Lost Kingdoms II, A different type of games

Lost Kingdoms II, A Different Strategy

Lost Kingdoms II is one of my favorite games, due to how it was very different to every other game on the GameCube. The plot of the game is that you are a princess who was taken in by a guild of thieves after being removed from her kingdom due to how the royal family had twins and at a young age they had to remove one of them so that their would only be one heir to the through. There is a cut scene early in the game where it shows the two girls riding in a back of a wagon through town and one of them falls out, this is Tara the main character of this game. When you play the game further you begin to learn all the problems with this world and how there are evil kingdoms trying to take over the world and unleash a very powerful god that you end up fighting. As I described this game to all my friends, I describe it as a game where you tackle different levels each time earning new cards that can be put into your deck of monsters to summon. These decks are very important because you start out with a simple deck with around ten cards depending on how many people you talk to at the start of the game. There are many chances to get new cards in this starting area, by either talking to people, opening chests or at the end of the level when you are graded on your performance. If you perform well you will have a chance to pick three cards out of the six that are showed, you are rated on a scale of one to three cards. When you receive three cards it is because you did not take much damage, not used up your cards entirely and that you completed it in a timely fashion.

The way that you take damage is by being attacked by creatures during the level, being attacked by NPC (Non-player character) or trying to use magic when you do not have any. The creatures that appear during the levels vary, as you begin the game they are very easy to kill and can be defeated by simply using a basic card that is weak against their type. As you progress through the game you can level up your cards and get new cards of all different types. The creatures that you can control are often the same creatures that you are fighting which requires you to learn all about the different types of cards and creatures. The NPC are a very important part to the story, given that most of them are either from a cult or an opposing army that is trying to take the power stones that are used for magic. If you do not have any magic or runes then you cannot summon cards, cards take a specific amount of magic to summon and you can hold down the Z button to double the cost but it also makes your creatures stronger. I did not learn this until about two years ago, when I have been playing the game for around ten years. You get runes by killing monsters or collecting fairies, after defeating a monster they will drop runes and when your magic is full you will get money instead of magic, so it is wise to save your money.

Money is incredibly useful for progressing through the game, as you progress through the game you encounter a few stores where you are able to buy cards, upgrade your creatures or duplicate your creatures, you can even buy cards from a black market that enable you to capture monsters similar to Pokemon. Upgrading your monsters is similar to evolving due to how you can make them stronger with the experience they get by being in your deck and being used. When you evolve a card it often comes with multiple choices for different types of creatures that each cost different amounts and be can be either a transformation card, a sword card, a creature card or even a card that is similar to a boss card.

A transformation card is a card that you turn into the creature and can move around and use special activation plates, it is very helpful and required to get to certain areas that often hold secretes. You can become a werewolf, a unicorn, a flying gargoyle and many more. A sword card is used as a quick card to attack if you need a little extra damage or even if you encounter a low level enemy to just quickly defeat them for a low magic cost. A creature card is a basic card that you summon to have a creature follow you around and attack enemies, these are very useful due to how you can summon them then support them with your boss cards, your transformation cards, and even your sword cards. The boss cards are a one time use per level unless you collect fairies but they are very powerful, you transform into them and have a choice of two attacks, often an AOE (area of effect) or a more direct attack if you have it lined up. A strategy I often use is summoning two or three high level creature cards with one being a trap card(A card that stays in one place and when an enemy comes near they explode dealing a large amount of damage) and I use my extra slot to have either a boss card or a sword card to enable each battle to go by quickly.

Fairies are very important to a side quest in the game where you are instructed to collect red fairies to trade them for high level cards, they are scared through each level and say helpful advice when they are found. Blue fairies are a different type that appear in the open through out levels and when you collect them they give you either runes, health or revive one of your cards that died during that level.

Overall this game is full of amazing elements that I was interested in learning about and it honestly is worth playing through, it is a game full of constantly leveling up to be able to beat harder bosses with learning the strengths and creating your own type of deck to beat levels.