Review Mazinkaiser 4/5 · Sep 21, 2017
Sorcery: A Fun Little Beginning
Note: This only covers Part 1 of the full series, the "Shamutanti Hills" part.
When I had heard about the original material behind this game, it intrigued me. A mini RPG-esque system hidden behind a choose-your-own-adventure book? Count me in! This mobile series looks to recreate the game's systems in game form, and I find it quite the entertaining little …
Note: This only covers Part 1 of the full series, the "Shamutanti Hills" part.
When I had heard about the original material behind this game, it intrigued me. A mini RPG-esque system hidden behind a choose-your-own-adventure book? Count me in! This mobile series looks to recreate the game's systems in game form, and I find it quite the entertaining little adventure.
As a hero set to return the Crown of Kings to the land of Analand, you start off not quite knowing what to do - there are a few things to be aware of (stamina, gold, rations, pseudo-inventory) but the main aim is to not die while traveling across the land. Events can be traced with the player's finger and allows quite a bit of choice in between, offering advantages and disadvantages that range from pleasant stamina restoration to dead end deaths. Luckily the game has a rewind system, so none of this feels repetitive or frustrating when you unwittingly meet your end.
Two of the biggest systems in this game are combat and the titular sorcery mechanics - combat consists of a simple option to defend and an amount the player can control from 0.0 to 10.0 on how powerful the attack will be. Using text snippets in combat, the player can predict how powerful an attack will be - the closer the victory, the more damage is dealt. If the player dies or is unsatisfied with victory, the fight can always be redone, making it incredibly approachable and offers room for combat improvement.
As for sorcery, the amount of spells in the game are a large amount (a little too beefy, as you'll be scrolling through spells constantly given the chance) but the actual range of castable spells are limited to your needs and what item you need. More often than not you'll be casting fire and lightning, but some other spells (sharpening weapons, growing in size, landing softly) do well in a pinch at the cost of stamina. Unfortunately there are situations where your spell-casting is blocked, limiting the potential, as well as needing very specific items (a Giant's tooth, beeswax) to cast them.
Overall Sorcery is short, but sweet. A comfortable adventure that can be replayed fairly well, you'll see what spells to cast, villagers to trust, and how to get rid of that cursed Minimite.
