You’ve in all probability performed twin-stick shooters, however have you ever performed twin-stick dodgers? The reply might be a ‘no’ adopted by a swift ‘eh?’. Properly, it’s one of the best ways we will consider describing Mighty Mage. It’s a sport the place you don’t shoot – not likely – and as an alternative you dodge the enemies. It might appear like a twin-stick shooter, however it’s our newly patented ‘twin-stick dodger’.
We should always in all probability describe issues a bit higher. At first of Mighty Mage, you select your little dude. He is available in fireplace, water, earth and electrical flavours, however the selection is basically arbitrary: they play very, very equally, and the primary distinction is the color of the spells that tumble out of your physique.
With that basic selection out of the best way, you step by means of a portal which – confusingly – leaves you in completely the identical place as earlier than. Then the enemies begin streaming by means of some portcullises, and it’s your job to wipe all of them out to finish the extent.
It took us some time to totally perceive what was taking place subsequent. As a result of we have been jamming the analogue sticks within the course of enemies, and we have been tapping away on the face buttons hoping to lob some magical plasma in a slime’s face. However nothing was taking place. The buttons did nowt. All we may do was faucet A to sprint in a course.
A tutorial would have been good, Mighty Mage. As a result of the reply is exceptionally easy – simply not what anybody would have anticipated. You’ll be able to maintain RT (or faucet it, for those who really feel it makes a distinction) to auto-fire on the enemies. You’ll be able to’t direct the place the mage fires: you’re holding RT and hoping that he zaps the closest and most instant menace. Concentric circles ring the mage, displaying the vary of his fireplace.
It feels mistaken. It’s a sense that by no means really goes away, however you do begin coming to phrases with what it needs you to do. What it needs is so that you can select when to fireside – which slows you down, we must always observe – when to sprint, and when to easily peg it in regards to the room. It’s a sport of struggle or flight, besides the preventing principally includes holding a single button down.
There’s a certain quantity of enjoyable and magnificence that comes from managing the room. You’re all the time on the lookout for an exit, making certain that you simply don’t get caught in a cranny. If you’ve bought some respiratory room, you might be squatting on that RT button, hoping which you can maintain the enemies on the edges of these circles round your mage.
However as gameplay goes, it looks like one thing is lacking. And we’ve bought a good concept of what’s lacking. The issue is that nothing adjustments. The gameplay doesn’t get deeper or extra strategic: it stays the identical throughout to the sport’s finish. And working away isn’t notably empowering. When your spells are firing off like Bonfire Night time, however you had little or no to do with them, it might really feel oddly low-cost.
There’s a combo between the extent of problem and the size of Mighty Mage that makes it extra of an issue. As a result of there are twenty ranges accessible per mage, and it solely takes twenty minutes to finish all of them. Multiply that per mage – fireplace, water, earth and electrical energy – and also you don’t have a supremely lengthy playtime. However the actual kicker is that the stakes are so, so low. We by no means felt like we’d die (one thing that’s problematic for improve selection, as we by no means went for pace or well being boosts, as we didn’t want them). It’s simply method, method too straightforward, and there’s no actual choice to hoick it up.
It seems like we’re down on Mighty Mage, however there’s a element that brings it collectively. Between ranges, you get a selection of upgrades. More often than not, these are stat boosts. You select from 4 choices – one is all the time well being – they usually may jack up your pace, crit harm, chance to crit, DPS and extra. On rarer events, you get new powers that seem in your World of Warcraft-style hotbar. Besides, in fact, you don’t really activate that hotbar your self: your little mage does.
Easy as it’s, the upgrades saved us enjoying. We beloved juicing up our little wizard, making them a killing machine that hardly wanted us. We’d goal to get to a degree the place, for the primary few moments of a stage, we may stand in the course of the world and maintain RT, unleashing hell on anybody who dared method us. On the later ranges, we felt like probably the most highly effective wizard in all the land, and all we needed to do was press a set off button.
However then we performed every of the totally different mages and we did the identical factor, time and again. The water mage doesn’t have a distinct fashion of play from the hearth mage. They’re simply totally different colored explosions. There’s a missed alternative there. If one was extra into beautiful, for instance, then we’d play in another way, and it’s what Mighty Mage desperately wants. With out it, we have been replaying for the achievements, which, for those who’re , are yours in simply over an hour. However Gamerscore ought to be the final purpose to play a sport.
Mighty Mage is a shooter with out the taking pictures, and it’s as bemusing because it sounds. We’re undecided what the builders wished: are we meant to deal with it like an idle sport? A dodge ’em up? Or are we genuinely meant to squint and contemplate it a shooter? We’re not totally certain the builders even know.
A sport devoted to getting out of the best way? It’s not precisely a killer pitch. But when yow will discover some enjoyable within the dodging then there’s an improve system in Mighty Mage that sprinkles magic on high. We’re simply undecided it’s fairly sufficient.
