Lost Magic casts its spell

If there are two key directions DS game designers are taking at the moment, it's making as much use of the touchscreen as possible, and enabling gamers to link up via Nintendo's free Wi-Fi Connection.

Now role-playing-strategy-game hybrid Lost Magic is promising to explore both paths.

First up is the stylus-related gameplay. In the world of Lost Magic, your stylus can cast spells – it being one of the seven wands that were given to the Guardians of the World to maintain order and all. The whole Guardians set-up has broken down, alas, so it's up to you, the young, hotheaded Isaac Lightblard – equipped with wizard's hat and magical Light Rod – to try and put things back together.

You'll have plenty of ways of doing so, since in Lost Magic you'll be able to combine three spells together to create up to 350 possible magical outcomes. But with 250 quests spread across some 60 levels, you'll probably need them all to make it through.

Lost Magic will be one of the first non-Nintendo games to use the Wi-Fi Connection. Despite a looming release date, publisher Ubisoft hasn't released any information explaining how exactly this will work yet, only that you'll be able to play against gamers from all around the world. Looking into the Pocket Gamer crystal ball, we'd assume some co-operative gameplay will loom large, as well as ways to swap items and spells.

As if all this wasn't sufficient reason to get excited about Lost Magic, there's the visuals. You've probably already noticed that this is a fine looking game. The main artist behind it is Yoshiharu Sato, who worked for Studio Ghibli, the Japanese company who gave us award-winning animations such as Howl's Moving Castle and Princess Mononoke.

Already casting its spell over us, Lost Magic should appear with a flash of light in shops on April 24th.