The cartridge actually has a really cool hidden feature. If you take it and you lay it flat down on a table you can then walk away and play a better game.
This game's graphics style is unlike any other I've seen on the NES. Interesting use of dithering to make everything look rounded, shaded, and detailed. On a CRT, it almost looks like a 16-bit game.
First time I've seen this game, and it's extremely pleasing on the eyes, the artist(s) working on this title were clearly expert, few NES games look this good.
Looked nice. Played horribly. I rented it once and me and my buddies thought it was a very bad design. I appreciate when devs try to do things differently but in the end it wasnt much fun.
This video seriously just unlocked a lost memory. I faintly remember watching my step father play this game when i was like 4 or 5 and when i saw the cart in the video it all started coming back. Talk about a nostalgia bomb! And to me it doesn't matter if the game is great or is awful, its just those memories of a simpler time. Great job as always and thanks!
One of the things I love about the NES is just how prolific its game publishers were. It boasts several of the straight up best games of all time, but also broken, unplayable garbage. It has hoards of knockoff clones of good games, but also completely ambitious titles like this one. The NES is a glorious landfill - you gotta dig through a mountain of trash to find the good stuff. No other console has, or ever will have, the shear variety of experimental madness that the NES produced in just a handful of years. You're on a marvelous journey. Thanks for sharing it with us.
And that's with the limitations Nintendo placed on publishers, i.e. only five titles a year, you have to let us manufacture your cartridges (though of course plenty of companies found various ways around that!). It's not even that there was a huge backlog of Famicom games to be localized, some of the weirdest stuff was made just for the US or Europe and loads of Famicom games never made it over here!
i come back home in a bad mood, walked 21 flight of stairs in this heat, cursing the day, then this awesome person drops a new video and i am smiling again. dude, i forget ur name, but man, ur a gem, a real gem, keep them videos, u and that ''u can beat video games'' guy are prolly the best people on this platform, hope u keep making these videos until we both are too old to even know what we are talking about.
His name is James, and if you want to have some fun, hang out on his live streams every Thursday. It's a really nice community and he always manages to play the HARDEST games he can find, and always suffers because of it.
You just need to get good. This is just an 8-bit Dark Souls. If you weren't such a n00b, you would have just grabbed the best staff from the hidden cave in level 5.
@@theusher2893don’t tell me about Deadly Towers. Christmas 1987. I get one gift a year because we are poor. In some ways it was good for me because I learned how to sob uncontrollably into the palms of my hands like a ritual and then get back into the grind of playing my only game for the year.
The protagonist Paul is a reference to the Apostle Paul and his enemy Abaddon is the destroyer from the Book of Revelation that is sealed for 1000 years with his chain. For Paul says, "...was not ashamed of MY CHAIN." Like many old NES games, they are HARDER, and SHORTER. Magician is definitely a game you play multiple times. You need at least one run just to write down all the spells you can make. Well, before guides were available.
I was an RPG junky as a child and tried this one many times, getting absolutely nowhere. You couldn't even claim bragging rights for beating it - if you tried telling people you beat Magician for NES those few that actually knew of it would say "What? Why?? Is everything ok at home?"
To make a personal attack: your avatar is from an ICOM Macventure (Shadowgate) - another old and obtuse game today, but challenging and character-building when it came out. (The hidden developer room in the original Mac version wasn't discovered until this decade.) But obtuse and unforgiving were the norm in a very primitive age where gamers didn't have a discerning palate. See: Druuaga, a torturous puzzling action RPG in arcades that required entire neighborhoods to replay non-stop around the clock to discover what triggers make the door to the next level open.
It's great to see a review for a game that I not only haven't played, but never heard of either! This game sounds super ambitious, but sadly perhaps a little too much, haha. I was also going to comment on the soundtrack because it sounds awesome. I think Neil also composed music for a F1 game on the NES. Game itself is alright, but the soundtrack is fantastic.
Unrelated question -- is that you in the photo on your patreon of the insert from the 80s, that was included in all our official NES titles to sub to Nintendo Power? Or do you just want to be him like we all did, and do?
I am firmly in the minority, and I know it, but I loved Magician. I rented it probably a dozen times, and would have begged to own it if I’d ever seen a copy for sale (would probably still grab it if I saw it today and it was decently priced, even though I don’t have any way to play an NES cart)… but at the same time, I’m aware it’s a deeply broken game, and I totally get where folks are coming from when they hate it. I actually agree with quite a few of your criticisms - the controls and the fiddling with power levels of the spells in particular. Still, something about the game pleased me, despite its flaws. I was so happy to see it again. My nostalgia glasses are firmly in place. Thank you for covering this, even though it appears to have caused you great pain. 🤣
It seems like a game that would be more at home on amiga or pc, with a big box release full of goodies and a book to write the spells in, with less of a size limit on included texts and such
I rented this one from a local place back when it came out, no manual included so that was the biggest bummer of a weekend but watching you play it, I didn't miss anything I would've liked.
Speaking of Faxanadu, I just downloaded an indie game on my switch called Infernax. It is a WONDERFUL game. Great music, gorgeous sprite work, and it plays a lot like Simon's Quest mixed with Faxanadu. It's a must play for a retro game fan.
This game definitely has an interesting color palette. They seem to like pastel hues. Very Faxanadu-looking. Love the 8-bit cleavage! This is really cryptic game. It's like they assumed the player had a time machine where they could travel to the future and look up the walk-thru.
Once you fillout your spellbook so you can add all the spells to your inventory at the start of the game so you no longer spend money on spells and you find the hidden treasure sprinkled around the different levels and get a better understanding of the game mechanics then it really isnt so bad. I think it took me a few years to finally beat the game but i did beat it. And i still have the cartridge and spell book.
A better ending: Paul goes home and stops at ye old shoppe. He picks up a pack of cigars and he rolls a blunt of the seediest swag ever as that was all they had back then. He lights it up and just sighs.
