Discovering the Magic of Mages of Mystralia

Aug 21

Written By The Maelstrom Hold

Have you ever played a game and wished you could change how an attack or ability worked? If you’ve ever thought that might be fun, then let me tell you about a game you might find very interesting.

Mages of Mystralia was developed by Borealys Games, a small Canadian studio founded by former Ubisoft developers. This was their frist major project that was released in 2017 and while it didn’t make a huge splash at launch, over time it’s earned a reputation for its creativity.
On the surface, it looks like a colorful, Zelda-inspired adventure, but its uniqueness lies in the core mechanic: you can alter the attributes and behavior of your spells.

You play as Zia, a young girl whose magical power awakens in a kingdom where sorcery has been strictly outlawed. When her abilities first manifest, she accidentally sets fire to her home which results in her being exiled from the village.

Alone in the forest, she meets a man known only as mentor who aims to help her learn to control her newfound powers. From there, her journey leads to uncovering the truth behind the land’s history and why spellcraft was banned in the first place.
It follows the classic hero’s journey which is rather simple to follow, but for me, discovering how it unfolded was still satisfying.

At its core, Mages of Mystralia is an action-adventure game. You explore villages, forests, tombs, and dungeons while solving puzzles, collecting upgrades, and battling monsters. The structure is familiar, but the details are what set it apart from other games.

As you progress, you unlock more magical abilities. But instead of just learning fixed abilities, you can collect runes that let you modify how your spells behave. You start with the usual basics: a fireball, a shield, and a movement spell. But once you start arranging runes on your spell grid, things get interesting. Maybe you shoot three fireballs that curve in a circle, explode on impact, and freeze enemies. Or perhaps you summon an ice storm that also deals electrical damage.
The combinations can get pretty wild, and half the fun is experimenting to see what kind of effects you can create.

This is where the game truly shines, as it makes you feel like you’re inventing your own spells instead of just spamming pre-programmed abilities. It also makes you think, due to some puzzles that can only be solved with the right spell combination. In some cases there may even be multiple solutions, though certain hint-givers in the game will tell you if you’re missing a crucial ability. Either way, the puzzle-solving and exploration feel all the more rewarding when you finally figure out how to reach a place you couldn’t before.

The combat starts out pretty straightforward and most enemies early on can be handled with basic spells, but as the game progresses, things get more complicated. Some enemies are only weak to certain elements, which forces you to adapt. Thankfully, you can set multiple spells to hotkeys and swap between them fairly easily, though sometimes in the heat of battle it can still be a challenge.

The boss fights are where the game really tests you. Many bosses can only be damaged at specific times, and finding the best spell setup often turns them into a sort of puzzle as well. I found these fights very enjoyable, with the difficulty ramping up naturally as the game went on.

Visually, Mages of Mystralia has a colorful, cartoonish art style. While not technically impressive, it fits the overall lighthearted tone and works well with the story. The music, though, is one of the major highlights, with a soundtrack composed by Shota Nakama, who is best known for the Video Game Orchestra, which elevates the whole experience and gives the game a sense of grandeur.