You Should Play... Magicka

By Edward Mitchell

If you don’t know about Magicka, then you are in for a huge treat. Not 
only is there some great content out there for the game, but it’s also a 
really great game to play. 

If you look at the YouTube channels BlueXephos (more commonly known as the Yogscast) and TotalHalibut (better known as TotalBiscuit, The Cynical Brit) they did an amazingly funny series on the game, when it was first released. They also brought about the knowledge of "A.R.S.E. mines", which I’ll talk about later. A brief summary (or a TL,DR) would be a fantasy-based RPG game where you play as a mage who gets dropped into a world where he shouldn’t belong...

---

The gameplay of Magicka is brilliant in my eyes. Not only are you a mage, but you are a mage who is adept with any weapon, including, staves, daggers, and even... swords that are trapped in rocks. On top of this, you have your spells. Spells are your main damage-dealing technique in Magicka, and the way that you use them is really interesting. 

Basically, you have elements; fire, water, earth, wind, lightning, cold, shield, arcane and healing. Then, fire and water combine to make steam, and water and cold come together to make ice. Each element has an opposite, so for example, fire is the opposite to cold, meaning that you can’t place these two elements next to each other in a spell. 

You can have up to five elements in a spell, and you can: 

• Cast it on yourself (useful for healing and shield) 
  
• Cast it in a beam (useful for killing enemies/doing damage) 
  
• Cast it as an area of effect (useful for lots of little monsters, or trolling your friends)

This, is where the origin of "A.R.S.E. mines" came from, when Simon (Honeydew of the Yogscast) discovered that you could create these mines, and that the most effective combination was A (Lightning) R (Cold) S (Arcane) E (Shield). This made whoever stepped on them fly miles off the screen, killing them when they fell to the earth. Now, certain combinations (my personal favourite being QFASA, as my best friends well know) create spells that are in your spellbook, which do extra damage, or have special effects, Going back to QFASA, that is basically an insta-kill on most targets outside (yes, there are outside portions of the game) that brings down a lightning bolt on a random target - including team mates!

One of this games downfalls, unfortunately, is it’s storytelling. Although parts of the story were... good (if you can call it that), it didn't have that drive that most great RPG games have. When I talk about great RPG games, this list is the sort of games I’m talking about, although some of them are controversial: 
The whole Diablo series (including Diablo 3); Torchlight and Torchlight 2; the Tales Of series; and, if you really want to go Japanese style, the Persona series, most probably Persona 4.  
There is one quest in the game, and that quest isn't mandatory, and most people would kill the quest giver on accident. 

Overall, Magicka is a really funny game. It has brought hours of laughter to me and my friends, and with the amount of trolling that can go on, the story can take a good while to complete!  There is also a heck ton of DLC, of which you can pick up the whole lot for about £15 when the Steam sales come on . I would highly recommend picking it up in the sale, and get your friends to play with you!