Magicka 2 Review

The Magicka series has made its way to the Playstation 4 after the first installment achieved a fair amount of success as a PC exclusive back in 2011.  This time, the comedically-oriented isometric dungeon crawler has been configured for console gamers and the result is a brutally difficult, and occasionally frustrating romp through a land full of fantasy, pop culture references and of course, magic(ka).

You start out as a rookie mage in a world where wizards who once populated the world have become scarce after an event known as the Wizard Wars. The general population, whose language sounds like something akin to Jar Jar Binks speaking literal gibberish, appears to be pretty happy about the Wizard’s current state of affairs, looking down upon them and celebrating their demise. As you travel throughout the world, you will find that the events of the world aren’t really all that important to the Magicka experience, serving only as context for the game’s primary focus, magic(ka).

The spell system in Magicka 2 is arguably the deepest I have ever come across in any video game and it can be a bit daunting at first.  There are 8 primary elements that you will have at your disposal, Water, Lightning, Fire, Ice, Life, Death, Rock and Shield.  The game doesn’t really have much in the way of progression as every element of magic is open to you from the outset of the game.  The trick is figuring out combinations of these spells to produce different effects.  For instance, Fire and Rock makes an exploding fireball or spraying an enemy with Water and following it up with Lightning will cause double damage.  The game offers a brief tutorial led by your guide, Vlad, the vampire who doesn’t want you to know he’s a vampire.  The tutorial takes you through the benefits of each element, but it doesn’t really sink in until you get yourself into one of the game’s many large scale encounters.

It should probably be noted that Magicka 2 was not designed with single player in mind. Enemies are numerous and can easily flood the screen and overwhelm you if you are not quick enough to dispatch them, and the game does not scale down if you are on your own.  Playing solo is possible, just expect to die. A lot. However, that’s not to say that there’s no reward in playing by yourself. If you are persistent, you will get good very quickly. The game demands that you memorize combinations and enemy weaknesses, but once you catch on, there are a lot of instances that can prove very satisfying.

Translating a game whose controls were initially designed for PC can be tricky and with Magicka 2, it certainly shows.  As you progress through the game, you unlock advanced spells that let you perform a variety of actions like the ultra useful Haste. The problem with these advanced spells is that they have been mapped to the D-Pad buttons and are not terribly accessible in the middle of a fight where you need your left thumb on the left stick to keep your character from being a sitting duck.

There were also a few instances where I encountered some game crashing bugs.  In one boss fight during Chapter 6, my character suddenly lost the ability to aim magic spells and it did not fix itself until I exited the game and came back in.  There was another instance where the game completely crashed, giving me the closest thing that the PS4 has to blue screening.  Outside of these technical issues, there wasn’t a whole lot that detracted from the experience.

In the end, Magicka 2 gave me a legitimate challenge and showed what a fleshed out magical combat system can look like. It wasn’t challenging in the way a Dark Souls game might be, but more like Halo on Legendary mode with a plentiful number of enemies that can escalate on you in a hurry with each checkpoint feeling like a victory. Magicka 2 offers up some laugh out loud moments too if you don’t speed your way through it with references to Game of Thrones, The Hunger Games, Skyrim and even Papers Please. If you do decide to give Magicka 2 a whirl, bringing a friend or two certainly wouldn’t hurt.