Feel the Magic: XY/XX (DS) review "Stylish. Entertaining. Creative. "

Stylish. Entertaining. Creative.

These are three buzz-words that usually surround any DS game that makes extensive use of its features. Now, some of the time, this can be completely true, see: Kirby’s Power Paintbrush for more details. On the other hand, it can be totally reversed, see: Yoshi’s Touch & Go!. Then, we have Feel the Magic or Project Rub as it’s known on this side of the pond. It’s a game which utilises all of the gimmicks that the DS offers in a horribly twisted way. I mean, severely horribly twisted.

Much like the humour on Family Guy, it relies on the same relatively enjoyable concept and abuses it so much that any sort of entertainment value that’s left is eroded. Whether it’s rubbing the touch screen to save struggling stickmen from a scorpion, blowing out a candle or colouring in shapes, anything which seems remotely enjoyable or interesting is ruined by the fact that you have to repeat the action a further four times in order to complete the activity. Now, remember how WarioWare threw loads of mini-games at you? It was over-the-top action which kept your senses alert and the hairs on the back of your neck erect!

In Feel the Magic, things are a little duller. You play the part of a young adolescent male who has decided to attempt to impress a girl he quite likes. As us nerds know, this can be an extremely difficult task. So, with the help of a bunch of strange men dressed in Playboy bunny ears known as the Rub Rabbits, he decides to show off to the girl by performing well in a selection of rather horrible mini-games. Not exactly the best way to pull. But, that’s Sonic Team for you.

The first task sees you using the stylus to rub a few swallowed fish up the oesophagus of an unfortunate bystander. Unfortunately, the fish were intended to be a gift for your girl. So, you better force that guy to puke those back up! Using the unusually unresponsive touch-screen, this task takes a lot time than it should. However, mundane as it already may be, the fact that you to repeat the task a number of times is unnecessary and boring. After you’ve completed this painfully repetitive and tiresome challenge, you’ll be hurled into rounds which consist of two or three mini games.

These games include a handful of the aforementioned. In order to woo the girl, you have to do well in the mini-games and fill up a heart container with the points you have collected. Sounds easy? Don’t be so naive. All of the games require an incredibly firm grip on the stylus and fantastic hand-eye coordination. For example, a mission which involves colouring in shapes is made extremely hard by the fact that if you even touch the line, it counts as fail. Now, considering you have to colour the whole thing, it makes the task far harder than what it should be.

Other examples include “Monocycle, where you have to push our protagonist through an incredibly narrow maze of pipes. One..small…nudge…towards the edge will result in INSTANT FAILURE!! Even if you use the stylus to turn the rider’s direction, chances are that you’ll end up pushing him off. We also have the horrible candle blowing game, which has you blowing madly on the microphone until you get light-headed, the bull mini game where you have to poke away one hundred charging bulls. So, easy and boring that you can do it with your eyes closed.

Did I mention that if you fail a mini game, you lose pretty much all of your collected heart points? Therefore, if you make a mistake, you may have to repeat many mini-games again? Even ones that you’ve done before! However, your girl won’t be too impressed with the fact that you’re doing the same things again, therefore your points you receive will be substantially less. Now, think about it. If a game is repetitive and dull the first time, then surely you’d want to avoid? However, Feel the Magic seems to secretly enjoy not only throwing these crap games at you but forcing them to play them again.

Innovation be damned! This game feels simply like a test of all of the gimmicky features that the DS offers. Playing it for too long can cause the stylus’s top part to remain engraved into your hand, give you severe headaches from extreme concentration and leave you frustrated and bitter after you make one small mistake. It’s a horrible and extremely experimental look at what the DS is capable of. However, to be fair, stroking the girl with the stylus and watching her squeal in pleasure/displeasure reveals a nice new way to play hentai games on your DS!

Oh, the things you could do…

Community review by goldenvortex (September 04, 2006) A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.