The PS2's Weirdly Awesome Pokemon Clone | Magic Pengel

you're not part of the kingdom are you a little bit ago I played amazing Island on GameCube for the channel and I really enjoyed it the GameCube has a whole heap of really cool Niche forgotten games that often go overlooked but the thing is the gamecube's library relatively speaking was actually pretty small it had about 650 games but its other fellow sixth generation consoles had loads more games that were never released on the cube speaking of the PS2 in particular that console had almost 3,000 games or more I didn't personally grow up with the PS2 and so I missed out on a lot of these really cool experimental games due to the ps2's low specs and huge popularity tons of these experimental games would come out for the system just a bit ago I stumbled on this PS2 game that I never heard about and it gave me such a similar vibe to amazing Island that I knew I had to check it out it's this little RPG called Magic penel The Quest For Color the PS2 had so many of these neat little gems of games and many of which never made it to the West I love custom character creators and monster RPGs like Pokémon I really took one look at this thing and I was like that's my jam I need to try it out so I hope you'll join me as we check out magic penel for [Music] PS2 before I start talking about the game first I want to give it some context Magic penel The Quest for color I'm just going to be calling it penjo most of the time was released back in 2002 and was published by Tio in Japan and htech in North America in Japan the title translates to something like junk Masterpiece Theater sketch Kingdom it makes more sense when you get into the story in penel you play as an avatar of yourself having fallen into some sort of magical land where humans coexist with creatures that they call Doodles I was pretty surprised by the depth they go into establishing the lore of this world with a full-on creation myth based on humans colors and the ability to create and control Doodles only good-hearted people can create new Doodles and doodles have magic powers to create the world pen gels good pun by the way are fairies that allow people to make new Doodles doodle doodle doodle you're going to hear that a lot now in the present all the humans and doodles Coexist on this small Scrappy junk town on an island there's also this evil Kingdom now that wants to use them to do bad stuff nothing super crazy for a jrpg but that's the general premise you wake up a pen gel appears and you draw your first doodle to start the [Music] game day is here Here Comes the Sun [Music] all your's I got to say I really love this intro cut scene it sets the tone of the world right away and the characters are animated so well it just gets you right into it the voice acting is about as rough as you'd expect for a PS2 dub but it's pretty good for what it is [Music] the first thing to note is the art style I absolutely love these bright and cheery Blue Sky Japanese games and I feel like they're kind of few and far between now in terms of this sort of Blue Sky game the first thing I think of is maybe outrun or Mega Man Legends I just have a huge soft spot for all these flat low poly characters with these big colorful textures in terms of the best modern representation of the style I could think of like frog gun that's a pretty cool indie game and if you have never played it I would check it out if you're fan of Studio jbl's films you've probably already noticed that the style here is very similar to that the art style is so jibles because it was developed by actual staff who worked at studio jibli all of the town's folk look and act like low poly versions of characters from movies like Kiki's Delivery Service or Spirited Away the main character Zoe is especially straight out of something like todoro jibli is pretty famous for their humanizing attention to detail and you can see it in the way that these low poly characters are animated [Music] what I looked into all this after I played the game already but you could feel that jibli presence there for sure when I first got to the junk town I just wanted to walk around and take it in seeing all of the fun characters doing their thing in town was great the whole town is presented in first person even though the controls can be a bit dizzying it can be really easy to lose yourself in these cool areas with unique shops and decorations I'm pretty sure all of the villagers have their own tasks and I noticed throughout the game that some of them would come and go from their own shops it just makes the town feel so busy and full of life every single NPC feels like they had a distinct role in the town and they're each given a little bit of detail for themselves I was really just roaming around here enjoying the town and I even really liked the detail of the loading screens when you approach a loading zone you just put your camera down and walk and it simulates you just moving from one area to the next I felt like just looking at the trees or staring at the steps was a really cool way to have you immersed in the loading screens the firstperson camera the loading screens the unique towns folk it's all there to make you feel like you're immersed in this town the town and and the people in it are such a big part of what makes this game really interesting and I think they nailed that aspect I am so good at [Laughter] this as you make your way through the town you'll find your way to the main Arena where most of the combat in the game happens but before you do any combat you need some doodles to fight with you draw your first actual doodle after you meet Zoe the main character and her brother Taro after finding out that you can draw Doodles with the penel they want you to come with them to the town to enter the yearly Tournament of course a game based around doodle creatures and sketching means you're going to be doing a lot of drawing here the drawing system is functional and can animate your Creations well but it misses some key features like mirroring you'll see some pretty intricate and wellone doodles through the game's runtime but I never felt like I personally had a full handle on