Magicka 2

co op has friendly fire constantly enabled. could not beat the first level because we were too busy dueling each other and creating black holes. 10/10 game

It was fun. I disagreed with some of the choices they made for the casting system (The overpowered BS like full steam lightning in Magicka 1 was a lot of the appeal; this isn't a system that needs to be balanced- it just needs to be fun) and my life was in a place where I didn't get to play with nearly as many friends, so I don't have nearly as many fond memories of Magicka 2 as I did with Magicka 1. But it was still a pretty fun game, and *absolutely does not deserve to catch any strays from the legitimate-grievance-turned-vindictive-crusade against Helldivers 2.*

*This game is a power trip for wizard wannabes. Do you always pick the mage class in RPGs? This is the game where you actually feel like you have the full power of the elements in your hands.*
Magicka 2 is a more polished version of Magicka in the gameplay sense, though the writing and level design stumble a bit. I still prefer 2 over 1 just for quality of life updates, but many say 1 was better (which, in many ways, it is).
Now with that comparison out of the way, we can get to the real point: Magicka 2 is a great game on its own right. It doesn't need to be compared to Magicka all the time, though the comparison naturally happens. The controls are great, even on gamepad, couch coop is insanely fun, has tons of single player and multiplayer content. The difficulty curve is... well I'm actually not sure, since I've played so much I forgot how it was at the start. The skill ceiling, however, is infinite. There is always a new combo you can pull off, or slight adjustments to your spells you can do on the fly to better suit the situation.

Great game! fun to play with friends, wish there was a Magicka 3 with a really long campaing.

Difficulty levels in this game are fundamentally broken and it makes this game MUCH LESS FUN than it could be.
On normal difficulty all enemies have a fair amount of HP, move fast, and deal normal damage. The entire game can be completed by using a single combination of electric+arcane+fire laser, because it is a spell that deals an insane amount of damage and has a lot of different elements in it so it ignores most resistances. The game is extremely easy and provides no challenge on normal difficulty.
On hard difficulty, however, all enemies receive a FLAT 50 HP regen per second. This breaks almost all balance in the game, because now your only chance to kill an enemy is to use a devastating burst spell, like boulder or icicle barrage. All Damage Over Time and slowing spells become essentially useless, since the enemy often regenerates half of the DPS you do to them. This is a very lazy game design choice and it massively hinders the game's ability to give the player some healthy and challenging gameplay.
Anyway, the game is not being updated anymore, so leaving a negative review about balance is not going to change anything.
The game is good and has some great and interesting magic casting mechanics: There are over 1000 possible combinations of elements which all lead to different spellcasts. The gameplay is quite deep and unique, the only thing I don't like is when the game swarms you by tons of strong enemies from all sides, forcing you to run around and avoid enemy attacks without any chance to strike back.
But if you don't demand a lot of challenge and just want to cast some interesting spells at random goblins and bugs - this game is perfect, and even better if you have a couple of friends.

This is a fun game to play, however you do need to concentrate or you will kill yourself and your teammates a lot!!

One of the best games I ever played, it definetly need more attention and popularity. It's exciting, funny, and you are literally wizards.
10/10 purely perfect