- Cast spells based on fire, water, earth and wind using the DS touch pad
- Battle dozens of monsters in the tower to save your family
- Complete side quests to raise your reputation with the townspeople
- Collect eggs and train monster helpers and battle and trade with your friends
Product Description
Take on the role of Tao, a young magical student trying to master the Magical Arts. One day, the Demon Seal from the nearby Monster Tower cracked and let loose hoards of ferocious monsters. An extremely powerful monster curses the townspeople, including Taos family, turning them all into stone. Tao must find a way to master the art of magic, repair the Demon Seal, destroy the curse and save his family…. More >>
Nintendo DS Tao’s Adventure: Curse of the Demon Seal
Tao’s Adventure: Curse of the Demon seal has all the elements of a good RPG; plot, interaction and an easy to learn game play. Spell drawing is challenging, yet curiously fun, as you learn new spells with each new level up. Numerous puzzle based tower levels, test your navigation skills. Collecting and hatching eggs allow you to add monsters that help you in these dungeon like levels.
Your character can carry either a wand or a sword as a weapon. A shield is also available to defend with. The equipment is upgradeable for an ever increasing fee. As you play the game you can collect items and sell them in town to increase your available funds.
The monsters in the game gain experience and level just like the main character. However, the monsters can be used in the coliseum to fight other monsters for experience and gold. Additionally you can fight and trade with other players in multiplayer mode. Luckily, if you like to fight alone, monsters are not required for gameplay.
The game mostly uses the stylus for interaction, with the cursor pad used to direct the character’s path. However when in battle you must “tune” the direction the character is facing with the stylus to engage enemies. Additionally the spells are drawn using the stylus. Drawing these spells will take some time to master so do not get discouraged. For this reason I gave the game 4 stars overall.
The game has never locked up on me. A recent rash of poorly written DS games have been doing this, luckily Taos after 40+ hours of gameplay is ok.
I have played other RPG’s for the DS, but this game is the one I keep coming back to. At the time of this review, the other avaialable RPG’s all had serious game play flaws that made them boring after only 10 hours. If you are looking for a good portable RPG or just a DS game to burn time, give this game a try!
Pros:
1) Drawing magic spells makes gameplay faster and enjoyable.
2) Monster Rancher style battle coliseum.
3) 3D graphics
4) 40+ hours of gameplay
5) A simple but engaging plot.
Cons:
1) Stylus only game interface and unforgiving spell drawing.
Rating: 4 / 5
I love RPG games, but Nintendo’s Nintendo DS isn’t so hot on games for that genre. I found this while shuffling through games at Game Stop, found this one, and bought it.
The basic story line of this game is that you play as a child of an extinct Bente tribe. His name is Tao, but you are allowed to change that. He is one of the last of his kind and escapes to a new place where a legendary Monster Tower is. This tower had a seal to keep the monsters inside, but that seal failed and all havok broke loose. It is your job to climb that tower.
The Info
Tao’s Adventure is all about fighting. The character can hold on to a sword, or staff, and a sheild for defense. He can summon mosters that he raised from an egg, and he has magic abilities. The whole tower dungeon is based on turns. That may not sound thrilling to some, but it is nothing like Fire Emblem. YOu may move around freely, avoiding monsters and traps. If you happen to run into one, however, you are obligated to engage it OR run away. Your summons can aid you in your fights. By beating monsters you grow levels and further develop your characters skills. Your summons also gain levels. There are lots of floors in this tower, designed to keep you busy.
Appart from the dungeon itself, theree is a fairly roomy village where you may purchase other weapons, upgrade weapons, buy other items, rest, eat, ect. There is also a multiplayer mode.
The Good
1) With the many floors to the tower, the game will last awhile.
2) Monsters have been incorperated in gameplay.
3) Graphics are pretty good
4) It’s an awesome RPG for anyone.
5) It does a great job incorperating the DS’s capabilities.
6) There are lots of magic and weapon upgrades, and many monster summons.
The Not So Good
1) It may not encourage you to play it again once you have beaten it.
2) The dungeon may get repetative.
3) Swords cannot cast magic.
4) Casting spells takes awhile (maybe 10 to 15 seconds)
5) At the save point to your Inn, two guys keep talking, which gets annoying.
6) It requires too much use of the stylus. Only movement may be used with buttons.