When I saw it, I thought it might be interesting since it’s a side scrolling RPG. But the lack of backtracking and constant health management kills it for me.
Magician was one of my favorite games, actually. Something very different from anything else. To have a real shot at winning you need to already know all the spells and make them yourself while in town.
Pretty sure renting this was the first time I ever even heard of a game with a crafting system. Also, to continue the Faxanadu comparisons, this is another one of those games that doesn't look very good on modern displays but is maybe not gorgeous but really nice looking on a CRT where that mess of grainy looking pixel work blends together into smooth shading that rivals some early Genesis and SNES titles. I never made it far out of that first town without getting bored, though.
This review video is from the point of view of someone who is young and never learned to appreciate thinking on their own, and wants everything done for them. When this game came out, system limitations meant you couldn't have massive games like there are now, so the developers of good games put a lot of thought into it in order to make you think about what you are seeing on the screen, and we were not babied, you learned the hard way, and if you missed something, that will teach you to not skip over things but get them done as you come across them. The spell book was a good feature because if you did something crazy, like oh I don't know, actually writing down the spells on a real piece of paper, then all it cost was 50 mana (which is always replenishing) and so you could save your money so that you always had enough food and water. People used to appreciate needing to develop skill and strategies in order to actually become good at something. Now everyone just wants to pop in a game and mindlessly progress through it without having to think, learn or improve themselves. There was nothing keeping track of the mana? We learned to keep track of that ourselves as we cast spells, and figure out what enemies were worth fighting and which ones could just be ignored and passed. We figured out that you only needed to buy one key and it could be used for all chests as they don't deplete, so we remembered on the next playthrough and figured out the money management mechanic, and just like real life, you are responsible for all of your actions, so either learn from it or keep making the same mistake over and over. Like real life, it is fun when you get good at it.
The graphics are amazingly executed. There is so much care put into it. I bet they used the biggest storage cartridge available and probably made no money off of each sale. Music too! And then ZERO effort was put into making an enjoyable game 🤣
Yep, I remember bugging my parents to buy this game. Played it for five minutes then went back to playing Duck Hunt. Didn't touch it again until I was 17 and was hooked. You're right, it is like the 8bit version of Dark Souls lol.
Haha another "gem"! Although I could probably play it now, thanks to AVGN most likely...also same..89' such an array of consoles! And the internet, CPU's..
In the section where you used the big jumps I used the fly spell & somehow got it to work where I’d fly between lightning strikes, haha. I didn’t get anywhere near the final boss though, I think I got to one level past that fly/lightning (or in your case big jump) section. I don’t think I ever found where to purchase or how to create the jump spell. I was quite impressed with how ambitious this game was, even more-so now hearing that it was their first game. Truly a game where I can confidently say I have not played another game like it.
If "paying the ferryman" is something you need to have a game explain to you, this might not be your genera of game. Charon would be like "Don't you know who I am? You think this ride is free?".
A lot of games did that crap back then of expecting you to know pop cultural/mythological references using knowledge outside of the game. And not just for Easter Eggs, I mean things like knowing the kissable xenomorph in Space Quest was a slow game over if not avoided. Personally, not a fan of that design ethos from a metafictional perspective. It's fourth-wall breaking and amateurish, which is okay if the game is supposed to be silly like the aforementioned Space Quest. Infuriating in situations like this.
@@maltheopia It does not break the forth wall. The sprite does not wink at you while you pay the ferryman. It perfectly fits within the logic and setting of the game. The games setting appears to be well after the advent of boats, bartering and money. The concept of a ferry is very old, and we still have them, AND they still cost money. It is a really very basic logic puzzle, but it does what it needs to do, so I still wouldn't call it amateurish. You don't need to know about Charon to solve this. It's not a huge leap in logic, more like "Oh hey. I have money. Maybe I can pay that guy to take me across." I'm curious. Would it also ruin your immersion if a game in a modern setting had a yellow taxi? That is a reference to something the game never had to establish, everybody just knows that yellow car as a taxi. Also cars, the game never bothers to teach you about them either. You are just expected to know what a car is, and what it does.
@@Matthamatic The way you interact with the ferry requires a leap of faith that is only intuitive if you have a specific mythological idea of how it works. You don’t talk to the man before you get in, there’s no way to know where the boat is going, and it’s not even clear that it’s a ferrying business. Like you said, you need to go ‘lol you gotta pay the silent ferryman a toll what do you expect, it’s like Charon’. Considering you can just straight up die unless you interact with it in the exact way the game expects, it’s a stupid puzzle. And yes, it is a fourth wall break. Directly addressing the audience isn’t the only way to abuse the fourth wall. Anything that breaks willing suspension of disbelief by drawing attention to itself that the narrative is a video game as opposed to a story is a fourth wall break, which is what that puzzle does. The entire shenanigans operates by video game logic.
@@maltheopia The reason it operates using video game logic is it is a video game. You see a man on a boat you know you need to do some thing with that, otherwise it wouldn’t be there. Using the minimalist of critical thinking you should be able to solve this. No outside knowledge is required. It’s just a dude on a boat so no fourth walls are being broken. Like, it’s a little ridiculous we’re having this conversation. It’s such a simple puzzle. Anybody who has two brain cells rub together should be able to figure it out.
@@Matthamatic You do have to make concessions between narrative conceit and gameplay, yes. But the game kills you if you don’t interact with the puzzle in a very specific manner. No getting on the boat to talk to the ferryman, no sign that tells you what’s up, not even any foreshadowing. It’s: drop the coins without question or you die, which requires you to either be familiar with Greek Mythology or crappy adventure game design you see in games like King’s Quest. Terrible gameplay, and Magician is full of this ‘play the game exact as we want you to or suffer the consequences.’ It’s not even like the ferryman is the worst instance, it’s just one of many.
some neat concepts in this game, and the graphics don't seem too bad but bad game design decisions aside, the flashing of the text when it scrolls at the bottom would be too much for me - makes it so hard to read...
