Catherine studies at a magic academy, learning about spells. One day she receives a message instructing her of an upcoming day of destruction.Catherine studies at a magic academy, learning about spells. One day she receives a message instructing her of an upcoming day of destruction. Transported to a jungle against her will she realises she has to follow in her mother’s footsteps and save the world. Catherine’s adventures take her around the globe and finally to the caves of a nasty dragon who will do anything to make sure the doomsday prophecy comes true!
Vendel Games attempt at making a Harry Potter style game with a female focus is mediocre at best. Magic Encyclopedia: First Story (2008) is neither bad nor good but on a scale of would be seen as quality loves the temptation of moving towards bad. While the globetrotting is fun Catherine and her story don’t grab the player. The game doesn’t take enough time to explain why we’re doing what we’re doing. You cannot relate to the protagonist as a result. The game requires travelling to various parts of the world to unlock items that can then only be used in certain hidden object scenes but it’s quite tricky not because the items are impossible to find but the puzzles aren’t always accessible. The puzzles themselves range from something a five year old could solve to something requiring an intermediate maths qualification or a degree in Latin. What’s worse is the inability to skip any of these puzzles meaning unless you look up a walkthrough you won’t progress. In fact such was the response to the puzzles Vendel Games provided a public apology and later issued a patch to allow puzzles to be skipped. The game has fun with travelling the world but lacks overall polish and that becomes evident as soon as you start up the scratchy title music that looks like it’s been sampled from an early 90’s budget price easy listening CD.
Magic Encyclopedia: First Story is a game with ideals but a lack of ambition. Its characters are not interesting and its premise is poorly developed. Add this to the punishing difficulty of some of the puzzles and what you end up with is not something that can be recommended.… Expand
