Review Tongari Boushi To Mahou no Machi

Some time ago I played a lot Tongari Boushi to Mahou no Machi, or Magician’s Quest part 4, on my Japanese 3DS. I made this review for the game on Japanesenintendo.com, and signed my name under the petition begging Konami to finally release the game West.

They didn’t budge, and sadly the petition is closed now. But translating the Japanese as well as I could with my limited knowledge of the language, I made this document too with some translations of part of the game.

I’ve had a lot of requests to share the document, so I thought I might as well share it with you all here.  It’s far from complete, but it will get you started. If you want to give the Japanese game a try, be my guest and download the doc.

Downloadable doc MagiciansQuest4inJapanese

Here’s the review that will tell you more about the game:

Magician’s Quest or Enchanted Folk

Are you an Animal Crossing fan? Then chances are that you’ve heard of the game Magician’s Quest, or Enchanted Folk and the School of Wizardry that was released in the West in 2009. Most AC fans liked it, the game got a score of 69 out of 100 at Metacritic. The basic idea was a familiar one: Decorating your room in a pleasing way, interacting with friends, collecting mushrooms and flowers, trying to fill up the catalogue for fish and insects. But added to that you were at a magic school to learn spells, which you could use to solve mysteries and playing pranks on your fellow students.

The game had custom avatars, and lots of varieties in clothing and furniture to choose from. A nice format, that on the surface seems to be aimed at kids. It had loads of content to keep adults quite busy too. The world that you got to explore seemed more restricted then Animal Crossing, which was a pity. And the characters seemed to repeat themselves a lot, and the mysteries that you had to solve every month were a bit strange. You didn’t have to be a Sherlock Holmes to solve them.

Japan got three more Magician’s Quest games

But still, I loved that game way back then. Not as much as Animal Crossing, but a lot, and it kept me busy for weeks. Sadly, it was the only one we got in the West. Three games have been released in Japan since the first Tongari Boushi as they are originally called. And the last one they released in December 2012, translated as Town of Magic, is a 3DS game.

The games are a hit in Japan. By now they’ve expanded on the original game, first you could build your own shop and create the items you specialize in by combining items with numerous possibilities. In this last game, you can even run your own shopping mall, deciding which shops it should hold. Plus, like the first game, this one has wifi possibility too, so you can play with friends.

I decided to give the last one, Tongari Boushi to Mahou no Machi a try. See how the game has evolved. The basics seem to be much the same. You still live in the magic school, and get appointed a room by the concierge. Everyday you can do several classes to learn spells. Various teachers are there to give you their best insights on how to make it rain, or how to put someone to sleep, make flowers bloom etc. You meet a lot of fellow students and chat with them, and you have the woods and the haunted mansion to explore. But where it gets extra interesting is the mall.

The fourth game has a Mall!

It is up to the you to decide what stores it features, so with a mix and match of your favorite boutiques and cafes, you will soon have the magical shopping mall of your dreams. You place your own custom store in the mall, and StreetPass enables friends and other gamers’ stores to appear as well. Not that I had much of a chance to meet another player around here, unlike players in Japan. Japanese players were in for even more fun. Real stores such as AEON, TSUTAYA and First Kitchen were available as part of a “Real Shop Download Campaign”*. By visiting the real world versions of participating stores, users could obtain the in-game versions to place in their shopping mall. It provided them with a whole extra range of mall-building options.

Is the game even better than the first one?

So what did I think of the game? I loved playing it, even took it upon myself to make a document with the most important commands in the game menus. Because I can tell you, it’s not an easy game to play with a limited knowledge of Japanese. There’s a lot of text, chatting with your in-game classmates and learning the spells.

You decide what kind of items you have in your shop. I made mine a bakery, and I’ve tried my hand at various cakes and bakes. The game has got a fashion upgrade too. You are no longer tied to using templates. Instead you can ‘cut’ out your own patterns using your stylus. And you can even take pictures with your 3DS camera and imprinting them digitally on your fashion item.

The visual style is cute, the game now has loads to keep you occupied. You can make the game your own personal one with all the customization available. This isn’t just a kids game, but a serious contender for Animal Crossing.

That’s why I still cannot believe Konami hasn’t been bothered to localize the game for a western release! 🙁