Wizard of Legend 2 Preview

 Wizard of Legend 2 is an action roguelite developed by Dead Mage and published by Humble Games. What started off as a 2D pixel art adventure has become a 3D cel-shaded trial through the lands. However, upon doing research before playing, I saw it was sitting at a Mixed rating on Steam. After further review, it seems the Early Access has been criticised for being developed by a completely different studio (previously done by Contingent99), its laggy co-op, constant crashes, and coming with fewer features and content than the previous game (although, probably because it was in Early Access). However, the game has been praised for its core gameplay, use of spells, art style, and progression. So, with cautious optimism, let’s see if this is a worthy successor to a beloved game.

Set before the first game, you (and up to three friends) play as a wizard who has been chosen to undertake the Chaos Trials on the Floating Islands. You'll be facing traps, challenges, and even other wizards, some who are the master of their element. It'll be a long journey, but if you succeed, you'll be named a Wizard of Legend.

It’s a fun, simple story where the stakes are low, but has an interesting world as its backdrop. You’ll learn more about it through the various characters you meet who all have quite a bit of dialogue, even making note of what build you have or what items you've gotten. They do repeat lines at times, but there's more than enough conversations, tips, and advice to keep you engaged with the characters. It was nice to learn that the Used Wet Soap item was used by the final boss. Overall, I really enjoyed this change of pace when it comes to these types of stories. It’s not about saving the world, undergoing an emotionally-taxing journey, or really anything dramatic; it’s just wanting to be the very best while learning more and more about the things around you.

But that’s enough preamble, let’s get into the gameplay. The Chaos Trials will consist of you travelling through the Floating Islands, fighting monsters, challenging bosses, and finding whatever you need to survive until you face Hieronymus at the end, daring you to take his title as Wizard of Legend.

As a wizard, you have the ability to use Arcanas and bend the elements to your will through magic. You start off with a basic attack, a dash, a Signature spell (a secondary attack and an ultimate move in one slot), and one standard Arcana. While on your run, you can find additional standard Arcana to equip, so you can have two more.

These magical attacks can take many forms and in many elements. Summon dragons made of lightning, strike with icy daggers, cast fireballs, flat-out become an earthbender, and so much more. These spells can get seriously crazy, especially the Signature Arcana’s ultimate attack. You don't even need to find them during an attempt. As long as you have the crystals, you can buy these Arcanas and have them be available to be equipped before you go tackle the gauntlet again.

It’s not just Arcanas you’ll be relying on, though. Relics are passive bonuses that can be found or bought throughout the trial, but can be huge boons with the right builds. From minor stat boosts to completely changing how your character functions, you’ll need as many Relics as you can carry if you want to beat the game. Just like Arcanas, you can buy Relics to be available as a selectable starting item, which is really generous now that I think about it.

Because you can start with practically any Arcana and Relic, there’s a real sense of progression as you attempt the trials again and again. It encourages experimentation with different moves and abilities, and going from basic fireballs to summoning tornados feels great, and if the repetition of the trials is getting to you, maybe a whole new set of Arcanas are necessary to keep you engaged.

However, despite how powerful I felt when I had the right combination of Arcanas and Relics, I never felt overpowered. These trials are tough and will make sure you understand the mechanics before you can get further into the game, but it never felt unfair. Enemies telegraph their attacks really well, so any damage you take will be on your hands, and I can definitely see that with enough skill that someone could breeze through the entire thing without getting hit once. Even with the most difficult elemental master, Wind Sovereign Flo, I’m blaming my own lack of skill rather than the game itself, which only makes me want to get better. I usually say in roguelites that your victory is guaranteed, it just takes a certain point, but in Wizards of Legends 2, it’ll take more than a few meta-upgrades to make it to the end.

Aside from the aforementioned ability to buy Arcanas and starting Relics, you also have access to trinkets that provide unique buffs, like increasing Signature generation or exchanging Max HP for natural health regen, difficulty modifiers to make your run easier or harder depending on the level you choose, and challenges to complete for extra currency. There’s always something to unlock and look forward to when you return.

But wizards don't have to be alone in their trial: There is online and local co-op available for those who want to become Wizards of Legend together. No matchmaking, it's only available to friends, which is fair. Unfortunately, I couldn't test out co-op, so I can’t be sure what it’ll be like for anyone who’s eager to gather their mates for a run or two, so all I can do is give you some warnings according to the Steam reviews, saying that the game was prone to crashing and suffers horrendous amounts of lag; you might even lose some of your progress. However, almost none of this was found while playing by myself, so if you’re going to play solo, you will not run into any of these issues.

Although, that’s not to say that there aren’t other issues: there was a strange flickering in the swamp area. It’s not thunder or lightning, it’s likely an issue with the lighting. You won’t get a seizure, and you can ignore it, but it is slightly unpleasant to look at; I really don’t know what’s causing it. Also, at times, dialogue didn't play despite not touching the skip button, and even then, I noticed a few misspellings and formatting issues in the text. Finally, when exiting the game one time, it crashed. At the very least, the game ran at 60+ FPS throughout the entire review process and the load times were decently short. But again, this was when I was offline. Your mileage may vary when it comes to the online experience.

I found Wizard of Legend 2 to be a great game that stands on its own. At times, it makes you feel like an unkillable god who can cause tsunamis and trigger earthquakes at only the push of a button, but is tempered by your foes that will remind you that you are mortal. As a single-player game, it gets a recommendation. However, there could be issues when playing with friends, so you should probably wait for a later date to see if everything is running smoothly.