In the world of Wizard of Legend, mage battles are a lot closer to samurai duels than they are to the cover-based shootouts of Harry Potter. The game ranks as one of the fastest action titles I've ever played, requiring blisteringly precise inputs and split-second reactions in order to survive. It is merciless to the point of ludicrousness, rarely doling out full heals all while gleefully locking you into rooms with enemies that can (and will!) combo you to death. There are no i-frames, no insta-win upgrades, and no meta-progression to make the game more fair; you will learn to play by Wizard of Legend's rules, or get decimated trying.
And during its first twenty hours, I sure as hell got decimated.
In a lot of ways, I am reminded of my time with ScourgeBringer, another excellent roguelite where one badly bungled room can destroy an entire run. Both games aren't shy about hammering the player over and over for petty mistakes, but at least ScourgeBringer offers permanent upgrades that will become essential to your victory. Wizard of Legend instead boasts wider customization options out of the gate: your choice of a starting relic, cloak type, and your four core attacks. But its in-run upgrades provide significantly less impact than the blessings found in the Ordeal. I don't think one approach is superior to another per se—especially since you'll have to learn both games to the point of mastery anyway—but at least ScourgeBringer provides a sense of momentum as you gather upgrades throughout a run. Wizard of Legend on the other hand, is a vicious, no-holds-barred brawl that can kill you at the start just as easily as it can at the end.
What makes Wizard of Legend one of the most cutthroat roguelites I've played is that everybody in it is susceptible to stunlocking. Enemies, the player, bosses—all will kneel before the great leveler of the infinite combo. Well, provided they don't have any hyper armor on—which your enemies will evolve by floor two, by the way. Even the lowliest of dregs are capable of interrupting your earth-shattering specials, a mere slap setting you up nicely for their brawny buddies to tag-team you into oblivion. Some players may enjoy this ruthless "first to strike is first to win" philosophy, as it forces everyone to play by the same rules. But I guarantee that no matter what your preferred playstyle is, Wizard of Legend will wrench more than one exasperated expletive from your mouth as you watch your tiny warlock hopelessly battered back and forth like a well-worn tetherball. (I believe my first utterance of "Jesus Christ" was when two cyclopses beamed a geyser of red 5s out of my forehead.)
Due to the aggressive combat, you'll likely lean heavily into the game's ranged arcana—especially since flashy melee attacks leave you exposed for a fraction of a second too long. This has a tendency to render runs somewhat samey, especially once you discover that each elemental arcana comes with the same staples (rushdown attack, big AoE, delayed AoE, weak summon, strong summon, buff, totem, etc). This may imply Wizard of Legend lacks variety, but that couldn't be further from the truth; there's an impressive amount of arcanas, relics, cloaks, merchants, room layouts, and enemy attacks to memorize, fully capable of surprising you with something new 20 hours in. The issue is that you'll be quick to play favorites and slow to experiment, treating some of the relics and arcanas as obstacles in your path rather than tools to play around with.
Personal preference is inevitable in every roguelite, but since you can decide your most of your equipment before a run begins in Wizard of Legend, you'll have little reason to veer from your intended course. Which is a shame because it's a lot of fun in experimenting with new arcana and seeing how they work, even if they may not be all that useful. Better yet is when a previously-thought "worthless" arcana reveals its value as you grow accustomed to it: summons provide an excellent distraction, dash arcana can punish bothersome pursuers, and buffs can turn basic arcanas into full-fledged wrecking balls. Ranged attacks remain king of course—especially when dueling the final boss—but at least you'll have plenty of attacks to cycle between if you get tired of your usual loadout.
Speaking of the final boss, Wizard of Legend's big bad master mage joins the nightmarish ranks FTL's Flagship and Slay the Spire's Heart, where you must build your repertoire around their abilities. Dominating the rest of the game with a solid loadout means nothing if you're unable to strike Master Sura while he's vulnerable, a task that'll only grow harder as the fight wears on. And even if you manage to stun him, he can recover in the blink of an eye and retaliate with a string of lightning-fast combos, erasing your health with the fury of a teacher cleaning a swear word off their chalkboard. Even if you enter into it at full health, the duel remains a horridly lethal race to the bottom; I reckon I've lost more times to Sura at the last 20% of his HP than I've actually beaten him.
I hope my endless griping about Wizard of Legend's difficulty doesn't belie the fact that I really enjoyed my time with it. While it doesn't hit the consistent highs of the genre's best, in no way did I find it lacking or failing to live up to its potential. Sure, maps have too many dead ends and the game struggles to encourage experimentation, but for the most part it ticks all the right boxes: a good amount of randomization, an enjoyable combat system, fantastic animations, no external wiki help required, and a hard-earned victory you can be proud of. I suppose I'm hammering on Wizard of Legend's difficulty so much because the game lives or dies based off of whether you think it's unfair or not. And make no mistake—you will definitely find it unfair at times (like when you're being juggled to high hell during the wind master's signature arcana god damn knock it offfff!)
Similar to Spelunky, death is an ever-looming presence in Wizard of Legend, a shadow you're unable to shake. It forces you to play at a distance at all times, turning certain arcanas into a must-have, certain relics into a must-buy, and certain curses into a must-take. Wizard of Legend does offer build variety, with melee and rushdown builds blinking on the horizon like a shy lighthouse, but to cross the water is to chance drowning in a game full of turbulent waves. One wrong move, one miscalculation, and you'll be spent spiraling into the nether, death's icy grip clamping around your throat. In high-intensity games like Devil May Cry and Doom Eternal, you are the one to be feared, a force of nature laying waste to those foolish enough to get in your way. But in Wizard of Legend, you are a glass cannon, capable of shattering into a thousand pieces due to one impulsive misfire.
Wizard of Legend is cool—and fun!—but it has zero qualms about pulling down your pants to turn your ass into a pair of bongos.
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