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Megamagic: Wizards of the Neon Age

In Brief

Megamagic: Wizards of the Neon Age is a cyberpunk action/adventure RPG with strategy elements lots of fun game play that rocks to the vibe of the 1980s?

Suggestions:

The Megamagic Wizards offer runs over a week, and winners will be announced next Monday 19th June. If you win a key for Megamagic: Wizards of the Neon Age (with 500 keys on offer, there's a good chance you will); once you've had time to play the game, please leave some feedback about , what you liked or disliked about it, or how it could be improved from your point of view. What, improvements, if any, would change your opinion? There are thousands of subscribers to the game giveaway of the day every weekend which makes this an ideal forum for giving developers ideas as to what their consumers (i.e you) would like to see in a game. For example, you could suggest extra content such as better or more original mini games, or a level editor that you would like to see that would make it more appealing to you. Maybe you think the graphics are a little dated and are in need of re skinning, or maybe you've just had enough of the genre and want to see something different or something with more originality?

If you don't win a key, or miss the deal totally, GOG do have a sale on at the moment with around 50% off this game HERE (£4.09/$4.99/€4.49), though I don't know when the sale ends? Otherwise you can get Megamagic Wizards 24/7 via Steam HERE. It usually costs £7.99/$9.99/€8.99.

Introduction:

Prepare to delve into a fascinating world where the forces of technology and magic are embroiled in a vicious struggle! Blurring the lines between the RPG and strategy genres, Megamagic recaptures the unmistakable flavour of the 80s in a game filled with pop culture references and magnified by the incredible music by Mitch Murder, composer of Kung Fury and Hotline Miami 2 soundtracks.

Megamagic features a deep combat system that put five different schools of magic at your command, challenging you to unveil the secrets hidden in monster-infested wastelands, neon-bathed cities and shady dungeons alike. Learn new spells and summon the creatures you have beaten, leading a powerful army of grims on your own style. You will need to rely on your ever-growing grimoire (a book of magic spells and invocations), developing your own play-style as you become the greatest wizard in the world... and the last hope to discover what the sacred institution of the Order is hiding behind their unsullied facade.

Reference accessed HERE June 12th 2017

Installation:

Assuming you receive a Steam key for Megamagic: Wizards of the Neon Age once you've located it (via the email you used to enter the giveaway - it must be the email you first used to sign into the game giveaway site. If you’ve used a throwaway email there may be problems getting a key, because the key may be sent to that email. If you have any problems use the contact form HERE. You have to activate the game via your Steam client. Once activated it will be permanently tied to your Steam profile and you'll be able to install the game at any time, anywhere on any computer, so long as you can validate who you are (usually via emails etc.). If you don't have a Steam account you will first have to download and install the Steam client HERE

Then create a Steam profile/account. Once that has been completed you can input the Steam code that you've received (after completing the form filling) via the game button along the top of the Steam client, (located between friends and Help). From the drop down menu select 'Activate a product on Steam'. This opens a product activation window. Just follow the prompts to complete activation. Once the Steam code has been accepted, the game will be permanently associated with your Steam account and can be installed any time you wish.

If you have a problem installing or activating or getting Megamagic: Wizards of the Neon Age to work, please visit the official Steam forums first, the community based forums has sadly closed) if you can't find any fixes then check out the FAQ's thread HERE.

Game Features:

⦁ Action RPG meets Real Time Strategy in a totally new way.
⦁ Explore an open world and venture into the depths of perilous dungeons.
⦁ Master 5 different magical alignments: Neonmancy, Vegemancy, Sanctumancy, Fulgomancy and Necromancy.
⦁ Research and craft 20 spells + 16 grims, each with their own passive and active unique skills.
⦁ Beat 9 hair-raising bosses.
⦁ Local multiplayer co-op mode: have up to 4 player companions controlling your grims in battle!
⦁ Original soundtrack by 80's synth-surfer Mitch Murder.

The Game:

Set in a retro-future world inspired by 1980s nostalgia, Megamagic tells the story of two brothers -- Phoban and Deimon. Years ago, on a particularly stormy night, their father snuck them into Grove Valley to live with their uncle. He knew this would be a safe place to keep his boys away from the horrors of the world, as well as to hide a magical staff and book from the evil forces after him.

