Wizard of Legend
The greatest aspect of Wizard of Legend is how fluid the combat is and how it revolves around skill and the loadout of spells that you use. You can customize the character the way you want by selecting your spells, outfit, and trinkets. Experiment with all of the various elemental spells that you can get your hands on, and find new and satisfying combos that you can work with that can help you complete the Chaos Trials. There is a large variety of spells you can use such as melee, ranged, status, AOE, and finishers that all cover the five elements (fire, water, air, earth, and lighting). Along with your spells, you can also equip an equally larger variety of trinkets that can provide a benefit to your wizard. They cover basic stuff like more health or damage, but you also get items that can allow you to take out projectiles with your basic attack, increase your signature charge rate, or even run really fast while wearing a horse mask. So pick out your spells, your trinket, and the right wizard robe (which also provides benefits like health or defense) and you have yourself the perfect wizard. Of course, this isn’t a wizard dress up game, you actually have to fight.
Your main goal is to complete the Chaos trials, where you must complete three zones, along with defeating three of the four master wizards each representing one of the elements (except lightning, which will be added later in an update). In the dungeons, you will come across rooms full of enemies, each covering a certain archetype like Knights, Spearmen, and Archers to name a few along with variants of those enemies that use elemental attacks. At the end of those dungeons, you’ll come across a boss that is essentially a larger version of those basic enemies but with more deadly attacks. As you progress the enemies will have more varied attacks and will be a lot harder to kill. Sometimes you’ll come across items and additional spells for your loadout, but often you’ll find Chaos Gems and gold. Chaos Gems which will be used to buy more spells or items in the main lobby, and gold which can be used to buy items and spells from the vendors within the dungeon. The vendors you’ll come across will always be random, but you’ll always find a vendor that will sell you spells and another vendor that will sell you items. Sometimes you’ll find some other random characters, like a hooded guy who will offer you one of three items he has laid out for free, the only caveat: they’re cursed. The cursed times work similar to the standard item buffs, but they will include a special condition. It’s usually something simple like doing more damage, but also take more damage, or even get more armor, but all of the vendor’s prices will increase. Once you have a cursed item equipped, you can’t get rid of it, but some items can provide some benefit depending on the situation.
Now this being a roguelike, there is one thing to keep in mind: YOU WILL DIE! A LOT!
When you’re starting out, you will only have a set of some basic fire spells, and you need chaos gems to buy more, so starting out is a bit slow. Like I mentioned before, it gets more difficult as you progress. Once you defeat the first master wizard, the enemies will have more varied attacks, along with the bosses. Experimentation is the key to this game. As you progress and buy up more spells you’ll find more ways to set up your loadout that fits your playstyle, whether it’s up close, ranged or a bit of both. You’re also not limited to the fours spells you picked out, you can also equip two additional spells if you find or buy them while in the dungeon, and also carry an extra spell that you can swap out. You will go from being your ideal wizard to a literal weapon of mass destruction, just as long as you don’t let yourself get hit. Health is pretty sparse in this game, and any health orbs you will find can only heal you by a very paltry amount. There are items that can increase the frequency of finding health orbs, but in my experience, it doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of difference since they are already hard to come by. Best chances of getting more health is to find the item shop and buy a health potion with the gold that couldn’ve been used to buy a new spell or a useful item, only for you to get combo-ed to death by a group of spearmen. You also don’t have to go on this adventure alone since this game also has co-op, but it’s local only, no online play.
Overall this game is great. Starting off is a bit slow, but as you progress you will get more spells, and find more ways to experiment. The pixel art is very nice to look at, even if the environments are limited (mostly just themed after the master wizard) they are very nice and the bosses have some very nice animation that reflects their personalities. Also, the soundtrack is very good.
The game itself is easy to learn but can be tricky to master, eventually, you will find a loadout that best fits your playstyle. Soon you will become a great and powerful wizard that can cover himself in flames, and beat down their enemies with their great stone fists, and their razor-sharp wind, while dawning the majestic horse mask. You will die a lot, but that is part of the journey, either change up your spells or take a different approach to your dungeon run, and eventually you will become the Wizard of Legend. Wizard of Legend is available on Steam and GOG for $15.99 USD.
