Lost Magic is one of those rare games that truly wouldn't be the same on any other system. Unlike your typical title to come out on the DS, Lost Magic's use of some of the handheld's more unique features really makes the game stand out.

Graphically, the game isn't necessarily stellar. The visuals are clean and the developers stuck to the tried-and-true top down RPG style so, in general, characters and environments look good. One of the issues I did have, though not till later in the game, was that I would start to lose track of where my character was on the screen. There were times when so many monsters and fighters were battling it out that it was really hard to tell where I was and what I was doing. I don't know if it was the smaller-sized models or that the art style and color scheme caused all of the characters to blend together, but whatever the cause -- it became a point of frustration several times.

Sound-wise, the game did its job. The various effects that played as I cast spells or when my monsters were attacking enemies were okay, and the game's background music quickly left my head as soon as I turned off the DS making it about on-par with the rest of the sound.

Lost Magic follows a young boy, Isaac, who little does he know, is heir to a great power. Thousands of years ago, The Creator made the world and entrusted his power to seven powerful wizards called Mages. Each Mage's wand holds great power of one of seven elements and the Mages were the keepers of peace in the land.

After a long and fruitful age of peace, one Mage felt that the world was not right and she took it upon herself to reshape existence. One by one, she seeks out each of the powerful wizards and defeats them to gain control of their power. When Isaac's father, The Mage of Light, is defeated, he sends his wand to the little boy and now he must learn to wield this awesome power to avenge his father and return balance to the world.

Lost Magic is your typical action/RPG game with enough differences to keep it from disappearing in the crowd completely. The main and most noticeable change is how this game uses the system's touch screen. In order to cast spells that you have learned, you draw specific symbols called Runes on the screen. The better you draw the character, the more powerful or effective the spell will be. For instance, one of the Fire spells looks a lot like a carrot ( ^ ), and the closest you get to the originals the farther your fireballs will fly and the more HP they will take down.

There are six types of magic to learn: Wind, Water, Earth, Fire, Light and Dark, and you will be taught three spells from each type. These magics are defensive (like the rock wall), offensive (like a freezing blast) and maintenance or support spells (healing or monster traps).

The game's other feature that helps it to stand out is that your party is made up of various monsters you have captured along the way. No its not like Pokemon because you see you have to weaken the monsters before they can be captured... oh wait, no the reason it isn't like that game is because you have to deploy traps to capture them. Wait ... okay, maybe this aspect of the game bears quite a few similarities to Pokemon, but it is a system that seems to work well and the game's real-time action (as opposed to the turn-based system found in the other monster-catching game) keeps it from seeming like a total knock off.

You direct both your character and your troops by selecting either the individual or group that you wish to guide with the stylus and then tap where you want them to go. If your monsters encounter enemies, they will automatically go into battle. The more fights each monster participates in, the more experience it will gain and the quicker it will level up and become more powerful.

Lost Magic's multiplayer mode lets you duel with other owners of this game either via the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection or over local ad-hoc connections. Using either your saved character from the game or a pre-developed character and monster set, the two players will meet on one of the battlefields from the game to see who has the best control over their monsters and stylus.

Lost Magic starts off fairly easy. You quickly learn five or six spells and tear through some enemies, but once the story really kicks off, the challenge level gets noticeably higher. In the end, the difficulty of the game depends on your effective use of the collected monsters and how quickly and accurately you can draw your known spells. If you try to stick to just one tactic (i.e. just using monsters or just using spells) then you won't get very far -- this game is designed for you to use your magic as well as a full complement of support troops, so you will have to get pretty handy at throwing out that trap spell.

I really enjoyed the Lost Magic's use of the stylus and touch pad in order to draw runes and cast spells. The fact that the strength of the spell was determined by how accurately I could jot down the symbol really added a lot of strategy into this game that most other RPGs don't have. For instance, instead of hoping that some random damage value was low enough to not kill a creature that I was trying to capture, I could draw the rune a bit worse than usual in an attempt to get it close to death without going all the way.

Like I said at the beginning, this is one of those rare games to come out for the system that was truly designed for only the DS. I just can't see this game having anywhere near the same feel if you didn't have to draw out the runes -- it would be just another Action/RPG title and get lost in the crowd. If you are an RPG gamer and looking for something a little different, then pick up this title -- its got a lot of challenging play and it will definitely break up the monotony of some of the other titles out there.