The French and their unique style of humour?
Infogrames has done it again and released what I think is something rather quirky and special. In Mystical, we get to play with magic and spells to battle against the strangest creatures. We are a novice magician of the Grand Wizard, eager to learn the ropes but quick to make silly mistakes! Like losing the precious scrolls and phials so now we must travel to parallel worlds to retrieve them. Get ready for the oddest journey ever...
We'll be battling against all sorts of whacky characters: Buzzards, shepherds, faithless Monks, reptiles, sea creatures, farmers, little girls, Vikings, walking trees, funny faces, and most throw something or will chase you. Sounds mad, right? It certainly is and I'm sure everyone will love its silliness.
I must say that the palettes used are pastel perfect and with lovely artistic tones too.
Magically weird!
The big man has granted permission to use his magic which means the ability to cast spells that provide a variety of unique ways to dispose of our foe. For example, the ring of fire scorches anyone who dares to get too close whereas the blue ring deflects enemy attacks. Another will open up the ground and swallow our victims whilst we can summon cages to trap those nearby. Possibly the best of all is shouting "Boo" to shoo off anything nasty!
Each spell activates immediately but, if you are quick, slap that Spacebar to stockpile it for later use in combination with the Return key. Yes, it's quite a cumbersome design but it works well for those moments you're struggling. Each level ends when you reach the pentagram and must-do battle with an end-of-level boss - the first throw babies at you! Once defeated, a very large sphere appears and whisks you off to the next level.
Yes, I'm sure you're thinking this is weird? And you're right, it is!! But it's brilliantly weird!!
Collect the funky power-ups and use all magic spells to the best of your ability!
Aesthetics!
The visuals are gorgeous with smooth scrolling across detailed landscapes using a very impressive and pleasing palette, I might add. However, it's the tremendous quality of all the characters which steals the limelight, never have I seen such beautiful sprites and their humour and animation are always so fantastic.
I must take off my hat and commend Olivier Roge and Jocelyn Valais for such amazing work. Take a look at these screenshots and tell me you're not impressed by the gorgeous sprites and even the artwork as a whole? Possibly one of the best examples of 16-bit pixel art I've seen in any game.
Sadly, the audio is a mixed bag. The sound effects are ace using samples for each character and other things like the spells. It's great and I adore the "
Bla Bla Bla", which reminded me of the speech in
Donkey Island. However, the title music is not good and I cannot see the point of low-quality sampled music over the option of a crisp chiptune...
Hey, what's that? I've got a doppelganger to help me out so let's cage the beasts!
The CryptO'pinion?
As much as it might try to hide behind the storyline, Mystical is a generic shoot 'em up albeit with cool power-ups and silly humour. (I never knew the French had a sense of humour? heh). I'll stop it now because it is obvious that a lot of time and effort has gone into the production of this lovely game. It oozes so much lush artistic quality.
Sadly, it is a little repetitive and the end-of-level bosses are frustrating, to say the least!! But they're my only quibbles because I have genuinely enjoyed playing Mystical. I'm sure most gamers will love its unique style & personality.
Grab a magic wand and help out our magician?
