A magic wand conjures up three things in my mind; Harry Potter, the late great Paul Daniels, and a terrible do it yourself magic kit I received for my 8th Birthday. The wand was a wonky dirty looking thing and before I’d had my birthday cake, the dog had stolen it and buried it in the garden. Wand Wars, the game, is a grand title promising a barrel of trouble, spells galore and an epic struggle between wizards, witches and evil. Does it disappoint? Or does it surprise us all and deliver us from evil?
The game is a mixture of styles and game composites, with everything from Rocket League to Gauntlet covered. It’s completely original of course and I don’t think I’ve ever played a sports wand competitive game before.
At its heart it’s a sports based 2D arena shooter that provides fast frantic battles that you can play against the AI, or with local multiplayer friends. The premise is simple, you have up to four players in the arena and a magical sphere that you catch and throw at the other players to kill them. They, in turn, can catch the magic sphere and hurl it back at you. The gameplay is fast and furious and the magic ball gets faster and faster until it’s just a blur on the screen. You also have the ability to throw a magic arrow that turns your opponent into a chicken for a few seconds, or simply slow the sphere down. There are also power ups to collect and use. These range from turning into a skull shaped eating monster to throwing a huge red fireball across the arena. All this is done with amazing hand to eye skills, but more importantly, loads and loads of luck.
The arena battles in reality fall into two distinct styles. A battle mode featuring one vs. one action, two vs. two action and you vs. the rest mode. This is the mode where you try and kill the others, attempting to be the first to a number of points in order to win the game. Then you have Merlin ball, which is a version of football with goals at either end which you have to defend and knock the sphere into the wining area. This is again played solo or in co-op mode.
There are three main modes in the menu screen to be played. Firstly there is “versus” mode, which is basically where you can play against the CPU’s team or four local multiplayer friends. Then there is the ‘story’ mode, which covers seven different stories, featuring seven characters, ranging from a wizard’s apprentice to a magical robot. Here you battle through a narrative that really just amounts to a couple of one minute scenes, resulting in you eventually battling a boss at the end. It doesn’t matter that the stories aren’t huge epic tales, because the gameplay is epic enough in its scale and depth to more than make up for the story.
There are two levels of difficulty, those being normal and extreme. The former is hard enough in anyone’s book and I found myself stuck on certain battles for ages, relying on sheer luck, rather than skill, to get me through.
The last mode which covers everything Wand Wars has to offer is “trials’, which is a kind of ‘see how far you can get before you run out of lives’ mode. This was my favourite mode as it threw up different boss battles, scenes and maps as you progress. If you clear one level you get a reward card which can be used on the next level; this might be an extra life or a magic spell. I enjoyed trials so much I gave up on the story mode and just played this to see how far I could get. It’s the gift that keeps on giving and doesn’t get boring, adding some much needed longevity to this game.
Looks wise, Wand Wars employs a retro 16-bit style of graphical design. I’m not normally a fan of this, as I feel the look has been well over used, growing a bit stale. However I found this game charming and totally in tune with the gameplay. The backgrounds to the arena battles are endearing and well designed, especially when battling above the villages below. The character design is well rounded and interesting with such little pixel power on show. The sound design is well crafted as well, with a great electronic soundtrack that helps builds the tension and excitement of the gameplay. There are great sound effects employed as well, to some great, often hilarious, effect.
Overall, this is a delightful little game that I was very dubious about to begin with, but the gameplay is really addictive, exciting and dynamic. There are a lot of modes for your buck and the co-op versus model with local friends will be a great game to play on Christmas Day. Wand Wars may only currently be available in the US, but I would highly recommended you give this a go.
