Reviews

• gamedeal user

  May 23, 2017

  Here's the deal, I've played 18 hours to complete 100% of the game that include the marvelous story, the very creative puzzle and all the achivement steam. I enjoyed every seconds of that game. Don't get me wrong, i'm a competitive player 99% of my game are multiplayer climbing the aldders. But this one here is a gem. A must play, the very moment you will discoer how to build one spell correctly you will be amazed, but then you just scratch the surface. The complexity of a spell can be to the limit of your mana + wand one spell can litteraly include 5 spell repeating themself over and over until you are out of mana... but the room will be completely clear. This is the first time i ever take time to post a review on steam, and this game worth my time ! Thanks to the team behind the game it is a game i will play for many years from time to time!
• gamedeal user

  Aug 26, 2018

  Do I like this game? Yes. Is it enjoyable despite it's flaws? Yes. Do i recommend it? No. As to the good: The magic creation is wonderful. Every time you get a new modifier for your spells you spend a few minutes just tinkering around and having a blast finding out the new stuff you can do. And jesus, the moment you get triggers, the game changes into some crazy mage recursion that no game has ever implemented so ambitiously. So building specific magic is wonky but fun, however there is very little to actually.... use the magic on. Every single puzzle in this entire game has an only-one-method-solves-it solution. Your progress and puzzle solving is gated by a plethora of obstacles that can only be interacted upon with exactly 1 type of magic each. This normally isnt a large problem but those obstacles are the ONLY non-monster things in the entire game that your magic can interact with. So the issue is that you have this incredibly diverse and open spell casting system in a world with utterly no openess. You cant solve problems in clever ways or feel great about unique spell combos that overcome some unique difficulty, because the only difficulties are A) generic monsters you can just punch to death anyways, and B) Generic obstacles that are destroyed or bypassed by incredibly specific magic. Honestly, as far as gameplay goes, the game would have been better if all the key obstacle-destroying magics were attainable from the start, so that you could at least figure out which specific spells interact with which barriers instead of being spoonfed the mind numbing iterative loop of progression they give you. I swear this game is just a bunch of contrasts being shoved together: Open and diverse magic - Linear generic world. Complex and thought provoking magic creation - Mind numbingly tedious implementation. Anyhow, despite my complaints, the game is good enough that I'm sure a certain niche audience will love it, and all power to them! It was a good attempt, and if Borealys Games publishes anything else I'll almost certainly check it out.
• gamedeal user

  Jul 31, 2017

  Overall, the game is pretty great. Not phenomenal, but very good. Pros: 1. Awesome spell system 2. Interesting story (far more-so if you talk to NPCs regularly) 3. There are fun side-quests/challenges 4. Fun, yet simple, graphics style 5. Music is reasonably good (never felt the need to turn it off) Cons: 1. The spell system, being its greatest asset, is sadly not explained in detail very well. You'd never know detonate and overcharge are mutually exclusive, when more complex runes are affecting what they are connected to, or things as simple as how to read the mana requirement bar under the customizable spell name. 2. The game ramps up far too slowly. If I could recommend anything to the developers, it would be to make a couple more augment and/or trigger runes accessible earlier on. 3. Once you learn the system, the game isn't very difficult. The real difficulty is figuring out what I listed as a con under 1. Suggestions: Buy the game. Play the game. Enjoy the game. Then, go spend some time on the forums helping them make it and the sequel even better.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 27, 2017

  Overall the game felt like it was a demo of a game. The story was lacking and this is my largest complaint. It creates more questions than it answers and it doesn't provide many answers. Ontop of that the few answers you do get you guessed from the start. You could guess how most of the game was going to go by the time the intro ended. The gameplay was great, but I feel the spell combinations didn't always feel meaningful. It didn't offer a lot of gameplay time and overall felt like I just played a game that was half finished when they ran out of will to finish it. The game had promise, but I feel like they really missed the bar.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 1, 2017

  Pros: • Entertaining combat • Creative puzzles with multiple solutions • Crafting spells was pretty entertaining Cons: • Fewer combinations than you would think - there are a lot of things that just don't work together for some reason. • The story takes a backseat to the gameplay, to the point where it's easy to forget it's there half the time • No quest tracker, so it's very easy to lose track of what quests you're doing • No real map/minimap, forcing you to memorize layouts or run around in circles for a long time trying to find things • [spoiler]100% completion doesn't change or add to the disappointing ending[/spoiler] Overall, the pros outweigh the cons, but in the next game, I really want to see more combat-based spells, better story writing, and QoL improvements.
• gamedeal user

