Wizard of Legend is a charming game, and Wizard of Legend 2 is also rather charming. I played the original ages ago on the family Xbox, with my eldest son, I seem to remember. As for the sequel, I’ve just spent an hour or so with the new single player demo that just landed as part of Steam Next Fest. Here are my thoughts.
A Dead Mage for the Wizard’s return
That headline sounds more ominous than it should, but it’s my clumsy way of segueing into the fact that Wizards of Legend’s original developer, Contingent99, is no longer in charge of the IP. That would normally mean alarm bells for me, but in this instance that’s not the case because publisher Humble Games has done the video game equivalent of calling in the A-Team.
That new developer on the case is Dead Mage, an indie studio with real pedigree. If you’ve heard the name before that’s because they made Children of Morta, a game that has some of the loveliest pixel-art these old eyes have ever seen. That being so, I find it a little strange that Wizard of Legend 2 has taken the pixelated style of the original and changed it up for a colourful 3D cel-shaded style more reminiscent of Ravenswatch or even Hades.
Does this new style look good? Yes, I think it does. Do I understand why you’d take a fan favourite pixel-art game and pair it with a studio that just made a phenomenal pixel-art game and then get them to make something else? No, no I do not. That’s an awfully around the houses way of saying that I like the new art style, but there you go. Now you have context you never knew you needed.
So it looks good but does it play like magic?
Just like the first game, Wizard of Legend 2 is a tough nut to crack, and it took quite a few turns before I started to get into some sort of groove. Even then, I didn’t get to the end of the demo and my deaths were many and frequent. I liked the spell combos and stringing together attacks feels great, but I missed a lot of attacks because of mistimed button presses, as nearly everything is on a cooldown. All I’m saying is: it takes some getting used to.
The raised platforms of the original return, and I fell off the edge of more than I’d like to admit. The penalty for such clumsiness is a small health reduction, so not the end of the world, but it’s a trade-off worth making as smacking enemies over the edge and to their death is great fun. I did notice that the frequency of my tumbles and even missed attacks felt higher than I would expect from a game like this, although I’m not sure I can articulate why so I’m filing this under “skill issue”.
As previously alluded to, I got punched by a lot of enemies. Wizard of Legend 2 wants you to duck and move around the battlefield, and any loss of patience can result in you getting hit by a combo of blows. Ducking and moving often causes your enemies to group together, which is fine when you can freeze them all with one hit and then unleash a special while they’re all standing together to wipe them all all en masse. However, when a whole gang of skeletons or whatever hits you at the same time, it can be devastating to both your health bar and your morale.
The game comes into its own when you’re joining together your attacks, unleashing special moves on your foes while you dart around them like a bad-ass spellcaster. After a while I started to enjoy these moments with more frequency, and that’s why I want to end this preview on a high note.
At the start of each new run you’re invited to pick a new ability from three options, and leaning into this one-off magical bonus can lead to increased effectiveness during said run. You can also change out your cape for another that gives different bonuses, further mixing things up for your next attempt.
Once you’ve left the confines of the starting castle, there are vendors out there hoping to sell you new items and, if you look around for long enough, you’ll find chests to crack open – all the usual fantasy roguelite stuff. What’s more, my first impression is that the challenging gameplay is balanced by a funny and playful atmosphere, which bodes well if this is going to be a co-op game that people want to keep coming back to. And you know, I think it will be.
