Superbuu3's Review: Sorcery

Sorcery was first seen back in 2010 and was what generated the majority of interest in the Playstation Move. The game demonstrated motion control tracking far beyond anything that was capable on the Wii, now the game has finally been released can it live up to the hype?

Sorcery begins with a story that at first seems mundane, playing out exactly as one would expect when informed you are controlling an incompetent sorcerer’s apprentice named Finn. However, on completing the first dungeon the story takes a life of its own and you genuinely start to feel for Finn and his talking cat companion Erline. The story is presented well, helped with the voice acting that maintains a good quality throughout. The experience of evolving from apprentice to sorcerer is a entertaining and rewarding one, especially when you learn certain spell combinations yourself.

The game is played using a move and a navigation or normal controller. The motion tracking is impeccable, assuming a player has calibrated their controller correctly. The slightest movements of the move lowering, raising or just waving the Move controller side to side is reflected on screen by Finn. At first aiming might feel slightly off, this will soon pass on realisation that rather than moving the controller in the direction of the screen, a player needs to assume they are standing where Finn is and target enemies accordingly. This is most noticeable when being attacked from the side. After growing accustomed to this, it’s surprisingly hard to miss and one could be fooled that the game is auto targeting and this thought will be dismissed when you realise you can target various heights as well as miss a lot if you don’t aim properly. An extremely fun system is shot swerving, this is possible by using a swinging motion when casting a bolt and can be used to hit enemies hiding in cover and is an essential skill to learn. This can at first seem difficult, but with practice this can be mastered and can have a rewarding pay off. The only problem with the controls is that the camera can not be controlled manually; the only option for the player is to centre the camera behind them. This does work for the most part, but there are points where enemies will be getting close and you will feel extremely vulnerable not being able to turn the camera to best suit the action. This is somewhat overcome in the later stages of the game when Finn acquires spells that work in close range with an area of effect.

During the game Finn will learn a variety of spells, there certainly are some pacing issues, after the first boss fight it seems like there is a significant space before you learn any new spells and combat seems a bit repetitive. However, the game does start to pick up again when several other spells are learnt. Learning a new spell to more cynical players may sound like it will just change the colour of your shots, the spells are all beautifully animated to demonstrate their effects and have specific uses. The game steps up its pace extremely fast at this point as you are then able to combine the different spells with devastating consequences. After that point sorcery rewards players who are quick at switching between spells and reading a situation to establish how to make the best of a certain situation. In addition to that, there is surprising depth in the games customisation system, which uses the creation of potions which Finn can drink to boost a variety of defensive, offensive attributes or amusing consequences, seeing as its difficult to make more then one or two potions at a time a lot of thought needs to be taken to work out what is most effective. Potion ingredients, treasure and money can all be found in chests littered throughout the game, adding an exploration element to the extremely linear levels. This leads to one of the games main issues and that is the lack of freedom to move freely. If you want to find all treasures without saving regularly, you may find yourself choosing to go right instead of left and finding that there is no way to go back and see what you might have missed. This can be extremely frustrating for completionists and there seems to be no valid reason for level design of this type.

Graphically the game is average, the environments range from interesting to bland, with the main highlights being the lighting effects on spells enemy types for a given area are repeated constantly. The main problem graphically is the areas feel too long before the environments change despite there not being any flaws from a technical standpoint. It should be noted that the game has come out at a budget price, so this can be overlooked, especially considering how well the game has been designed around the spell casting controls. Game length will vary depending on player skill and difficulty level, the higher difficulty settings will challenge most players mentally and physically, with enemies regenerating health at a rate which will require continuous spell casting that will tire the most enthusiastic player. Game length is about right any longer and the game would most likely become too repetitive. Further support in terms of downloadable content has been announced although at present there are no details.

Replay value will depend on the player completing everything the game has to offer in a single playthrough is unlikely and the higher difficulty settings will provide a challenge. Younger players will overlook the games shortcomings due to the immersion wielding a wand will allow and could happily play through the adventure again and again.

Overall Sorcery is an entertaining game and utilises the Playstation Move to its full potential. If you already have a Move it is definitely a title worth looking into, but it’s hard to justify the purchase of a Move solely for this game. Sorcery has enough good qualities to be a classic, is a significant step forward in motion controls and certainly demonstrates what the Move is capable of. For any would be wizards out there the game will be a must buy, seeing as there are no other games that will emulate the experience to this level.

8/10 Sorcery provides a unique gaming experience and is one the whole family can enjoy.