I have talked about the game, Spells & Secrets (Alchemist Interactive), before. In fact, I have, apparently, done an official review of it. This will be part two of that now that I have officially beaten the game. The first part of the review (which I have no recollection of writing) is here. I’ve also done two quick looks at it, so, obviously, I have lots of feelings about it.
Let’s just get something out of the way. It’s obviously influenced by Harry Potter. That’s all I want to say about that, but the similarities have to be noted. We can move on from that now that I have made the comment.
At the end of the last post, I was talking about one of the things that’s a bit misleading with the game. The devs have said that they want to make it so that a player can make their wizard be anything they want. Which, in theory, sounds great. But, and again, I fully admit this might just be me and my limitations, what it meant for me was that I just kept using the same spells over and over.
Here’s my thinking. I suck. That’s not me being self-deprecating; that’s me being realistic. Oh, and *SPOILER WARNING* for the rest of the post. I know that anything that is timing-related will not work for me. That means I don’t ever touch a few of the spells. The deflect one and the switch one (you switch places with the enemy) are the two I’m thinking of especially.
Then, there are ones that are a bit more generous with the timing, but they’re still timing-based in a way. Or can be with modifierss (artefacts). An example of that is the spell, telekinesis. It’s not time-based in and of itself as it just moves objects/enemies from place to place. But, there are modifiers such as one that snaps the objects that you move into the direction you’re moving them. I figured out that if you don’t touch the left stick as you do it, you don’t get the snap motion, but it took me too long to figure it out.
Then there are spells that just take too damn long without the modifierrs. Bombard (hurling a fireball) is one of them. It takes forever to actually load up and itas too easy to be interrupted while doing it. Which is a shame because fire is my jam. I wanted to be a fire and ice wizard. Ice in my left hand; fire in my right. That didn’t last very long, sadly. Also, I know how true RNG works. I know this means that every time you get an artefact, you get an equal chance to get each one. But. I don’t like true RNG. I don’t know if this game had it, but there are some artefacts I haven’t gotten. And there are some that I seem to get every other run.
This is one reason I did not like Disco Elysium (ZAVUM). It’s not the biggest reason by far, but it was so frustrating. I had poured so many of my points into one specific trait. I can’t remember what it was, but I think it had to do with perception. Then, I had a roll of the dice in which I had a 90% chance of passing. And I failed. Several times.
Again, I know how probability works. I know that every time I throw those dice, I get the same exact chance of getting whatever result. In this case, a 90% chance of passing, which means a 10% chance of failing–every time. That’s true to actual probability. It doesn’t make for a fun video game. At least not for me.
Back to this game.
There is so much heart in this game. I’m greatly impressed that essentially two guys did the whole game. They made the wise decision to have the three acts all run on the same three levels. They just add a difficulty spike for each iteration by having a ward activate once you beat the big boss of that run. So, going through the first time is like NG or the vanilla run. Then, once you beat the big boss (three floors, one boss per floor, then big boss), the first ward goes on. It’s called the Ward of Variety, so I’m guessing it’s that you can get any enemies on any floor. I can’t remember. The second is the Ward of Volume, which is more enemies per floor. Also, I think this is where you get two bosses at the end of each floor rather than one. The final ward is the Ward of Champions, and this is the grueling one. Maybe this is when you get two bosses per floor boss fight? At any rate, you get stripped of all artefacts for said boss fights.
This is where I heaved a big sigh and just…I was readying myself not to ever beat the game. Also, when I met the big boss on the final run for the first time–look. This is one of my biggest gripes about the game–the final boss. Why? Let’s get into it.
You know I love me some FromSoft games. They are my jam. However, I play them despite the boss fights, not because of them. I am not one of those people who gets geeked out about facing the wild and wacky bosses. Especially since my medical crisis, I don’t have the patience for grueling boss fights. That said, FromSoft is elite when it comes to making these boss fights. They have been doing it for nearly a decade-and-a-half, and they are defiintely the king of the mountain when it comes to designing boss fights.
The downside to that is that so many devs try to imitate From’s style without quite understanding what makes them so special. Unfortunately, many devs think it’s just multiple phases on a very basic level. I’m mentioning this because the big boss in this game is like an indie attempt to do a From boss solely from a difficulty (but still friendly!) level.
The whole game is fairly easy combat-wise, especially after upgrading health to the max. The two bosses per boss fight can be irritating dependeng upon which artefacts I get. Also, with the stripping of artefacts. Then, the final boss is ridiculous. Not brutal the way FromSoft bosses are brutal, but it felt very try-hard for this game.
The way he uses AOE sucks. There are three statues in the room that emanate different-colored rings. They don’t take your health, but I assume they do something. One is green–I’m guessing that slows you down. One is red, and the other is…blue? Maybe? No idea what those ever-widening rings do. The boss also emanates a ring of dark purple. That one will take your health, and it slowly spreads all over the field.
This is part one. Once the health bar is done, the boss gets mad, goes up, and you have to go up with him. There, it’s part two of the boss fight, only he can fly because of a story thing I won’t reveal here. And this is where the game completely breaks. He can fly out of the arena, which means I have to fly out of the arena to hit him. I have a spell, Ascend, that makes it possible, but if I run out of mana, I fall back into the arena. There are statues in this arena as well, which means targeting the boss is difficult. That’s one of my main criticisms about this game–the lock-on is atrocious.
I have more to say, but I’m done for now.