Magicka 2
Damn, I just... Gah.
I get it. Magicka 1 was most fun if you didn't understand the game that well, and as soon as you got a grasp of basic wards and the steam beam most challenges in the game ceased to be challenges. I understand why that would be considered a bad thing in need of tweaking.
But then Magicka 2 came along and just... Stopped you from doing anything. The enemies are fast and beefy, the areas are small and cramped, and the spells do very little damage... In order to get anywhere, you needed to specialize strongly in one or two elements, then find the most spammable, most efficient combination that you can whip out and then just mash that constantly. And the shields! Instead of having auras like the first game, you need to add multiples of an element in order to actually get any protection from it! You need 3 elements + shield in order to stop taking damage from that element, and at least 2 elements in order to cancel the status effects!
But in trying to make the game more "balanced" by changing shields in this way, they blundered completely... Because 4 elements + shield grants you absorption, so you now treat that element as healing instead of damage.
So, those spammable single-element spells you were already spamming? Now you're just flinging them out willy-nilly because you're healing from it too. Large portions of the game can be dealt with by just giving yourself arcane absorption and then running around while constantly summoning arcane-rocks onto your head.
Now we're back to square one with players being overpowered again, except this is a slow, dull slog of being OP instead of the flashy explosionating of the first game... Time to fix it some more by adding higher difficulties, specifically "BANANAS!" (
it's a reference you guys!) difficulty where wizards have half health (so 500 across the board, since there are no longer wizards with different health values), the monsters have extra health and constantly regenerate, and the delay between casting magicks (that's right, can't cast them as fast as you can punch the combos in anymore! Gotta wait! 'Cause waiting is fun!) is increased!
Doing anything on BANANAS!, behind which a number of
gameplay-affecting options and even new magicks unlocks are protected, requires even more specialization and spamming of only the most efficient burst combos to chew away at the shocking spell sponges of the enemy horde. There are boss time trials too! And they nerfed some of the base game equipment so that you're now more or less forced to shell out for unbalanced DLC items in order to defeat them within the time limit on the highest difficulty!
And it's a crying shame, because... There are some actually cool ideas here. Having harder challenges for those who've already conquered the main game is a good idea for something like Magicka, where the skill level range is huge. The crystal prism magicks have some real utility and there's a lot of potential with that concept. Weapon enchants got changed, so certain kinds of enchantment will actually "stick" to your weapon instead of getting used up after one swing, and there's a whole world of untapped potential in weapon enchants generally, so this is a great step in the right direction. Ice projectiles got tweaked to fill their own niche and
would have been a great addition to the game if that kind of spell had any sort of usage.
But then we look at everything else... Water as an element is useless since collision damage is no longer a thing, and even the disrupting knockback is clamped down (also with the advent of the poison element as a fan-service patch-in, water can only be combined with healing beams. Not arcane). You can't save yourself from falling off a ledge with a quick-reaction teleport cast, because the death layer is set a couple feet down from the edge (if your teleport/magick usage is even off cooldown, that is!). The magicks are sufficiently clamped down in size, power and utility that there's really no reason to use anything except raise dead for a meatshield (especially useful in BANANAS! difficulty because the skellies benefit from the buffed monster stats, but this is balanced out by the fact that they're still considered enemies by the game and will prevent you from transitioning between certain scenes until you've killed your own minions), the prisms for beam crossing shenanigans in solo play, and of course revive.
While being able to customize your robe/weapon/staff loadout is indeed quite nice, it's somewhat ruined by how most objects are just minor stat improvements/alignments, and there aren't many unique or interesting quirks beyond that. But, of course, those stat adjustments are exactly what we're looking for so you can stack as much damage in one or two areas as possible to claw your way past the incessant enemy healthbars! And also the power discrepancy between vanilla and the DLC gear becomes even more blatant when you can compare things side by side. "Lessee... Do I want the base game staff with +100% fire/death/steam that halves cold/ice/healing (the bonus was reduced from its original +200%, penalty was kept the same, still one of the best staffs in the game, requires a tough fight to unlock), or do I want the DLC staff that's +200% earth and cold (no downside, no unlocks required)?". Oh, and of course there's a DLC sword that just one-shots the most common miniboss in the game... But the robes are probably the worst offenders.
And as if that wasn't enough, there are even stat changes that
aren't documented at all, like how one of the unlockable weapons provides a 1.5x power modifier for enchantments cast on it,
for no discernible reason. Which is kind of a big deal, even if weapon enchants generally aren't used that much in favor of spamming rocks of whatever flavor heals you.
Blah...
EDIT: Oh yes! And how can I forget
always-online gameplay? That's always good fun! Even better is the little "private session" checkbox you need to click on
every single time you start or continue a game if you want to play singleplayer, otherwise you'll just automatically host a session that some poor misguided fool will be able to join in on. Because it resets every time you go back to the menu, and the default is always to leave it unchecked! Isn't that
great?