I love this! You can feel the faxanadu vibes right off. Looks like a very creative effort, despite the flaws. Going to have to try this out. Edit: Love your intro by the way.
I had blissfully forgotten this game until seeing your video. I remember playing this when it was released. There were no cheat codes that I knew of, and after starving to death repeatedly, or getting stuck in a well without a spell to float repeatedly, I finally gave it up. I agree with you that the music is the best part. In fact, the music probably kept me playing way past when I would normally have just stopped and thrown the cartridge in the trash. What's really funny to me is that at the same time I gave up on this, I repeatedly beat Battletoads, one of the most notorious games ever.
Man, I never played this game as a kid, so my first experience with it was a walkthrough video that was deeply impressive in how thoroughly practiced and knowledgeable the creator was, but it also showed off just how complicated and hard this game is. Like how you should know what's in treasure chests before you open them, which can only be done by playing the game many times, so that you don't open them while your inventory is full because then the item's gone forever. I'm sure some people find that satisfying, but I don't think I'm ever going to play this.
I remember renting this one waaaaay back in the day. (yeah I'm that old.) I really wanted to like it, I did like the way you could construct spells, but I just couldn't get very far. I've got it in my collection today, but I still haven't been able to play it very well. Great video by the way.
Looks like the kind of game that would have drove me crazy but I would have beat it a couple of years later just because I only had like a handful of game options back in the day and GameFAQs was a thing by the mid 90's (how I finally beat Dungeon Magic). It was awesome to run into you on Saturday at the Southeast Game Exchange! Looking forward to seeing some reviews/videos on those crazy bootleg games that you picked up!
Okay, out of ALL the games you've covered, I think this is the ONE that I've heard of before ONLY in retrospect, but NEVER tried. I remember it NOW, having seen it in an edition of Nintendo Power back in the day, but I forgot completely about it until about 15 minutes ago.
I always wanted to play this game as a kid after seeing it in Nintendo Power. It seemed ambitious, and I was interested in Taxan games... Looks like I avoided a lot of frustration.
Another excellent review from Big Ole Words, as usual. Speaking of magicians, is it possible you would ever do a review of Magician Lord for the Neo Geo? I'm guessing not since I've only seen Nintendo games featured on this channel, but it doesn't hurt to ask, does it?
If you have the time, see clips of Eternal Darkness (GameCube); it has spell building, waiting in real time to recover, etc., but is much less frustrating with more dedicated buttons to talk, correct items are used automatically, and there's a forgiving aim-lock feature.
Siiiiick... James droppin' a review on one of my favorites on my birthday. Awesome~... though to clarify, it's not one of my favorite games to play, just uh... favorite... weird games? If that makes sense.
Never heard of this game, and as you say, it seems very ambitious, but bad in execution. Maybe a polished remake would help making a comeback? The graphics I think are very good as well
This was actually a game I received as a Christmas present. I somehow managed to finish it… and yeah, everything you say is accurate. I’m a bit surprised you didn’t mention the fact that there’s a LIMITED number of saves (15, if I remember correctly). This added to the anxiety and counter-intuitive nature of the game.
It was the sketchiest, country-assed, pre-computer kind of deal. Vess soda for a quarter, plain PayDay for 50 cents, maybe 2 bucks per game, per day. While being EASILY in walking distance. They used to get stuff that Nintendo power barely mentioned. Complete with badly-translated instruction manual printed on/in the plastic rental case.
Never heard of this one, which is surprising since the genre is right up my alley! I suppose I was too busy with TurboGrafx and Genesis to be bothered with NES games after 1990 or so.
Oh my grandma had this game! we never made it past the first pit, without a manual this game was unplayable, which was too bad as it had some of the coolest cover art
This was what I used to call a "weekend ruiner." Rented it for a weekend, of friggin' course it had no instructions (not even the little placard they'd tape to the inside of the plastic rental case, either!), and it was just a confusing, bullshit mess from the very start. I, too, have tried going back to it from time to time since then, but it's still not a fun experience even if I know what I'm supposed to do.
This is a fantastic review of a strange game meant for an audience that I've never met. My older brother and I both rented this as younglings and not nowhere; not because we were idiots, but because it was sooooo boring and repetitive regarding keeping your stats up. Ideally, you have to spend like a half an hour in town just maxing out your shields and waiting for mana to restore; it's ridiculous.
YES finally! This game rocks! You are my hero for making this video. ❤🧙 EDIT: Oookay, I guess I was expecting a more glowing review. I mean WOW the game can be rough and requires a lot of trial-and-error, but it is not the unplayable garbage you make it out to be. Maybe I'm biased because I played this using a FAQ, but it really is a cool game with a surprising amount of depth. That said, the game does have issues. Most of the spells are crap, and it can be hard to wait for Mana to regenerate since you also constantly deplete Food/Water. It also is annoying how if you open a chest and can't carry any more of that item, you're forced to leave it behind. There's no denying that the graphics and sound are amazing for an NES title. That alone makes the game worth playing through at least once.
Haha spoke too soon huh? :) Yeah, I played it kinda half blind / half using a FAQ and that was pretty damn confusing. Can't imagine owning this back in the day.
@@BigOleWords Playing it on real hardware probably makes a difference. Something you didn't mention was the game has a limited number of saves (although there are 4 slots you can use, which is good if you need to go back to an earlier stage). I dunno, it's not that I'm trying to invalidate your opinion or anything, but I did feel you would find this to be more of a hidden gem than "WTF is this crap?" lol. Shows what little I know, right? I'd love to see a remake/hack of this game with some QOL improvements, because it's tragic to see this flounder in obscurity.
Narrator sounds like he was a real immature brat growing up and from the way he talks hasn't improved. Go back to playing Mario, this game is for adults. Seriously, how hard is to remember what two buttons do? The things people complain about, good lord! You briefly mention Zelda 2. People like to rip on that game too, but I loved them both growing up.
