"Most generic title ever."

And sadly, the game behind it isn't much more imaginative. There's an almighty evil wizard ruling the land. Is there anyone who can stop his reign of terror? Why yes, Paul, an apprentice magician without a single spell to his credit when the game begins. Oh wait, I guess they're serious.

Graphics-8/10
I'll say this for the game, the graphics are some of the nicest I've seen on the NES.

Audio-6/10
Acceptable but not memorable. The sound effect of your magician getting hit by attacks is especially weak--it should be a sound that makes you go "Oh crap! I'm being attacked!"

Gameplay-5/10
I've played a lot better. The problem with some RPG's is that there's just too much stuff to keep track of. Magician is one of them. You've literally got about twenty different little ratings to manage, from five or six kinds of shields to how much you've been poisoned or how hungry you are. I'd guess it was to make the game more realistic and there's certainly a place for that in a good video game, but I don't like to feel like I'm looking at my bank statement when I'm trying to entertain myself.

All the management aside the game is fairly basic--when you meet a monster you just shoot as quickly as you can and hope your shields hold out. Defense is not something magicians concern themselves with, apparently.

Save feature-3/10
As with any fairly long game there's an option to save your game and come back to it later. The thing is, it's anything but typical. The people who made the game only gave you the option of saving fifteen times before you have to start over. The thinking is supposedly that you'll learn things about the game that will make you a better player the next time you start from scratch. The fact that people save their game because they've run out of time to play doesn't seem to have made it into the throught process. Or that not everybody likes to start a game over from square one a dozen times.

Overall-5/10
Magician tried to be a sophisticated, but applied its effort in the wrong places. If a little more effort had gone into the combat system and a little less into their revolutionary game-save system this game would've been a lot better.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 01/16/07