Hocus Pocus

Short version:

Pros:
+ Strong visual style
+ Oldschool, fun gameplay
+ Good sountrack
+ Simple yet enjoyable story with great writing

Cons:
- Combat is repetitive
- Puzzles get old fast

"Long" version:
Hocus Pocus is a 2D sidescroller that was released in 1994 – it was developed by Moonlite Software and published by 3D Realms. You play as a young wizard called Hocus, attempting to complete several trials to prove himself worthy.
I remember playing this several times growing up – I had it on a CD rom called “Kidz Gamez” or something similar. It had games like Comander Keen, Jazz Jackrabbit and Monster Bash - I spent countless hours relishing these classics and they have a very special place in my heart.
In terms of story, Hocus Pocus features an extensive amount of text-based context as its setup. You also get to talk to Terexin, the ruler of the Council of Wizards, while playing through the levels and he will provide you with more information, insults and funny one-liners.
The writing is strong – while the game features a story that is not exactly mind-blowing, it is commendable that they put some emphasis on it and managed to succeed.
When it comes to gameplay, Hocus Pocus features decent platforming sections and serviceable, yet repetitive combat.
The enemies do not offer much of a challenge on their own, so the game tries to overwhelm you with sheer numbers. While it can work sometimes, you pretty much just have to spam the attack button and blast everything you see. The problem is that you cannot hold the Alt key to auto attack and you must press it every time you wish to throw out a lightning bolt. This might seem fine, initially, but you will need dozens upon dozens of hits to vanquish groups of enemies and it slowly becomes tedious. Flying enemies can provide a tiny extra challenge, as you must aim upwards to hit them, sometimes.
There are also light puzzle-solving elements in Hocus Pocus, but I found these rather unsatisfying. You can find some objects to interact with, like levers which open up new areas or teleportation potions, which make you warp from one location to another. While these are not bad, they can become frustrating. If I must try every single combination of 4 levers to open a single door and then the game throws 2 or 3 more puzzles like that in a matter of seconds... Yeah, it gets old. The same goes for the teleportation potion, as it often brings you to locations you were actually avoiding automatically, drops you on traps or blocks you from revisiting old areas you previously had access to.

Graphically, I believe Hocus Pocus looks amazing.
The graphics might be considered archaic, but the art direction is strong and oozes personality. I also enjoyed the enemy designs, but they are pretty much reskins of the same few ones you meet initially.
You get to visit different environments, like a mysterious castle surrounded by giant mushrooms, or an outer space fortress filled with dangerous enemies – it was a nice change of pace.

The soundtrack is a total banger – each environment has a designated track, and they are quite memorable. The sound effects are really simple but I cannot help but feel they have a charm to them.

So, having grown up with Hocus Pocus, I obviously recommend it, but some might consider my review somewhat biased. I can, however, tell you that the game might be too simplistic and ancient for newer audiences. On the other hand, if you have a soft spot for
90s sidescrollers and platformers, I confidently believe you will have a good time with Hocus Pocus.
You will most likely be able to complete the game in around 3 to 4 hours if it is your first playthrough.

Final score: 8 out of 10.

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Got the Shareware Version of this Game as a Kid. Its pure Nostalgica. The movement is accurate and the Levels are Fun to explore.

