GBC cover, to see the Japanese GBA click here
Magi-Nation is a 2001 video-game for the Game Boy Color developed by , the main character is an American named Tony Jones who becomes Trapped in Another World.
The 2002 game マジャイネーション "Majiyai Nēshon", released on the Game Boy Advance, was a remake that came out only in Japan, and was heavily connected to a manga based on the series, complete with a different art style. Tony was also swapped out for a Japanese character named Dan.
There was also a short-lived Collectible Card Game, Magi-Nation: Duel, plus a planned MMORPG titled Magi-Nation: Battle for the Moonlands planned for release in 2008, but never made it past beta.
This video-game provides examples of:
- Big Damn Heroes: Wence pulls one.
- Bittersweet Ending: Depending on Tony's actions through the game, the "Good ending" may still be bittersweet because He failed to retreive the Cloud Frond, or didn't use it on Orwin and ergo he died.
- Broken Bridge: Literal example. Granted, what did you expect when you put it over lava?
- Chekhov's Gunman: Warrada. You first see her in the third shadow geyser, apparently being a mini-boss. You beat her and she seems to vanish...odd...But then in the fourth Shadow Geyser, she appears to be the boss. However, she gives you the option to actually skip her if you agree to leave Magi Nation alone. If you take her up on that offer, then in the Fifth Shadow Geyser, she'll show up in the middle of nowhere and say, "I thought you were going to LEAVE!" and fights you. You didn't think she was a Skippable Boss, did you?
- Crazy Enough to Work: You wouldn't think shouting "Fire" in a village built nearby volcanoes would actually work, did you? Well... it actually did. Tony just says "...Unbelievable".
- Damage-Sponge Boss: Korg and his dream creatures are just big sponges. They aren't hard, but they can take a lot of abuse before going down.
- Death Is Cheap: Three of the killed off characters are later shown to be alive, but turned to stone and sent to the Core.
- Tryn's cousins can be added to the lot, bringing the total up to a possible five. That's also not to mention pretty much everyone in Underneath town, who are assumed to be dead for most of the game.
- Disc-One Nuke /
Game-Breaker: If you can get ANY kind of Hyren early on, you're basically set for the rest of the game. (If you can find one, and kill enough of them for their animite.) Finding one isn't the hard part. Not getting maimed by them is. - Disc-One Final Dungeon: Several, actually:
- The fourth Shadow Geyser appears to be the final dungeon, because once you got all those core stones...you can go home. The End... Or Is It?
- Then you get the Fifth shadow geyser in the Arderial region.
- Disney Villain Death: Korg once you beat him for good.
- Doomed Hometown: The Underneath is completely destroyed after Tony takes care of the shadow geyser there.
- Downer Ending: If Tony Jones decides to take Agram's offer up - and apparently just wordlessly looks back.
- Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: There are actually two. The first is a more classic wheel going Arderial->Cald->Orothe->Underneath->Arderial, but capitalizing on Cald's weakness to Arderial or Underneath's weakness to Orothe is unlikely to be possible when you're actually exploring those regions, and no bosses in the game use creatures from those regions anyways. Naroom and the Core form a second version, in which both is weak defensively and strong offensively to the other. Since every boss in the game uses Core creatures, keeping a few creatures of your own that can use Naroom-element skills can come in handy.
- Everything Fades: Technically most bosses do this off screen, but you actually get to see Morag vanish after killing him near the end of the game.
- "Everyone Comes Back" Fantasy Party Ending: Played with - the game gives you the chance to decide to delay going home for a bit, and allows you to speak to almost every ally you met over the course of the game at Vash Naroom. This changes, depending on whether or not you got the Cloud Frond or not. Unlike most examples of this trope, the characters are all actually there.
- Fantastic Racism: Played with - apparently Caldlings aren't well liked amongst the Naroom magi. However, Gia will mention that her grandmother was one.
- Foreshadowing: Somehow, Tony can understand Agram without the translation bracelet. Agram mentions that Tony is descended from an Ancient...
- When Tony says he's going to stop the Shadow Geyser that is in the Underneath, the villagers actually seem surprised, and he's asked to leave immediately after sealing it up. They know that the Great Magus Kyros will actually destroy Magi Nation.
- Korremar mentions Agram, and you can apparently hear the backstory in the Orothe Village, but there's no way to return.
- Guide Dang It!: Other than Ormagon, did you know that you had to go through places on the world map before Orothan F showed up? Didja? Nope. What about the Hyrens? Uh... probably not. And how about finding the Cloud Frond? Or the Lightning Spell?
- Shadow Hold. Come on... try getting through it without a guide. We're here waiting.
- Got Volunteered: The story kicks off when Tony gets 'volunteered' to go spelunking for a cave treasure, by two guys who tried and failed to foist the task upon one of their younger brothers.
- Hand Wave: Why exactly Korg's creatures always take longer to summon than normal is explained by Zet as Korg just being an idiot.
- The Heavy: Morag is The Dragon, but presents a much more common villainous role compared to Agram, who only appears twice in the game.
- Hellhole Prison: The Shadowhold. You will most definitely agree.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Gorgor, off screen, that is..
- Hopeless Boss Fight: The first fight against Morag. Even at max level, with the strongest Hyrens at your command, all you can do is struggle helplessly as he summons increasingly stronger monsters till you are beaten. It is possible to defeat him legitimately if you have at least four maxed-out creatures with the ability "Consume." Since Consume absorbs another creature's energy (and may terminate a creature), you don't have to summon your creatures as often. With a Gameshark, you can acquire the "Court" spells (Judge, Jury, Executioner) and using these makes all of your potentially terminating attacks actually terminate 100% of the time. However, you would have to cast Jury and Executioner on every new Borgor. Obviously, this is a very long and arduous process, and winning doesn't give you anything but some experience and animite. The story and dialog stay the same.