The "8-bit joyless agonizing Dark Souls" summary is deserved. It's still amazingly over ambitious. But two things you didn't get tripped up by: (1.) Beat it a 3rd time straight and Paul manages to open the door unlike Fred Flintstone who gets permanently locked out by his pets at the end of every episode. (2.) You have a LIMITED NUMBER OF SAVES. You get multiple slots, but you can only save 5 times to each slot before they're "locked" until you restart your quest. (See: manual) The "repeat quest" is kind of nice, only because you can re-create end-game magic at the start (don't miswrite the spell name or you die!) and steamroll over everybody. And like Ultima and other WRPGs, if you run out of enemies to kill for XP, kill townsfolk.
It was done better in Beyond Shadowgate but Magician and Nightshade are fascinating to me as two original side scrolling adventure game hybrids on the NES.
I've never heard of this game till now (which is shocking since I like this genre and I like the NES). Anyway, that thing where you need all those highly missable items to beat the final boss is absurd and something which I HATE when games pull that crap (it's insane for a player to reach the end of the game, fight the final boss, and notice the boss is unbeatable because they missed secretly hidden items, which they can't backtrack to get unless they restart the entire game. That type of stuff makes me rage quit a game). Anyway, the graphics to this game look AWESOME (very nice details, I love the graphics) and the music sounds nice, too bad the game appears to be wretchedly difficult in a very unfair way.
There is a neat code for this game. Before you play it, take it out of the box, take a hammer, go up down up down, then throw it left right left right out of a window.
The cartridge actually has a really cool hidden feature. If you take it and you lay it flat down on a table you can then walk away and play a better game.
😂
This was gem of a game
HAHAHA XD
LOL!
I wish I knew this years ago. Lol
This game's graphics style is unlike any other I've seen on the NES. Interesting use of dithering to make everything look rounded, shaded, and detailed. On a CRT, it almost looks like a 16-bit game.
It feels like it sits somewhere between Willow and Simon's Quest - I love it.
First time I've seen this game, and it's extremely pleasing on the eyes, the artist(s) working on this title were clearly expert, few NES games look this good.
Looked nice. Played horribly. I rented it once and me and my buddies thought it was a very bad design. I appreciate when devs try to do things differently but in the end it wasnt much fun.
This video seriously just unlocked a lost memory. I faintly remember watching my step father play this game when i was like 4 or 5 and when i saw the cart in the video it all started coming back. Talk about a nostalgia bomb! And to me it doesn't matter if the game is great or is awful, its just those memories of a simpler time. Great job as always and thanks!
times can still be simple. just smash your smart mobile phone with a hammer and there you have it !!!
One of the things I love about the NES is just how prolific its game publishers were. It boasts several of the straight up best games of all time, but also broken, unplayable garbage. It has hoards of knockoff clones of good games, but also completely ambitious titles like this one. The NES is a glorious landfill - you gotta dig through a mountain of trash to find the good stuff. No other console has, or ever will have, the shear variety of experimental madness that the NES produced in just a handful of years. You're on a marvelous journey. Thanks for sharing it with us.
It’s all equally interesting to me: the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Very well put!
Legacy of the Wizard qualifies as both of those thing haha
And that's with the limitations Nintendo placed on publishers, i.e. only five titles a year, you have to let us manufacture your cartridges (though of course plenty of companies found various ways around that!). It's not even that there was a huge backlog of Famicom games to be localized, some of the weirdest stuff was made just for the US or Europe and loads of Famicom games never made it over here!
I would argue that the PS2 library is a pretty close second for off the wall overly ambitious stuff.
i come back home in a bad mood, walked 21 flight of stairs in this heat, cursing the day, then this awesome person drops a new video and i am smiling again.
dude, i forget ur name, but man, ur a gem, a real gem, keep them videos, u and that ''u can beat video games'' guy are prolly the best people on this platform, hope u keep making these videos until we both are too old to even know what we are talking about.
Totally agree! UCBVG is definitely one of my favorites as well.
His name is James, and if you want to have some fun, hang out on his live streams every Thursday. It's a really nice community and he always manages to play the HARDEST games he can find, and always suffers because of it.
Hey thanks man!
@@BigOleWords ur welcome James, u rock and roll , all day long.
this is the game i accidentally rented as a kid thinking it was faxanadu. not once, but TWICE
I wouldn't admit that 😂
LOL !
The dreaded double dud rental. I’ve been there.
Lol that's hilarious
I am so sorry that happened to you
You just need to get good. This is just an 8-bit Dark Souls. If you weren't such a n00b, you would have just grabbed the best staff from the hidden cave in level 5.
The ironic thing about his comment is that there actually ARE staffs you can use as weapons without consuming Mana.
I knew it!
I'm curious how you know this.
Oooh no, no no. This is NOWHERE NEAR Dark Souls, son. Play Deadly Towers without the Johnson Maps and get back to me.
@@theusher2893don’t tell me about Deadly Towers. Christmas 1987. I get one gift a year because we are poor. In some ways it was good for me because I learned how to sob uncontrollably into the palms of my hands like a ritual and then get back into the grind of playing my only game for the year.
The protagonist Paul is a reference to the Apostle Paul and his enemy Abaddon is the destroyer from the Book of Revelation that is sealed for 1000 years with his chain. For Paul says, "...was not ashamed of MY CHAIN." Like many old NES games, they are HARDER, and SHORTER. Magician is definitely a game you play multiple times. You need at least one run just to write down all the spells you can make. Well, before guides were available.
the spells, eh? Yeah, I noticed that was a huge amount of possible combinations, one could find fun testing every single combination alone.
Wow what a great reference! Thanks for sharing that!
This game has the most amazing soundtrack. I remember discovering it on the old youtube channel "the music of video games" and being blown away.
Yeah it rules
I was an RPG junky as a child and tried this one many times, getting absolutely nowhere. You couldn't even claim bragging rights for beating it - if you tried telling people you beat Magician for NES those few that actually knew of it would say "What? Why?? Is everything ok at home?"
