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?’. Nicely, it’s one of the simplest 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 seem like a twin-stick shooter, however it’s our newly patented ‘twin-stick dodger’.
We should always in all probability describe issues a little bit higher. At the beginning of Mighty Mage, you select your little dude. He is available in hearth, water, earth and electrical flavours, however the alternative 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 elementary alternative out of the best way, you step via a portal which – confusingly – leaves you in completely the identical place as earlier than. Then the enemies begin streaming via 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 path 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 might do was faucet A to sprint in a path.
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 may maintain RT (or faucet it, in case you really feel it makes a distinction) to auto-fire on the enemies. You may’t direct the place the mage fires: you’re holding RT and hoping that he zaps the closest and most rapid menace. Concentric circles ring the mage, exhibiting the vary of his hearth.
It feels improper. It’s a sense that by no means really goes away, however you do begin coming to phrases with what it desires you to do. What it desires is so that you can select when to fireside – which slows you down, we should always word – when to sprint, and when to easily peg it concerning the room. It’s a sport of combat or flight, besides the preventing principally entails holding a single button down.
There’s a specific amount of enjoyable and magnificence that comes from managing the room. You’re all the time in search of an exit, making certain that you simply don’t get caught in a cranny. While you’ve acquired some respiratory room, you’re squatting on that RT button, hoping you could maintain the enemies on the edges of these circles round your mage.
However as gameplay goes, it seems like one thing is lacking. And we’ve acquired 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 right through to the sport’s finish. And operating away isn’t notably empowering. When your spells are firing off like Bonfire Evening, however you had little or no to do with them, it could 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 out there per mage, and it solely takes twenty minutes to finish all of them. Multiply that per mage – hearth, 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 would die (one thing that’s problematic for improve alternative, as we by no means went for velocity or well being boosts, as we didn’t want them). It’s simply method, method too simple, 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 alternative of upgrades. More often than not, these are stat boosts. You select from 4 choices – one is all the time well being – they usually would possibly jack up your velocity, crit injury, probability to crit, DPS and extra. On rarer events, you get new powers that seem in your World of Warcraft-style hotbar. Besides, after all, you don’t truly activate that hotbar your self: your little mage does.
Easy as it’s, the upgrades stored us enjoying. We beloved juicing up our little wizard, making them a killing machine that hardly wanted us. We’d purpose to get to some extent the place, for the primary few moments of a degree, we might stand in the midst of the world and maintain RT, unleashing hell on anybody who dared strategy us. On the later ranges, we felt like probably the most highly effective wizard in the entire 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, again and again. The water mage doesn’t have a special type of play from the fireplace 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 a different way, and it’s what Mighty Mage desperately wants. With out it, we have been replaying for the achievements, which, in case you’re , are yours in simply over an hour. However Gamerscore ought to be the final cause to play a sport.
Mighty Mage is a shooter with out the capturing, and it’s as bemusing because it sounds. We’re unsure what the builders needed: are we meant to deal with it like an idle sport? A dodge ’em up? Or are we genuinely meant to squint and think about it a shooter? We’re not solely certain the builders even know.
A sport devoted to getting out of the best way? It’s not precisely a killer pitch. But when you’ll find some enjoyable within the dodging then there’s an improve system in Mighty Mage that sprinkles magic on prime. We’re simply unsure it’s fairly sufficient.
