PixlBit

     This is a top-down fantasy themed brawler. The graphics are really nice and the music is ok. You can choose a character: Knight (my choice), Bard, Elf, Wizard or Dwarf. Items like armor, potions, and valuables drop from chests and enemies that you instantly equip when you walk over them. The Knight has this spiked ball on a chain you whip around to do damage; a strange choice, but a good one that lets you hit many enemies at once. You have a magic meter that when filled up from defeating enemies gives you access to several spells that continually change on the book icon at the bottom of the screen. You just activate it when the one you want shows up. Each one transforms you into different things with different special attacks. I didn’t know what I was doing at the time, and so I often turned into a cloud shooting a laser. Once though, I turned into a muscled angle-winged sword-bearing flying bad ass. That was the best one.

                               

                                           Imagine this in the graphics of Wizard Fire

     By continually adding credits (“more quarters Mom!” I kept saying to make my friend laugh), I got all the way to the end. The final boss fight was stupid difficult, and without infinite credits I would’ve given up pretty quickly. I should’ve kept track of how many I used because if they were quarters they would’ve added up to a lot of dough.

    I really liked the opening story scenes. It’s just text over still or gently scrolling graphics with perhaps one small element animated. I liked the simplicity of that. The words are front-and-center but there’s some image to help enhance it. It’s a now old fashioned, but interesting way to relate story elements in a game.

     Wizard Fire is the sequel to Gate of Doom (called Dark Seal and Dark Seal II in Japan). Wizard Fire seems to only be available on this Data East Collection [Wii] and its prequel isn’t available at all as far as I can seel; however, I’m sure you can get ROMs for MAME on PC.

     Here’s a longer blog on this game I found on VGJunk if you want a detailed written description of the whole game.