I couldn’t imagine trying to figure this one out back in the day without the Nintendo hotline
hahaha
Magician was novel and ambitious. I appreciate what it tried to do, even if it failed to be much fun.
To make a personal attack: your avatar is from an ICOM Macventure (Shadowgate) - another old and obtuse game today, but challenging and character-building when it came out. (The hidden developer room in the original Mac version wasn't discovered until this decade.)
But obtuse and unforgiving were the norm in a very primitive age where gamers didn't have a discerning palate. See: Druuaga, a torturous puzzling action RPG in arcades that required entire neighborhoods to replay non-stop around the clock to discover what triggers make the door to the next level open.
Ya it had an interesting idea. Just not executed well.
Camerica making Faxanadu is the most accurate description. But also: Those graphics are amazing.
The music is also one of the most complex and nuanced on the old toaster.
It's great to see a review for a game that I not only haven't played, but never heard of either! This game sounds super ambitious, but sadly perhaps a little too much, haha. I was also going to comment on the soundtrack because it sounds awesome. I think Neil also composed music for a F1 game on the NES. Game itself is alright, but the soundtrack is fantastic.
Ferrari Grand Prix Challenge, and yeah that game ruled!
Unrelated question -- is that you in the photo on your patreon of the insert from the 80s, that was included in all our official NES titles to sub to Nintendo Power? Or do you just want to be him like we all did, and do?
I am firmly in the minority, and I know it, but I loved Magician. I rented it probably a dozen times, and would have begged to own it if I’d ever seen a copy for sale (would probably still grab it if I saw it today and it was decently priced, even though I don’t have any way to play an NES cart)… but at the same time, I’m aware it’s a deeply broken game, and I totally get where folks are coming from when they hate it. I actually agree with quite a few of your criticisms - the controls and the fiddling with power levels of the spells in particular. Still, something about the game pleased me, despite its flaws.
I was so happy to see it again. My nostalgia glasses are firmly in place. Thank you for covering this, even though it appears to have caused you great pain. 🤣
It seems like a game that would be more at home on amiga or pc, with a big box release full of goodies and a book to write the spells in, with less of a size limit on included texts and such
I rented this one from a local place back when it came out, no manual included so that was the biggest bummer of a weekend but watching you play it, I didn't miss anything I would've liked.
Speaking of Faxanadu, I just downloaded an indie game on my switch called Infernax. It is a WONDERFUL game. Great music, gorgeous sprite work, and it plays a lot like Simon's Quest mixed with Faxanadu. It's a must play for a retro game fan.
I've heard good things!
Infernax was such a blast. I beat it like 3.5 times.
Hunger/nutrition is a mechanic that goes back to the old NETHACK computer RPG.
I'm pretty sure it goes back further, even!
Yup, and I personally hated it there, too. I love roguelikes, but if I see anything like a hunger meter, I'm probably not gonna play it
Definitely goes back further. In fact it goes back before video games to D&D, so I mean, seeing it in video games was expected.
"Wizards and Whatnot" sounds like an excellent title for a new game.
Hahaha
Yeah. Same with "magic and other bullshit" 😂
This game definitely has an interesting color palette. They seem to like pastel hues. Very Faxanadu-looking. Love the 8-bit cleavage! This is really cryptic game. It's like they assumed the player had a time machine where they could travel to the future and look up the walk-thru.
1:33 "Since they move at the same speed you do, you'll never catch them" LMAO
Add this one to the lengthy list of “NES games that have great graphics and music but also unplayable”
There are a lot of em!
Once you fillout your spellbook so you can add all the spells to your inventory at the start of the game so you no longer spend money on spells and you find the hidden treasure sprinkled around the different levels and get a better understanding of the game mechanics then it really isnt so bad. I think it took me a few years to finally beat the game but i did beat it. And i still have the cartridge and spell book.
A better ending:
Paul goes home and stops at ye old shoppe. He picks up a pack of cigars and he rolls a blunt of the seediest swag ever as that was all they had back then. He lights it up and just sighs.
This game has stuck with me ever since it was covered in Nintendo Power just because it implied that goat milk got you drunk.
Maybe it does? Wanna find out?
Gettin crunk off gilk
When I saw it, I thought it might be interesting since it’s a side scrolling RPG. But the lack of backtracking and constant health management kills it for me.
@@whitewolf3051 Yeah, if I was going to play it I'd definitely put in a "hunger/thirst never goes down" cheat code.
For some reason that ending reminds me of Shadow Sorcerer, a game whose manual essentially says that "saving is for losers".
hahaha
Oh, the manual in Magician warns you about saving too. It tells you to save often, but also that you're limited to 5 times (per save slot).
Magician was one of my favorite games, actually. Something very different from anything else. To have a real shot at winning you need to already know all the spells and make them yourself while in town.
"Every game, no matter how bad, is somebody's favorite"
--The CRPG Addict
I absolutely love the lake theme in this game. One of those hidden musical gems that makes me want to discover what else I've been missing
Yeah that's a jammer
Hey that's a cool intro. I really like how it was short and sweet and not dragged out good job I subbed!
Hey thanks so much!
You have the best NES channel on RUclips, James. We love you!
Haha wow thanks, that’s so kind!
Pretty sure renting this was the first time I ever even heard of a game with a crafting system.
Also, to continue the Faxanadu comparisons, this is another one of those games that doesn't look very good on modern displays but is maybe not gorgeous but really nice looking on a CRT where that mess of grainy looking pixel work blends together into smooth shading that rivals some early Genesis and SNES titles.
I never made it far out of that first town without getting bored, though.
