Apologies if this analogy ends up being strained, but Mages of Mysteria kind of reminds me of a bag of chips. It’s good when you’re consuming it, but after you step away from it, it all just feels like a lot of empty calories. Admittedly, you don’t feel all greasy if you spend an hour playing Mages of Mystralia…but I’ll stop there before I take this analogy any further than it needs to go.
In any case, Mages of Mystralia is basically a solidly above-average isometric RPG that you’ll mostly forget not too long after you stop playing. Playing as Zia, a young girl who discovers she has magic while living in a village where magic is banned, you run around a fantasy world fighting monsters and learning more about her powers. There’s a broader story — one written by prolific fantasy author Ed Greenwood, who was also behind Baldur’s Gate and too many Dungeons & Dragons novels to count — but, truthfully, it’s about as generic as they come.
The good news about the game is that it allows you to customize your spells using runes. You start off with only a couple of basic spells to cast, but before long, you’re able to fire them across the screen at your enemies and make them do all kinds of neat things. It’s not ground-breaking, but it’s different enough from how spell-casting usually works that it makes the game seem a little different in that one respect.
It’s also worth noting that Mages of Mystralia looks really nice. Mystralia is a brightly-coloured world that seems alive, and it’s easy to get good feelings about the game as you’re playing it because it’s so vibrant and welcoming. Of course, the fact that you’ll see a lot of it because the fast-travel system leaves a little to be desired and generally pushes you to do lots of walking lessens the impact after awhile, but it’s still nice to see a game with such a varied colour palette.
As I said, though, it’s hard to imagine anything here sticking with you much beyond when you’re playing it. You’re sure to enjoy Mages of Mystralia while you’re playing it — and if you’re a fan of isometric RPGs, it’s certainly worth thinking about playing it — but I can’t imagine it’ll stick with you once you put the controller down.
Borealys Games provided us with a Mages of Mystralia Switch code for review purposes.
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