Despite its availability on Steam Early Access, I’ve been hesitant to jump into the world of Wizard of Legend 2. The issue with Steam early access is that often, any less-than-stellar title or blemish in a game will tend to stick out like a sore thumb, particularly for a follow-up to a well-received title like the original Wizard of Legend.
Thankfully, the roughly 5 hours or so I’ve spent with Wizard of Legend 2 left me feeling optimistic about its future, and I will be sure to return to the game sometime down the line. For the uninitiated, like the first game, Wizard of Legend 2 is a roguelike action title with a focus on 4-player co-op.
For my first time with the game, however, I managed to play the game with one other friend, so I won’t be able to comment on how the game handles scaling when more than two players are concerned. What I got to play during my time with Wizard of Legend 2 was a fun challenge that was in line with the first game in terms of difficulty, which felt fair and balanced.
“…Wizard of Legend 2 is a blast to play, with its responsive and fluid controls, plethora of modifiers and its focus on multiplayer mayhem.”
Before talking about the various systems that make up a run in Wizard of Legend 2‘s roguelike gameplay loop, I want to take the time to address the most apparent change to the game in terms of overall feel and aesthetics. Under the banner of a brand-new studio, Dead Mage Games, Wizard of Legend 2 ditches its pixilated 2D presentation for one that wholly feels inspired by games like Hades.
Translating Wizard of Legend to 3D meant Dead Mage Games could have gone any number of ways, but the direction they did land on ultimately suits the high fantasy setting and world that Wizard of Legend 2 envelopes. Still, comparisons to Hades and its still in-early-access sequel will be inevitable, as will the feeling of something lost in translation from its first outing back in 2018. Saying all that, however, Wizard of Legend 2 is a blast to play, with its responsive and fluid controls, plethora of modifiers and its focus on multiplayer mayhem. In other words, Wizard of Legend 2 copies from the best and does so while implementing a thoughtfully designed suite of multiplayer options.
Starting the game up for the first time, players will have to pick an affinity for their burgeoning wizard, which decides what starting element your slew of attacks will be attuned to. Fear not if the worry of committing to any one particular element, as the game lets you swap out and mix and match attacks from different families with ease. From here, a short tutorial level (or more like a blind run) will get you accustomed to the controls, which, upon death, will respawn players into the central hub area of the game.
“For a game still in early access, Wizard of Legend 2 already offers a good pool of spells and special modifiers for the player to discover and experiment with.”
Like the first game, the central hub area of Wizard of Legend 2 gives players quick access to areas such as setting up lobbies for online or local multiplayer sessions, changing cosmetics, collecting rewards from past runs, talking to various NPCs and purchasing additional arcana, relics, medallions and other modifiers.
For those new to the world of Wizard of Legend, each player in the game has access to a basic arcana or primary magic-imbued attack, a dash or movement-based tech, a signature move, which is, in essence, is a more potent heavy attack, and standard spells which are powerful secondary moves that Ware mapped to the triggers.
As players progress through each run, they can occasionally encounter vendors that allow them to purchase additional standard attacks, as well as modify existing signature moves (by defeating bosses), which, in practice, results in the player slowly expanding their skillsets and becoming more capable as the game, in turn, also increases in difficulty.
For a game still in early access, Wizard of Legend 2 already offers a good pool of spells and special modifiers for the player to discover and experiment with, which, although still early, makes for a good amount of variety that encourages repeat runs, even after several attempts of trying to get over some of the tougher bosses present in the game. On the topic of bosses, Wizard of Legend 2 currently offers three distinct bosses, based on the teachers of the fire, ice and earth elemental, in addition to an extra undead duo that acts as one single encounter, which adds a healthy amount of content to get started with.
When it comes down to it, if you’re a fan of roguelikes, even if you’ve never played the first game, Wizard of Legend 2 is on track to being one of the better takes on multiplayer-focused roguelike experiences and is well worth checking out for fans of the genre, even in its early-access state.
