Wizorb is an Arkanoid/Breakout type
game that adds in a fantasy twist. It has a fantasy story seen through some cool retro cutscenes shown at the beginning and end, and
a bunch of interesting twists on the block breaking formula.
In each of the 5 levels you play as a
wizard who turns himself into a ball and then hits himself around to
destroy blocks and enemies. You control his magic wand at the bottom
of the screen, hitting the ball up the screen as it bounces back off
obstacles and enemies and preventing it from slipping by you. If it
does get by you, that costs you a life. The game is old school in a
lot of ways, from its graphics and music to this life counting
mechanic. You get 3 lives to start with, and 3 continues per world,
and if you use them all up, you have to start that world over again.
The auto-save is very strict in enforcing this, and it's hard to even
cheat the auto-save to get around it (more on that later).
You need to break all of the blocks in
a level to advance, as well as take out any enemies that may be
wandering around. Enemies typically don't attack you (except for
bosses). You just need to hit them a few times to kill them (I feel
guilty killing werewolves, their sprite is so cute!). You have a few
spells at your command as well. Pressing cross will shoot a fireball
out of the wand. Pressing cross while the ball is touching the wand
will make it into a magma ball for a few seconds, allowing it to
smash through blocks and keep going instead of bouncing off of them
after one hit. Square will cause a wind to blow the ball towards the
paddle, and pressing square while the ball is touching the wand will
slow the ball down and allow you to control it for a few seconds. You
can also teleport the ball to anywhere on the screen instead of
re-launching it after losing a life.
All of these spells cost mana, which
is one of the things this game does very well. Mana is somewhat
scarce. It can fall out of blocks as potions that you can grab with
the wand, or you can get it in bonus levels, or buy it in the shops
you sometimes find by hitting the ball through doors in the levels,
or you can get it by having the ball not hit anything for 8 or so
bounces. That's it. It doesn't refill between levels or worlds, and
managing it is important. All of the spells are very useful, but the
scarce mana stops you from spamming them. It forces you to choose
wisely what spells you need to use for the level you are on and how
much you want to save up for the next level.
The spells are kind of hard to use,
but in a good way, so pulling off a spell in an effective manner
after collecting enough mana is very satisfying. The fireball lets
you take out a specific target quickly. The molten ball helps you cut
a swath through levels that are very block heavy (such as the cool levels
with tons of blocks that form a mosaic picture). The wind spell is
great for blowing the ball into hard to reach places. The ball
control spell is the go-to spell to slow the ball down when it gets
really fast to avoid losing control and has the added bonus of
allowing you to guide it into some hard to reach block or enemy. The
teleport spell lets you drop the ball into contained areas where it
will bounce around for awhile. I used all 5 spells throughout my time
with Wizorb instead of defaulting to favorites like you do in so many
other games; the repertoire is very useful yet challenging to use.
There are also a few power-ups, such
as added ball damage and a bigger paddle, but after finding that most
of these disappeared after you lost a life (which I would do
constantly) and seeing that they weren't that useful anyway, I
started to ignore them. You have to buy the power-ups in shops. I
barely bought any, preferring to save my cash to spend on lives and
re-building stuff in the village. A few curses can also pop out of
blocks instead of cash or mana. These fall down the screen and if
your wand hits them, they affect you for a bit. Some make you slow or
shrink your wand. The coolest one is instant death, which destroys
the wand in a really cool sort-of burning animation so that next time
the ball comes down there is nothing to hit it.
The 5 worlds each contain 12 levels
and a boss fight. Bosses are a really fun highlight. They are big
monsters with hit points in levels with no blocks, so you just need
to take them out. Their sprites and animations are all great and they
directly attack you. I could have gone for more of theses battles.
In between worlds you can explore a
tiny rpg style town and donate the money you earn from each level to
re-build buildings that were destroyed there. You can talk to the
residents too. This is amusing, but there isn't much to it.
The basic ball bouncing gameplay is
just what you remember from playing other games like this. You can
make your wand move faster by holding circle. I found myself holding
it a majority of the time. You can also adjust the speed of the wand in the settings (I recommend speed 2). You can aim a bit by hitting the ball off the
side of the wand, but it can be quite hard (and frustrating) to try
and line up a specific shot. There is a lot of crazy randomness to
hitting the ball around.
My main complaint involves the basic
ball hitting mechanics, and the level design. Lining up shots to hit
specific blocks in tight spaces is not really that fun or engaging.
Using a spell to help you out is fun, but mana is so scarce, you are
going to have to hit a lot of hard-to-hit blocks the old fashioned
way. This wasn't much of a problem for the first four levels, since I
beat them all without running out of continues and was able to move
on. I only had to experience the handful of levels that I found
annoying once and they were done (there were plenty of fun levels in
there too, don't worry). But then I got to the last world.
World 5, which is visually the most
interesting (it has these pillars with blinking eyeballs: awesome!)
is the most frustrating. It has tons of really hard shots. And then
it has a really hard boss at the end. I used all my continues up the
first time around, and then I realized that I would have to do the
whole world again. After my second try and death at the last boss, I
almost gave up. Playing through the second time was painful. It was
both frustrating and boring. Don't get me wrong, the last boss is
actually really fun and challenging in a good way, and probably the
best part of the game. I just didn't like having to re-play the most
upsetting part of the game to get another shot at him. So then I made
a scum save by copying my save data onto my PSP at the last boss. But
then I beat him without using it! I felt very accomplished in beating
the game since the last world was so challenging, but replaying it
was not fun.
I don't know what you could really do
to improve it either. It has to be challenging, it's the last level.
I think it just goes with the territory of this type of block busting
game. It's a simple thing, and it can get boring to try and bust the
same blocks up in hard to reach spots. And making the save system
more forgiving would just mean that there's no consequences to dying.
It would be more fun that way, but also almost without any challenge
or tension. I think the game just ran into the limitations of the
block busting mechanic of its predecessors. That last boss is worth
it though, it was really fun and really hard. It makes me think that
maybe the game should have been all about fighting enemies that
attack you with the blocks totally removed. I don't know if that
would really work though...
After that, there are a few little
secret things to do if you haven't already done them, such as
rescuing some elemental children in a side quest (trust me, this is
worth doing, the reward you get is awesome!). You can also replay
levels to try and get a high enough score to earn a star, which is
actually kind of fun in the lower levels. I got the first 3, and I'm
tempted to go back and try for the last two. I don't know if I'll
ever get around to it though.
Overall, I had a lot of fun with
Wizorb, but it caused me a lot of grief too. There were a few hours
spent replaying that last world that were not enjoyable. It's got a
lot of stuff going for it, but I have to dock it quite a bit for the
pain I felt there. I'm going to say it's a tier 1 mediocre game. The
good outweighs the bad, but it would need a little more of a push to
be a great game. I recommend it for the boss fights, the cool sprite
graphics, and the magic mechanics, but just know that you might get
bored with the brick breaking, especially if you have to replay any
levels. But hey, maybe you'll beat all the levels in your first try
and have a great experience.
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