  Jan 7, 2018

  I have no idea why this game hasn't gotten more mainstream attention. Cute and highly polished art style, remarkably intricate and detailed animations, cool magic and puzzle mechanics, nice overall atmosphere - on most levels this is really a gem. I was a bit hesistant to buy it, having almost never heard of it, but I'm so glad I did. The highlight is the magic mechanic. Using a socket grid, you get to craft a wide variety of spells by adding behavior and modifier components around a central core element; the variety of spells you can craft, and of runes you can collect, is really impressive. Finding a new encounter or environment and crafting a reliable set of spells to deal with the environment is really rewarding, and experimenting with the spellcrafting system in general is really fun. There's some great puzzle design that makes imaginative use of spell properties, and the boss battles all have puzzle elements that encourage you to figure out good spells. There's also a really fun and intuitive little rune-puzzle mechanic that's mostly used to open doors to secret areas, but then makes a surprise appearance later in the game to great effect. Everything has a puzzly feel to it, despite also being a magical action-adventure game in the moment-to-moment. It's a great combination; and despite most people seeming to beat it in 6-7 hours, I got almost 12 out of it without feeling like anything was dragging and without even finding all the secrets. There's more than enough to do in here. Also, when you open the spellcrafting menu, the game pauses, so you can whip up new spells in the middle of a fight if you need to, which is wonderful. And the final boss encounter is divided into three sections with save checkpoints in between each, which is also great. I really appreciate these little conveniences. The only downside is that the story is a pretty generic fantasy story with broadly unremarkable characters. This works in the sense that it allows the game to focus on introducing novel mechanics, but it would still be nice if the story were a bit more involved or surprising. The protagonist Zia started off with potential - she destroyed her home by accident using fire magic, for example - and the game suggests there are character struggles going on, such as noting that when she has to master the fire element she'll be facing her shame, but in practice that gets zero exploration in the story. There are also a handful of moments I did feel like the WASD+Mouse controls weren't quite as well-integrated as they should be, but broadly speaking it wasn't an issue. The ending of the game unambiguously sets up a sequel, though, so hopefully the devs will get the opportunity to expand the world and story and characters in the next game. And the magic mechanics overall were just so fresh and fun, and the world was so pretty, that I didn't really care. I had a great time playing this and would heartily recommend it.
• gamedeal user

  May 20, 2017

  This game makes me feel conflicted. The music is enjoyable, and very fitting. It is, however, forgettable. Good nonetheless. The story is really boring and typical. Evil king, mages are persecuted, go save the world or something. The game ends on a needless cliffhanger, even though the game already feels a bit short on story content. Visually, the game is quite nice. It has the typical cel-shaded Unity game look without looking lazy or bad. It actually is kinda nice. The shadows look kind of bad in some spots, but the game look really good in general. The real point of the game, however, is to craft and cast spells. And this is the part of the game that makes me feel conflicted. There is a fair amount you can do with the spellcrafting system, and that is the part that I love. But the part that I don't like is that there is no real reason to actually come up with creative spells. In a weird way, the game falls flat in terms of both combat and puzzles, but it succeeds in the spellcasting system itself. So the combat fails for one main reason. The only thing that really matters in combat, besides blocking and dodging, is dealing tons of damage, and there isn't a lot of creative ways to do that. Sure, you can create a rotating image of yourself that shoots out homing projectiles, but why do that when you can create projectiles that shoot out projectiles that shoot out projectiles and so on? Pretty much every combat encounter in the game can be solved by creating these recursive spells that just annihilate everything until you run out of mana. Even the last boss was a joke, with every phase of the fight ending with a single press of the right mouse button. But in a way, the combat was kind of enjoyable. There was something fun about watching my spells destroy everything in the room and lagging out my game. Just seeing how much mayhem I could cause with a single spell was fun in a way. But it leaves me wishing that the spellcasting system was a bit better tuned and that the game found a better way to actually challenge my spellcrafting abilites. Puzzles kind of have the same problem. Pretty much every puzzle at first was solved by me dashing around and shooting projectiles in quick succession with some exceptions like logic puzzles involving creating statues of yourself and putting them on buttons. But the story puzzles never really challenged me in any meaningful way. I also went out to find all of the spell components to see if those puzzles were any better, but they were solved in mostly the same way, and the teleport component further trivializes the puzzles. In a way, it was kind of fun to solve the puzzles in an unintended way when the game tells me that I may not have the proper components to do so, but I really wish that they would make their puzzles actually require me to be creative. And that is the main issue I have with the game, and the reason why I can only recommend this game if you are really in love with the idea of creating spells. There is never really any reason to utilize all the different components. In my opinion, the game should have given you all of the elements and most of the components early, and then forced you to actually use these components in a creative way to actually progress through the game. But as is stands, you can beat the game without most of the components (quite easily, in fact), you unlock the elements in the last stretch of the game, and you can kill all the enemies by just creating spells that continue to just create themselves. The game feels like it has done the job of fleshing out the underlying mechanics, but not done the job of actually giving you a reason to use them. So I had fun with this game, but I was left a bit unsatisfied.
• TazzieDevil

