I was a Kickstarter backer for this game, and I'm so glad. I got the game, and then after playing for a few hours, went and bought the soundtrack too. If nothing else, this game has one of the best soundtracks in video game history.

The game itself plays like a Legend of Zelda style adventure, with your mage, Zia, roaming the countryside recovering macguffins from dungeons. The twist is that you have no sword or shield. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, is done with magic. You have a spell book which you are constantly updating with new modifiers. So at the beginning of the game, you'll start with a fire orb. Then, you'll gain a movement modifier, and have it move forward. Then you'll add homing. Then you'll split it into 3. By the end of the game, writing your spellbook is almost like learning a new language, and it all feels organic. I think it's the first time I've actually felt like I was learning magic along with my character. It is worth playing the game for this alone.

Nonetheless, the game is not perfect. First, travel never gets easy. You still traverse on foot almost everywhere. There are teleport pads, but they don't seem to be placed in logical locations, so they are rarely used. Second, it is very, very easy to get softlocked by enemies, where they knock you down and keep hitting you for many seconds. Third, the camera angles in a few sections turn what should be easy dexterity challenges into slogs that take your whole health bar away. Finally, it is WAY too hard to regain HP. You can travel from one side of the map to the other breaking every pot on the way and still not fill up. Then, a single encounter with grunts will bring you back down to half. There's supposedly a wand that restores HP to you, but in my casual playthrough, I did not find it.

Still, this is well worth checking out!