3 drinks 🍺 makes you pass out on the ground until the end of time 😂
Great video as always!
ah, this IS a simulation! i just KNEW i'm still laying on the floor of my dorm room in a puddle of my own vomit!
i absolutely loved this game, its old and clunky and hard as hell but what nes game wasnt
This review video is from the point of view of someone who is young and never learned to appreciate thinking on their own, and wants everything done for them. When this game came out, system limitations meant you couldn't have massive games like there are now, so the developers of good games put a lot of thought into it in order to make you think about what you are seeing on the screen, and we were not babied, you learned the hard way, and if you missed something, that will teach you to not skip over things but get them done as you come across them. The spell book was a good feature because if you did something crazy, like oh I don't know, actually writing down the spells on a real piece of paper, then all it cost was 50 mana (which is always replenishing) and so you could save your money so that you always had enough food and water. People used to appreciate needing to develop skill and strategies in order to actually become good at something. Now everyone just wants to pop in a game and mindlessly progress through it without having to think, learn or improve themselves. There was nothing keeping track of the mana? We learned to keep track of that ourselves as we cast spells, and figure out what enemies were worth fighting and which ones could just be ignored and passed. We figured out that you only needed to buy one key and it could be used for all chests as they don't deplete, so we remembered on the next playthrough and figured out the money management mechanic, and just like real life, you are responsible for all of your actions, so either learn from it or keep making the same mistake over and over. Like real life, it is fun when you get good at it.
That's me, young James, 42 going on 14!
I'm sorry, Magician is an amazing game. It's unlike anything else on the NES and it does a great job making you feel like a powerful magician.
The graphics are amazingly executed. There is so much care put into it. I bet they used the biggest storage cartridge available and probably made no money off of each sale. Music too!
And then ZERO effort was put into making an enjoyable game 🤣
Yep, I remember bugging my parents to buy this game. Played it for five minutes then went back to playing Duck Hunt. Didn't touch it again until I was 17 and was hooked. You're right, it is like the 8bit version of Dark Souls lol.
I grew up in the heyday of Nintendo in the late 80s early 90s and I never saw this one. The game play reminds me of Friday the 13th. Great vid
Haha another "gem"! Although I could probably play it now, thanks to AVGN most likely...also same..89' such an array of consoles! And the internet, CPU's..
For nes, that game looks 9 out of 10. I would of loved this as a kid.
In the section where you used the big jumps I used the fly spell & somehow got it to work where I’d fly between lightning strikes, haha. I didn’t get anywhere near the final boss though, I think I got to one level past that fly/lightning (or in your case big jump) section. I don’t think I ever found where to purchase or how to create the jump spell. I was quite impressed with how ambitious this game was, even more-so now hearing that it was their first game. Truly a game where I can confidently say I have not played another game like it.
Amazing game with several different endings. Deceased Crab did a great LP of it back in the EARLY days of LPing on youtube!
Did not know there were multiple endings!
@@BigOleWords yup, you can kill everyone in the town and get a no one left to save ending too!
I've played this once or twice sadly at the time I wasn't big on it at the time. I need to give it another chance 😅
You’re a braver man than I!
This game seems incredibly ambitious for its time period. The execution is clearly not great, but that is the case with many games ambitious games.
I'm a fan of your content. I'm gonna subscribe.
I intentionally typed that out like a robot.
I like it!
If "paying the ferryman" is something you need to have a game explain to you, this might not be your genera of game. Charon would be like "Don't you know who I am? You think this ride is free?".
A lot of games did that crap back then of expecting you to know pop cultural/mythological references using knowledge outside of the game. And not just for Easter Eggs, I mean things like knowing the kissable xenomorph in Space Quest was a slow game over if not avoided.
Personally, not a fan of that design ethos from a metafictional perspective. It's fourth-wall breaking and amateurish, which is okay if the game is supposed to be silly like the aforementioned Space Quest. Infuriating in situations like this.
@@maltheopia It does not break the forth wall. The sprite does not wink at you while you pay the ferryman. It perfectly fits within the logic and setting of the game. The games setting appears to be well after the advent of boats, bartering and money. The concept of a ferry is very old, and we still have them, AND they still cost money. It is a really very basic logic puzzle, but it does what it needs to do, so I still wouldn't call it amateurish. You don't need to know about Charon to solve this. It's not a huge leap in logic, more like "Oh hey. I have money. Maybe I can pay that guy to take me across."
I'm curious. Would it also ruin your immersion if a game in a modern setting had a yellow taxi? That is a reference to something the game never had to establish, everybody just knows that yellow car as a taxi. Also cars, the game never bothers to teach you about them either. You are just expected to know what a car is, and what it does.
@@Matthamatic The way you interact with the ferry requires a leap of faith that is only intuitive if you have a specific mythological idea of how it works. You don’t talk to the man before you get in, there’s no way to know where the boat is going, and it’s not even clear that it’s a ferrying business. Like you said, you need to go ‘lol you gotta pay the silent ferryman a toll what do you expect, it’s like Charon’. Considering you can just straight up die unless you interact with it in the exact way the game expects, it’s a stupid puzzle.
And yes, it is a fourth wall break. Directly addressing the audience isn’t the only way to abuse the fourth wall. Anything that breaks willing suspension of disbelief by drawing attention to itself that the narrative is a video game as opposed to a story is a fourth wall break, which is what that puzzle does. The entire shenanigans operates by video game logic.
@@maltheopia The reason it operates using video game logic is it is a video game. You see a man on a boat you know you need to do some thing with that, otherwise it wouldn’t be there. Using the minimalist of critical thinking you should be able to solve this. No outside knowledge is required. It’s just a dude on a boat so no fourth walls are being broken.
Like, it’s a little ridiculous we’re having this conversation. It’s such a simple puzzle. Anybody who has two brain cells rub together should be able to figure it out.
@@Matthamatic You do have to make concessions between narrative conceit and gameplay, yes. But the game kills you if you don’t interact with the puzzle in a very specific manner. No getting on the boat to talk to the ferryman, no sign that tells you what’s up, not even any foreshadowing. It’s: drop the coins without question or you die, which requires you to either be familiar with Greek Mythology or crappy adventure game design you see in games like King’s Quest. Terrible gameplay, and Magician is full of this ‘play the game exact as we want you to or suffer the consequences.’ It’s not even like the ferryman is the worst instance, it’s just one of many.
