PwerlvlAmy

User Score
7.0

Presentation - 8.0
Gameplay - 8.0
Value - 7.0

 

 

A Magical Time.

Mages Of Mystralia is an action adventure fantasy game that is developed and published by Borealys Games. Go a journey to become a great mage and become who you were destined to be.

Story:

Adventure as an inspiring mage named Zia as you traverse the world that is full of secrets,dangers and mystery and obtain a variety of spells to aid you in your quest. Learn how to become the worlds greatest mage that it has ever known.

 

 

Game play:

Mages Of Mystralia plays a little bit like a hack on slash when using specific attacks like Immedi, but varies in game play based off other spells at your disposal such as Creo,Actus and Ego. Each spell you acquire can be used to either fight with,traverse or solve world puzzles with in order to gain access to an area you might not have been to before.

As stated already Immedi is a lighting based melee attack that can be used to break barrels,boxes,pots and even attack your enemies for close combat. Other spells at your disposal offer you elements such as fire,water and a shield, use them to your advantage in order to bypass specific areas,such as rivers. When you are stuck at a river that you simply cant pass or where you see a secret, this is where you have to use Creo. With Creo, it allows you to place a layer of Ice over the water in order to make you a walking path.

 

 

Much like Creo, your fire attack of Actus will act like a means to gain access to a hidden area by lighting torches,but it doubles as an attack itself,also at close range early on in your adventure. But one of your most important spells that will be essential to use for combat will be your Ego spell. This spell acts as a defensive magic spell that temporary puts up a shield in front of you blocking enemy projectiles and melee attacks. But be careful when you use all the above spells as they will drain your mana points if you spam them too much.

Once you have acquired all your basic spells, over time you will find various objects needed to level them up and make them stronger. This is where the game gets pretty deep in regards to how the combat works and makes your time feel well spent when trying to gather the items needed to upgrade your spells to make them even stronger and more efficient. Some of these spells like Actus are essential to upgrade later on in your journey in order to gain access to other areas and secrets.

 

 

After you've gotten all your spells and customized everything the way you want to, now you want to go and test them out on all the bad guys,right? Well you can but don't get too excited because the enemy AI and its overall variety leaves much to be desired. One of the things that got me down is with all the customization and emphasis on building a strong magic arsenal, it just feels kinda ''meh'' using them on the same bunch of enemies and never truly getting to test yourself against way stronger enemies.

However, with a lack of really interesting enemy variety ,the boss fights do make up for some of those shortcomings here. In fact I'd go as far as to say they're my personal highlight of the game due to their size and design, I really can't name one of them that I did not enjoy fighting my way through. No boss fight I encountered felt too hard or too cheap in order to beat. Difficulty level seemed just about right in my opinion.

 

 

Mages Of Mystralia seems to pride itself on charm with its music and its presentation and I feel it delivers on that very well,but overall it lacks in a more cohesive story and fleshed out characters. While I know it is an indie game, so we shouldn't harp too much on these aspects,but while I agree with that sentiment, I just feel the developers set up such a great premise with this game in regards to setting with mages and magic,that it feels more like a missed opportunity in itself. It doesn't make me think any less of the game for what it is, just wished for it to be something more.

Depending on how long you spend exploring the world,unlocking all the secrets,gaining all spells and upgrades,the average play through of Mages Of Mystralia is gonna run you about 8-10 hours depending on how well you do. This time is actually perfect for me, its longer than most other indie games I've played as of late and for what the game offers in its current state, I say that length is more than justified for this title.

 

 

Graphics:

I know a lot of people might not agree with me on this,but my tastes are little different when it comes to graphic and art styles. Mages uses a very simplistic and cell shaded art style with everything looking sorta clay like. Given that this game is a fantasy magic game, I think the art style fits perfectly for what the developers were going for and have no beef with game in this regard. It gives it a good amount of charm and works very well.

 

 

Overall thoughts:

At the end of the day Mages Of Mystralia isn't a perfect game, it has flaws such enemy variety,lack of bigger story,and not being able to use the full potential of the spells you obtain, but overall I feel the games charm and exploration outweigh that in the end and it makes me feel confident in saying if you like action adventure indie games,especially ones involving magic, then pick this one up, I do not think you'll be disappointed.

Mages Of Mystralia is out NOW on Nintendo Switch.

 

Originally posted at https://www.gamenchickgaming.com/blog/mages-of-mystralia-review-switch