I liked the demo enough when I played it months back to get this now that Episode 1 is done in EA. Overall Wizordum is a solid enough fantasy boomer shooter currently, though its going to need some more sauce to rival fellow Heretic/Hexen inspired indie shooters such as AMID EVIL and Hedon. The weapons are good and I used mostly all of them but they're not really exciting so far, mainly just variations of standard boomer shooter arsenals, i.e. the ice wand is essentially a machine gun that freezes, the blunderbuss is essentially your shotgun. The level design is solid; levels are rather big but your next objective is always indicated on your map so you won't get lost and the secrets are mostly pretty fair if you're paying attention to breakable walls and you only need to hit your face against more conspicuous objects on the walls. It mostly starts off as essentially fantasy Wolfenstein in level design though it seems like the later levels in Episode 1 start shaking that up. There's a good variation in the levels so far too, ranging from a fantasy town, sewers and dungeons, a graveyard, docks, and moving around the wreckage of the part of town on fire. The soundtrack is actually nice too, embracing the heroic fantasy atmosphere in contrast to its dark fantasy shooter predecessors and contemporaries. Hoping this game keeps improving, but even if it just maintains this current level of quality I'd be cool with it.

I finally had the time to complete act 1 and get all the achievements (except for one) after about 20 hours. The other 2 acts will get released later as the game is still in Early Access. There is enough to talk about despite the game still being far from finished.

Act 1 contains 7 stages of varying sizes, most of them being huge and worth multiple maps. Wizordum is an old school easy pick up and play FPS with a big emphasis on secrets, loot and beating all enemies. You can also finish stages without trying to get everything. The graphics are vibrant and crisp, the music has strong moments and the controls with the mouse & keyboard feel great. There are multiple weapons and consumables. They’re fine but the system around them is still being worked on and it will change with a future update. The other big emphasis of the game is a level editor and playing user created levels. I’m not the creator type but it looked solid based on the little I spent making my own level. Browsing user created levels is easy, seamless and I can see the game having endless content with it.

Now on to the flaws. The flaws can mostly be divided in 3 categories: bugs, map and collecting loot. With map, I mean how the map can look confusing to determine the connection between certain areas or which floors. The developer did confirm they’re going to improve this. What we have does the job. It’s not horrible but it could have been better. Loot is a bit of a big deal if you care about finding everything. Loot can be found in chests, dropped from corpses, hidden etc. The issue is the fact the stages are HUGE, there is tons of loot and there is no way of finding the rest you’re missing whether it’s with tools in-game or finding help online. I don’t think we’re ever going to get guides for loot due to the way they’re designed in this game. It’s a horrible feeling when you’ve done your best to find everything, yet by the end you’re missing 1% and you have no idea where to begin your search. If you continue with the next stage and you’re missing loot, then you have to find everything again if you want 100% (unless you keep a manual save perhaps). The loot you found is not saved, only your accomplishments on the stage’s description. What happens often is you reach the end of the stage but you go back to search everything thoroughly again before using the exit. This can tremendously affect pacing. The developer mentioned they will take the time to think of a solution for the loot problem. So I’m hopeful things will get better. I kept bugs as last because they too can be divided in 3 categories: save, achievements and other minor bugs. Keep in mind that the first 2 have been my personal experience during EA. They’re fixed and should not be an issue for others now. There have been issues with saves after certain updates. Luckily the developer always looked into my saves and offered quick patches for them. With achievements, there were plenty that simply didn’t work. It took a while but I can now confirm that all of them work. The other bugs are minor but they don’t exactly give a polished impression.

Even though I talked about the flaws more, I don’t want to give the wrong idea. I actually deeply enjoyed Wizordum. I also highly recommend it whether in the current state or when 1.0 releases. The content released is already worth the price and polished enough with the basic fundamentals. While the 1.0 release is going to contain 2 more acts, new systems introduced or current ones fleshed out and a new playable character. I’m confident the developer will get it all done based on my discord interactions, the speed at which the players are supported and the love shown for the modding community.

Il classico gioco che per il prezzo che ha inevitabilmente va a generare una percezione negativa, nonostante l'evidente potenziale. Il problema sta tutto nei suoi limiti, il gioco è completamente lineare, ha zero salti e i movimenti limitati e ripetitivi sia nell'esplorazione che nel combattimento, seppur dinamico, inevitabilmente annoia. Magari non tanto nel combattimento quanto nel suo essere limitante nell'esplorazione che a sua volta è eccessivamente complicata per via di un mondo poco intuitivo. Un gioco troppo vecchio con una estetica che abbellisce ciò che richiama. Non me la sento di valorizzarlo, ma rimango curioso per aggiornamenti futuri (personalmente credo che si debba ricercare una maggiore linearità e semplicità nella soluzione dei puzzle, aumentando eventualmente la difficoltà nei combattimenti o eventualmente nelle fasi di platforming -mettendole e migliorando ovviamente i movimenti-)