While looking for new games to play, I saw what looked like a fairly cheap indie game - something about legendary wizards. The gameplay trailer looked decent, but I figured it would again be boring. I decided to try it all the same.
It is not boring. It is not cheap. It is freaking awesome.
It is Wizard of Legend.
Wizard of Legend is an excellent action roguelike that challenges your reflexes and endurance. It is available on pretty much everything - PS4, XBox One, Nintendo Switch, Steam, and a couple of other sources, so just about any gamer can find and play it. An incredibly difficult game, WoL will make you wanna throw your controller a large number of times. But the action is just so dang awesome that it's hard to put down. There's not much that's cooler than launching an exploding fireball that blams the life out of everything onscreen and following up with a burst of tracking water dragons that strike enemies repeatedly. The game is lacking significantly in story, but it is a game where that is by design - the focus is the action, and boy, is there a lot of it.
Like other roguelikes, this game has several different elements that are randomized for each playthrough, meaning each session is different than the last.
Levels
You have a total of ten levels to survive with every playthrough, each of which occurs inside of different elemental "dungeons". Each dungeon map (aside from boss levels) is randomly generated, so you will do a lot of exploring. On non-boss levels, you seek the exit portal, guarded by a mini boss. You can find loot to buy if you explore the entire map, making exploration worth doing.
Despite the randomness of the mazes, the levels feel fairly stale. It is anxiety-inducing, as you don't know what's around the next corner until you get there, but the tiles and designs of each room are not significantly varied. You mostly see lots of flat walls and open floors. Some areas appear nicer than others - the earth element zone has a lot of foliage and grass that make it feel more alive, whereas the lightning element zone is bare and fairly devoid of changing scenery. When you play through the game frequently, some dungeons seem to instill a feeling of "meh" with their appearance, and others feel exciting. Some more variety in the physical appearance of the levels could further add to the liveliness of the game.
Combat
Fights in the game feel wonderfully fluid, as you are able to dodge, melee, and use magic shots/bolts/rocks/axes/stuff to attack remotely. Magic spells are referred to as "arcana", and are displayed as cards with drawings and writing describing what they do. Each arcana can be chained together for combos, which are so fun to deploy that I personally laughed from the awesomeness multiple times on my first few playthroughs. You are a walking powerhouse in this game, and the fantasy of being able to do so many cool things is excellently played out here. You can zip behind a foe and slash them repeatedly with ice swords before they can react, then blast them away with a burst of damaging wind, giving you a split second of time to react before they retaliate. Or, you can kick a rock in their face that bursts, causing small area of effect damage (AoE for short), then dash and punch them with a fist made of stone. The combinations of spells are virtually endless, so any player can find a set of spells they enjoy playing with.
Spells
There are four categories of arcana: melee, dash, standard, and signature. You have one of each equipped for every playthrough.
Melee is what it sounds like - a weak, fast attack that gets in the enemy's face.
Dash is also what it sounds like - a speedy maneuver that allows you to dodge/damage enemies.
Standard arcana are your main, high-powered spell you are equipped with.
Signature arcana constitute your "special move", which is charged as you fight enemies. You can use the base signature arcana, which is already your strongest move, but when fully charged, it becomes a screen-clearing, flashy, and gorgeously animated explosion of violence.
Every arcana has one of six elements, two of which have sub-elements assigned:
Fire, which deals high damage and burns the enemy, hurting it over time.
Wind, which uses fast attacks that tend to push enemies around the screen.
Thunder, which deals low damage, but stuns the enemy while hitting multiple times.
Earth, which deals some of the highest damage for the slowest attacks. Several of these abilities can be difficult to use, but reward skilled players. Earth includes a "poison" sub-element.
Water, which uses wide area-of-effect attacks that often push enemies around the screen. Water includes an "ice" sub-element.
Chaos, which are unlocked one at a time, each time you beat the final boss. These arcana are extremely powerful, and have unusual effects.
As mentioned, you can mix and match each of these spells to create different combinations that help you wipe out enemies your way. You can have a lightning dash with a wind melee and fire arcana for the rest, or any number of other combinations. The neatest thing about the arcana is that every last one is different - they'll use similar effects, but each is so dissimilar in style and usage that you could choose an all-water build and still have a great deal of variety with your attacks.
Loot
The loot in the game comes in the form of the aforementioned arcana, artifacts, and outfits. These are purchased with in-game currency. As you defeat enemies, you earn both coins and gems. Gems are for unlocking arcana, artifacts, and new outfits for your character while prepping for the next attempt at the dungeons. Outfits and artifacts both provide you with passive skills or character buffs. Outfits are selected before each playthrough, as is one artifact.
