Top-down co-op sorcery adventureReviewed on: Windows 8, Core i5, 8GB RAM, GTX 970Play it on: 2.8 GhZ processor, 4GB RAM, GeForce 640 or betterPrice: $15 / £11Release date: Out nowPublisher: Paradox InteractiveDeveloper: Pieces InteractiveMultiplayer: Up to 4 playersCopy protection: Steam, developer-run server loginLink:I’m in full flight away from an angry, sword-wielding elf when I trod on an explosive mine planted by my wizard friend. “Whoops,” he says. “Sorry.” Fireball. Snow storm with lightning behind it. In Magicka 2, there are many ways for your friends to kill you instead of the guy they were aiming at, but hey, that’s part of the charm. Paradox knows that die-hard fans of 2011’s Magicka just want more of the same (they during press events last year), and for the most part that’s exactly what Magicka 2 is.If you loved Magicka and can’t wait for more, here is a one-paragraph review for you: Magicka 2 is faster, slimmed-down, and just as brutal.

Changes to the spell system rob the advanced spells of their most potent powers, but makes them easier to wield. It is absolutely unplayable as a single-player game, but two friends can blow through the main story in an afternoon. Now get out of here and go play it. S-P-E-L-LIf you’ve never played Magicka, you’re missing out on an irreverent, slapstick wizard adventure grafted onto one of the most fun combat systems ever devised. Viewed from a top-down perspective, players control wizards by joining any five of eight elements and casting them (via the QWERASDF keys) on others, themselves, their swords, or on the ground around them. Taking these eight variables and multiplying them by four ways to cast them yields tens of thousands spell combinations, each with its own effect.Shield and rock cast together can create a slab wall between you and your enemies or a suit of rocky armor, depending on circumstances. Add fire and rock to throw a fireball.

Spell combinations are the result of multiple, specific spells being cast onto the same target or area. When a new spell combination is discovered, an entry is created in the Codex (see Codex: Spell Combinations for more details). Contentsshow Combinations Advanced Reanimation Entropic Death.

Mix frost, water, and death magic to shoot a spray of poisoned ice shards. It goes on and on, and the magic of the system is that experimentation is the only way to discover great combinations.Magicka 2’s humor is a wry, winking smirk—it could be described as National Lampoon’s Middle-Earth Vacation. Every character speaks heavily accented nonsense behind subtitles.

During one climactic speech, a bad guy towers over your party and intones “hurpty durpty no-no funsie wally boom-boom.” Everything from Magicka 1’s own to the quiet desperation of finds a grinning recreation in Magicka 2 with all the subtlety of a lightning bolt to the face.Returning to combat: In addition to the eight elements, Magicka 1 included a vast array of special spells of immense power. At any time, casting steam and lightning created spicy electricity. But casting it in the right order and pressing space bar summoned a thunderclap capable of disintegrating any enemy. Magicka 2’s biggest change is to strip down these dozens of special spells to a few essentials and assign them to a cooldown hotbar.This makes Magicka 2’s most powerful spells more accessible, but at the cost of a purely skill-based ecosystem. On the one hand, there’s no reason for me to have to type QFASA every time I want a thunderclap; pressing 3 lets me summon it at will without stumbling over the keys.

On the other hand, I can type QFASA a hell of a lot faster than cooldown times allow. The game is managing the typing for me, but at a cost to my ultimate expression of power as a sorcerer. It’s a change that will upset a lot of Magicka 1’s biggest fans—I’m sure that by now there’s now a petition demanding that Paradox change it back—but I think it’s an acceptable compromise between difficulty and accessibility. (Correction: If you have already found the spell tome hidden in the world, you can type out those power spells with a slightly shorter cooldown than you'd get with the hotbar, but there's still a cooldown.)Difficulty curveHey, speaking of difficulty, don’t even bother with Magicka 2 if you don’t have friends to play with.

Without a friend to resurrect you, you’re forced into a defensive playstyle that the level design deliberately disrupts. Playing alone also keeps you from crossing beams and chaining explosions with friends, so the most powerful spells aren’t accessible to the lonely wizard. Just as with Magicka 1, eventually you’ll solo your way to some brutal level boss and beat your head against it until you quit.With friends, the freewheeling, aggressive style Magicka is known for shines through. Any good boss fight saw my party resurrect itself many, many times, accepting casualties as the cost of doing wizardly business. Without having to constantly start over from checkpoints, I beat the main campaign on normal in less than four hours. That’s pretty short, but considering Magicka 1’s overlong slog of a campaign and the multiple ways to replay levels in challenge mode, and Magicka 2 offers a ton of replayability in a tight, economical package. Plus, it’s launching with a starting price of $15, so I have a hard time complaining about campaign length here.Beyond stability, Magicka 2’s PC version is pretty basic.Magicka was so infamous for a shoddy launch that it eventually added a new spell: Crash to Desktop.

