Admittedly, the animation is pretty good, as are the spot effects

The concept of the free-roaming beat 'em up is hardly new. But Destrega takes the idea a step further. Here, you're not actually required to make physical contact with your opponent...
Steve Bradley

Bushido Blade started this sort of thing off, didn't it?
Bang on. Bushido Blade was the game that introduced huge, runabout arenas to the beat 'em up genre. Destrega features even larger gaming areas but the significant difference here is that you don't have to come face to face with your opponent. At least in Bushido Blade you clashed swords now and again before 'having it on your toes'. Destrega, though, is based on magic spells as opposed to a size 10 in the ribs.

How do these 'spells' manifest themselves?
Each of the 12 characters has 34 spells, and bashing different button combinations produces varying attacks. What this essentially means is that you fire a volley of fireballs at your opponent from anywhere in the arena.

Sounds more like a stand off shoot 'em up.
It is. There isn't a great deal of skill in peppering your opponent from 30 paces with a 'spell'. There also seems to be some sort of 'auto targeting' system which means the fireballs go in the general direction of your foe, no matter which way you're facing. A lot of the spells seem to have homing properties too, because you always seem to catch the cow's arse with the banjo.

Oh dear.
You really can't qualify Destrega as a 'beat 'em up' in the traditional sense. But that's not to say that it's completely without merit.