Mystical

Copyright : Infogrames | Reviewed by : Ritchardo

Youre a novice wizard who has somehow managed to lose all of the Great Wizardâ??s scrolls and phials! Theyâ??ve become scattered all over various parallel worlds populated with all manor of nasty gods all of whom are keen on stealing these artefacts and gaining a fraction of the Great Wizardâ??s power. Time is of the essence and only you can stop the evil ones from taking over.

Graphics

Visually striking, Mystical has some of the best graphics ever unleashed on the CPC. The scrolling is silky smooth and all the characters are well animated. The wide variety of bad guys look good and each type has enough diversity and personality to make you want to keep exploring to see what crazy nonsense is waiting for you next!

The level of detail on the characters is unlike any Amstrad arcade game I can think of and the sheer amount of little graphical touches and flairs is beyond impressive.

The only thing I can be critical on (and even this is pushing it!) is the lack of a changing background. All of the action takes place on the same green landscape with the orange blocks that fails to give any of the levels their own unique feel. But thatâ??s just nit-picking!

Sound

The title music is a tremendous piece of coding and adds to the game immensely with an unexpected key change after the first twenty seconds or so. One to listen to all the way through!

Nothing to be heard when the game starts in earnest though.

Gameplay

It looks good. It sounds good. And it playsâ?¦ okay. Mystical isnâ??t a bad game to play by any stretch of the imagination itâ??s just that there really isnâ??t much to it. The wide variety of enemies (cute little girls, raging priests, pitchfork brandishing cyclops, killer trees etc.) are all very well but really it all boils down to the same thing over and over again. Pick up a power-up, shoot or avoid the oncoming baddies and make it to the pentagram at the end of the level, collecting the amulets as you go.

The speed of action is just a fraction too slow to have any value as a blast em-up and it all becomes a little samey once you get over the obvious graphical delights and the creativity of the power-ups. There isnâ??t much of a challenge to bring you back to this one.

A disappointment to play but an absolute joy to look and listen to.