As it turns out, there's a lot more to those mysterious treasures than anybody expected. Phoban is blown away when he is able to summon Fum, a little smoky creature that allows the teenager to pull off magical spells. The two become best friends, working day and night to hone their skills in hopes of going to the nearby temple and becoming a wizard. But when a monk named Merklyn gets a look at Fum, suddenly everything changes. When Phoban won't hand his smoky friend over to the religious order, this sends the duo fleeing for their lives. And if being on the lam wasn't bad enough, the once-peaceful Grove Valley has been turned upside down by a zombie attack.

This sets up what turns out to be a convoluted action/adventure game full of twists and surprises. Phoban's journey will take him into a Mad Max-style post-apocalyptic wasteland, where he'll get mixed up with a bunch of punks. He'll fight through the nearby temple to learn more about a demonic force known as Erasers. He'll explore the countryside in hopes of finding new skills and summons. And, if he's lucky, Phoban will figure out once and for all why his father would risk his life to possess this magical staff.

Speaking of which, Phoban's powers extend far beyond shooting tiny energy balls. The teenager is capable of summoning helper characters, such as robots, zombies and mechanical dogs. We're able to order them around the screen, not unlike a very simple real-time strategy game. This gives the enemies something else to attack and allows our hero to regain an upper hand on the chaotic action.

Phoban doesn't have any punches or kicks; he fights with his magical staff. Although it starts with only a couple of attacks, he'll quickly find and unlock new spells to use against the hordes of undead creatures. There are sixteen spells in all, ranging from a ball that ping-pongs between enemies, a gust of wind that pushes enemies away, a black hole that sucks everything to one location and, my favorite, the Mega Ball, which reminds me of Smash TV's grenade lobber. Players can switch between up to eight attacks and summons at any given time.

This is both the best and worst part of Megamagic. Right off the bat, the action is fast and exciting. In theory, Phoban can cycle through his attacks to create powerful combos. These firefights are exciting at first, but quickly become overwhelming to the point of frustration. The problem is that you can't stop time to catch your breath and switch between spells. You have to cycle through attacks, manage your summons and dodge enemy shots all in real-time, which can be a bit much at times. I'm glad the developers didn't opt for the turn-based approach, but this game is in serious need of a Fallout-style pause in the action.

It certainly doesn't help that the roaming bad guys are needlessly aggressive. As soon as an enemy sees you, they'll begin their chase, usually with many more joining in on the hunt. With the action moving so quickly, it's nearly impossible to keep track of everything. And the moment Phoban finds himself outnumbered; he'll die a horrible death and lose a bunch of progress. Too many battles devolved in little more than me running in circles trying to take an enemy out one at a time.

Normally the levels are large enough to allow our teenage hero to stay a certain distance from the bad guys, but this is not always the case. There are times when the game will inexplicably lock the camera, forcing us to fight in cramped areas filled with overpowered enemies. There's one 10 minute stretch in particular that I spent three straight hours trying to beat, only to keep failing due to cheap and unavoidable deaths. There were way too many enemies to contend with in such a tiny space, something that frustratingly highlighted all of the problems with Megamagic's combat. It was at that moment this game completely lost me.

Edited reference accessed HERE. Original review by Cyril Lachel April 20th 2016, edited by Whiterabbit-uk 11th June 2017

Megamagic: Wizards of the Neon Age couldn’t be more different to Beautifun Games’ last title, Nihilumbra. Where that was a muted and philosophical puzzle platformer, Megamagic is bright, vibrant, and jovial – if that subtitle didn’t give it away.

The game is set in an ‘80s-inspired world where magic is commonplace, thanks to a strange meteor that crashed thousands of years prior. Matters of magic are more or less governed by The Order, which also serves to train up-and-coming wizards like the young protagonist, Phoban, and his brother, Deimos.

As you might expect, The Order isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and what ensues is a coming-of-age, save-the-world adventure fit for any sort of shonen anime (a genre of Japanese comics and animated films aimed primarily at a young male audience, typically characterized by action-filled plots), or Saturday morning cartoon, with all the melodrama and goofy humour that goes with. It’s not deep, it’s not innovative, it has some pacing issues, but 'hot-dang' if it isn’t a whole lot of fun – and that’s something I think we often fail to give its due credit in our rush to have video games “taken seriously”.

That sense of fun flows through the whole game, from its colourful, cartoon aesthetic to its delightful synth-pop soundtrack, but children of the ‘80s (or at least, people familiar with ‘80s pop culture) will really get the most out of it. Like Far Cry: Blood Dragon, Hotline Miami, and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Megamagic is a celebration of that era, but without the gritty undercurrent and perhaps a bit more referential humour than some would like.