As you play through each level, you gain coins. Coins allow you to purchase additional artifacts and arcana from various vendors hiding in the dungeons. The arcana and artifacts you get are randomized, meaning you can develop a different build every time you play. This adds significantly to the feeling of variety, as well as the feeling of being a totally awesome boss that can blow up the world with ease.
There's only one problem: your opponents are pretty boss as well.
Enemies and Difficulty
The enemies are well-varied, from swordsmen, to Juggernauts, to little blobs of annoyance that are sometimes irritating to hit. The enemies are hard as-is on the first level, and you will get smacked around more than you would like. The difficulty seems unfair at times, as even basic enemies have the ability to wittle your health down if you don't time your hits and dodges right. The challenge only increases, as the enemies attack faster and hit a little harder with each level you complete. Your reaction time gets shorter and shorter, as enemies eventually dash towards you when you enter a room. You can quickly get swarmed towards the end of the game and be slaughtered in seconds. You are able to heal in the dungeons with a health potion from a vendor, but the potion heals you less and less every time you purchase it. To get potions, you need coins, and coins drop from fallen enemies the most. Some can drop from breakable items in the environment. The need for money becomes one of your best means of survival, which means you can only live as you try not to die in combat. Brutality is stacked onto grueling irritation, as your health carries over from round to round. If you lose three hundred HP in the first level, then assuming you can't get any potions, you have to make your remaining 200 HP last all the way through the final boss.
You'll fight a total of 4 bosses in a normal playthrough, each of which will likely have you cursing the game developer more than a few times. The bosses are quick, ruthless, and powerful. If the enemies are bad, the bosses make them look like wimps. You will be blown up, smashed, electrocuted (in rapid succession), frozen, or lit ablaze to the point that you will wonder how it's possible to even beat one boss, let alone the game. Like the basic enemies, the bosses become more challenging with each boss defeated - instead of attacking three times before a pause like the first, the second boss attacks four times, and attacks much more quickly. The final boss makes the first three seem easy by comparison, as he escalates in difficulty as you fight him. These things all stack to make the game seem insurmountable, but both the variety and new arcana you obtain make the challenge feel at least somewhat worth the reward. Some of the rewards feel too small for the difficulty, resulting in greater irritation while playing. There are some rewards worth the effort, though - getting a chaos arcana after beating the game the first time is amazing. It feels like such a monumental feat that it's one of the few games that makes me feel a genuine sense of accomplishment, as it requires every last ounce of focus you have to make it that far. Just writing about it stresses me out thinking about the effort it took, but I still feel like beating the game was worth the time and energy I put into it. It's a rare feat these days for a game I play to make me feel like I did something hard that was worth the effort. For many, the difficulty will make this game less accessible and less enjoyable. For people into challenging games such as Dark Souls, you'll find a worthy challenge in this game.
Graphics
The game is styled after 16-bit graphics from the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis era. Though seemingly basic in art-direction, the game is animated with a lot of modern touches that weren't possible on those systems. Your avatar himself has a rather small set of animations they are used so creatively with each spell that the character rarely, if ever, looks out of place while battling. He moves fluidly, which is quite a feat for a 16-bit-styled game that has so much going on at any given time.
The spells are where the modern animation techniques come in. There are flashy, gorgeous, and downright awesome visuals that come from the spells alone. Half the enjoyment of the game for me is just watching how the spells and particle effects work together to create truly brilliant combat scenes. For a game styled after consoles from twenty five years ago, there is plenty of eye-candy to enjoy.
For Parents
The game is perfectly clean. There is no language, no sexual or suggestive content, no blood or gore, and nothing else that could be considered untoward.
Some Christians may be concerned at the use of magic spells and enchantments in the game, as the majority of enemies are "summoned" into existence. These are basically drones that do the bidding of the master. Mini bosses in particular are summoned using what looks like a dark magic circle, which some associate with demonic iconography. However, the iconography in the game does not match any real-world applications of such symbols as far as I have seen, and as such can be deemed non-satanic in nature. The game makes no reference to devilish figures. The enemies that are summoned are there specifically to test the player, as you are participating in what are called "The Chaos Trials", meant to test a wizard's skill to see if you are the "Wizard of Legend". There is no direct reference to any enemy or creature being evil in nature. Even the bosses are effectively teachers challenging your skills, and they reward you for besting them.
Verdict
This is a truly incredible game that I recommend to as many people as possible. Even despite the difficulty, the game feels wonderfully fun, and needs even more exposure than it already has. If you have not yet gotten this game, then go and get this game. Why? Because it is awesome. Just awesome. I think a sequel to this game with a zelda-like open world and a story mode could be amazing, but those are nit-picking wishes. The game was designed for action, and it does that perfectly. 9/10, would recommend.