The Wizards

Author: Andrea Passero

Date: 2020-07-30 23:42:37

The Wizards: Enhanced Edition is the new and complete version of the game developed by the Polish team Carbon Studio, available from 2018 in early access on Vive and Rift and now on PlayStation VR. This is an adventure "spellcasting", a game in which you have to literally activate spells and use them against different creatures inspired by the best fantasy traditions, you go from orcs to trolls passing through dragons and pitfalls of various kinds.

The fantasy genre permeates every aspect of the game, from the aforementioned enemies to the environments, but the developers also drew from the popular category card games with the clear intent to bring a fantasy product on the virtual reality viewers that was as complete as possible , a sexy look at fans of the genre.

Magic attacks are activated by exploiting simple yet well-studied gestures, or by making PlayStation Move perform (the only way to fully exploit the potential of the gameplay) of specific movements. For example, you can make a magical bow appear by making a movement similar to that of Goldrake assembling the mythical space halberd, or you can generate a fireball by closing your fist and twisting your wrist. There are six basic powers to learn and some of these are obtained by continuing through the story and increasing your level based on the points earned at the end of each quest. The latter are actually reduced to waves of enemies to be defeated with some small variation in the action given by traps of various kinds. The exploration, possible both with a teleportation system and with free movement (both implemented in the best way to avoid motion sickness problems) is mainly dedicated to finding the way to follow to get to the end of the quest, with some small digression represented by ravines secrets hidden behind walls or ruins to be swept away with the spells mentioned above.

The quests can be activated on a map present in the "headquarters", a place where you can also check your progress, the level of spells and use the famous cards mentioned above to obtain advantages in battle. The idea behind these cards is more than good as it embodies the spirit of the analog game: you can choose two cards from the various available (and that you can in the maps) based on the type of advantage that is believed to be the most helpful. The quests can be replayed at any time and with different cards but unfortunately all this changes relatively little: the most skilled will be able to complete the missions without too much effort and without resorting to too many upgrades or cards, for all the others instead it will be enough to memorize the spawn points of the enemies, the position and the various timings of the traps to be able to get out unscathed after a second try.

Speaking of repetitions, the game has a slightly twisted, or perhaps simply broken, checkpoint system: sometimes, after being overwhelmed by various orcs and giants, you have the possibility to start again from the last checkpoint, other times it is instead it is only possible to start the quest from the beginning. To be honest, it should also be stressed that The Wizard originally had no checkpoint system, arrived together with the PlayStation 4 version, but it is possible that this aspect is still to be fixed (on the other hand if they have not implemented it so far, some problem will have given it, right?).

Technically solid and fairly well cared for aesthetically, The Wizard: Enhanced Edition performs well from almost all points of view except for the story, too simple and sketchy for a game, makes the fantasy genre its strength, just enough in the motivate the experienced warrior magicians to face hordes and hordes of enemies because, mainly, we are talking about this: a wave action game that you have to survive using magical weapons, which makes it a bit repetitive after a few hours of play. It is possible to play both standing and sitting, but it goes without saying that the first option is the best, the most logical taking into account huge enemies sprouting from every side of the map, and the excellent scaled perspectives that only virtual reality can offer all they do is make it more tempting.

Sensation of motion sickness : nothing / low
Game speed : medium
VR effect : high

MODUS OPERANDI
I played The Wizard: Enhanced Edition with PlayStation VR on a PlayStation 4 Pro for about 7 hours, which was enough to get to the last quest of the game despite having to start some missions from the beginning after perishing under punches and kicks of giants and blows of trolls. The game, optimized for Sony's most powerful console, has never shown signs of framerate failure or problems of any kind.