Should I Play Magic The Gathering: Battlemage for PS1 in 2018?

Hi everyone and welcome to our place! 🙂

Our quest to find playable classic games at the present continues! This time I will be talking about a game that is really dear to me! But, don’t worry I’ll be unbiased on this one! Today I’ll be reviewing:

Magic The Gathering: Battlemage

Story:

There is not really that much to talk about the story. Ravidel, a strong planeswalker, has gone insane. He seeks to destroy all other planeswalkers and conquest the land itself. He is able to create a plot to lure the Universe’s most powerful wizards to Corondor. The idea is for them to fight each other and by the end kill each one of them, one by one.

Three of these wizards are there to conquer the land. The other 3 are there to defend Corondor and it’s people. You can play with any of these characters (except for Ravidel) which one has their own story and their motivation to defend (or conquer) the land. Moreover, each planeswalker has their own color decks.

The story is blunt and it’s not the focus at all of the game. The focus was to bring the acclaimed card game to consoles and PC, that was all. Nevertheless, for each region you will have the opportunity to hear a description of it and talk with people from that land (which are all Magic the Gathering cards).

In those conversations you can answer (which is cool). Depending on your answer you can get better cards and the land itself. However, it’s way too easy to understand which answer should you give.

Gameplay

During the gameplay you will have the part of conquest, where you have the map and can attack lands adjacent to your own. Here is where you get to know other lands’ story and talk your way through to get the land and the best cards. To be honest, this is my favorite part of the game (even though it’s not that difficult).

Then you have the battles. These battles are basically what you could expect from a magic the gathering game. Each one of the wizards have 20 points of life and you will invoke creatures and cast spells/enchantments to win the battle, but instead of turn based this game gives you the opportunity to play it as a Real Time Strategy. Here is where the problem starts.

First the controls. They are not really that difficult to master and are responsive. However, there are some problems. Let’s say for example you want to defend an attack from a creature. It should be just pick your creature and tell her to attack the enemy… And to be honest that’s what you have to do, but the creatures’ AI are terribly made! Most of the times you won’t be able to defend the attack because your creature will just not encounter the enemy’s creature. Most of the times it takes a route that will give time to the enemy to go around and attack you non the less. Ah, and let’s not forget that it’s not easy to click on the enemy creature. You can’t pause the game and click on it which means most of the time you will be trying to click on her without being able to (at least on Playstation).

Other problem is that the decks are uneven. The white magic is way stronger than any other colors only because of one card. Serra Angel. Serra Angel is a 5/5, flier, who doesn’t turn after attacking. In the card game this means that she can attack and defend in the enemy’s turn (which is good of course). Since this game does not have turns this means that Serra Angel will continuously attack without stopping. Normally you win the game a few minutes after you summon her. Mainly because there are not really many cards that can go against her.

But, wait! There’s more! Another problem in the game is that you can’t see the special abilities of your enemies’ creatures/enchantments which is just stupid! Basically or you know what every card does or you will just have to guess what are the enchantments and creatures abilities.

The game, if played right, is really easy. Most of the decks are stronger than Ravidel in the beginning, so you just need to do a run for it and start attacking him after turn 3. If you do that you will probably win. However, if you want to have some fun I would advise you to first get other places and cards… Just for the sake of it,

Graphics/Audio:

I don’t really have much to add in this part. The audio is normal. I mean there is some voice acting which is well done and all fights have music. The OST is not marvelous but it isn’t bad either.

Regarding graphics, it’s what you would expect from a game that came out in 1996. Not perfect, but completely playable. It’s old, you can see that, but well, if you are into classics is not horrible! I do have to say that the pics when you go to a region for the first time are awesome!

Playability

In conclusion, even when the game came out was not outstanding, so of course that in today’s standards I will advise you not to waste your time in this one! There are many magic the gathering games out there and I would say, go to the more recent ones.

Nevertheless, if you are a hardcore fan be my guest! I mean, it’s cool to play with cards from the Tempest time, right? Moreover, if you have played the game before as me, this is a great game to come back just for the nostalgia! The game does not take much tome to pass and it will be enough for the memories! 🙂

Are you a Magic The Gathering fan? Tell me in the comments if you ever played this one and what you though about it! 😀 As you know I’ll be going on a hiatus starting next monday, so… See you next month with more “Should I play”! ^^

See You Soon! 🙂