Overall
Overall this is the RPG to get. It will be a fine expirience and should last awhile. I liked it a lot and you will too. Happy gaming!
4 stars!
Rating: 4 / 5
If you are a huge RPG fan, and like many secrets and quests within a game, you might give Tao’s Adventure: Curse of the Demon Seal a try. I have always been a RPG fan, and while games like Magical Starsign, Lunar Dragon Song, and Children of Mana are more popular than this game, I think those games are simply boring 2D games with dull combat. Many people are likely to ignore Tao’s Adventure just because it is not popular, or has the curse of bad reviews. But for me, it is one of the most fun RPG in DS that dosen’t include guns in battle.
Tao is a young Bente, a group of magic users, gifted with magical powers. His whole island turns into stones by a giant bird, and its up to hime to save his family by going to the Monster Tower, located on a desert city. The whole point of this game is to get to the top of the Tower by leveling up and fighting monsters. However, it’s not like a straight path that requires little thinking. Floors have mechanisms, traps and other objects, testing your navigating ability. Since it’s hard to get to the top, beating the game will require quite a time. That is one of the reasons I like RPGs. Games like Mario Kart DS, to me, gets extremely boring after few hours or so.
Maybe you are a person who starts the game, and say, “This game is so boring, and it only has like 30 items to buy,” and sell it on ebay right away, maybe you should go on farther. There are more items, and stores keep updating their items if you get to higher levels. The magic becomes far more powerful, with awesome graphics and damage. There are quests that are fun, and you can even upgrade weapons. This game has definitely more than what you look at.
This game has awesome 3D graphics, not like those horrible 2D graphic games like Children of Mana. The only things I didn’t like is the music and the way you cast spells, pick up items, and the old turn-based battles in the Monster Tower. The music is always the same, and it makes you tired and gives you boredom. You might as well listen to your iPod while playing the game. The way you cast a spell is to draw a symbol, and press “Trigger,” and it activates, which can be time-consuming. When you pick items, it can take about 1.5 second. But overall, Tao’s Adventure: Curse of the Demon Seal can be hours of fun:
Graphics: A+
Music: C
Story: B
Multiplayer: B
Fun: A+
Quests/Sidequests: A
A Grade of a DS RPG: A+
Rating: 5 / 5
This is the sort-of sequel to the PS1 game Azure Dreams. I loved the dungeon crawler growing up, so I decided to pick this game up. The story seems interesting and true to the original, the dungeon changes every time you enter it, adding another level of challenge.
Unfortunately, they tried to use the DS touch screen as the only method of moving or acting in game. The lower screen has a circle with arrows which will make you walk in different directions, and buttons you can use to open spell and attack menus. While this sounds exciting, they also installed a delay in controls so you cannot act smoothly, you must tap, tap, tap arrows in order to move, while watching the map on the upper screen. This only serves to make an already semi-slow dungeon crawler feel even slow and clunky.
The game has some interesting and very fun features, unfortunately I could not get past the painfully slow chore of just walking from place to place and did not get very far in the game.
Rating: 3 / 5
We all know that Online RPGs are much better than DS RPGs, and I would not pick this game if you are looking for a RPG that is like the online ones, I don’t recommend this game. Tao’s adventure has some great graphics, but some features are very unconvenient to use. First, there is only one town you can travel around, making you bored every time you start the game. The music is not that great, and you’ll be tired if you listen to the music. To get experience points, you have to go to the Monster Tower, but the thing is, when you attack or use magic, it is SO slow to activate. You use the stylus to press USE MAGIC, and then you draw a symbol, and it activates 1~2 seconds later. And the attack is turn – based, giving the monster a chance to attack and kill you. There is no job system, and when picking up items, it shows: YOU GOT A ….. and you can’t move for 2 seconds, which is SO annoying. Because of the SLOW activation, you hardly LVL up. There are side quests, but those are not great either. There are so FEW items to buy and use, yet you can upgrade weapons and armory. Also if you die, it is simply GAME OVER, ruining all your progress. For example, if you were lvl 5 and you lvl up to 11, but died, you become lvl 5 unless you save your game, which you have to go to the hotel and save, takes a lot of time. If you are looking for an interesting, fast attack, wide-mapped game, I would look elsewhere.
Rating: 3 / 5