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Lost Kingdoms Review - Gamecube

Lost Kingdoms tells the story of a young princess on an adventure to save a kingdom from great evil. 5 kingdoms that were once in unity had been forced to abandon their alliance and even there home. All this because of a dark, evil fog surrounding the land. Only Katia can save the world by destroying the evil force behind this unholy act of injustice.

The story is hardly epic, but then again, neither is the game. It is your typical good guy must fight an evil force to save the kingdom. But I'm sure we can forgive a game for an average story line, I mean, we still like the Mario games don't we?

Gameplay

The game plays a lot like Final Fantasy minus the whole 'entertaining' part. You take control of Princess Katia and must travel through many different lands (well they are actually pretty similar sometimes) defeating any enemy that stands in your way. Your task it to save the Kingdom from the great evil that has burdened the place, as mentioned in the intro.

To defeat foe you must use a range of cards that have a variety of creatures within them. The beast's range from; wolves, plants, sword wielding dogs and much more. Just about every enemy in the game can eventually become someone for you to use. You can have four cards out with you at a time and they are assigned to X, Y, B and A. You can have 30 cards in a deck and you can edit your deck anytime except in a battle. The battle system is quite unique, an original concept, that's for sure.

The game requires, like most RPG's, a strategic mindset. You have to be organised if you are too succeed. Failure to abide by this simple yet vital advice will send you packing. There are plenty of options for you too tweak; cards to use, combining powers, discarding unwanted cards - again, this is where careful planning becomes important.

When an enemy approaches you, you will enter into a 'battle arena' (the arena is just the area your were in, only cut down in size). Now in this arena you can walk around and use your cards to battle whatever enemies may arise. Sadly, this is about as much as the game offers. There are some tough boss fights along the way but there is not alot variety to entertain you for long.

When you look at it on pen and paper - unique battle system, raging beasts, powerups and collectable items - it really sounds like your average RPG, or B grade movie, but the finesse is lacking in LK, and only a person dedicated to using his brain over brawn in a game will find it truly entertaining. Despite my negative feedback, LK does have some good aspects. The battle system is good fun for a while, not as slow as the (continued next page)