Magicka 2, thankfully, is stable as a rock. I noticed the odd animation glitch here and there, but my party and I never had problems with dropped connections or lag.

Beyond stability, though, Magicka 2’s PC version is pretty basic. There’s no way to rebind keys, and in-game button prompts all feature PlayStation 4 control schemes—practically scandalous for a celebrated PC publisher like Paradox.Paradox set out to deliver more of what fans loved about Magicka 1, and I think they’ve done it. Aside from a more stable release and simplified power-spell system, Magicka 2 is Magicka 1 done over again, in a more polished, streamlined, bite-size package.

For a bargain like $15, Magicka 2 provided me with several days of shrieking, giggling, screaming-at-my-friends fun. It throws enough new ideas into the mix—one boss battle turns into a magical game of rugby with explosions—to stay perpetually surprising. If you missed Magicka 1, Magicka 2 is an appealing entry point to the series for fireball-flinging friends.

I've been playing Magicka 2 for years now on and off, even though it lacks content, I find it very relaxing. Anyway, I'm making the simplest guide for beginners, what I feel are the most useful/practical/quick to cast spells that deal a lot of damage, as well as other tips, including gearing tips.

The spells I chose have a player using a controller in mind. You should be fine if you only read points 1-6.​​1 - Shield - ALWAYS use your personal shield on you, before ANYTHING else. Just a simple shield that can easily be cast on yourself with 1 element.

This will save you a lot of headache getting killed by teammates. Extreme driving simulator 3d. This will also save you from status effects. If you are wet, quickly cast fire on yourself and shield yourself, which will protect you from water. I encourage you to experiment with the shield combinations, but this is the single most important spell in the game in my opinion, bar none.

Literally cast it before ANYTHING else, it should be ingrained in you. With the shield on yourself, you can walk through your damaging walls, which I will discuss later, but keep in mind you can't heal yourself while it's on you.2 - Revive your fairy!! You can NEVER lose if you spam revive the fairy.3 - Healing yourself - I see people go in and spam self cast and heal on themselves. In magicka 2, you actually hold the button. Regardless, don't do either, except for specific scenarios.

Use healing bombs instead, they will instantly heal you to full and are easy to cast: life + shield (not on yourself). Remember, you can't heal yourself in any way shape or form if you have a shield on you. Simply take off the shield, put mines in front of you, walk into them, shield yourself.4 - Bombs - Bombs are done by casting an element + death (or life) + shield.

You can cast them in a straight line in front of you, in an arc, or around you. The most useful / easy to cast ones are regular bombs and fire bombs. Those are done by using 4 death elements + shield / 2 fire + 2 death + shield.

It sounds complicated for the fire bombs but I chose this combination as it's extremely easy to cast with a controller.5 - To quickly dispose of large mobs around you, I suggest you use walls. I don't know if they're actually called walls but that's what I'm going to call them. To do that, you use an element + shield or an element + electricity + shield. My favorites (with controller in mind) are 2 steam (water + fire) + 2 electricity + shield and an easier one fire + electricty + death + fire + shield.

Again, those sound complicated but give it a shot, they're actually very easy.6 - Don't bother with beams or sprays, you can clear the game very quickly and easily using the techniques I discussed earlier. While beams and sprays have their uses, they're not that effective and leave you vulnerable, stick with walls and bombs. You'll kill things faster, and safer.7 - A fun thing to know when playing coop is that if a healing beam and death beam cross paths, they will make a massive explosion. The most powerful version of that is ice + death with water + life, but know that you can't use a regular shield to protect yourself from it, and that more of each element = more damage. This does 4k damage not boosted with Murry!8 - Speaking of Murry, this is the fairy you should be choosing. Pay attention to him in game, he will be blue when his boost isn't in effect and glow when his boost is in effect. If his boost is there, you can literally cast any spell and it will feel godly.

Now, in order for him to give you a boost, you need to kill a lot of mobs! This can be a drag if you just loaded the level, but a blessing once you get past the first few areas. For more advanced players: spam summon the dead to boost Murry.9 - Water is often overlooked but it can push things around, so using a water wall with water + shield to block something off or an area of effect water spell to push things off or simply a water spray to push people away can be very useful. Once your target is wet, you can freeze them with ice, electrocute them, or put death bombs on them once frozen! Electricity does 2x damage when a target is wet and steam (water + fire) wets the target.10 - If you want to learn a magick such as revive for example, there is a way in game to practice it!

On controller: Hold L1, use the dpad to select the tier and scroll through to the magick you want, then press square. Your magick will now show up on your spell bar to guide you!11 - Most useful gear: Believe it or not, some of the most useful pieces of gear are right at the beginning of the game. The Jester Staff and the Mallet, which you will probably never need to change, even after beating the game. Once you reach chapter 6, you will get the Robin Robe, the movement speed increase will make you feel free!

