Despite the name, Magna Carta is not about the famous English legal document of 1215 but a completely unrelated franchise from Korean software developer Softmax. Magna Carta: Tears of Blood was a fairly obscure RPG release for the PlayStation 2 in late 2005. Unusually enough, it was actually a sequel to a Korean-only PC RPG known as Magna Carta: The Phantom of Avalanche, although the two are unconnected except for some recurring names. Their selling point was actually artwork by Korean artist Hyung-Tae Kim, and their connection had more to do with them sharing Kim's art than anything else. MagnaCarta 2, now all one word, continues this tradition. It's completely unconnected to the other games in the series but serves as a vehicle to show off more of Kim's designs, and despite being billed as a sequel, it's its own game.

MagnaCarta 2 stars a young man named Juto. As is the tradition with these sorts of protagonists, he has amnesia. Not long ago, he woke up on the shores of a small island, and the people adopted him and let him live amongst them. Unfortunately, Juto's peaceful life is shattered when war comes to the island. The Kingdom of Lanzheim is currently embroiled in a civil war between the Northern Forces, a group of usurpers who killed the previous queen during a coup, and the Southern Forces, led by the princess Rzephillda. The two clash on the island as they try to find a mysterious weapon known as the Guardian, the key to creating an army of near-unstoppable super soldiers.

There's no way around it: MagnaCarta 2's plot is clichéd. There doesn't seem to be a single original or innovative character in the entire game. From the young, amnesic protagonist with a heart of gold and a dark past to the unsure and often-kidnapped princess and the hot-headed fire mage, each character embodies every possible cliché you can imagine. The plot isn't much better, either. You can tell who is going to be good or evil from the moment you encounter them, you can probably guess every character's plot twist when they first show up, and the story line doesn't do an interesting thing in the entire game, right down to an ending that feels forced. The game feels like it was created by a dartboard filled with RPG clichés, and as a result, it's not enjoyable to sit through the lengthy story scenes.

MagnaCarta 2 is interesting in that it is built more like an MMORPG than a traditional one. There are a small number of set areas in the game, and while the plot tends to move you from location to location, you'll visit the same places over and over. The plot is usually progressed by locating quest-givers and accepting their missions. Some quests are mandatory, some are optional, but they're all worthwhile. The missions reward you with huge amounts of experience points, money and rare items. The only unfortunate part is that most missions also mirror the MMORPG idea. You go to a place, kill a certain enemy or number of enemies, and return to get your reward. There are only a handful of interesting missions in the game, and most of those involve fighting a huge boss creature or playing a short mini-game. The overall game structure is pretty fun, and it can be addictive to try and complete every quest in the game.

Exploring the overworld is also done in an MMORPG style. There are no "random battles" or anything like that; each area is its own self-contained land where monsters wander around, and you can choose to engage them or not. The only gimmick to exploring comes in the form of Field Skills. Each character in the game has a unique Field Skill, which allows him or her to do things that others can't. Juto can kick objects, for example, while your mages can do anything from disable a bomb with an electric blast to setting a barricade on fire to knock it down. Unfortunately, these Field Skills are drastically underused. Except for Juto's kick ability, you'll never use any of them more than a handful of times. Furthermore, certain missions require Juto to be in the lead of your party, so there is very little reason to walk around as the other characters. At first, the game forces you to explore a certain area, but by the midway point of the second disc, you'll have gained access to a transportation service, which allows you to revisit old areas at will.

The combat system in MagnaCarta 2 is odd and a bit complex. Players take control of three characters at a time, although they only directly control one of them. You can enter and leave combat mode at any time by pressing a button. All battles take place on the field map, so you have complete control over how, when and where you encounter enemies. Once you enter Battle mode, your characters draw their weapons and begin to attack. You directly control your leader and move him around to attack enemies. Attacking is simple: Press the A button to attack, and press it multiple times to perform a combo. You can press X to use your currently selected special attack, or press the right trigger to switch specials. You can switch characters at any time by using the d-pad, which lets you take control of whoever is best for the certain situation. Each character also has a character-specific special move, which he can perform under certain situations. For example, the main character, Juto, can counter an enemy's attack, which damages and breaks the foe's weapon. Ninja-mage Rue can occasionally instantly kill an enemy. These special abilities happen semi-randomly but can change the course of battle when they do occur.

