Japanese games have a reputation for being weird. While it's not like they can't be serious either, some amount of madcap zaniness kind of goes with the territory - even seemingly srs bsns games like Metal Gear Solid have their fair share of weirdness. Yet seemingly, another country's doing its best to challenge Japan in the wackiness stakes - the Nordic land of Sweden. In fact, it's turning into a veritable smorgasbord of weirdness lately - first Goat Sim, and now this!
Magicka 2, then, is a strange game with a decidedly normal premise. A four player, local or online co-op fantasy adventure, it's a game of wizard and bathrobes; of magic and mayhem; and of enemies with unusually pointy ears. Less traditional role playing game and more light Diablo-esque adventure, it's up to you and your plucky band of adventurers to survive your way through the game's dozen or so levels - with survive being the operative word.
Uh oh. Looks like that's a giant enemy crab...
The story here is one of mystery and intrigue - by which we mean there isn't really so much an in-depth tying things together so much as an excuse to make jokes. Magicka 2 is one of those few games that's actually genuinely laugh out loud funny - something that's traditionally tricky to pull off, yet there are very few things in Magicka 2 that don't make you laugh out loud. It's non-stop irreverent fun - from your guide for the game, Vlad, a vampire who goes to great efforts to keep his vampire-ness a secret, to the tiny enemy crabs that attack you, and the various off the cuff notes pinned to certain objects (on finding a random pink chequered rock, examining it reveals a note saying "Reminder: This needs a texture!", the more you take time to look around the world of Magicka 2, the more funny stuff you'll find. When the game starts with Vlad warning you that "It's dangerous to go alone with up to three friends. Take this!", you know you're letting yourself in for a crazy ride.
This man was apparently married to a horse...
But what of the gameplay? Well, Magicka 2 delivers here, too. One of a growing number of games that seems to get a lot of fun out of making their game as awkward to play as possible (just look at Octodad), Magicka 2 is a game that you'll die in, a lot - as much because of the amount of enemies that are thrown at you as the people you're playing with. You see, your band of plucky wizards can craft together spells using a pretty innovative system. Each of the face button (triangle, circle, etc) is associated with a certain element (fire, lightning, death, etc). Pressing L1 switches them out and replaces them with a second set of four (cold, water, life and shield) and by pressing the relevant button, you can combine up to five element into a single spell. If you want a really powerful fire spell, then, you'll hammer fire five times, and then you can choose to either cause a fire explosion (pressing a trigger), turning your sword into a fire sword (pressing R1), or perhaps the most useful thing, use the right analogue stick to turn your wand into a kind of magical flamethrower. That's your options for a pure fire spell - but it's when you mix them that things get interesting.
Combining lightning and fire lets you shoot bolts of flaming electricity at your foes. Got a tree/bush enemy coming at you? Why not try burning it down with some death/fire? Mix water and fire together and you'll get steam - perfect for taking on the aforementioned enemy crabs - or mix cold and water to fire a stream of icicles at your opponents. But those are just the most obvious combinations. How about stone and life, to create healing grenades? Or life and fire, so you can burn your friends while you heal them? Our favourite, though, is the so-far failsafe death fire lightning - a handy catch all that not only jumps from enemy to enemy (as it's lightning), but dishes plenty of damage too.
See the devastation of fire death lightning!
The catch here is that although you have access to a huge range of spells, so too do your friends. And that wouldn't ordinarily be an issue - but in Magicka 2, friendly fire is turned on. Stand in the way of your friend's death laser, and it'll be you blowing up rather than the troll. In the same way, healing spells don't only affect your friends - you can end up healing the enemies too, so you'll need to be careful what spells you put together. Add in the frantic nervousness that comes from being surrounded by a group of enemies, and you're left with a recipe for disaster. Although with hilarious consequences.
That said, not everything about Magicka 2 - and its difficulty - is funny. In fact, the game is incredibly hard. While you'll die a lot from friendly fire, you'll die more from your enemies, as the game is incredibly punishing, even on middle difficulties. While there's a fair few mid-level checkpoints, so death doesn't always send you right back to the start, the difficulty does feel a bit off at times - unless you're with a decent group of friends.
Similarly, there's one other big issue with Magicka 2 - it's more than a little bit on the short side. With just ten levels to play through, each of which takes roughly 30 minutes to play through, it can all feel as though it's come and gone that little bit too quickly. For £7ish, you could probably justify it, but £12, it's certainly on the pricey side. Perhaps that's why the difficulty level feels so high - the more you die, the more you have to restart, the longer the game lasts.
Still, with a group of friends on hand, Magicka 2 is a great game to slug through on an evening. With plenty of witty dialogue to raise a smile, the potential for so many awkward "Whoops! Sorry I just fired that explosive boulder at you!" moments, and, above all else, some solid four player co-op gameplay, Magicka 2 is well worth a flutter - as soon as it comes round on sale.
Format Reviewed: Playstation 4
