Mage's Initiation: Reign of the Elements
D'arc is sixteen years old. He has trained extensively in the Elemental arts for the past decade, under the discerning eyes of the Mage Masters of Iginor. Confined to an existence of academics and magical mastery in their tower, the inquisitive Initiate often wonders what it would be like to explore the secluded outside world. D'arc's moment of reckoning arrives and his Masters put him to the test. The young Initiate is tasked with retrieving three items, which will test his magical and mental strength to full capacity: A lock of hair from a powerful Enchantress. The unspoiled shell of Griffon's egg. The three-pronged horn of the legendary Trinicorn. Join D'arc on a perilous journey across the medieval-styled land of Iginor. Brave the perilous Bloodbark forest where the Redcap goblins stalk. Trek across a barren desert wasteland rife with lawless Bandits and fierce Burrowers. Navigate over a vast lake where evil masquerades as beauty.
Game Discussion
Steam User 2
Mage's Initiation is a fine tribute to the legendary Quest For Glory series. As a hybrid RPG/adventure game it almost perfectly captures the spirit of the first Quest For Glory game. It's not as humorous as its source of inspiration, but the game is very well balanced and does a couple of things better than its classic counterpart. No repeated spell casting is required to improve your stats. You gain xp points by solving the puzzles and once you cross a threshold, additional points can be assigned to your stats. I quite liked this mechanism.
You can play as one of four classes of mage. Each class adds a little variation to the puzzles throughout the game. Each class also has a class-specific quest which warrants a playthrough per class. Achievement hunters will have a field day with a wide variety of possible play styles: kill all types of monsters, kill no monsters at all, kill 1000 monsters...
The puzzles are decent and never get frustrating. Art is what you'd expect from a pixel-art type of game; although some of the cut scenes look out of place because the drawing style seems quite different than the rest of the game. The quality of the voice acting varies a bit; personally, I don't quite like the main character's voice but other characters really stand out.
All in all, I really enjoyed this one. Just like in Quest For Glory you can save your character for use in a sequel. Unfortunately, the developer has made it clear that a sequel is very unlikely to ever see the light of day. That's a real shame; I would have been a day-one-buyer.
Steam User 3
Very well done, game similar to titles "Quest for Glory" or "Quest for Infamy" which are point and click RPG storybook-like games. Immersive story, interactive, very fun. Hoping to see more games like this being made in the future. Already know I'm going to enjoy this one!
Steam User 0
Nice art, awkward writing. Still fun.
Really impressed at all the background art and details put into this game. Unfortunately that sometimes breaks the immersion and make puzzles awkward. Like, why I can't I take (useful thing that's right there)? Instead I have to take just that one specific thing, with lots of pixel hunting, because (convoluted adventure game logic).
They did a nice job having both the tower and town feel alive, with tons of different people. Unfortunately that means it's often difficult to distinguish or care about different characters. EG, none of the main mage masters show up as normal people you can talk to. It's hard to care about the "main" plotline because we never get the chance to talk to most of those characters until the very end.
Combat was kind of a pain. Luckily they give the option to turn it off. I wish the devs let us use combat spells in puzzles. Instead almost all puzzles were solved with just 1 spell (whatever the starting spell for your class is). It's neat they give us that replayability though.
The ending was... bizarre. The whole game builds up the local lord as this selfish, idiotic jerk. Suddenly we're supposed to help him? The people attacking him are townspeople that we've been talking to the entire game, and they have legitimate complaints. I think it's supposed to be nuanced, but it really just feels like the main character and all the mages are jerks, allying with the nobles to oppress the commoners for no reason.
Some puzzles were clever. Some just felt annoyingly obtuse. If you feel stuck on something, just look it up, that's the way to have fun in this game I think.
Overall flawed, but I still had fun. Especially with the art and the general premise. I wish they'd make a sequel, or even just a revised version of this same game. I wish there had been more content inside of the mage tower, and less wandering around random dungeons.
Steam User 0
Of all the modern point and click games I've played, this has to be one of the best, and probably one of the most enjoyable P&C games I've played in a long time.
I can't really fault the story, it's nothing groundbreaking, but the designers paint an interesting world that made me want to find out more. The game mechanics are a nice improvement and something that this type of adventure game really needed, instead of following the exact same mechanics from over 30 years ago.
If you're into fantasy, adventure games, or even something a little different from the usual type of game, then give this a try.
Even though it seems as though there are no sequels to this, the full price is still worth it
Steam User 0
yes