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Though Magna Carta's story and conversations are mostly pretty grim, it does try to extract some life out of its characters. You can run around as much as you like during battles, how often you get to attack or use items is dictated by two things: the morale system and the leadership system. The more numbers you have (three's the maximum for your party) versus the enemy, the more frequently you get to attack. That's why it's awful to get ambushed and why you have to be constantly on top of your game; if any of your characters die in battle, the enemies pick up the slack and it's all downhill from there. A very welcome challenge.
 At save points, you have the option to talk to characters and give them gifts. The right choice will increase their affection for Calintz and allow them to attack more often, and vice versa. It's a very effective system: it maintains the character during dry spots in the story, and ties it back into the battle scene.
Fight Club
Combat itself is a series of timed button presses, which is consistently engaging throughout the whole game. Each character has their unique fighting styles that depletes chi from the area. Use up too much chi and the character becomes unusable until the chi refills itself during battle, so either you have to switch to another character or pick a different fighting style. Each style has around three to four moves, and each move using a different chi.
This sets itself up for another interesting game element. Like a game of chess, you choose which characters to control during battle so you can coattail your weak characters with a stronger one and have them level up faster. But even the weak characters actually have an advantage; new moves are learned randomly by doing perfect button presses. The less damage a character does, the more she can attack and the more chances there are for her to learn a new move. That's one of Magna Carta's greatest strengths: how it incorporates everything together, and even the weak have a chance for greatness.
And that's Magna Carta in a very large nutshell. The rest of the game is above average, but those wanting to jump into the fray for a challenge – and I mean a real challenge, not the usual fakey RPG challenge where success is usually a matter of having enough healing potions – will feel right at home in Efferia.
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