The Mage's Tale

The Mage’s Tale isn’t a game that shows hints of what the future may hold for virtual reality, but rather an example that the future is now. It stands on its own as a genuinely fun experience that shows this space has started to mature.

Just like its PC counterpart, The Mage’s Tale on PSVR is one of the best examples of how to take a tried-and-true existing gaming genre and adapt it for the new VR medium. While it retains plenty of design decisions that make it clear where its roots lie, The Mage’s Tale iterates on principles that truly move the first-person dungeon crawler RPG sub-genre forward in big ways. Despite the hardware limitations of the PSVR and PS Move controllers, the inclusion of improvements such as smooth locomotion, an Arena mode, and optimization fixes all together for launch on this new platform helps The Mage’s Tale on Sony’s headset remain a must-play for RPG fans.

All in all, The Mage's Tale is a great VR title that showcases how well games in the genre can work if they're built from the ground up for the technology and the developer pays attention to the details. It's funny and immersive, and while it surely isn't a masterpiece due to its technical issues and lackluster enemy AI, it's a good title that anyone who's hungry for more VR will surely appreciate.

The Mage's Tale is one of the most gorgeous VR-games to date for the PlayStation 4.

While it's hampered by blurry visuals and some difficult object handling, The Mage’s Tale still comes out on top with goofy surprises, fantastic puzzles, and satisfying exploration. Delivering up to 10 hours of play, this is a sizable experience that remains entertaining from start to finish. All in all, this is a welcome addition to the PlayStation VR library.

A fun title which guarantees 8+ hours of entertainment for PlayStation VR owners. The sense of scale is great and the graphics are dark yet colorful and overall the world around you feels great. The game relies heavily on gesture control for even the most mundane actions which does become stale rather quickly and the story is nothing to write home about either. That being said, The Mage's Tale absolutely impressed us with good action and puzzle sequences. Be warned though; you will need to own motion controllers since the DualShock controller is not supported.

In the end, The Mage’s Tale is a decent, fun but flawed dungeon crawler that got a little more narrative meat than most games of its ilk. It’s not quite a full-blown RPG experience, but it’s enjoyable anyway.

It’s unfortunate that The Mage’s Tale feels so unfinished. The developers have all the requisite ingredients — experimental combat, entertaining writing, impressive visuals, and interesting environments. They just weren’t able to do the most important part of spellcrafting and mix it all together.

All in all, The Mage’s Tale is an ambitious title that incorporates a lot of neat features that would prove charming in a perfect VR environment, but instead demonstrates the infancy of the technology when so much of it fails to register properly. There are still fun moments to be had during the instances where everything works, but an uneven control scheme results in an uneven experience regardless of intentions.