Magic Paper Reviews

I don't want to review this game negatively because I don't think it deserves a negative review. However, it's not something I would recommend to somebody at it's price, especially since it's considered a 1.0 release. This game feels like it's a vertical slice of the game rather than a full release. The first issue I have is incredibly unclear translations and descriptions of skills and mechanics in the game, and for a game like this having clear descriptions as to what the spells do as well as the mechanics is crucial to enjoyment. Another issue, is balance, magic missile for example does 25 damage and shoots 1 projectile at level 1, then goes to 25.5 dmg and 1.3 projectiles at level 2, 26 and 1.6 at level 3, then 26.5 and 1.9 at level 4, the numbers feel arbitrary and aren't balanced to the game's feel or pace. Certain spells are weirdly useless, and I can't see a case where it would be useful for example there's a leaf shooting spell, it fires 3 leaves around you but it's not like you can shotgun them in a particular direction and because you can't really control where they go they so at best a single leaf hits a single target, and the damage a single leaf does is low. It's particularly bad with monster behavior, they kind of clump in a tight group and follow after you rather than surround you. The movements and animations are slow and clunky and don't feel quite right. In games, in order to design it to feel good, if you take an action, and you have to stop movement and all other actions to take the action, the action you stopped to take should be worth stopping for. So for example let's say there are 4 monsters that each have 100 health and they're running at you, if you stop to attack them, it should be impactful and you should be able to hit each of them for 30-50 damage, but if you stop and hit one of them for 25, it doesn't feel very impactful. The enemy should be stopped for slightly longer than the time you took to stop and attack. Then we have the ugly UI and font choice as well as most other visuals. My hope is that the developer doesn't give up on development and that they continue to endeavor to make great stuff, because I think they can and they should. If the developer is reading this, I hope you take a look at God at Weapons, and study the various choices in animation, UI, font, design and art. They're all simple choices, but have huge impact with the player.