  May 23, 2017

  I recommend the game – because I realise that most gamers either do have game pads or are comfortable with the WASD keys. It looks good and I wanted to know more about the world and its people even though I only played 15 minutes or so. But for me it was time for a refund. I didn't notice any warning that you should use a controller to play the game. The game looks great and I love the idea of the games spell system. But there was no way to remap keys that I could find. I don't use WASD keys to play game nor do I use gamepads. I gave it a go on the WASD keys - and the game is engaging - but I just couldn't adapt to play and ended up walking off cliffs etc. So, it’s a thumbs up from me – but a warning to older gamers like myself or left handed players who like to reconfigure the keys.
• gamedeal user

  May 25, 2017

  This is an incredible game solely based on its spellcrafting system. Sure, the writing and pacing might feel a bit drab; the UI isn't the smoothest thing to use; we're sorely missing a minimap/radar function; sometimes the spells don't fly the way you point and you might encounter a few bugs now and then, etc. etc.... None of these distract from the core experience of using magic in varied and creative ways. [b][i]And it's so much fun.[/i][/b] I've seen and played a few "customize your own spells" games, and this one simply takes the cake. The spellcrafting system is straightforward and very intuitive to learn. Puzzles strewn around the world are tailored to almost all the runes/effects you're going to find, and the hint system is great to let you know if you've already got the required tools (and somewhere along the path, you might have enough tools in your arsenal to solve them in unexpected ways - and it's going to feel [i]great[/i]). The combat leaves enough room for you to win using vastly different setups, though enemies immune to multiple elements might make you feel frustrated at times. I'm currently around 30%~40% progress, and even if the later parts of the game don't maintain the level of quality as the part I've seen so far, it will still be super fun (there will be more magic to find and more spells to craft - that will never be not fun), and worth every penny of the full price. The devs seem to have plans to update the game for a while, so I'm looking forward to see the game improve in the near future. ------------- (Below is a quick Chinese review for the game.) 这个游戏的核心是“创作法术”，魔法系统非常直观易懂，不需要什么编程基础，[b]非常好玩[/b]。 在剧情、节奏、界面和操作方面，或许会有这样那样的瑕疵和不足，但这些小小缺点并不影响游戏最核心的体验。随着主角解锁和学习到越来越多的新魔法和新效果，这个尝试和探索不同的法术构成、组合不同的符文来解谜与打怪的过程会变得越发有趣，时不时都会让人有豁然开朗、非常过瘾的体验。 初期的节奏可能会比较慢，但对于“自己设计/编程魔法”这个概念感兴趣的玩家，这个游戏绝对值得推荐。我关注过也玩过好几个有类似系统的游戏，可以说这款算得上是同类中的佼佼者，目前这个价格绝对不亏。 界面和菜单的汉化不是很理想，但据说剧情的汉化没什么问题，应该不用担心。
• gamedeal user

  Nov 27, 2017

  9/10 would definately reccomend if you like elaborate attack-crafting systems. The game starts somewhat slow but after the ice boss you can mod spells to cast other spells and it escalates from there. If you work the system, end-game is like playing Legend of Zelda as a Touhou boss.