Mages of Mystralia

While customization makes this action/adventure game feel more personal, the action eventually becomes repetitive, limiting the enjoyability of the game. Mages of Mystralia uses a different tactic to bring players closer to the story. Just as Zia is learning to harness and control her powers, players use a unique spell-crafting mechanic to experiment with their own individual power sets. Starting with very basic spells, literally just casting an element, players use various runes to add new features and behaviors, such as movement, power, targeting, etc. Eventually, after some trial and error, you find yourself crafting complex strings of runes to pull off intricate spells with numerous quirks. When you succeed in making a spell come together just right, you can't help but feel the same sense of accomplishment Zia does as her mage skills improve.

While the spell-crafting mechanic in Mages of Mystralia is clearly a great highlight of the game, the rest of it is a mixed bag. The game's presentation is bright and colorful, but it lacks a lot of detail. The story is engaging but falls apart toward the end of Zia's journey. And while it's initially fun to explore the world and to help out villagers with the occasional side quest, eventually that starts to wear and feel a bit repetitive. None of this is particularly bad, mind you; Mages of Mystralia is still fun to play. It just feels that, unlike Zia, it never quite reaches the full potential of what it's truly capable of.