Battlemage: Magic by Mail Reviews

truth be told, this is the worst CoG i've ever played. u choices simply dont matter. the storyline is fine at start but became totally rushed. the ending is suck a joke that ruined my day, thx to remind me that even i became a powerful mage, im still a loser in life and magic is no help. so to whoever reads it: spend ur money elsewhere, this piece is a watse of time. ps. i played it on phone and replayed it so many fking times and still cant get a decent ending, the achievement is broke too. what a sour day i wish i never played this carp.

Bad story. The plot is simple and very predictable. All characters are 1 dimensionall and lack depth. The word presented is in such simplistic way that it leaves no room for growth, also the more you think about it the more it does not make sense. The story is so short that it does not give time for anything to develop besides the main plot as well as its railroaded for the entirety of it and also it's quite short going over raw facts possessing barely any substance. [u]All in all this is a bland, simple, predictable, short story with uninteresting characters where you have little to no influence over your character and the plot. The only things that this has going for it is that it exists and is cohesive.[/u]

It's not bad, per say, but it's also not exactly great. Other characters don't really feel like they have substance, and it's less about building up your abilities, and more picking what abilities are going to win you that interaction, and future interactions. What that means is your strong fighter is absolutely going to fail to navigate crown politics and vice versa. You've got to have an idea of what sort of build you want before even beginning the game, or fail to achieve much of anything. The pacing of the game is also so-so. You go from being a squire in the country to meeting the queen personally in the space of two minutes with zero build up or context. It's different to a lot of the other Choice/Hosted Games, but not in a good way. It's just ok. Get it if you've managed to play the entire catalogue of games already and have nothing else.

Well, I always love story that has magic, swords, and knights in it. Overall, it's an okay game with an okay story to have when it's on sale or discount. 6/10 from me. I think this is not a CYOA game, because whatever options I choose the story is just going with the flow. Overall, the story is easy to understand (I'm not from English speaking country). Just need to play the full game 2 times to get bad and good ending achievements. The romance part is to few and not good (I tried Fizza and then Yuwen). And the personality stats are kind of not too important. As far as I know, it's only for the summary story at the end.

I liked this game a lot, i like how magic could be developed by your feelings, not always having to cast spells. I will agree with the other review tho. It does seem really fast and rushed toward the end. I played a few times, and plan on playing again later, but i feel like after chapter 8, the rest of the game goes to fast, so i wish it was longer at that point. However i like the game, and characters and i would be more than willing to play this again. This is one i liked enough, to replay right after beating it, not something i do for all of them.

Necromancy in this game is useless in combat! Who would have known?! I've focused on necromancy and can't do anything. And what magic schools are most impactful besides elemental magic? Ilusion and healing. Ilusion and healing are the most helpful in combat and other events! Just animate some corpses, summon a demon or shoot necrotic energy from your palms goddamnit! What a stupid idea to have necromancy as a ,,subtle magic school that helps in subterfuge". Uhh!

