REVIEW: Magician (4-in-1 Volume 11)
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Story Brief: [UNKNOWN]
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It's a shame that we have, thus far, only been able to track down a cart only copy of Volume 11 of Timetop's seemingly endless array of 4-in-1 carts. Unfortunately it's robbed us of revealing the full story brief for this fun little scrolling run and jump that quite clearly and utterly bizarrely takes its inspiration from NEO GEO classic 'Magician Lord'.
Okay, maybe we are reaching, but this is the same company that tried to unofficially port Street Fighter 2 to it's little low-fi wonder.
Regardless, Magician is a nice looking and relatively nice playing entry into the Game King's pantheon of 3 stage action games and certainly a healthy break from the array of Super Mario rip-offs that litter its library.
Okay, maybe we are reaching, but this is the same company that tried to unofficially port Street Fighter 2 to it's little low-fi wonder.
Regardless, Magician is a nice looking and relatively nice playing entry into the Game King's pantheon of 3 stage action games and certainly a healthy break from the array of Super Mario rip-offs that litter its library.
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Beyond! Gameplay gifs. We'll try and add these to reviews more regularly in future.
Your task is to guide your wizardly chap from left to right, blasting enemies with his wand and tackling the end of stage boss to move on. The titular Magician can walk, duck, jump and shoot in three directions (left, right and up) and there are a range of enemies to fend off in, what can at times be, quite frantic gameplay. Pleasingly, each stage shakes things up, with the first insect themed world followed by a zombie and bat filled graveyard for the second stage and a cave system with boulder throwing menaces in the third. Enemy placement in the game is far better than in some of the more inferior games we've seen use this engine and this makes Magician a game that never feels unfair to play and can be beaten with enough skill.
While powerups can be collected, we could never make head-nor-tail of what they actually did in game, especially as the Magician's main weapon seemed to upgrade automatically as each boss was defeated. Presumably the powerups had something to do with the Magician's special weapon (a short range flame type affair) that could be selected for use with the select button. We mostly reserved this for the bosses in our playthrough. These screen filling bad guys had nicely identifiable patterns and at least two different methods of attack, often involving a transformation into some diabolical creature after a certain number of hits.
The game's sound is not particularly memorable, with a simple looping tune and basic effects but it's standard Gameking fair.
While powerups can be collected, we could never make head-nor-tail of what they actually did in game, especially as the Magician's main weapon seemed to upgrade automatically as each boss was defeated. Presumably the powerups had something to do with the Magician's special weapon (a short range flame type affair) that could be selected for use with the select button. We mostly reserved this for the bosses in our playthrough. These screen filling bad guys had nicely identifiable patterns and at least two different methods of attack, often involving a transformation into some diabolical creature after a certain number of hits.
The game's sound is not particularly memorable, with a simple looping tune and basic effects but it's standard Gameking fair.
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Left: The inventory screen. Center: The boss of Stage 2 Right: How the game displays on a Gameking III
On the Gameking III, the game displays in a fairly decent colour palette, opting for a white background and red sprites that can be clearly distinguished from the green and blue landscape. As ever, it can be a bit gaudy, but it's perfectly playable and, in fact, this is the system we eventually beat the game on.
Overall, Magician isn't going to astound you with feats of wonder but it's a solid little outing for the system that's well programmed and worth checking out.
Now we just need to hunt down a manual.
Overall, Magician isn't going to astound you with feats of wonder but it's a solid little outing for the system that's well programmed and worth checking out.
Now we just need to hunt down a manual.
Score 7/10
