The Magic Circle: Gold Edition Review

Walking simulators such as Dear Esther, have evolved past just clever dialog. Or simply,  a sort of revival of the first person adventure games I loved to play,   like the 7^th Guest. The Magic Circle,  is an all around charming to play game. With great visuals and a fun to follow story until the end. The Magic Circle also moves past just solving puzzles,  with some simple RTS style,  to charming enemies for your own little army. Which I will break down here. The plot itself is pretty good. You are a play tester, who is helping out a gaming “legend”. You are then welcomed to some quirky ideas, the game opens up to you. You can edit enemies stats or abilities,  by tapping Square. Then swap out it’s passives – like aggression towards you,  what it’s behavior is towards other creatures and objects. All in a very straight forward format.

The game starts you off in a basic straight line. not directly, but in the settings portrays. You are placed in a developer’s playground,  where many concepts, ideas, themes and engines for games, are all spread out in a world. You can run about and explore. Not fully without the right solution of course. Some solutions can be shaped by your own creative ideas. I am not saying this applies to everything, but just a decent chunk of the game. The creatures in the game, play a lot to do with solving many things within the games structure. This article is not going to reveal any solution,  for the sake if letting others find out things on their own. Gameplay mixes itself up,  in both a coders stance and in a open world style to it. Making you solve things by  having you swap traits of creatures to activate switches. Also,  fight other enemies to get past them.

Everything just about in the game is light-hearted. In itself, the game is more or less like a parody, of the struggle of those,  who work in the gaming industry. Along the way, you discover audio logs, which mix up granting you status points for your companions/pets. Many of the enemies or pets,  are a mixture of advancements,  dependent on  the developers span of time spent on the game. You will see many themes rolled into one: like a Elder Scrolls theme, some sort of sci-fi system shock style stretch of locations and even a awesome Mushroom Wizard – He tasted yummy. The comedy in this game deserves a full mention. As it is the kind that leaves a good impression on you. It is a mix of developer audio clips and a response of a few of them,  in shock of how this world they considered a lost hope, begins to decay or improve. Thanks to your own tweaks to it’s living creatures or landscapes. Giving you that whole living world style,  to the progression in the game. With conversations between the dev-bot-eye things. I can not explain it, but their trope tacky conversations were overly charming to me. Even down to the Nacho Cheesy basis of everyone’s take on the game’s progress. From now,  to past clips within audio clips put in spots all over the game for you to find.

In Closing:

The Magic Circle is a blast from the past. Well sort of, it presents a ton to PC Culture with highlights from older style games by mixing the visual styles together in one large world. The concept of TMC, is pretty original and daring. Aside from some harmless bugs from time to time, with characters and animations. I found the game a delightful experience from start to finish. Controls were tight and responsive, working to a tee around every corner.  The games story and charm will leave positive memories in my mind,  for years to come. A good comedy will still make you laugh, even after the show/movie/show is over. This was that unique experience. Pick it up!

Highly Recommended!!!