Mages of Mystralia

A lovely little adventure game, with lots of pleasant exploration, as well as casual combat and puzzles.

What makes this game special is the magic system, which involves assembling spells from components that you find in your adventures. It's fun to experiment with different combinations, and some clevers ones are necessary to solve puzzles. However, for combat you'll probably settle on a few favorites. In the late game the combos can get kinda crazy and the screen looks more like a bullet-hell arcade game. Generally combat get quuite repetitive, but there's a decent variety of enemies, and the game is short enough that it doesn't get too annoying. There are several boss fights, and they are good fun.

I played it on "archmage" difficulty, which is one level above the default, and it did give me a bit of a challenge. I assume the default difficulty would be quite easy.

The art design is simple but pristine, with great old-school modeling and an expressive color palette. I must especially commend the camera movement, which seems to always direct the field of view to the most flattering angle, adding a cinematic and dramatic scope to what would be humdrum in other games. Game developers, take note.

I enjoyed it! I feel like it could have been bigger and longer, but the ending does hint at the possibility of a sequel.