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Shaman King: Legacy of the Spirits Review - GBA

For every game there is a clone. For every GTA, there's another car-stealing, gun-wielding hero to distract you. For every Mario there's a Tak. For every Halo, there's a Killzone. And for every Pokemon there's Shaman King.

In Shaman King, you take control of an aspiring young boy called Yoh. He sees dead people, and then steals their spirits and makes them fight against other people. You'll start off with the most basic of spirits and slowly level them up through fighting to learn better skills and abilities. Oh, and there's some loose story about saving the world or something. Yoh's helped out by the usual cowardly friend, evil nemesis and fiancé. You can save by simply going home - which also recovers all your health. The map just shows locations, and you can move over them as they are unlocked through the story. Each individual place is only a couple of GBA screens big - so don't expect any lengthy walking.

You won't just fight against the ghosts of karaoke singers - Ash...sorry, Yoh will fight other aspiring trainers and their spirits on the way to the top. Luckily, Yoh encounters a powerful kindred spirit who decides to help him on the way - and he's ridiculously powerful. If you spend some time training him at the beginning of the game you'll breeze through the rest.

Shaman King features random battles - like you'd expect of any RPG - but they appear so often that it is frustrating. Getting across the GBA screen can sometime result in five battles. Eventually, after taking five minutes just to cross an area, you get fed up. I turned the game off. And really...who would have thought that the ghosts of cats could be so much trouble?

Which segues nicely into the enthralling and perfectly designed battles. Not. The battles are boring (but the segue was brilliant). All you have to do is hit A. If you start with more health, and you're of a reasonable level, then yep - A is the way to go. There's meant to be types and elements that work against each other, but it's poorly explained. Sometimes, an attack is listed on the screen in yellow - these seem especially effective, but who can tell? You can trade out your spirit for another in your party (you can hold six at a time), and sacrifice a turn. And there are potions and items to help with status afflictions, as well as Pokebal...items to catch spirits in case you can't hit A enough to beat them in battle.

Shaman King is weird. Seriously. Apart from the fact that you fight the ghosts of cats and mice, as well as the aforementioned karaoke singers, the entire story just confused me. Capture enough spirits to become the Shaman King? Do I want to be the Shaman King? There's a crazy blend of Japanese environment and legend with Yoh's powers apparently Aztec in origin. And why ... (continued next page)