It's important to note each character in the game has two available styles, which are the kind of weapon they're using. Fire Mage Crocell, for example, defaults to the Fireball style, which means he casts magic from a distance. He can also use Knuckle style, which turns him into a close-range fighter. Party healer and wind mage Zephie can use a Rod for powerful healing spells or a Fan, which is better at building up the area's Kan (more on that in a bit). Each style also has a unique special ability, which can alter a character's usefulness. The only problem with this is that there are certain styles that are just more effective. Rue's Katana style, for example, gives her access to the aforementioned instant kill ability and makes her close-range combat abilities by and far the best in the game. There's no reason to use the other style, Shuriken, because it offers no benefits. There are only one or two characters for whom the style choice really matters. Everyone else is going to pick the "good" style and never switch from it.

Perhaps the most interesting part of about the MagnaCarta 2 combat system is how magic works. Magic in the MagnaCarta 2 world is powered by Kan, which is basically the energy of the world around the characters. Kan comes in five types: Fire, Lightning, Strength, Water and Wind. Strength Kan is the power source for your physical fighter's combat abilities and is gathered as they perform regular attacks. Each regular attack builds a little Kan, which is stored for later use. The real twist comes when you refer to the game's four magicians. Each one corresponds to one of the four elements and requires those elements to use his or her magic. Each area in the game has a default level of Kan for each of the four elemental types. A grassy field by a lake may have high Wind and Water Kan levels, but no Fire or Lightning. Likewise, a burning battlefield may be high in Fire and Wind, but lack in Water. The higher the default Kan of an area, the more MP these magic users have to begin with.

However, the best spells in the game tend to require more MP than you'll get from the natural Kan of an area. As a character fights, he'll build up the Kan of the area in which he's fighting. This built-up Kan, however, is far more limited than Strength Kan because it only lasts for a brief period of time and can't be stored. Once a character moves away from the area where he builds up Kan, he loses the accrued Kan. On the flip side, magicians tend to be more versatile and powerful than their physical counterparts and will always have access to a certain amount of Kan, allowing them to cast low-level spells as often as they want. This is particularly useful for healing or buffing spells, which can be cast almost without limit.

The real limit to your combat abilities in MagnaCarta 2 is Stamina. Each character has a Stamina bar, which fills up as they attack, cast magic or dash. The more powerful your attack or magic, the more Stamina it costs. If you use more Stamina than your character's bar, he'll go into a temporary super mode where his attacks do more damage. This mode only lasts until your Stamina bar fills up twice over or until you stop attacking. At this point, the character will overheat and be unable to move or attack until he cools down, at which point his Stamina bar is still full, and you have to wait some more before you can attack again.

However, it's possible to use your overheated status to your advantage. When a character is overheated by using a special attack or magic spell, you can switch to another character for a "chain." While chaining, you have a brief window in which this new character can attack while maintaining the damage benefits of the other character's overheat. If, while doing this, you manage to fill up your stamina bar, you'll enter into an even more powerful mode, where your character's damage is twice its normal strength. This is where the major risk comes, though. If you overheat this second character, then two of your three characters will be incapable of moving or attacking, extremely limiting your combat options. However, if you use a special attack while in this extra-powerful mode, you'll perform a Chain Break, which instantly cures the overheat status and restores the Stamina of both characters involved. If you perform a successful Chain Break, you'll be able to perform a powerful series of moves and get right back to combat without having to pause.

The combat system in MagnaCarta 2 is pretty interesting, but unfortunately, the game doesn't really live up to that. Early on, you have to balance your attacks or figure out which move is best to use in which situation, but that dies out as soon as you get 8-Kan attacks, which are the best attacks available. They do damage great enough to basically one-shot every foe you encounter, and you can get them extremely early in the game. Once you get these attacks, every boss encounter simply involves building up your Kan to eight and chaining together two 8-Kans. In most cases, that will do enough damage to brutally wound, if not kill, the boss. Any strategy or element of strategy is thrown out the window as you simply chain together 8-Kan attacks again and again. You'll eventually gain access to unlimited healing spells, so running out of hit points is never an issue.

