The Magic Academy is attacked and left crippled by an evil sorcerer bent on gaining the magic power of every wizard there. The entire worldThe Magic Academy is attacked and left crippled by an evil sorcerer bent on gaining the magic power of every wizard there. The entire world meanwhile is ravaged by his illusions leaving people trapped who find it impossible to know what is real and what isn’t. What he doesn’t count on is Catherine doing her best to stop him. Join Catherine as you make your way across different countries and strange lands filled with illusions. It’s up to her to rescue people trapped in these illusions and bring order to the world again. Her final battle will determine who has control over not just the academy but the world!
The first two games in the Magic Encyclopedia series were frustrating and middling at best. Vendel Games HOGs suffered from uneven puzzles, hard to see objects and an uninteresting story. Perhaps with a lack of interest in continuing the series (although I guess the second game did well enough for a third to be greenlit) Magic Encyclopedia 3: Illusions (2010) was passed onto Go! Games; the question is did they do any better? Straight away the change in developer is obvious with more lush graphics and more interaction with characters. Gameplay is different as well with Go! Games foreseeing players will want something a little new. Instead of Catherine (what happened to Katrina?) travelling between countries to find part of items to construct Illusions keeps everything within one location made up of five screens across six chapters; one location per chapter. If there’s any quibble here is that the linear style means the player is constricted to those screens. Ironically movement between screens feels like an illusion itself. There really is never a sense of freedom to explore as in the previous games. The other massive change the developers make is giving Catherine a device that allows her to see past illusions. You see that sorcerer was quite clever and masked areas with illusions. What this means for the player is that when you’ve searched for as many item parts as possible you have to do the whole thing again with the illusion device as a lot of parts will be hidden. It’s not a bad idea even if the implementation is just a cynical ploy to extend the gameplay. It’s worth mentioning the puzzles are a lot easier this time as well; most are doable without help. What are the negatives? Parts of objects are still too hard to locate on screen so you will be straining your eyes a bit. While the plot involving a takeover with illusions is interesting I still find the character of Catherine to have zero personality not helped by her freakish character portrait which makes her look like a fifty year old woman dressed up in the clothes of a teenager. The music is also bizarre and inappropriate going from the same two tracks of one being the same style of 80’s easy listening from the previous games and a cheerful country western piece. Just what you want to be listening to in the dark depths of Atlantis...
Magic Encyclopedia 3: Illusions in no way rewrites the HOG rulebook and isn’t even that great a game but it is a slight improvement over the previous two and it’s not bad to play at all. If you’re new to the series and want to pick one game to play definitely choose this one, the other two should only be played if you’re a completionist or have too much time or money to spend.… Expand
