carta's wants to be so much more than what it is, but what it is is insanely fascinating. It's a deep story, great music, and Hyung-tae Kim's beautiful character designs and art all couched in some of the most jank gameplay you will ever experience. Magna Carta is the kind of 6/10 jank that if it had released on the PS2 in English would've ended up in a bunch of 'hidden gems' videos on Youtube. I've personally always been more partial to a game that tries and fails than something that plays it way too safe, and Magna Carta absolutely tries hard and absolutely fails spectacularly.
I don't know if I can say I liked Magna Carta, but I'm glad I got to experience it.
At it's heart, Magna Carta is a JRPG using, what is effectively, a modified version of the battle system from Quest 64. You move within a predefined circle (size is determined by your DEX stat) and all of your attacks have a radius, and any enemy in that radius is targetable. What actually defines an enemy as being in the radius is hard to determine. I think it's based on the position of the model in 3D space, and the rendered model itself. This means like half of the model could be inside the AoE, but not register because you didn't include the magic pixel that represents their location. You spend points to do actions, and any points not spent heal you. This is the only way to heal beyond single character having healing magic. You heal after every fight, so this isn't really any issue outside of boss fights.
Fight's at the beginning of Magna Carta suck because you have no abilities and enemies do a shit ton of damage, making most fights feel insanely tough. Fight's at the end of Magna Carta suck because you are so powerful the enemies are a joke. Truly the difficuly curve of all time. Pro tip for the early game, talk to every NPC three times. Almost every NPC gives an item after this, and these can really help you get an edge on the earlier fights. No, the game does not tell you this is a thing.
Environments in Magna Carta are pretty linear. You mainly walk through admittedly pretty hallways. Even dungeons are just winding hallways with some branches for goodies and a boss fight at the find. There aren't many interactable objects
or puzzles in these dungeons, outside of one where you have to defeat multiple smaller enemy groups to spawn the boss. Really, the highlights of the dungeons are getting new weapons and abilities, as it is admittedly quite fun seeing what moves you get, since you actually decide between a couple of choices.
Bolstering this is the game's namesake Carta system. Instead of traditional EXP, you gain points for seven elements. Each element can be attached to stat of a character, and then those earned points can be used to enhance said stat. Now, since the pool of points is shared, every point distribution becomes a zero sum game. If one character gets a fire point to up their HP, that's a fire point that can't go another character to up their STR. It becomes a fun balancing act especially as you try to get builds right and keep everyone battle ready stats wise. This system also allows for easy respeccing, which I did on occasion with certain trickier boss fights. It also means extra party that aren't fighting aren't completely useless, as the points they join the party with can be removed from them and given to the characters you are using.
The game's story is really the highlight. It's a windy tale, and it's even got some decent voice acting behind it (even if the some of the voice acting clip the mics waaaaay too much). I don't want to give too much away here since I do genuinely want people to experience it. They even did the FF thing of just throwing in some FMV every now and then, although not too much. They didn't have the budget for it. It gets a little nutso by the end, but honestly it's not out of the realm of anything you'd see in a typical JRPG plot. Clearly, of everyone on the development team, the writers got the most time to craft the world and characters and make this story shine.
If you ever get the game to run, I highly recommend playing this game. It's unbridled ambition held back by budgetary constraints and the developer's own limitations. The game's intro cinematic shows a lot of stuff just not in the game, so I wouldn't be surprised if tons of things got left on the cutting room floor.
Magna Carta's wants to be so much more than what it is, but what it is is insanely fascinating. It's a deep story, great music, and Hyung-tae Kim's beautiful character designs and art all couched in some of the most jank gameplay you will ever experience. Magna Carta is the kind of 6/10 jank that if it had released on the PS2 in English would've ended up in a bunch of 'hidden gems' videos on Youtube. I've personally always been more partial to a game that tries and fails than something that plays it way too safe, and Magna Carta absolutely tries hard and absolutely fails spectacularly.
I don't know if I can say I liked Magna Carta, but I'm glad I got to experience it.