“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
~Sir Terry Pratchett
Nowadays, side-scrolling games are taken as granted on PCs. Just click on one of them tags here, in Steam, and you'll get more games of such kind than you can play in your entire life. Guess what? It wasn't always like that. At least not for all types of computers. While some of the systems (like those Atari and Commodore computers) had hardware optimized for such tasks (thanks to which we've got games like Aztec Challenge, Wonder Boy, The Great Giana Sisters and so on), some other systems (like the ones by NEC and IBM PCs) did not. What was the problem? Well, it was pretty simple. With no hardware support, scrolling was done in software. And it was needed to redraw the entire screen for every single frame. Each and every time. Naturally, those old systems just weren't powerful enough for that. Thanks to which the task was impossible without some smart workarounds. Hudson Soft faced that problem while porting Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. to PC-88 and Sharp X1. It was a disaster. It looked like everybody's favorite Famicom title, but... It didn't have scrolling. Every time Mario made it to the side of the screen? The game paused and started rendering another one, similar to what we had in, say, PC-88 version of Super Pitfall or Montezuma's Revenge. And naturally, the process took time, which broke all the pace. PC-88 and other Japanese systems had their own saviors, but for IBM PCs it was all about Saint John.
I'm talking, of course, about John Carmack, a mad genius from id Software. Lack of hardware support was a problem. And John was a brilliant problem solver (it was him who came up with the idea to sacrifice music and use both Atari Jaguar coprocessors, Tom and Jerry, for boosting DOOM's performance on Jag). Quickly, he came up with so-called “adaptive tile refresh”. An elegant solution to avoid redrawing the whole screen and therefore save power. I'm not a technical expert, of course, which means I may have made some mistakes here, but you've got the idea. Before Carmack's Super Mario 3 prototype this kind of entertainment wasn't even a thing on IBM PCs. That's exactly the reason why Commander Keen series (which id Software launched after Nintendo refused their offer to make SMB3 port official) became sacred to DOS audience. It was their Super Mario. Why am I telling you all that? Well, because what we have here is a DOS exclusive. After Commander Keen revolution, those started to pop up one after another and guess what? They were good. We've got Duke Nukum (I mean, Nukem), we've got Jill of the Jungle... You lived back then – you know what I'm talking about. Hocus Pocus? It's one of those games.
And you know what? Technically, it's nothing special. It's one of those games that want you to find certain amount of objects on level in order to progress, it's our typical Apogee's shareware thing (there was a free version and a registered one that included all episodes, exactly the same with what we had in Commander Keen) and in a way, it's a remake of Moonlite Software's previous platformer – Clyde's Adventure. What kind of name is Clyde's Adventure? Well, the same one with Super Mario Bros. Those were the crazy time, OK? And it's not like Hocus Pocus is any different. In this game you're... *sigh* Hocus Pocus. No, seriously. Your name is Hocus and you came from a noble line.. of Pocuses. Deal with it.
Gameplay-wise, it's the same exact thing with Clyde's Adventure. Except now you're collecting magic crystals and, like I already said, there's a certain amount of them on levels. Collect enough – level's finished. There are four episodes (again, it's our typical shareware thing), nine levels each. Naturally, the final level comes with a boss. That's pretty much it. That's the entire thing. Doesn't sound like a big thing and you know what? In a way it is not. History-wise, there's nothing really special about Hocus Pocus. You had gaming console back in the days? I can't say you've missed much. And nowadays, when we have RetroArch in Steam and lots of new games (some of which are retro-like)... Let's just say that this here is not your top priority.
I mean, when you compare this game with some top players in genre, it becomes obvious that it's not really that good. One of the key features here is that switch puzzle and while on paper there's nothing wrong with it (even the bigger games like Duke Nukem 3D utilized it now and then), this game wants you to do it again and again with no end. Becomes annoying pretty soon. The bosses are a joke too. Like, half of the time you can beat them just by standing at the right place and shooting (it's one of those games, in which you can shoot by default). Don't get me wrong, nothing of that feels terrible, but... You know how it is. It's not good enough to become one of them “must play” titles.
But. There's that thing called presentation. And presentation here? Is something else (which is exactly why this game feels, like, a million times better than Clyde's Adventure). Remember cracktros? Those short custom sequences that used to be added by hackers to stolen software? Usually, those weren't just notes. Those had graphics, the music... And there was that certain vibe in all that, similar to what we had in retrowave genre of music. Nowadays, piracy is pretty much dead. Killed by convenience. Sure, people are still looking for free copies of expensive software and overpriced AAA titles, but all in all, nobody really cares about warez. Yet, as crazy as it is, people still care about cracktros. Just because those are, like, an art form on their own. And Hocus Pocus? It does have that. Not cracktro, of course (what we have here is just our usual registered version with all four episodes, running through DOSBox SVN Daum), but the feeling.
And the funniest thing is – it's hard to describe it by words. You think 80s – you instantly get a sum of some certain colors and sounds in your head. Same exact thing here. Hocus Pocus? It's 100% 90s. That signature sound of Sound Blaster cards, that certain kind of VGA graphics, those episode selection and “to be continued” screens... That's exactly the reason why this game aged well. Hocus Pocus was never unique, Hocus Pocus was never groundbreaking. But back in the days it was finally a way for DOS audience to taste the genre's juice (Mega Man X port, for example, didn't appear on DOS systems until 1995), while nowadays? Nowadays it's exactly the opposite – it's a way for us to taste 90s. That's the selling point here. By paying for this game you won't get one of them historical points, you won't get anything that some other games didn't do better, but when you'll start playing it? Be sure that you'll get that certain feeling of 90s. Guaranteed. Do you need that in your life? It's up to you. There's nothing special about this particular release. No cloud saves, no enhancements (“partial Xbox 360 controller support” on store's page is just due to DOSBox emulation that supporting gamepads, no other job was done), no extra content (aside from digital manual that is), nothing. Just a bare bones Hocus Pocus. They did care enough to avoid using default DOSBox version, but that's pretty much it. Personally? I loved my playthrough. For $2.99, I'd say it's a steal. But like I said, if all that you want is a good game – you can do better nowadays.

Simple fun game. Cartoon graphics, highly responsive play.

If Santa didn't visit in the small hours of 25th December 1994 to drop off the full boxed registered version of this fantastic 10/10 game (I am going to keep telling myself that) then your parents failed you. The start screen has an evil monk doing the Y pose in the "YMCA" dance, what more could you want?!
However, I don't know why most DOS games on Steam use an ancient badly-configured version of DOSBox, but it needs to stop. You can do better. It runs at 286 speeds and is set to use Ad Lib for music/sound instead of the far superior SoundBlaster. I could tell it was off based on an incredibly old but incredibly ingrained memory.
I highly recommend using DOSBox-X to run the game, and delving into the setup.exe file. Steam won't track your hours but... eh whatever.

One of the first games I ever played. After all these years, I still suck ass at it but the nostalgia is real

I grew up playing this and many other great DOS classics and it still hits just as well as it did back then!