Story Hour...RPG Style
Picture this: In Tao's Adventure: Curse of the Demon Seal you live in a lovely land, at peace with itself and nature. Long ago monsters plagued the land, but that's behind you. The monsters were captured and sealed away in a tower, where they exist only to supply eggs, which have become the center of trade for your people. But alas, one day Mother Nature, the fickle lady that she is, sends a lightning bolt into the tower, freeing all of these glorified farm chickens into the world. Oops.
 
Meanwhile, oblivious to the drastic changes underway, you, a young lad training with earnest to be the best speller in your village "S-M-R-T", ("speller" actually referring to "spell caster"), have only just learned how to cast the obligatory Earth, Wind, Fire and Lightning spells. Your dad taught you, 'cause he's a nice fellow. As you're celebrating your accomplishment you hear a racket outside. Your father is summoned to help put order to the chaos and, to keep you from danger puts a spell on you, rendering you incapable of movement. Not as nice. Just as you start to get seven kinds of angry about how unfair life is, the spell breaks. You emerge from your training grounds to find that the folks of your village have been turned to stone, with the exception of only a few. Because village elders are notorious for their desire to send children to save the world or be slaughtered it is no surprise that you're chosen amongst the older, more practiced survivors, to be the hero. 

Not a bad story. Nothing terribly original, but it's got all of the elements that have become staples of the RPG genre. Though Tao's Adventure is utterly devoid of voice acting, the characters grow on you. Your character is adorable, cartoon-like and very much the boy who's trying to prove himself. As you progress in the game, which transpires mostly in the Monster Tower, you acquire monster friends (think Pokemon) that are also very cute. The art in this game is remarkably well executed. The score is very whimsical and simple, very reminiscent of the Super Nintendo (I dig that) and complements the story and art style.

Cause of Death: Ambition
Ambition is a good, strong, healthy thing. Most of the time. The Nintendo DS is a handheld machine brimming with possibilities. Any developer that would ignore the benefits and new conventions that the touch screen has to offer isn't doing their job. Having said that, the buttons on the DS exist for a reason. Seriously. Tao's uses none of these buttons. Well, you can use the D-pad to get around, but not if you want to get somewhere in any kind of hurry. Conversations, shopping, traveling, battles...ALL touch screen. The convenience and familiarity of the A button has been trashed and replaced with touchable menu and map options that never seem to be in any logical configuration and are sometimes completely unresponsive.Most of the selections that you choose with your stylus are tiny, hard to press, and often obscured by all of the larger options on the same screen. Throughout the adventure you're constantly trying to understand what the touch screen wants you to do; this lack of intuitive control takes away from the immersive feeling a good RPG should provide.

I'm Doodling Your Defeat
What I thought was interesting about the touch screen functionality was the actual battle system. In order to cast a spell, you draw the spell's respective symbol. Eventually, that's fun. Right before it isn't fun any more. Let me clarify that: If you're not a super genius who can immediately memorize which doodle means what, you'll struggle back and forth between the actual fight and your menu trying to figure out what to draw. Eventually you get it down to a science: I draw a triangle; you die. As soon as you master the symbols though, it begins to feel repetitious: Triangle, die, triangle, die. The increasing level difficulty provides some challenge, so it isn't entirely tedious.

Somebody Save Me
Let me state my unwavering do-or-die opinion about handheld games: There should always be an abundance of save points. Always. Abundance. Most folks play handhelds on the go, meaning that eventually they reach their destination. They also play their portable systems during limited breaks in their schedules. This game has absolutely NO regard for that point. You spend most of the game in the Monster Tower, but if you want to save you have to leave the tower, travel to the inn in town, sleep and then save. This also means that if you accidentally draw Mickey Mouse instead of the Earth symbol and die in the tower, you'll likely have a lot of catch-up to do.

Tao's Adventure: Curse of the Demon Seal had enormous amounts of potential. The story, the graphics, the clever new spin on an old battle system, all worked together to set a great scene. However, the issues with the controls took all the fun out of what could have been a great RPG adventure. There's a glaring lack of RPGs for the DS right now, so if you need a fix buy this game. Otherwise, you're better off with a Magna Doodle and your imagination.

-Saria