An incredibly cool and inventive magic system in a pretty mediocre package.
The magic system in Magicka 2 is seriously rad. You have 8 different elements that can all be combined in various ways to create spells that you can cast as a projectile, in an area, on yourself, or on your weapon. Most of the fun was seeing how you can combine elements to create spells, and then how you can combine spells with another player to create explosions or other interesting effects. It almost reminds me of having to memorize fighting game combos so you can quickly execute your favorite spell when you’re unexpectedly swarmed by enemies.
But that need to memorize any cool spell combos you’ve discovered means, more often than not, you just end up casting the same couple of spells over and over again in a panic.
Friendly fire is always on, which makes 4 player online gameplay complete mayhem. Usually I don’t enjoy friendly fire, but it definitely made for some fun antics when playing this online with friends.
Unfortunately, the game itself ain’t great. When you boot up the game for the first time, the tutorial bombards you with paragraphs of text explaining how the complex magic system works. One of the worst game tutorials in memory. The voice acting and story is so bad that we would skip most cut scenes. While the magic system is cool, the game itself never challenges you to use your spells in interesting ways outside of one or two horrible boss fights and maybe three puzzles.
Honestly’, it’s really just not a very good game. It gets 3 stars because the magic system is cool and it was a fun multiplayer experience. Ultimately, killing your friends is more fun than actually playing the game.
+ Inventive magic system
+ Fun multiplayer.
- Very poorly made overall
- Terrible story and voice acting
- Awful tutorial
The magic system in Magicka 2 is seriously rad. You have 8 different elements that can all be combined in various ways to create spells that you can cast as a projectile, in an area, on yourself, or on your weapon. Most of the fun was seeing how you can combine elements to create spells, and then how you can combine spells with another player to create explosions or other interesting effects. It almost reminds me of having to memorize fighting game combos so you can quickly execute your favorite spell when you’re unexpectedly swarmed by enemies.
But that need to memorize any cool spell combos you’ve discovered means, more often than not, you just end up casting the same couple of spells over and over again in a panic.
Friendly fire is always on, which makes 4 player online gameplay complete mayhem. Usually I don’t enjoy friendly fire, but it definitely made for some fun antics when playing this online with friends.
Unfortunately, the game itself ain’t great. When you boot up the game for the first time, the tutorial bombards you with paragraphs of text explaining how the complex magic system works. One of the worst game tutorials in memory. The voice acting and story is so bad that we would skip most cut scenes. While the magic system is cool, the game itself never challenges you to use your spells in interesting ways outside of one or two horrible boss fights and maybe three puzzles.
Honestly’, it’s really just not a very good game. It gets 3 stars because the magic system is cool and it was a fun multiplayer experience. Ultimately, killing your friends is more fun than actually playing the game.
+ Inventive magic system
+ Fun multiplayer.
- Very poorly made overall
- Terrible story and voice acting
- Awful tutorial