Wizard of Legend 2is a roguelike beat-em-up and the sequel to a game that may have invented the genre—or at least played a major role in shaping it.
One of the biggest changes from the original is the sequel’s addition of online multiplayer, allowing up to four players at a time to complete the deadly trials to become a wizard of legend. While multiplayer is a significant part of the experience, I didn’t have the chance to try it myself; I prefer solo gaming, and the opportunity to play online with fellow reviewers never arose.
I mention this because many of the game’s negative reviews, which were all written as part ofWizard of Legend 2‘s early access run, cite network connectivity issues as their primary complaint. While I assume improvements were made by the full launch (the version I reviewed), I can’t confirm whether those problems persist. Unfortunately, if you’re looking for insight into the multiplayer experience, I can’t help.
What I can tell you is thatWizard of Legend 2is a fairly solid roguelike in every other way.
Your main progression comes from arcana, abilities slotted into four separate categories, each with its own function, which you discover during or between runs. Your build depends on which arcana you pick and how you mix them. If you want to take a fire-focused build, for example, slot a fire arcana in all four spaces and take a relic that improves fire damage, or mix it up with a balanced build that takes advantage of the unique properties of all of the elements. That said, these unique properties, I couldn’t say for certain because I could not find a glossary or explanation of many of the base elements during my playtime.
Fun though some combos may be, I found a lot of what the game had to offer in the form of arcana to be kind of underwhelming or boring. The game takes a very martial-arts approach to magic, which is cool, but it kind of sucked a lot of the oomph out of many of the basic abilities for me. The arcana you find during runs, on the other hand, can be a lot stronger but still suffer from this feeling of only every one in six abilities actually looking cool and feeling effective.
Mechanically speaking,Wizard of Legend 2is more similar to Hades than any other roguelike out there. Similar gameplay mechanics, such as wall-smashing, armored enemies, and a heavy emphasis on bullet-hell elements and dashing, makeWizard of Legend 2feel strikingly familiar to theHadesstyle, which is comforting since Hades was my introduction to the genre. It does, however, feel far more punishing thanHades, with boss attacks much less telegraphed and a very finicky fall system that sees the many gaps and pitfalls across the game’s open-world maps being deadly traps—ones that make combat especially trickier if you don’t focus on dodging the many displacement abilities enemies have.
It may actually be thatHadeswas inspired by the originalWizard of Legendand not vice versa. As I didn’t play the first game, a simple Steam store search shows thatWizard of Legendwas released in 2018, two years before the full release ofHades, though the game also entered Early Access in 2018.
What may, in fact, be inspired byHades, however, isWizard of Legend 2‘s art direction, which is far different than the original game’s.Wizard of Legend 2trades in the original’s pixel art style for a 3D-cartoonish look with gorgeous character portraits to create a look very similar toHades. This is, of course, not meant as a critique but rather to point out that fans of one game’s style may also find themselves a fan of this one.
What was probably the hardest part ofWizard of Legend 2for me to enjoy was the game’s steep learning curve. The game sends you across multiple open-world areas in which you will be frequently jumped with combat encounters that can feel a bit overtuned (at least for this garbage gamer) with hard-to-dodge missiles and an emphasis on knockback attacks—all while you’re given a series of tools with no explanation, possibly expected to learn completely by doing. When you do manage to get to the bosses, the severity of the combat is amped up to 11 with much more bullet-hell antics and health bars that can feel daunting to whittle down.
I suppose, in my experience, thatWizard of Legend 2feels like a game that should be played in multiplayer, or at least that’s how the game’s learning curve struck me. Perhaps it is just an issue of “getting good,” but if I am correct, then it can be somewhat hostile against players who simply want to play the game by themselves or who don’t have friends to play with and aren’t interested in playing online.
The Final Word
Despite some underwhelming powers and the uncertainties around its learning curve,Wizard of Legend 2stands out as an ambitious and visually appealing roguelike that fans of Hades and the original will likely appreciate. While there is certainly nothing stopping you from taking the game on solo,Wizard of Legend 2just feels like a game that would be better in a group, so I recommend getting the game for a few friends as well.
Try Hard Guides was provided a Steam code for this PC review ofWizard of Legend 2. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on ourGame Reviewspage!Wizard of Legend 2is available onSteam,Humble Games,PlayStation, andXbox.
