REVIEW | Mages and Treasures

LifeisXbox’s Mages and Treasures review | In this Zelda-like action-adventure game developed lightUP & published by Ratalaika Games S.L., you’ll take on the role of a Mage. Mages and Treasures‘ goal is to find your very special treasure which has been stolen by evil creatures. As you explore one big world that’s split into 4 different themes, you’ll find yourself solving puzzles, fighting creatures, exploring areas, and more… Do you think that you have what it takes to find the stolen treasure?

Most Memorable Moment

Despite the bosses being easy, the last one, in particular, was a little more difficult. While the other bosses mainly require you to just dodge their simple attacks and to attack them whenever you want, this last one was different. This boss has some kind of puzzle involved, and it took me a minute or two to figure it out. When I found out the solution, the battle itself was still quite the challenge.

ℹ️ Reviewed on Xbox Series X | Review code provided by PR/publisher, this review is the personal opinion from the writer.

What we Liked!

• Colorful Visuals | The game takes place in 4 different areas, all with their own unique theme, ememies and bosses. The visuals look cute and have a very consistent level design and pixel art, which is great! I also found the weather effects to be pretty satisfying to look at. One downside is that some objects felt a little… dead, simply because they don’t move. The waterfalls for example, these are animated, but long grass or leaves, they feel a little lifeless. To be honest, this doesn’t take away from the experience anyway.

• Great Music | This is one of the first things in this game that really stood out to me, the soundtrack. While the gameplay reminds me of Zelda, the music on the other hand, gives off Pokémon vibes. As someone who adores Nintendo’s music, I really enjoyed this! The music never got old, and was very well composed. All of the 4 areas and the bosses have unique tracks, and for a game that just lasts 2 hours, this is more than enough!

• The Collectibles | There are 7 kinds of collectibles: coins, golden keys, silver keys, HP potions, MP potions, chests, and amulets. The coins are basically everywhere – they’re hidden in long grass and enemies tend to drop them as well. As of the use of coins? They allow you to open certain gates which usually have potions behind them, these give you more HP or more MP, making the game just that little easier. Some gates can also be opened with the use of silver keys, but these are usually used to access bosses. Golden keys, however, can be used to open the chests that are hidden all around the world.
  What about the amulets? I’ll talk about those in one of the following sections.

Mixed Feelings

• The Bosses | Compared to the rest of the game, I found the bosses to be not that inspiring. They were fairly easy to beat (besides one boss), which kinda made them a little boring. Beating a boss is pretty rewarding, though. You’ll earn an amulet for defeating one of these, and these amulets usually make your attacks stronger. There are also a few amulets which have other uses to them, but these are found outside of the boss battles. There’s one amulet that also allows you to dodge, but maybe it’s a little bit overpowered. This amulet has (almost) no cooldown, so you can fly from one end of a section to the other in seconds by just spamming the dodge button.

• Easy Achievements | Some achievement hunters love it when achievements take no effort to get, but I personally want a challenge to them, and Mages and Treasures’ achievements were way too easy. You’re not even supposed to complete the game to get them all… I was halfway in the game (2nd boss), and that’s when I got my last achievement – everything after that, has no achievements whatsoever. I find it kind of a weird choice the developers made here. I did take my time to complete the whole game – I was having a great time with it!

What we Disliked

• Nothing!!

How long to beat the story | About 2 hours
How long to achieve 1000G | 1 hour

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