Magicka is an interesting little game developed by Arrowhead Game Studios.
I would call it an action rpg but it manages to avoid just about all
the trappings of the genre. While you do have a life bar, there is no
inventory, no potions to chug, no sidequests and at no time do you
level up. You’re a wizard, and once you complete the tutorial,
ostensibly all the magic available in the game is open for you to use
(with the exception of Magicks you have to find the spell books for)
right from the get go.
The story is often amusing, and seemingly
aimed at other people who spend way too much time online. It should also
be noted that with the exception of Vlad’s narration between chapters,
all the voiced dialogue in game sounds a bit like the Swedish Chef from
the Muppets.
Movement is all left-clicked based, while the all
important spell elements are mapped to the q,w,e,r and a,s,d,f. You can
queue up to 5 elements per spell before letting loose with your furious
magical energies with a few options to cast, right-click for normal,
middle-click for self and it’s possible to add the shift key to the mix
to change it to an area of effect spell. Opposite elements will cancel
each other out in the queue, however, so it’s best to not just jam on
the keys willy-nilly and hope for a useful spell to pop out. There’s a
nigh endless amount of combinations, but in the heat of battle it seemed
best to stick with the few things that worked well, like hosing
monsters down with water before letting loose with an arcane, lightning
and frost combined assault that generally led to beasts being frozen and
subsequently exploded a few seconds later. The satisfying feeling this
produces cannot be understated.
Your wizard also gets a staff
and sword, but can only carry one of each at a time. These offer various
effects, like being able to middle-click useful Magicks. I was
particularly fond of the staff that let you charm before the Magick book
that contained the combination was available. Melee always seemed like a
last ditch resort, unless of course you stick with the m60 you can get
early on, and much like Solid Snake wearing a bandana, it never runs out
of ammo. Crowd control tactics become a necessity because it’s pretty
easy to get overrun and have your spellcasting attempts interrupted, not
to mention some pretty savage boss encounters where one slip-up can
have you staring at the ‘Defeated’ screen more times than you’d like.
There’s
also up to four player co-op, which I haven’t had the chance to test
out but I imagine it’d make the game even more chaotic with various beam
spells crossing the screen and imploding when opposing elements
clashed. Good thing revive is one of the first Magicks you get access
to. I only experienced one crash in my time playing through the game
which happened during the chapter 8 boss encounter where an enemy was
continuously spawning a zombie army causing the game to choke and die.
Had to start the level over completely, leading to the last point of
the checkpoints in the game have a tendency to be cruel as well,
sometimes being too few and far between and they don’t actually save
progress mid-level if you want to quit.
All in all, if you’ve
got 10 bucks and a weekend to blow, you can do a lot worse than Magicka.
The fun seems to outweigh the frustration and it is packed with an
undeniable charm