the drawing tools depth was pretty hard to judge and the camera can't really snap in position really easily that plus the weirdly floaty pointing system led to some lovable but lopsided designs as time went on in the game you unlock more parts to attach to your Doodles like arms legs and even things like weapons and wings I felt my drawings getting progressively better with each upgrade to the pen gel and even with the loose controls I did make some Doodles that I grew pretty attached to I tried to make a Dragon Quest slime it didn't really work out but we can enter the arena now go doodle combat follows a three- type system sort of like if you boiled down Pokemon to its barebone mechanics you have magic attack and block type magic beats attack attack beats block and block beats magic you can't use the same move twice in a row but you can instead do a charge move to heal a little and power up your next turn every doodle you make follows a favored type based on the colors that you used and the things that you draw on them will alter their move set I think that the drawing itself matters a lot more than anything else really you can grind for levels and raise your stats that way but just drawing more stuff onto your doodle gave it more power much faster as you can imagine the combat is incredibly prediction heavy and probably works better in the two-player versus mode as time went on I did find myself having more and more problems with the combat Taro don't get too excited yet in penel when you win the rock paper scissors type advantage you stop the enemy's attack altogether so if I use a magic skill when the enemy tried to use an attack skill they just wouldn't get a turn if you use the same skill the faster doodle of the two goes first this made speed really important in order to resolve a tie I think speed might be the second most important stat in the game other than raw damage since there's a one in three chance that you tie my math might not be perfect on these things but just keep it in mind since you can't use the previous move twice in a row you could often get caught in a game of matching moves in a cycle until someone either uses a charge or dies most of the time both Doodles in a fight would take the same amount of turns to eliminate each other and so speed was always important I think speed was pretty broken but it wasn't nearly as unbalanced as some of the magic skills later on Magic types get access to moves like sleep or faint these put the opponent to sleep where they can't move for one or two turns if you remember that most Doodles take the same amount of turns to defeat each other you realize that getting a turn Advantage is incredibly strong I got pretty stuck on an enemy later in the game because he had a faint ability meaning that if I tied him with magic I would get put to sleep and miss a turn and if I used an attack spell I would also get put to sleep and lose two turns in a game like Pokemon you get four moves and multiple types so you have way more options than you do in penel to be fair you can do these to the enemy AI as well but it's just something that feels a little bit too strong needless to say rock paper scissors on its own doesn't really make the best combat system if you ate fish you would be stronger I can't tell if I'm wrong but I feel like there's a quote unquote perfect game plan that you can follow to pretty much always do the right thing when you first start the round you try to win the neutral if you win continue that chain until your enemy uses charge if you lose Advantage at any point you use charge yourself unless you can't survive another hit pretty much that's all you can do to win and try to get lucky it's not like you can m game with computer opponents anyway so combat isn't the best thing here but I still had a great time with the game because of everything surrounding it your effort is commendable but my skills are far better as time goes on you find yourself in a comfortable Loop of making Doodles fighting in the arena and then unlocking new features for your Sketchbook to let you make bigger and better Doodles for the next round at this Middle Point I had a pretty solid lineup of Doodles you only really need three so my main team consisted of SIU the ghost Flippo a sort of whale guy and my MVP buff duck I was having a pretty good time messing around with the doodle Creator and just making stuff up as I went along so here's a quick highlight reel of the Doodles that I made [Music] let's get back to it everyone in the town has the goal of being the best and winning the tournament in order to enter the finals at the castle on the top of the mountain at some point you learn that Zoe and taro's father Galileo was a top doodle master and went to the kingdom but suddenly disappeared Zoe throughout the game has been throwing letters in bottles out into the ocean in order to find him every time you complete a round in the arena you get a new cut scene back at the home base after I completed more and more Arena rounds a mysterious boy named mono shows up and he says that he knew Galileo in the past and that he's passed away I thought it was mono at first but everyone in the game calls him mono my name is mono if you're interested in checking penil out I'd recommend it so skip to this point in the video and avoid the plot stuff through one thing or another mono is revealed to be a doodle but he's strong enough to rip the color out of people [Music] themselves what are you doing after he does this to try and save Zoe the kingdom goes on full search for mono Zoey gets attacked by a guard and passes out and mono feels like he's endangering Zoe and the rest of the town he turns himself in leading to the end game where we are now Zoe you'll never get into the castle there are too many guards I really was into it by the last bit of the game since penel is pretty monotonous through most of the 15 to 20 hour runtime seeing things really get going was really refreshing I think mono is a pretty interesting character and he's got a cool design I like the big button on his hoodie and the colorful doodle parts of his legs and body at this point my team was pretty much locked in buff