Mighty Magus

Sinclair User

Overall 2/5

Clare Edgeley 2/5

Publisher: Quicksilva Price: £6.95 Memory: 48K Hwo the mighty are fallen. Quicksilva, which produced Ant Attack and Fantastic Voyage, has just released a platform and ladders game. Entitled Mighty Magus, the game is packed with the usual complement of spells, traps, monsters, and dragons. As the Mighty Magus, you have to descend all 30 levels to the depths of the Rising Sun Temple, battle with monsters en route, avoid dozens of assorted traps and kill your arch-enemy Faugy The Fierce and escape back to your starting point. The screen scrolls left, right, up and down with staircases leading to each level. Walking along the platform is dangerous in the extreme as they feature hidden traps - each one waiting for the wrong step to hurl you across the screen, make you disappear or to release a flight of poisoned arrows. Treasure chests are situated throughout the levels which when searched bestow upon you magic which can be used to cast spells to open entrances and jump off stairs. Mighty Magus is not a difficult game, frustrating perhaps and a far cry from the quality of Fantastic Voyage. The graphics are outdated, unclear and flickery - a pity it was not released a year ago.

Read it at Sinclair User Magazine Online

Your Computer

Overall 3/5

Spectrum Arcade adventure Quicksilva £6.95 Magus Delvin is too into matters cosmic to deal with Fraugy the Dragon, who is biting the knights, scrambling the damsels and pillaging the villages. So you, his humble acolyte must penetrate the fire-breather's lair and slay him in his place of power. And get out again.

Your Spectrum

Dave Nicholls 2/5 HIT

Roger Willis 3/5 HIT

Ross Holman 2/5 MISS

JOYSTICK JURY Judge, jury and executioner, all rolled into one - Dave Nicholls, Roger Willis and Ross Holman - pass sentence on this month's selection of supreme Spectrum software. Guilty's the cry as our joystick jurors send another game to the guillotine. Dare you hold a different opinion during their reign of terror? WARNING! Just in case you find our scoring system too confusing, here's what it's all about. The score out of five at the end of each person's review is based on their own experience of the game. But that's pretty subjective... so they also use the HIT and MISS system to indicate its potential as a commercial success. MIGHTY MAGUS Quicksilva £6.95 Roger: With a name like a make of German articulated lorry, a chap could almost hope for a new set of platform imagery but it's not to be found here. Sorcery is something we appear to be stuck with. At least this reel of software mystics is competently assembled. The plot consists of negotiating our wizard-clone hero through thirty scrolling levels of the 'Rising Sun Temple', searching chests and scrabbling through interesting piles of garbage like a folkloric tinker. Spell-casting and fight options are available for defence and advancement as the quest for Fraugy The Fierce continues up, down and across a magical minefield of behaviourally unsporting geography. Traps and nasty surprises abound, whilst witty graphical images portray temporary concussion or funerals faster than the Co-op's cheapest, upon loss of life. Originality is not one of the Magus's strongest character traits but it kept me out of the pub - for a while at least.

Read it at Your Spectrum Unofficial Archive

ZX Computing

Graphics 4/5

Addictivity 3/5

Overall 3/5

Quicksilva £7.99 If it wasn't for one absolutely unforgivable design flaw, then I would give The Mighty Magus an unqualified 'thumbs-up', but as it is, that one flaw spoils the game. You play the part of the aforesaid Magus. Starting at the topmost level of an underground dungeon, you must penetrate deep into the lowest levels to face your arch enemy, Fraug the Dragon. As you descend, you can move around various sets of stairs and platforms, and use a SEARCH option to look for useful objects along the way. You begin with a certain amount of power and magic which are depleted by falls from platforms and magical combat with the denizens of the dungeon but can be boosted by things you find along the way. These underground monsters are well animated, though your own movement and the scrolling dungeon layout are fairly jerky. Also, some of the traps on the dungeon floor are quite difficult to avoid as they often look no different from the normal, safe, floor tiles. I was really enjoying playing this game until the fatal flaw that I mentioned earlier became apparent. The dungeon layout is randomly generated, which is fine as it provides plenty of variation but the drawback to this is that very often you can drop into a dead-end and find yourself with no way out. This means that you simply have to abort and start the game again from the beginning. This, as I said, is an unforgivable oversight, and makes the game incredibly frustrating. Surely some sort of check could have been built into the game to prevent this? Mighty Magus is (or rather, could be) a very good game, but the 'dead end' syndrome could well result in the cassette being thrown out the window in frustration. It's up to you to decide if you're prepared to risk it.

Crash

Use of Computer 81%

Graphics 78%

Playability 85%

Getting Started 83%

Addictive Qualities 81%

Value For Money 80%

Overall 82%

Unknown

Unknown

Unknown

Producer: Quicksilva Memory Required: 48K Retail Price: £6.95 Language: Machine code Author: Ivan & NDP Mighty Magus can be best described as an arcade D&D game set in the 30 levels of the Rising Sun Temple. The temple is the haunt of warlocks, wizards and fierce dragons. There is an element of Jet Set Willy in as much as the various platform levels are connected by stairways up or down which you can walk, or jump through to ignore them. The overall object is to descend to the depths to confront your arch enemy, the dragon Fraugy The Fierce, and then escape by returning to the spot at which you commenced the game. There is no fixed exit, and each game resets the entire layout of the temple. The screens scroll along with the movement of your hero, the Mighty Magus, a graphical cousin to The Alchemist from Imagine's game. On his travels he will encounter many hazards, some less obvious than others. The large nasties can be taken care of either by running away, fighting them or casting spells - you can jump on top of them too. Fighting and spell casting will rely on your strength versus that of the meanie. The floors are dotted with magic squares which may teleport you somewhere you didn't want to go, or knock you backwards. Other squares kill the unwary and some spring lethal traps. Chests and rubbish heaps will yield up various useful and not so useful goodies when they are searched. To the right of the playing area is a status panel with score, lives, power, magic levels and items collected. COMMENTS Control keys: preset are A/D left/right, S to search, F to fight, J to jump and 1 - 9 to select spell strength, but the main control keys are also user-definable Joystick: almost any via UDK Keyboard play: you have to be quick making up your mind which strength keys to go for sometimes, generally responsive Use of colour: above average Graphics: reasonable although a bit on the small side, and the 'bricks' are purposefully confusing Sound: poor Skill levels: 1 with progressive difficulty Lives: 4 Screens: 30 floor levels of scrolling horizontal screens

Personal Computer News

Overall 8/10

Bryan Skinner 8/10

PRICE: £6.95 PUBLISHER: Quicksilva [redacted] Imagine a cross between Quo Vadis, Booty and Sorcery and you've got Mighty Magus. It's a platform game with adventure and mythology. As Magus, your quest takes you down thirty levels to a final encounter with Fraugy The Fierce in the Rising Sun Temple. The adventure ends when you return to the start. Platforms are patterned squares, with the odd brick of a different colour, and beware a change of texture. Standing on some magic squares may throw you over, kill you or teleport you elsewhere in the great domain. Ladders are staggered white diagonals, but you can jump through them by pressing the 'search' key. This is useful for checking piles of rubbish or chests for useful items such as shields or extra magic. Shields protect you as long as the screen border stays yellow (not long enough). Occasionally you confront a monster, like a giant spider. You can flee, fight or cast a spell (strengths 1 to 9). Regrettably I haven't yet caught sight of the deadly dragon-like Fraugy. Bonus points to Quicksilva for its 30-name, saveable high score and monochrome option. The graphics aren't brilliant, and the theme isn't novel, but it's addictive and none too easy.