Wizordum

[h3]A solid product brought down by a poor first episode, tedious level design & unchanging combat.[/h3] [b]Wizordum started strong but quickly fell off due to lacklustre combat, flooded yet fleeting & unneeded consumables, frontloaded needlessly long successive levels, near-constant ambushes, forgettable abilities and a lack of change to the difficulty, enemies, combat intensity & weapon variety during Episode One’s 4-5 hour playtime.[/b] Wizordum provided the most satisfaction & highs through the hunt for secrets, as most involved some form of player awareness & knowledge; The hunt & reward offered more satisfaction than the combat & weapons, enhanced by the hints, destructible wall indicators, hidden buttons & genre fan-service. That being said there's also a hefty amount of secrets that involve running against walls or the usage of the auto-map/secret reveal map to the point that it ultimately hinders said highs, especially during Episode One. An interesting element of Wizordum is that between missions you can use the coins collected throughout your playthrough to purchase upgrades for your weapons, spells and character.[list] [*]Each weapon has a single upgrade with the price dependent on the weapon. [*]Spells simply have an additional charge per spell sheet. [*]As for character upgrades you can purchase individual carry capacity increases for consumables (spells/invisibility cloaks etc.), magic orbs, ammo for all weapons and an extra upgrade to reveal the remaining treasure on the map once 98% has been collected. The map upgrade is welcome but the activation threshold is stingy.[/list] [b]Note[/b] Completing episode 1 I had already purchased ⅔ of the upgrade options and a majority of them offered no significant changes to my gameplay, as ammo is plenty, the extra cost for crowd control/area of effect on weapons was unneeded/waste of ammo and spells/abilities lacked urgency, so my inventory was capped out. There are three characters available to play with their own weapons, statistics & mechanics alongside four difficulty options in Novice, Journeyman, Master & Nightmare which alter the enemy density, health, damage output & speed and because upgrades are account based you can move from difficulty to difficulty with ammo/spell resets. There’s also an extensive level creator & a separate time trial speed-run mode for each level in the base game where you can compete with other players on the leaderboard. [h3]Conclusion[/h3] All in all, Wizordum did itself no favours in the long run for my continued interest because of the former and by the time the game ramped back up & started to address everything listed during Episode 2 by introducing new enemies and bringing back shorter, unique, maze free & fun environments, the damage from the first episode was too severe & my enjoyment was already tainted; the return of longer levels sealed the game's fate. [b]I don't recommend Wizordum at the retail price of $29.50AUD or during current sales $14.75.[/b] I don’t think my opinion would change if I had opted out of collecting treasures & secrets because half of the game's secrets were the meat of my enjoyment. [h3]Notes during play[/h3][list] [*]E1M3: 50m: stuck between 2 crates that only an unwanted ability activation could fix. This sewer map is huge and sprawling which made the final 1% of treasure I needed to find tedious (10mins). [*]E1M4: 1hr 10m: These levels are quite large and full of combat.So far the mace & ice staff (frostweaver) have been powerhouses unmatched, and while there is combat puzzle synergy between the ice staff & the revolver (spellstriker), i feel little need to make use of it. [*]E1M5: 1hr 10m: Grim Haven was a map I thought I would enjoy but as the level continued and the map got larger with nooks & cranny loading screen buildings, it dwindled furthermore by the secret hunt & return of a sewer segment. At no point so far have I needed to use the Magic Orbs ability and to my surprise it was needed to obtain coin & secret loot; a common occurrence moving forward I imagine given the lack of urgency to use the various weapons, spells & abilities. [*]E1M5/1: 20m: Well of Wishes with no weapons is grueling, boring & awful. It exists as a reference to the Boomer Shooters of the 90’s but it was not fun in the slightest despite the tense moments with the Dopefish. [*]E1M6 1hr 20m: The penultimate episode level. It’s another large level with multiple layers & buildings intertwining with connective sections for backtracking; taking place in the city market district & cathedral it was a long level with a major hike in enemy density (298 from 100-150) and secrets (21 from 10-15). It was at this point I decided I would uninstall the game after finishing the episode because the levels were getting larger & combat offered no reason to swap from the ice staff, mace & shotgun. [*]E1M7 Boss: Quite unengaging & lacklustre given I had the maximum ammo, spells & supers stored at this point due to the trivial levels leading up to it. Avoid its attacks and launch ⅓ of what I had in reserves. [*]E2M1: Smaller in size, spider enemies were a tad annoying but overall the ice staff mace/shotgun continued to make the game a snoozefest. Secrets were more engaging due to the scenery change but overall interest is waning. [*]E2M2: A Level that I thought Mission 2 would be, aboard an Ork Battle ship fighting through to the engine & control room. It’s another short mission and the secrets are well balanced with a few tough ones but overall a fun level. [*]E2M3: This level brings the return of larger open levels taking place in swampy ruins, there are lots of enemies and in spite of the map providing visual assistance the level was rather confusing to navigate, furthermore once secrets came into play. [*]E2M4: Maps are getting larger and this was the first level where I felt challenged by the enemies and actually ran out of ammo on my staff, requiring the use of the underperforming fire rings/lightning gloves. This level was also the first time I became noticeably annoyed by enemy spawns. Every time I had entered a secret room or dead end I was ambushed by skeleton knights or spiders, repeating again once I had returned to the already clear hub room; made worse when said enemies spawn as Archers/Mages out of the player's view distance. Rinse and repeat, especially during the cliffside climb & goblin camp. The secrets had a perfect balance of difficulty & the Hobbit easter egg was fun. [*]E2M5: Sprawling Level within a castle through various layers. It had tough secrets and a secret level that had extremely well hidden buttons to achieve. New enemies were added to the roster with wraiths but they were quick work due to ammo reserves. [*]E2M5/1: The arena fight itself wasn’t really challenging once again due to ammo reserves and the simple nature of the enemies vs player positioning. [*]E2M6: Another castle map with new noclip enemies that are more of nuisance than anything. The map layout intertwining and if I cared enough at this point it would be fun to map out but per the game time, the game has failed to keep me interested through its long levels and at this point I’m excited to beat the boss of the episode and be done with the game because it’s just a drag. [*]E2M7 Boss: Per the first episodes boss fight, the conclusion of episode 2 was lacklustre and boring due to the excessive surplus of ammo for each weapon I have & their associated upgrades, the crossbow killed the boss in both phases swiftly, the only difficulty came with disabling its invulnerability shield due to the lack of pre-encounter information in regards to geometry destruction, aka the latter has only existed for breakable walls & buttons.[/list] After 24 hours of recorded steam time, 18 hours in realtime, I have decided to uninstall, write a review and leave the game alone.