duck still was here but with the addition of Mecca a magic type and long one an additional attack type I stopped using block types altogether since they felt kind of weak to me when I was thinking about it I was like why would you need a reflecting barrier when I could just use the magic myself with a dedicated doodle or hit like a truck with an attack type mono has to be around here somewhere let's split up and look for him once you enter the castle you get the classic creepy sci-fi jrpg ending area you've entered the finals but you're there to crash it with Zoe and Taro the three of you decide to split up and look for mono in three different doors you enter the first door climb up the stairs and enter a battle with this thing who are you my name is mono I am the doodle King you find yourself battling several rounds of prototype monster monos created by the current best doodler keba I forgot to mention kba he's currently like the best doodler in the world Everyone likes him and he's been giving you parts for your Sketchbook after each round in the arena these monoc clones are all really abstract and strange and all streak with these unsettling voices [Music] [Applause] they give some Exposition about the truth of the world as they melt away it's really great stuff I am a false King created by one known as kba I am a doodle who could not become king my duty here is finished once you take out these fake monos you make it to the top for the actual final battle once you get to the top of the tower keep I tries to take control of mono but Zoe is there and stops him in response keba just pulls out a gun and drops her right there I was I did not see this coming at all and I had to watch it back on my capture just to make sure that that was even what happened I was actually curious about the voice acting and I was looking into the Japanese version of the cutscenes and noticed that Zoe actually bleeds out in the original game some wild stuff going on mono understandably loses it here and freaks out he sucks the color out of the whole world and becomes the true doodle King and that begins the final fight I am the doodle King a tool created for a single purpose the Boss Arena is completely black and white the only thing left in color is you and mono and he uses his powers to drain the color out of your Doodles as you fight it's really cool of of course he's got two phases the first is a human form first part wasn't so bad he can force you to match his move type but I didn't have too many issues with this the second part though is much more difficult I don't really love the typical multi-stage final boss when it comes to Final Bosses I find they work better with a tough first half and a more spectacle focused second half I find that if the second half is harder you just end up wasting time resetting the fight in the first half which I had to do a few times here at least they don't put you through the cut [Music] scenes once you do get him down though he recharges one last turn I was one shot away from winning and then to suddenly be like oh yeah you get a one in three shot to win the game it was a little Annoying I guess it's fitting that the game ends with one last shot at rock paper scissors after you defeat mono he comes back to his senses he decides to undo everything and destroys himself in the process so that he can't be controlled by humans anymore [Music] [Music] [Music] the colors return to the island and the castle disappears everything goes back to normal it's a really great little ending you get to see this really cool watercolor style animation of the characters leaving to see the world and explore I really love these animated endings of jrpgs they's such great ways to send off these games and leave them in a good place Taro we'll be back [Music] someday magic penel for me just kind of showed up one day and it seemed like something I would like and that was pretty much the case I think it's pretty fundamentally flawed when it comes to the combat with some pretty broken mechanics and kind of frustrating chance r it might be a tough sell for an RPG to have not so great combat but on the other hand the creature designer is a lot of fun and I spent way too much time just messing around with it to get things just where I wanted them to be the game is pretty obscure these days and I couldn't find a lot of cool creations from other people but I did see this one guy who made a pretty convincing Venusaur I think the characters in penel are really Charming with loads of lovable NPCs and a really cool main cast I really don't see why you needed to be a self-insert when Zoe was easily the main character of the story with some tiny changes she could have just been the main playable character in my amazing Island video I was looking for something like Pokémon but with a creative twist and while I didn't get exactly what I wanted here I think it's still a very creative and Charming experience if you're looking to have the good time messing around with a fun creature maker and can stand the janky turn-based combat mag penel is a really interesting game so that's it for me today if you enjoyed this video you can check out the rest of the channel I cover all sorts of games here um sometimes more obscure things sometimes more mainstream things so if you like this sort of thing you'll probably like more of the videos that are coming up like comment subscribe all that fun stuff lets me know that you like the video you liked watching this one and it motivates me to keep them coming thanks for tuning in and take care [Music]

Channel: Camobot

Views: 87,410

Keywords: magic pengel, obscure ps2 game, ps2 games, retro ps2, ps2 jrpg, pokemon clone, playstation pokemon, quest for color, studio ghibli game, weird ps2 game, drawing game, artist game, amazing island, ps2 hidden gem, playstation 2, ps2 collecting, retro gaming, magic pengel ost, pengel music, pengel review, pengel final boss, pengel drawing, pengel cutscene, rare ps2 game, pokemon clones, forgotten ps2, weird pokemon, obscure pokemon, doodle king, graffiti kingdom, ps2

Id: e2-s5bM2PNc

Length: 20min 42sec (1242 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 28 2024