I'm really hesitant to criticise this game (but I'm gonna anyway) because most of the issues I had with it where more to do with the fact that it is more geared toward a younger audience rather than young adults and above which is my fault for doing more research. This review would be somewhat neutral, coming from a young adult so take this with a grain of salt starting with the negative as I may be salty for getting the 'bad' ending. [h1]-Cons:[/h1] The pacing was fine up to the midpoint of the story, but after that, we rush over through the introduction of new characters, the climax, and 3 obvious 'plot twists', like we are just teleporting from one scene to the next quickly without letting anything sink in. I would normally replay games to see the other ending, but after my first playthrough I just found the story structure rather basic and unsatisfying when completed, I'll properly dislike this game more if I force myself to continue. [h1]+Pros:[/h1] If there's something I like about this game for, it is the options to customize your character from their appearance, sexuality, and the type of magic through the journey where you would have multiple choices to choose from that affect the endings you can get, from what I've seen and I, might be wrong on this, but there are a few to end on. There are also stats to tell you how well-liked you are by other characters as well as what type of magic you are keen on using if anyone is interested. Furthermore, I have found minimum grammar mistakes with a few hiccups on the way, but who am I to tell you that, judging from this review and I've only last played this game in February this year, I'm bound to miss something. [h1]Conclusion:[/h1] Ending this off, I have to say it felt weird to be so critical of a game that isn't catered toward me that I'm willing to update this review if I somehow had a child to play this game if they wanted, to get their perspective on it. Speaking of that, I would only recommend this game to those who are maybe 16 and younger, who don't mind reading heavy text-based games, and who would like to create their characters in fantasy land. [hr][/hr] [i]I know this is weird to ask after a review, but if anyone wanted to recommend any of Choices of Games games as I don't want to end this off with a sour taste in my mouth, with Battlemage being the first one I played published by them, I would appreciate it. As they have too many games for me to choose from, I don't know where to start or which is good or bad for my taste, I only have most of their Vampire: The Masquerade series on my wishlist for now. Either way, thank you for reading and take care.[/i]

6.5/10 It wasn't bad, but I couldn't get as immersed in it as I have with some of the other COG's In a game where the player character is supposed to be customizable or meant to represent the reader, the railroading should be as limited as possible, if it can't be eliminated altogether. One of my biggest and most common pet peeves is when the player character is described saying, doing, or feeling a bunch of things that the player didn't choose. I understand this has to happen sometimes, but not as often as it does As a personal preference, I'd rather my character be a silent protagonist and not have his feelings or actions described unless they're ones I choose. I don't like when they assume I feel sad or nervous or excited or happy about something; just let me choose how I feel about it, or don't describe the character's feelings at all Also, there were several times when it forced me to give an opinion on a matter I have no interest in or make small talk with an NPC I don't care about. Like, I don't care about Fizza; stop trying to force me to reconcile with Fizza. I have nothing to say to her. Conversely, there were other characters who I would have liked to get to know better, but there weren't many opportunities for that My character's supposed to care about his knight, but the only time we ever interact is either in a group discussing battle tactics, or just a summary like "You help him get his weapons and armor ready". Even the romance options often felt like they weren't explored enough. For example, I chatted with Adriano literally twice--once about getting horse feed and the second time about a mob--before suddenly there's an option to kiss him. But where was the relationship development? The writing itself is good, like the grammar and descriptions. But the relationship development is sorely lacking The biggest positive is that the stats are really intuitive. It's usually clear if a choice raises or checks elemental magic, physical power, illusion, etc. That's an important trait, since I'm not good at the COG's where it's too vague which stat is being checked. Apart from the fighting options, the rest of the choices in general are mediocre. Usually there are 3 options, but about 25% of the time, none of them were appealing

Overall, a solid B. I did not notice a single spelling mistake on two playthroughs, the story was coherent, and the game generally indicated reasonably well which skill would be used. Romances are moderately underwhelming, as is the ending; what happens to your character over the span of years is summarized in a few pages. Some skills are far, far more useful than others; they weren't terribly well balanced, but it was not though it was especially egregious. The world was reasonably well-described, though many things are discovered through reference and inference. Overall, not a bad game, and worth the money, it just lacked a special something that would have brought it from decent to truly great. Recommended, but perhaps best purchased when on sale.

Awful. The story felt both rushed and railroaded. You go from squire to mixing with nobles, but so quickly it strains credibility. The same speed makes it so you can't develop relationships effectively (particularly as choices you might be intrigued to befriend can be dead-set against your goals with no opportunity to win them over). I tried to play to my strengths, developing stats I liked (in particular illusion and healing, class, and ambition). But I was punished for this. The game rewards you if you play as the author expects/intends you to play it. On most CoG you can find some kind of winning combination through a variety of means. I didn't come away from my playthrough feeling that it was possible to win with the kind of play style I preferred. You might like this story if you happen to play the author wants, and if you don't mind feeling rushed. I can't recommend such a story.