There was a battle early in the second disc where I thought I would actually see a challenge, but I discovered midway through utterly trashing the boss that it was a fight that I was supposed to lose. The difficulty skewed so low that the game had to actively force the boss to win because he wasn't capable of killing my characters. The regular enemies in the game are not fun to fight, but for other reasons. As the game progresses, enemy HP gets more inflated, but their overall threat to your characters doesn't. As a result, you spend more time smacking enemies who are basically incapable of killing you. Thankfully, you can run by a lot of them, but the areas where you can't become extremely tedious, as you beat the same handful of foes over and over again.

Combat is also modified slightly by Kamonds, which are a sort of crystal that can be slotted into your character's weapons. Each weapon has a Kamond Board, which is unique to that weapon. Depending on the color of the crystal, you can slot it into certain areas on the board. A red crystal, for example, can be slotted into a red slot, any slot whose color is made by mixing red with other colors, or a clear slot. Once slotted, these Kamonds improve the overall attributes of your character, ranging from increased attack to lowering the number of Kan that spells take. If you fill up a board with Kamonds, you may unlock additional boards on that weapon to equip more Kamonds. If you fill up every board on a weapon, you can even unlock new special attributes. It's a neat system and allows for a lot of customization, but it isn't really necessary. The boosts are substantial, but the game is so easy that there is no real benefit to making it much easier. You're best off slotting Attack or Spirit boosts to every Kamond Board so you can get through random battles faster.

MagnaCarta 2 actually suffers from the chosen art design. As mentioned before, the game's characters were designed by Kim, whose art is focused on extremely hypersexualized designs, where basic anatomy is disregarded to show you more of the character's "assets." As you can imagine, this sort of design doesn't translate well to 3-D visuals, so all the characters look a little "off," and their expressions and body language often come across as doll-like and creepy. Furthermore, the way the game handles cut scenes is rather weird. Taking a page from Enchanted Arms, the majority of the cut scenes consist of two 3-D models looking into blank space as they wave their hands around and try to mimic natural body movement. The fully animated cut scenes look better but seem to occur randomly and for the most bizarre things. The character models, despite looking creepy, are well-done, and there are some nice attack animations. The world is a bit bland but serviceable, and there is some noticeable repetition, particularly among enemy types. The game only has a handful of enemies and favors pallet swaps to an extreme degree. Even bosses show up as pallet-swaps from time to time.

MagnaCarta 2 has a nice soundtrack, but it is overshadowed by the extremely lackluster voice acting. While some of the voice actors do a reasonable job, a good number of them seem to have absolutely no idea what they're reading, and a number of the lines come across more as actors unbelievably reading off a script instead of actually emoting the lines. In particular, Zephie seems hesitant and unsure about everything she's saying, and she rarely puts any emotion into her lines. It isn't unbearably bad, but the voice acting is generally sub-par in every area, and since the plot is so generic, it makes the cut scenes even more tedious. Even worse, the most annoying characters have the most lines, so you'll have to listen to squeaky-voiced Celestine far more than the rather competent Argo, even though the former joins you far later in the game.

MagnaCarta 2 is a reasonably fun, but rather flawed, RPG. The difficulty skews entirely too low to allow the incredibly interesting battle system to shine. The early game segments tend to be more fun than the later areas, and the boss battles are so easy that they become a ridiculous joke. This low difficulty level might be more forgivable if other aspects were more interesting, but they're not. The plot is as cookie-cutter and clichéd as they come, and the graphics are bland at best and creepy at worst. MagnaCarta 2 isn't a terrible choice if you're looking for an RPG to tide you over. Despite all the problems, it can be rather fun, and there is a lot of potential. It's just not good enough to overcome its abundance of problems, so the interesting ideas end up buried. As a result, MagnaCarta 2 will probably only be fun for those die-hard RPG fans who are looking for an X360 game to tide them over between big releases.

Score: 7.0/10