Magicka: Wizards of the Square Tablet – Review
Who here remembers Magicka? You should, because it was and still is one of the best action rpg’s on PC and Xbox 360 that got released in recent years.
The original game had you combining different elements into all kinds of magic. The possibilities were nearly endless and a mother-load of DLC only improved upon that.
I’ll admit, I’m a huge Magicka fanatic, so you can imagine I ended up jumping around of joy when I heard about Wizards of the Square Tablet, a brand new Magicka-game designed entirely for Android and iPad.
Story
Once again you get to play as a young wizard who gets to rid a kingdom of daily violence, monsters and oppression.
You accomplish this with more violence of course.
While the story never really enters the spotlight, it’s the tongue-in-cheek undertone that adds plenty of charm to this adventure. As always you’re travelling around a world filled to the brink with Norse mythology while NPC’s chatter about with voices that are best described as Sim-ish.
Graphics
Anyone who’s played the original Magicka will immediately notice a turn towards brighter colors. Everything, from backgrounds, character designs to the surrounding décor, looks as if it’s been colored with Photoshop’s sunniest color-range.
Evidently this can make you feel as if you’re playing a flash game, one that’s been carefully crafted, but still one constructed using flash.
That said, the different levels are pretty detailed and when it comes to items and other attributes, fans of the series will instantly recognize plenty of similarities with Wizards of the Square Tablet’s predecessor. Especially the different effects of all sorceries go hand in hand with fond memories.
Sound
Music in the game always fits the atmosphere and has been carefully crafted to never draw your attention away from the action. Spells all have their own effect, as they should, as fire -for instance- sounds noticeably different than lightning.
It can get a bit repetitive though. Especially when you leave the game itself rest for a moment, you’ll notice the same track gets repeated rather quickly.
Gameplay
It might be a major disappointment for some people, but Magicka: Wizards of the Square Tablet is a major departure from the action rpg-goodness of the first game. Instead you get a side-scrolling brawler that has you walking from left to right while blasting away monsters.
While a change in genre isn’t a bad thing per se, it still has to be done right. Sadly, that isn’t the case.
In the first place you have to make due with not even half the spells available in the original Magicka and what’s left mostly focuses on dealing damage. Gone is the plethora of crowd control spells.
This means you choose the elements you fancy the most, combine them with the life element -because life+anything equals beams and beams are overpowered- spam them like there’s no tomorrow, only to stop when you need to heal yourself. There’s just no point to picking a proper strategy.
Then there are the control issues.
At the bottom of your screen you can find all different types of magical elements. There’s earth, fire, ice, life, lightning, water and shield. The seven of them form a horizontal bar that’s there for you to bash whenever a new monster appears. At the same time you’ll have to move around and maneuver throughout the screen.
Those two actions do not combine well, unless you’re able to lay down your tablet. Even then, as soon as your screen fills with enemies, things get too hectic to do anything but stand perfectly still and spam spells as fast as you possibly can.
If you do pick up this game, I’d recommend to play online with other players. The four-way co-op makes things more interesting by filling the screen with magical properties flashing about.
Other than that, there’s just not enough reason to spend much time on Wizards of the Square Tablet.
Conclusion
As a brawler Magicka: Wizards of the Square Tablet is too chaotic and too simplistic to stay enjoyable for very long. It’s still got the same charming humor the original Magicka had, but feels lacking when it comes to actual gameplay.
A pity, because I personally feel that Magicka -the rpg- would fit touchscreens perfectly.
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