Wiz

Preliminary: Looked very impressive from short gameplay clips

Look: 8/10 The UI was great, from the time hourglass to the spellbook, the sprites were well-done and obviously that FF mage look is ahead-of-its-time, and I like the Moon Patrol style course tracking.

Sound: 6/10 The main tune was not as cute as it had seemed in the preliminary viewings, especially on repeat over and over. And oh my goodness that almost-out-of-time sound (I thought it was the sound for when a boss comes... or when the 1up is flashing but apparently is the almost out of time sound?... oh turns out there were just 2 different annoying sounds, one for boss and one for almost-out-of-time haha)

Play: 7/10 It did not prove to be as excitingly advanced and special as I had hoped. Sure, I loved the basic idea: platformer with shooting element. And I liked that basic concept. As usual the arcade controls were responsive and tight, oh and I was grateful for the forgiving platform collision masks... but other than that... the platforming was kinda silly not a big fan of how Up/jump worked.. very disappointing jump mechanic for an arcade game... and also like others have mentioned, the way you switch spells was also silly and convoluted. The bosses were disappointing compared to how my preliminary viewings made me think. Yet as usual, I kept pushing on and pushing on, with an end in sight.

Feel: 7/10 Lol I love the slug that comes across the screen and barrels over everything. And I did like that you could jump up to the top of the of the upper platform trees and just avoid everything instead of earning points. The Breakpoint was cute, as was the Moon Patrol-esque "checkpoint" looking guide in the upper left. Oh and I love love that you can shoot away enemy projectiles, always something I love in action games.

Attachment: 7/10 As much as I kept pushing on and on, largely thanks to the Moon Patrol checkpoint looking tracker making me feel like there's an end in sight, gotta say--there's no excuse for a 1985 fantasy arcade game to be this repetitive with level design and setting. If I had to see this same gray platform setup one more time...

And then when I got to Round 3 (I finally fell riiiight at the end of Round 2 I wonder what would have happened differently), and realized the Moon Patrol checkpoint is back at square one and I still hadn't fought the Dragon i had read about... there's no way... ...but then I watched through the only full video and saw that the Dragon is indeed at the end of Round 3. Soooo... you know me... I had to push through even tho I was only half way there ha

I liked the fast and slow moving platform mechanic on the the final stretch, and that indeed, some variation came to what I felt was getting repetitive... Still didn't fall in love with it, but of course the fact I pushed through and played for well over an hour says something.. And at last! the final boss

Pro-tip: just use the explosion looking thing on the right side of the spellbook, I believe it was properly called Bomber, to cheese the dragon final boss :-p

Heh, "you're great wizard!" Even if it's not a true ending, the cute little jump your character does to celebrate at the end felt a lot like an ending :) But then, sure enough, it was going to re-cycle from the beginning like many arcade games do, and I could go for a higher score, but nah. Moving on!

Completion: Defeated Dragon Final Boss, Score 117,940 Playtime: 1hr