Magirune 2

For the price I wasn't expecting much but it provided more enjoyment than many games that are more expensive. Pros +Unique but also easy to learn combat +Enjoyable Cons -Couldn't figure out how to meet a character that shows up in the end credits in 1 location and at the end of the demo in another location. Musings If there's a sequel I'd definitely want to play it.

Magirune is a puzzle dungeon crawler reminiscent of early PC games like Chip's Challenge. It's grid-based, so there's some sokoban type challenges involved, but those take a backseat to what I consider the star of the show - which is the blended combat puzzle system. In a typical dungeon crawler or metroidvania, the major upgrades in or between the dungeons are what serve as the keys to unlock new portions of the world and prompt backtracking. Magirune still does this, but in addition every dungeon has its own meta-progression in the form of XP-based combat. In order to reach key rooms or switches, you need to farm enough XP to become strong enough to kill tougher and tougher monsters. Enemies require a [u]fixed[/u] number of hits to kill based on your character/weapon level, each hit causes a [u]fixed[/u] amount of retaliation damage, there is a [u]fixed[/u] number of potions in the game, and there is a [u]fixed[/u] amount of XP to be harvested - but enemies [u]respawn[/u] between rooms. Since you only get XP on the first kill but healing is finite, you have to strategize [b]how[/b] you are going to move thru the dungeon to most efficiently conserve life. This makes the combat si…

good puzzle elements, still feels like an adventure despite it mainly being a resource puzzle, and nice eastern eggs

It's good and worth $5 for sure, but despite being dramatically longer and more loaded with gimmicks, it does feel less substantive than the first game. Magirune 1 was a VERY tightly designed game, and required some careful planning and likely a few attempts to optimize your path and survive for the true ending. This game is much more open ended with multiple required and independent paths, and is much more generous with resources to the point that it's pretty brute forceable on the first run, even on Hard. I never really felt like I was on the edge of my supplies like I CONSTANTLY was in the first game. I never once ran out of keys or really ran low on them at all. The moment you can break barrels you get flooded with all the potions you'll ever need, even if you never do the sidequest that will just give you freebies if you run out. By the end of a Hard playthrough, I had almost 20 potions and a couple dozen keys left over that were only used on the final secret in the game. Compare to Magirune 1 which has very few spare keys at all, and an optimal run will literally have you down to your last few HP by the time you get the sword. This is still a recommend, just be aware …

Nice if you like exploring pixel dungeons. There are a few puzzles, and maybe 3 of the sokobons were hard. I looked up an answer for one. But mostly it's fun exploring with moderate challenge. Apparently this is a "Tower of the Sorcerer" clone, and the genre was huge in Japan. I'd never heard of it. So it's not entirely original but it's still done well.

Clever puzzles, core mechanic used to its fullest, resource management, this game does right what it tries to deliver, nice dungeon crawler, but it can be slow at times, which can be frustrating, that doing backtrack over and over again can be tiresome and time draining.