Koei unveiled a new RPG for the PlayStation 2, Fengshen Yanyi, that is based on ancient Chinese history and features character design by well-known Japanese illustrator Takeshi Okazaki. The story is set in the ancient Shang Dynasty, three years after an evil god named Da Qi and his forces were banished from the land. However it seems that dark forces are appearing in China again and a group of sorcerers have been ordered to investigate the source of the evil. A random encounter between the sorcerers and a village boy named Shiga pulls the lad into the quest to defeat the dark forces.

Koei, the developer of Mystic Heroes, is well known for making games based on actual events from the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history, with a few fantasy elements thrown in. Mystic Heroes, while nearly identical to Koei's Three Kingdoms-based Dynasty Warriors series in terms of gameplay, is pure fantasy. The action can be described as a mix between Gauntlet and a moderate-to-low-complexity fighting game: Like in Gauntlet, you take on the role of a single warrior fighting against a horde of enemies, but instead of just having an attack button and a magic button, you have a decent variety of close-combat moves in addition to both long-range and short-range spells, combos, and defensive moves. The way combat plays out does a good job of putting you in the shoes of an impossibly powerful martial artist, and you'll routinely be dispatching 10 or 20 enemies at a time. The moves are all motion-captured and blend into each other so well that when you get good at the game, you'll be able to pull off some really impressive looking fights. If you liked the pacing and mechanics of Gauntlet or the old Final Fight style of side-scrolling beat-'em-ups, then Mystic Heroes is a great expansion and is an improvement on that sort of gameplay, with lots of well-rendered characters onscreen.

With two single-player modes (story and survival) and a variety of both cooperative and competitive multiplayer modes, it might seem like the game has more variety than its progenitors. But each mode is more or less the same: you vs. large numbers of enemies. The exceptions are the multiplayer versus match, where you can turn enemies off, and the mission mode, which are some short skill challenges like defeating all enemies within three minutes. When you first play, there are just four playable characters--who are somewhat differentiated by combat strength, magic power, and speed--but they all fight pretty much the same, though two of them are somewhat more suited to close combat, and the other two are slightly more powerful spellcasters. The PS2 version of Mystic Heroes adds four unlockable characters, but they aren't playable in story mode; unlocking them is mostly for the challenge, since they only add a little bit of variety to the non-story modes.

All of the game's characters can use spells, though, and the spell system clearly shows that Mystic Heroes has a lot of breadth but not much depth. There are four element types for the spells and four different spell categories. A category will have two or three spells of each element type. While this sounds like a lot of spells, your character can use only one spell of each category in a battle. Spells can be used as part of a combo or when your mana meter is full for different effects, but having only four spells per battle can wear a little thin by the time you get to the end. Even the addition of extra high-level spells for the PS2 version doesn't help.

You pick the spells by choosing two runes before a fight. A rune will have up to four spells on it, one in each category. If both your runes have a spell in the same category, you must pick which one you want to use. While the game boasts more than 70 different runes, the spell abilities that any given rune grants are often also found on many other runes. Furthermore, many of the spells in the same category but of different elements have only minor cosmetic and effect differences--for example, bouncing blue ice crystals instead of arcing red fireballs. Your spell choice does require you to make minute changes in how you play, but the end result is that in single-player and co-op modes, spell use becomes a little repetitive. Against another player, you don't have enough options to be unpredictable. Still, what Mystic Heroes lacks in depth it makes up for with nonstop action. It's even justifiable, considering the bulk of combat is against very weak enemies who don't need a lot of fancy moves to be defeated. Yet in a boss battle, against a friend, or just for fun, a little real variety would have extended the playability of the game. (Source: Gamespot)