You start out in one Grove Valley, a quiet little suburban town with an uncanny number of parked DeLoreans, and are soon summoned by your eccentric scientist friend, Zemec. Your journey will take you through a Mad Max-inspired desert wasteland to Camp Miller, home to a clan of punks dressed in the highest of ‘80s counter-culture fashion, and a digital network that pays clear homage to Tron. You’ll encounter a swordsman who insists, repeatedly, that you killed his father, and advises you, repeatedly, to prepare to die.

This all plays out in an action RPG that’s frenetic and unexpectedly challenging. Armed with a staff, the ability to summon creatures called Grims, and a growing arsenal of magic spells, you’ll face off against all manner zombies, rodents of unusual size, punks, techno rangers, and temple guards, and the key to not getting torn to pieces, I found, is to never stop moving. If you stand still, you get swarmed and die.

Initially, you’re armed with just a simple projectile spell, but as the game goes on, you learn more that open up the tactical options quite dramatically: a cone of wind that knocks enemies back; a black hole that sucks them in; a pool of mud that slows movement; exploding skulls that function as landmines. There’s a lot of synergy between spells, and success in Megamagic means learning to make the most of that to deal maximum damage, because thinning enemy numbers as quickly as possible is the only way to stay alive. My personal favourite is using a black hole to trap enemies inside a particularly painful electromagnetic field, while myself and a small army of Grims throw magic projectiles from afar.

Still, even this often isn’t sufficient, and between the frantic pace and how much stuff will be happening at any given time, it’s easy to lose track of what’s going on and get lost in the chaos. This is worsened by re-spawn rates for enemies that are almost unfairly fast, leaving you to often fight multiple sets of the same group back to back. Health drops are somewhat rare, and enemies will quite happily attack you from off-screen, so expect to die randomly and frequently – and this is just playing on the Easy difficulty.

The RPG side of Megamagic is fairly light, with no leveling or stat management to deal with. Instead, it’s focused on learning new spells, which involves first finding a scroll with said spell somewhere in the world, and then amassing the required magical items – dropped by enemies or found in chests – to craft it. Summoning spells for Grims, which mirror the monsters you’ll encounter in the wild, are slightly different: you need to kill a set amount of the enemy in question, while also witnessing all its special moves, before you’re able to craft it in the same manner as standard spells.

In a way, Megamagic: Wizards of the Neon Age is like a Saturday morning cartoon. It’s a bit rough around the edges, but it’s charming and special nonetheless. It’s nostalgia-riddled trip through a magical ‘80s world, fueled by a wonderfully synth soundtrack, bright colours, and silly humour – that won’t be for everyone, but I know I enjoyed it.

Edited reference accessed HERE. Original review by Matthew Codd May 19th 2016 2016, edited by Whiterabbit-uk 11th June 2017

Other Reviews, Videos and a Slideshow of images:

You can read Steam community reviews of Megamagic: Wizards of the Neon Age HERE, and other community reviews over on Good Old Games (GOG) HERE plus other 'full length' reviews HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and finally other short community reviews via envul HERE.

You can see videos of game play HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE, plus a slide show of over 90 images HERE.

Conclusion:

If you like games from the 1980's but with modern graphics, plus you like strategy and RPG's especially in an isometric viewpoint and you like magic and monsters and colorful level designs you'll probably love this game becasue it has all of those elements. It's not totally family friendly so to those with younger children please read THIS review, thank you. Personally I loved Megamagic Wizards and highly recommend it to everyone, though I would vet the game before you allow your children to play it due to some of the game play. I'm sure some will think it inappropriate, others may see no harm.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the developer BeautiFun Games for giving away 500 keys for this excellent retro themed isometric RPG and also to the game giveaway team, as always, for securing other ways to get free games, in this case a Steam key.

Useful Information not related to today's game giveaway:

The problems section that used to be posted here in the Game review is now included in the Game Discussion FAQ's thread; which you can find HERE.

I've updated the games section that used to be posted with the review. The thread is now called 'Weekly round up of game deals', formerly the games section of the weekly reviews. You can find the new thread (which I've posted in the sticky section of the game discussion forums to make it easier to find if you are perusing the game discussion forums) HERE.

The rest of the information that used to be posted here can be found in the forums HERE. Don't forget, if you have an account with DOT.emu, you need to download any games you have before June, when the site closes permanently. Finally, check out Delenns thread over in the forums HERE. There are games available for free, some of which are limited to the number of free keys available. The thread is worth checking regularly as Delenn has been posting links to various freebies on a regular basis recently.