Magical Starsign (series)

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Magical Starsign (Magical Vacation (マジカルバケーション, majikaru bakēshon^?) in Japan) is a role-playing game series developed by Brownie Brown and published by Nintendo. The first game of the series, Magical Vacation, was only released in Japan, and its sequel, Magical Starsign, was released in Japan, the United States, and Europe for the Nintendo DS. The sequel's Japanese title is Magical Vacation: Itsutsu no Hoshi ga Narabu Toki (マジカルバケーション 5つの星がならぶとき^? lit. "Magical Vacation: When the five stars align").

[edit] History

Magical Vacation made its debut on the Game Boy Advance in 2001, featuring 2D pastel graphics and a slew of magical characters. Roughly 20,000 copies of Magical Vacation were sold in Japan alone. The sequel, Magical Starsign was released 5 years later for the Nintendo DS, and is set in the same universe as the prequel, with several characters making return appearances. Though the illustrative style differs significantly between the two games, Shinichi Kameoka was the character designer and illustrator for both games. The game music was composed by Masuko Tsukasa, and the series director is Nobuyuki Inoue.

Linking games with other players plays an important role in both games of the series. Players can interact by exchanging magic spells and techniques or by dueling one another to provide a myriad of benefits during the game's main story. Magical Vacation contained over 15 allied characters and 16 different magic elements, but this number was reduced drastically in Magical Starsign, where there are only 7 different elements and 5 allied characters. Many of the game's characters and locations are directly named after various foods or drinks, or are named as rearranged versions of food or drink names.