Once you finish the game, you will unlock the Wuxia Robe, which is by far the best robe in the game (aside from one DLC robe, in my opinion). You will also unlock the Staff of Lok, which is a community favorite, but I personally prefer the Jester Staff due to its insane Focus Regeneration and Shield Boost. It's a real bummer that the Staff of Lok has a massive negative effect on Focus Regeneration, because it's great otherwise. If you have DLC: The Silver Longsword and the Gusoku Robe are my choice here. The Silver Longsword pushes things around and combined with water, it can push things really far away, it makes u feel godly smacking things around.

The description on it reads 'Improves Troll Slaying. Which is very misleading considering it pushes people. The secret here is that you can 1 shot the massive hammer wielding trolls with it (it does 50k+ damage - forgot the exact number)! The Gusoku Robe on the other hand gives you the same movement speed boost from the Wuxia Robe but also gives you Physical Resistance, which means you should be safe from pretty much everything when you use a regular shield. Edit: I forgot to mention The Founder's Staff (Chapter 8 or 9, right before going into the fort) and the Crow Staff (DLC) - These my favorite staves if someone decides to annoy me in game:P​​In my opinion, these are the most important things a new player should know. I'm sure I forgot some things as I didn't go back and reread it or really think it through.

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It's a nice, quick and dirty guide that should hopefully set people on the right path to discover their own playstyle and combos. Just remember, this is my opinion of the most important things to know in the game, and hope you enjoyed. Feel free to add me on ps4 and I'll help you out, my nick is the same as here. I play on PC, so it was easier for me to get through the campaign the first time by picking all of the demon altar staves that boost death magic, because of how easy it is to spam area of effect death circles. I prefer the Founder's Staff currently, and either the Wuxia or Vanir Robe for opposite reasons.

The Vanir Robe gives you some survivability against goblins, dwarves and the like.I partially disagree with the assessment of shields: they don't protect against physical damage (unlike Magicka 1) so in some situations its better to use a rock shield.The one other thing I'd add is, if you plan on constantly reviving your fairy, you'll probably need to learn the key combinations rather than relying on using focus. The thing to watch out for is being wet; stick to focus in rain or ponds. I did mention in point 10 how to learn magicks. You can revive in rain or ponds by casting fire on yourself and shielding yourself then casting the spell or if you're quick enough just revive while your character is 'smoking', which I hinted at in point 1. In my first point I also said to experiment with shield combinations as like you said, the regular shield doesn't protect from physical. However, I'm only being fair to you as you pretty much never need to protect yourself from physical. You don't need to use the Vanir Robe if you know what you're doing and the Wuxia Robe is the only robe you'll ever need, unless you have the Gusoku robe which gives you the movement speed from the Wuxia and the physical protection.

Not a single good player I know uses anything but the Wuxia Robe (in every single scenario), I'm the only one that uses the Gusoku robe because they don't have DLC. Focus is important, even if you know every single combination. It allows you to cast 2 of the same magick in quick succession and it comes in handy in PvP if you need to spam dispel, and it allows you to use the 2 spells that don't have a key combination. Focus is also necessary if you know some of the glitches in the game (which I will not share as they break the game). I never said to use focus as a replacement for knowing the combinations and never said this was a complete guide, but a quick and dirty one, and also my opinion. However, it's not fair if you don't read everything I said in detail then comment on it, reducing my credibility and the validity of what I said because I did already mention everything you just said except for the staff.

I will agree with you however that you could pretty much cheese the entire game with the Skull Staff, and it's great for challenges! However, what's the point if you don't learn how to actually play the game in the process? I want to see better players playing the game! Anyway, I platinumed the game 3 times and have been playing it since it came out.

If you'd like, you can also add me on PC, just shoot me a private message and I'll gladly play with you and help you. If my tone came off as accusatory, I'm sorry. I meant 'you' as in the reader of the guide. I was trying to add my own thoughts that I thought would help people who aren't at the upper echelons of the game. I'm not sure that a new player is going to dig into the implications of every single point, so I think it's helpful to explicitly highlight other important things that people might miss.As for the Vanir Robe and earth shields, I understand that they might not be optimal, by I have bad reflexes and clumsy fingers, so I prefer to leave my character in hordes of little enemies while I write out my next spell. The Wuxia Robe lets you effortlessly outrun them, but that means multitasking. My solution is to swap between them based on my mood.The thing I don't like about Focus is you can only use four spells at a time unless you swap them out during combat.

Coming from the first Magicka, I prefer the versatility of whatever magicks I please. It's a lot harder to spam Teleport and Thunderstorm in the sequel.