I've played it. It was surprisingly common to find on Famicom multicarts, 30% of the ones I had had either the game proper or some romhack of it.
What a random game to include!
some neat concepts in this game, and the graphics don't seem too bad
but bad game design decisions aside, the flashing of the text when it scrolls at the bottom would be too much for me - makes it so hard to read...
Love the theme song
I love this! You can feel the faxanadu vibes right off. Looks like a very creative effort, despite the flaws. Going to have to try this out.
Edit: Love your intro by the way.
Definitely in that vein! And thanks :)
I love seeing these ridiculously over-ambitious old games. Truly a wild west era of gaming where everyone was just throwing stuff at the wall.
I had blissfully forgotten this game until seeing your video. I remember playing this when it was released. There were no cheat codes that I knew of, and after starving to death repeatedly, or getting stuck in a well without a spell to float repeatedly, I finally gave it up. I agree with you that the music is the best part. In fact, the music probably kept me playing way past when I would normally have just stopped and thrown the cartridge in the trash. What's really funny to me is that at the same time I gave up on this, I repeatedly beat Battletoads, one of the most notorious games ever.
At least in Battletoads the nature of the challenge is clear.
@@BigOleWords It was a better game. Just difficult. ;-)
Points for saying abstruse instead of obtuse
I think I’ve been chastised about it in the past ;)
I was like damn that's Kathy Ireland and then immediately I hear the medieval Kelly Kapowski lmao
Kelly was so hawt
Ooooh that’s probably more accurate
Renting this for the weekend would have resulted in aggravation and sibling fights
Great channel! I don’t think I ever played this or heavy shreddin but I will check them out thanks to your channel, thanks 👊
Subbed because you actually played the heck out of this game to properly and completely review it. Hope your channel keeps growing!
I mean i cheated like crazy but yeah, I saw it all!
Man, I never played this game as a kid, so my first experience with it was a walkthrough video that was deeply impressive in how thoroughly practiced and knowledgeable the creator was, but it also showed off just how complicated and hard this game is. Like how you should know what's in treasure chests before you open them, which can only be done by playing the game many times, so that you don't open them while your inventory is full because then the item's gone forever. I'm sure some people find that satisfying, but I don't think I'm ever going to play this.
I remember renting this one waaaaay back in the day. (yeah I'm that old.) I really wanted to like it, I did like the way you could construct spells, but I just couldn't get very far. I've got it in my collection today, but I still haven't been able to play it very well. Great video by the way.
Looks like the kind of game that would have drove me crazy but I would have beat it a couple of years later just because I only had like a handful of game options back in the day and GameFAQs was a thing by the mid 90's (how I finally beat Dungeon Magic).
It was awesome to run into you on Saturday at the Southeast Game Exchange! Looking forward to seeing some reviews/videos on those crazy bootleg games that you picked up!
This looks like an interesting curiosity :D
Since you move at the same speed as they do, you'll never catch them. "There's nobody to talk to." XD
Okay, out of ALL the games you've covered, I think this is the ONE that I've heard of before ONLY in retrospect, but NEVER tried. I remember it NOW, having seen it in an edition of Nintendo Power back in the day, but I forgot completely about it until about 15 minutes ago.
I loved this game, but yeah it was a long struggle. I remember having a notebook of notes of everything i could write down.
Even knowing all the magic combos I still wouldn’t know what to do with most of it
I always wanted to play this game as a kid after seeing it in Nintendo Power. It seemed ambitious, and I was interested in Taxan games... Looks like I avoided a lot of frustration.
You can replenish mana faster by using the Meditate spell, if I remember correctly. It's been years since I played this one.
love that intro! Mr. Show fan here. 🤣
I was on the 18th hollllleeeee!
I caught the David Cross Mr. Show singing. New sub just for that but cool video
I was in the 18th hoooolllleeee!
Another excellent review from Big Ole Words, as usual. Speaking of magicians, is it possible you would ever do a review of Magician Lord for the Neo Geo? I'm guessing not since I've only seen Nintendo games featured on this channel, but it doesn't hurt to ask, does it?
At this point I'm probably all in on NES, but that game does sound rad!
If you have the time, see clips of Eternal Darkness (GameCube); it has spell building, waiting in real time to recover, etc., but is much less frustrating with more dedicated buttons to talk, correct items are used automatically, and there's a forgiving aim-lock feature.
Friday the 13th on NES meets legend of Zelda 2?
Siiiiick... James droppin' a review on one of my favorites on my birthday. Awesome~... though to clarify, it's not one of my favorite games to play, just uh... favorite... weird games? If that makes sense.
Hey happy birthday!
loved this game. NES 4EVER. It's an early, cryptic RPG, dude. It's hard and you gotta learn how things work.
The OST for this is phenomenal
Yeah it was!
Never heard of this game, and as you say, it seems very ambitious, but bad in execution. Maybe a polished remake would help making a comeback? The graphics I think are very good as well
Magician-heads... lol. I'm keeping an eye out to see if they pop off in the comments section of this video... all 2 of them that are out there.
They're out there!
This was actually a game I received as a Christmas present. I somehow managed to finish it… and yeah, everything you say is accurate.
I’m a bit surprised you didn’t mention the fact that there’s a LIMITED number of saves (15, if I remember correctly). This added to the anxiety and counter-intuitive nature of the game.
@@YonGriffy five per slot I believe
"Speaking of one direction, you'll be heading in it- FOREVER." I feel your pain brother. 👺
heck yeah, thanks for the sign :D :D
2:42 I love that a channel called *Big Ole Words* just said “abstruce.” 😂
I used to rent this from the liquor store back in the day. 89-90? SmallTown Illinois.
Was that the name of the liquor store or the town?
@@BigOleWords you wouldn't have heard of it. Tevis's Store.