- Infinity -1 Sword: Ormagon is the best Dream Creature, but finding any of the Hyrens will let you muscle your way through the game with ease.
- Infinity +1 Sword: Ormagon, again.
- Interface Spoiler: Averted; the equipment and core stone menus display four clear slots for the items obtained in Naroom, the Underneath, the Cald and Orothe. The equipment and core stone picked up from Arderial are positioned non-standard compared to the others.
- Kleptomaniac Hero: Lampshaded; At one point Tony complains about going through all the trouble to break into strangers' houses and not finding any valuables half the time.
- At another point you get this gem:
Tony: Ooh, a diary! I'll just take a quick...Ulk: No you won't!Tony: No I won't.- Depending on your actions, Warrada will actually call Tony out on this - if he meets her without having returned the key, she will then call him out for stealing a priceless key.
- Knight Templar: Agram seems to really believe he's just doing his duty as an Ancient by keeping the knowledge of the Magi out of the hands of the inhabitants of the Moonlands.
- Magikarp Power: Weebos, which start out one of the weakest dream creatures of the bunch, learn Wreck, a rare move which makes them a harbinger of death. Of course, it takes quite a bit of training to get them there. Made somewhat easier by how common they are in the beginning, and how easy it is to forge their level up. Could potentially become a Disc-One Nuke or Game-Breaker if someone was willing to grind like crazy. Quite honestly, it's pretty much impossible to get a Wreck Weebo without cheating or being Salafy. Weebo learns Wreck at level 99. Considering that the end-game expected level is around 50, it's absolutely ludicrous to even consider legitimately raising a Dream Creature all the way to 99. Perhaps a case of Awesome, but Impractical.
- Money Spider: Defeating monsters nets you Animite, the game's Global Currency.
- New Game Plus: Perhaps the only way to get some dream creatures. (Namely the core ones, which you should have a lot of animite for by that point)
- Non-Standard Character Design: Dan, in the Japanese Game Boy Advance remake, looks quite different from the rest of the cast
, considering that none of the other characters, even the people from Earth, were redesigned for this version. - Nothing Is Scarier: Used twice... the music dies out the second you get to the core, and right before you are ambushed by Korg and Zet, the game plays no music at all.
- Offscreen Teleportation: Gia decides to prank Tony for this.
- Power Floats: Morag seems to lack his lower body, and levitates in midair at all times.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Tony goes on one at the end. The first four Shadow Geysers, Tony acts more out of self defense. However, by the fifth, he's making death threats and clearly wants to castigate Morag for everything. To compare, Tony only fights Togath because he's cornered, Ogar because she won't let him leave, Korremar because he attacks first, and can even choose to avoid Warrada all together. By the time the fifth shadow geyser is out, it's him running towards Morag and shouting, "Thy hour of reckoning is upon thee, Agram!"
- Scenery Porn: The battle backgrounds are bleh, but some of the backgrounds in other areas are actually quite detailed, especially given the Game Boy Colour's limited palette.
- Shout-Out: When first meeting Gogor, you try to introduce yourself only to be cut off to the mantra of "''IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOUR NAME IS!''"
- Skippable Boss: Bait and switched. Warrada will give you an offer - take the stone and leave forever, and you don't have to fight Warrada. However, should you do this, Warrada will jump you in the Arderial and you will have to fight her there instead - but her stats aren't buffed up.
- The Chosen One: Deconstructed a tad but then played straight, The prophecy of Magus Kyros? It's actually a warning - Magus Kyros isn't great, he'll DESTROY Magi Nation! It's a little clear that Tony is not Magus Kyros, but actually, the reason the world is at stake anyways! In order to create all the shadow geysers, Tony Jones is the catalyst. But then in the final dungeon, it's confirmed by Agram that Tony actually IS the reincarnation/descendant of Agadon, the Magi who against him all that time ago. Not only that, they never actually make it clear on whether or not Tony really is Kyros - The only ones who appear to know are Agram and possibly Morag.
- The Rival: Salafy. An optional rival to be sure, but still basically a rival. She can always be found training in one area, and can be fought throughout the game, growing stronger to match Tony's power as he levels up... well, relatively—that is, until near the end of the game when she suddenly gains a team of Wreck Weebos that could basically show up the final boss one on one, skyrocketing in power from a non-threat to a Superboss.
- Unfortunate Names: The kids in Tavel Gorge declare Tony's name to be this, so they nickname him "Foney Bones". To earn the right to be called by his real name, he enters the cave to find the crystal.
- Wake-Up Call Boss: Togoth as the second boss of the game, a much more competent threat. Not only does he summon multiple different Core Creatures, he'll heal his own and hurt yours with a better offensive spell than you have access to at that point. Zet also counts, being much more competent than Korg when you do fight him and coming out with a unique spell attack than can one-shot your Dream Creatures.
- Warmup Boss: Korg as the first boss of the game, who only summons one Dream Creature, which comes out with a summoning length penalty.
- Word Salad: Before eating some Translator Seeds, the speech of Moonlands people sounds to Tony like random strings of nonsense: "Exploding sock puppet!"
- You ALL Look Familiar: Averted—almost every NPC you will encounter in the game has an actual counterpart in the card game. Well, if you've got a large cast, you might as well use 'em, right? However, a few sprites were re-used. But when you talk to them, you notice the aversion.
