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Graffiti Kingdom Review: Is It Worth It?

Graffiti Kingdom Coverart

Graffiti Kingdom Review: Is It Worth It?

Graffiti Kingdom is a role-playing action game published by Taito for PlayStation 2 in 2004. As a sequel to Magic Pengel: The Quest for Color players can now take their drawing one step further by customizing attacks and movements. Graffiti Kingdom adopts that same idea of its predecessor and enhances on it. Players will most likely need to be on summer holidays and have oodles of time to experiment before the game begins to draw you in. So, is this game worth buying? Let’s find out.

Graffiti Kingdom’s Imaginative Storyline

Graffiti Kingdom Screenshot
Graffiti Kingdom character creation.

In Graffiti Kingdom, the story goes as follows: The androgynous Prince unleashes monsters upon the land, but he is powerless to stop them. Using his ability to draw, he/she can create monsters that will fight for him. The more enemies that are defeated, the more coins they will drop. Allowing players to unlock more creationist abilities. This is the entire point of the game and will be the impetus for most. Since Taito created an expanded interface for Graffiti Kingdom from their previous Magic Pengel game, players can imagine that it’s a finely tuned piece of craftsmanship. Creating creatures is great fun and will whittle away the hours. 

Your goal is to help the prince rid his kingdom of a plethora of invading monsters. You do this by possessing the ability to change into anything that you can draw. If you draw wings, you’ll fly. If you draw wheels, you’ll speed over the land. As you progress, the more abilities you’ll unlock which will lead to creations literally beyond your wildest imagination.

Fantastic Creations with Lackluster Gaming

Players will have to think of Graffiti Kingdom as more of a cool toy than a game. If gamers come around to that line of thinking, they will probably understand and appreciate what Taito has created here. This isn’t a game in the traditional sense. Although certain aspects such as the fighting enemies tries hard to pretend that it is a game.

Aside from the creation aspect, the rest of the game is a tad weak, although the insane enemies you’ll fight are always entertaining. Walking around and fighting creatures to get their coins becomes almost annoying due to the constant repetition. Boss battles can be an exercise in complete frustration due to camera control. However, once you unlock everything there is to see and do in Graffiti Kingdom, then the player and a friend can battle each other’s creations.

Character Design in Graffiti Kingdom

Graffiti Kingdom Screenshot
Bring creative characters to life in Graffiti Kingdom.

Creating characters takes some time to get used to due to the plethora of options that will eventually become available to the player. Using the PS2 controller to draw with isn’t the easiest thing, but the game will do its best to understand the scribblings and present an option that best represents the doodles attempted. Once a player’s character is created, they’ll have to decide what attack options and animations they want. Depending on the level, offensive choices will be limited.

Graffiti Kingdom allows anyone to convert simple 2-D shapes into customizable 3-D polygonal structures. The user can modify the polygons by coloring them, drawing textures on them, making them transparent, defining their role, and adding attacks. The parts are joined to create a fully playable character. Once converted, the 3-D characters can animate, bend, stretch, flatten and even talk.

Last Thoughts

Graffiti Kingdom’s environments are a little simplistic and drab, but that will only make a difference to the shallowest of gamers. Control is hit and miss. The creation interface is excellent and well crafted, while controlling the character is generally solid. It’s the camera and the way it wants to show anything but what the player wants to see in confined spaces that will drive them mad.

If players can overlook these aspects of the game that are less than perfect, they’ll most likely love the freedom of creation that Taito has provided.

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