It was the sketchiest, country-assed, pre-computer kind of deal. Vess soda for a quarter, plain PayDay for 50 cents, maybe 2 bucks per game, per day. While being EASILY in walking distance. They used to get stuff that Nintendo power barely mentioned. Complete with badly-translated instruction manual printed on/in the plastic rental case.
One of the best soundtracks on the NES in my opinion is The Battle of Olympus whiz if I remember also has some amazing uplifting oceanic 🌊 sounds lol😂
Never heard of this one, which is surprising since the genre is right up my alley! I suppose I was too busy with TurboGrafx and Genesis to be bothered with NES games after 1990 or so.
Ambitious indeed. It looks good
Oh my grandma had this game! we never made it past the first pit, without a manual this game was unplayable, which was too bad as it had some of the coolest cover art
Grandma?! Man she must've been a wild lady to tackle some Magician!
No one ever knows much about their grandparents. But given that they're much older, they probably had some tales to tell.
This was what I used to call a "weekend ruiner." Rented it for a weekend, of friggin' course it had no instructions (not even the little placard they'd tape to the inside of the plastic rental case, either!), and it was just a confusing, bullshit mess from the very start. I, too, have tried going back to it from time to time since then, but it's still not a fun experience even if I know what I'm supposed to do.
I can only imagine going to school to talk to friends for tips on this game only to find out no one in my state had ever heard of it
This game looks really good. Like amazing sprite work.
spot on! I appreciate your props to the great Neil Baldwin. I'm sure the game had its place and time for the adult hardcore gamers of the era.
He rules, I especially like Ferrari Grand Prix Challenge.
This was one of the NES games I had. If we could get the cartridge to play, we might make it through a stage.
It would’ve been awesome if using the secret name of the spell like that made it more powerful.
See that’s a cool idea. Maybe buying gets you level 1-2 but the secret name gets you 1-4.
This is a fantastic review of a strange game meant for an audience that I've never met. My older brother and I both rented this as younglings and not nowhere; not because we were idiots, but because it was sooooo boring and repetitive regarding keeping your stats up. Ideally, you have to spend like a half an hour in town just maxing out your shields and waiting for mana to restore; it's ridiculous.
YES finally! This game rocks! You are my hero for making this video. ❤🧙
EDIT: Oookay, I guess I was expecting a more glowing review. I mean WOW the game can be rough and requires a lot of trial-and-error, but it is not the unplayable garbage you make it out to be.
Maybe I'm biased because I played this using a FAQ, but it really is a cool game with a surprising amount of depth.
That said, the game does have issues. Most of the spells are crap, and it can be hard to wait for Mana to regenerate since you also constantly deplete Food/Water. It also is annoying how if you open a chest and can't carry any more of that item, you're forced to leave it behind.
There's no denying that the graphics and sound are amazing for an NES title. That alone makes the game worth playing through at least once.
Haha spoke too soon huh? :) Yeah, I played it kinda half blind / half using a FAQ and that was pretty damn confusing. Can't imagine owning this back in the day.
@@BigOleWords Playing it on real hardware probably makes a difference. Something you didn't mention was the game has a limited number of saves (although there are 4 slots you can use, which is good if you need to go back to an earlier stage).
I dunno, it's not that I'm trying to invalidate your opinion or anything, but I did feel you would find this to be more of a hidden gem than "WTF is this crap?" lol. Shows what little I know, right?
I'd love to see a remake/hack of this game with some QOL improvements, because it's tragic to see this flounder in obscurity.
it looks like a unique game very nice graphics that's the beauty of the NES
Narrator sounds like he was a real immature brat growing up and from the way he talks hasn't improved. Go back to playing Mario, this game is for adults. Seriously, how hard is to remember what two buttons do? The things people complain about, good lord! You briefly mention Zelda 2. People like to rip on that game too, but I loved them both growing up.
The "8-bit joyless agonizing Dark Souls" summary is deserved. It's still amazingly over ambitious. But two things you didn't get tripped up by: (1.) Beat it a 3rd time straight and Paul manages to open the door unlike Fred Flintstone who gets permanently locked out by his pets at the end of every episode. (2.) You have a LIMITED NUMBER OF SAVES. You get multiple slots, but you can only save 5 times to each slot before they're "locked" until you restart your quest. (See: manual)
The "repeat quest" is kind of nice, only because you can re-create end-game magic at the start (don't miswrite the spell name or you die!) and steamroll over everybody. And like Ultima and other WRPGs, if you run out of enemies to kill for XP, kill townsfolk.
I always think I know the library and you keep pulling these games out of a different dimension it witchcraft! Big fan and love your stuff!
I haven't even begun to reach the bizarre depths of this console!
It was done better in Beyond Shadowgate but Magician and Nightshade are fascinating to me as two original side scrolling adventure game hybrids on the NES.
the game 'totally rad' was an interesting rental of mine back in the day. I kinda want to own it.. no one plays that lost title.
I reviewed ol' Totally Rad a while back: ruclips.net/video/QTcW5N3Kixo/видео.html
Awesome video!
Hey thanks!
Oh man i remember this game, trying to play it and just not being able to accomplish anything.
Glad to know it really was obtuse lol
I've never heard of this game till now (which is shocking since I like this genre and I like the NES). Anyway, that thing where you need all those highly missable items to beat the final boss is absurd and something which I HATE when games pull that crap (it's insane for a player to reach the end of the game, fight the final boss, and notice the boss is unbeatable because they missed secretly hidden items, which they can't backtrack to get unless they restart the entire game. That type of stuff makes me rage quit a game). Anyway, the graphics to this game look AWESOME (very nice details, I love the graphics) and the music sounds nice, too bad the game appears to be wretchedly difficult in a very unfair way.
There is a neat code for this game. Before you play it, take it out of the box, take a hammer, go up down up down, then throw it left right left right out of a window.
Way to copy someone else's comment.
very nice 'Save By The Bell' reference