In this series I detail
the few series I have given a 5/5 too and why.
What is it?
A gauntlet-styled video
game set in a parody of fantasy worlds, where nothing, not even death, is very
serious, and where all the forces of nature and the multiverse are created by a
race known as the Wizards, a well-meaning destructive rainbow-robed race known
for their ability to wield magic.
Why do I love it?
Magicka has a lot of
things to love. It is a very funny game, both in terms of it’s writing and just
the situation humor you get from the crazy magic system. It is a game with a
really innovative combat system and who allows you a great many magical options
to explore. It defies standard video game logic and gives you all the magic
combinations at the beginning, you don’t have to “unlock” elements or anything.
You have no mana, no limiter to how many spells you can cast but the speed you
can press buttons. And it feels absolutely amazing.
I can honestly not
explain how good this game feels to play, I feel like a manic while playing
cause I just want to burst out yelling or singing, completely out of character
for me, because it just feels so good. And this becomes especially apparent at
high levels of skill.
When you get a feel for
the 8 elements in the game well enough, you stop rationally thinking about the
magic and you just briefly “become” them. It is difficult to explain but you
stop thinking of yourself as a player or even a wizard, but you just think as a
pure force of nature, spewing out elements in perfect response to the environment.
Magicka both thematically
and in gameplay encourages exploration, intuition and the joy of discovery as
you adventure yourself into a variety of situations and just allows the magic to
flow through you.
I just need to reiterate.
It’s SOO unbelievably fun.
5/5 Moments:
Magicka’s moments emerge
more so from gameplay then from pre-scripted events, emerging as naturalistic
interactions between environment and spells so there isn’t so much definite
moments here but a few that come to mind
*Grimnir explaining himself
before the fight fight with him
*First fight with Grimnir
*Battle with Cthulhu and
Dagon at the end of “The Stars are Left”
*Battle with Death
*Carving your way through
the warzone in chapter 5
Favorite Moment:
In the 9th Element, the
prologue novel, Grimnir the Dark Lord is just another Magicka Wizard, albeit a
highly talented one, clearly the best of his party and notably ambitious. Vlad
the mentor from the game is part of his group. Near the end Grimnir usurps the
villain’s power and plans to use it in conjunction with a celestial alignment
that could allow him to warp the entire multiverse to his will, which would
make it totally serious and drained of all the chaos and confusion and…fun and exploration…
Vlad, originally apathetic
to most things, sees this and without losing his nature as a comedic character
in a world where nothing is serious understands this as something important and
fights Grimnir in an epic battle, managing to hold him off long enough that the
alignment runs out and the multiverse is saved.
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