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Magic Touch: Wizard for Hire Review—You’ve Gotta Have Fast Fingers for This One

10K View2022-01-27

Reading Time: 3 mins 28 secs

I've never really been one to revisit games that I've played before. Even so, the act isn't entirely foreign to me—three subsequent playthroughs of God of War, I'm looking at you—but I'm almost always awaiting for what'll be coming after the rolling credits. That is unless the Platinum Trophy is somewhat achievable, of course.

Otherwise, I'd just be retreading old grounds whenever I return to a game at a later time, especially when most of its story beats return to me and the gameplay feels familiar, to the extent where it's a detriment.

The most peculiar thing of all, though, is that I actually understand it, to a point, because I have reckoned with this enticement innumerable times. Let's take last night, for instance, when I decided it would be a good idea to play Nitrome's Magic Touch: Wizard for Hire (MT). Boy, was I in for a ride...

Sure, it may be somewhat more uncomplicated than other platformers. That doesn't make it any less worthy of a good playthrough, tho. In actual fact, Magic Touch's unostentatious interface and goals arguably make it one of the more enticing titles under Nitrome's belt.

As a single-screen arcade game with retro pixel art, you play as a wizard whose task is to defend a castle tower from an incessant stream of metallic invaders that glides into view on balloons. Why these chunks of metal are utilising balloons as a mode of transportation in their conquest I cannot say. I mean, wouldn't it be easier if they'd traded them for grenades or machine guns? Anyway, if that'd occurred, it'd be a shame that we wouldn't have the opportunity to destroy those balloons and send them crashing to the ground.

Look, a glyph is inscribed on every villainous robot's balloon. All you have to do is scrawl the rune on the screen with your finger to pop that balloon and let gravity take its course.

At the onset, these glyphs are easy to draw, as they may be an arrow, a line, or a semi-circle. As the robots gradually increase in size, the glyphs become more challenging to scrawl. You'll want to be quick to keep up with the onslaught tho. If one ever reaches the bottom of the screen, it's game over.

On second thought, is it just me, or does this seem all too familiar? You know, the moments where you have to draw runes to "seal" away bosses in the otherwise brilliant Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow?

Anyways, you will earn coins from each robot you defeat—the larger the foes, the more coins you acquire. What makes it worse is what I regard as the most prominent feature in MT—the extensive list of things that I can purchase in the shop. It may be the ability to slow down time, electrocute foes, or even turn them into frogs.

That is before I throw myself back into the battlefield. Oh my, it is simply becoming more addictive just to beat my highest score (Blimey, I think I may have become a competitive nutter...)

Like any good arcade game, this is the perfect little gem to compete and compare high scores with friends. What's more, it's not like I'm playing MT all day long! I've merely squeezed in a session or two as I write this. Oh, and I've dragged my friend into the dark side so she could join me as well. Hmmm, that's perfectly normal, I guess?

You know what they say, the more, the merrier! So, join me now and vanquish some metallic invaders here.

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