Castle of Magic

System: DSiWare
Developer: Gameloft
Publisher: Gameloft
Genre: Platformer
Players: 1
Points: 500

I wonder, what would happen to a castle made of magic if a non-believer came by? “Welcome to my castle,” the owner says, before leaning over and cupping his hand over their ear “of magic”. “Magic? Oh, I don't believe in magic” the guest replies. “Also, I got your daughter pregnant”.

Well, unfortunately we'll never know, as Gameloft's Castle of Magic doesn't reveal that secret. It's a pretty decent game though, if that means anything (of course it doesn't!) Originally released on mobiles, then iPhone, the title has finally found its way to a device that won't leave the stomach bleeding with ulcers. Yes, a proper D-pad really is the solution to all of life's problems.

Castle of Magic is a by-the-numbers platformer; the sort of thing that would have blended in with the crowd and likely forgotten back when these games roamed the Earth. But it's not the 90's anymore, and there's certainly no time for Klax. You get five unsurprising themed-worlds, each with three levels and a boss fight. All up, you're lookin' at about two to three hours worth of gameplay, which isn't bad considering the price point. Disposable gaming and all that jazz.


Sometimes there's running, sometimes there's jumping - combine the two for best results. It's complicated. Purple gems are absolutely everywhere, and act exactly like the rings in Sonic the Hedgehog. Should the main character get hit by a baddie, he'll drop all the gems you've collected like a clumsy oaf. As long as he's carrying at least one gem, he won't die – unless he falls down a pit or gets crushed.

Enemies can be disposed of by a good old fashioned stomping, or with a pissy little wand. Collecting a power-up will increase its length and girth. The magic shoots out further, too. Some levels have their own novelty 'powers', such as turning into a sword fish or a fat guy (really). Typically these can be found floating around, but you might need to hop into one of the many photo booths that populate a stage. This is where Castle of Magic makes unwanted use of the DSi camera, requiring players to take a photo of a certain colour in order to obtain the desired power-up. Yeah, that's really fun, Gameloft. Especially that time I probably made the gentleman in the stall next to me uncomfortable, as the DSi produces a really loud shutter noise when you take a photo.


But then, you can also use the camera to put your own face on the main character, or Russell Grant's face on an enemy, so that kind of balances it all out. This is a port of the original sprite-based mobile game, rather than the 3D-on-a-2D-plane iPhone version, so the visuals are quite nice. Great use of colour, and some noticeable dithering gives it the look of a Mega Drive release. I can't remember a single tune in the game, so it's pretty much just... there.

The level design is average for the most part, but every now and then it'll introduce something entirely different, like being flipped upside down to walk on the ceiling. Flipped upside down with magic.


Score: 6.5/10 - "Good buy"
Castle of Magic is a brief and fairly generic platformer, but what's there is charming and entertaining enough to recommend for fans of the genre, or pretty much anyone that's just sick to death of the puzzle game deluge. The camera-based novelty to obtain power-ups was a really silly idea, though.

Review by Lance McGill (Infernal Monkey)