This one rather annoys me as I was looking forward to playing this after playing the demo through Next Fest.

Mago is, unfortunately, a nice looking and sounding 2D platformer that is brought down by its design issues.

The game has a "show, don't tell" approach with its mechanics. That's well and good but it doesn't do a good job at *explaining* what things are. Here's some of the inconveniences you'll run into:

-There's a double jump but it only works after bouncing off an enemy's head.

-You have a limit on how many gems you can carry, which is your currency. While you can improve your capacity, the game never tells you how much more you can carry.

-At the end of every area, there's a tower. On your first visit, you'll see a game show type of wheel and a character you pay. What happens when you interact with this character? You are immediately thrown into a timed six-stage randomized gauntlet. Yeah, a heads-up would have been nice.

Those are annoying. Now let's get into what's genuinely frustrating and tedious:

-I've come to dread seeing those gauntlet towers because, if RNGesus hates you, you'll end up doing them a minimum of SIX TIMES because three of the six prizes you can earn are heart containers and a major collectible. The other prizes consist of the gem currency and one of the vouchers for a costume. Besides the tedium of running the gauntlet over and over because you didn't get one of the better prizes, if you don't realize there's a cap on how many gems you can carry, you can actually LOSE the gems you've won outright because you were already at the cap.

-The tedium of going through the gauntlets will set in VERY early because you have so little health early on. This coupled with the fact that you're probably still getting used to the controls (which are rather floaty), the only instruction on your task is a picture (again, a bit of text doesn't hurt, devs) and you need to spend your gems to attempt a gauntlet run in the first place, you will end up frustrated.

-Mago is surprisingly stingy with its checkpoints, which is strange because it costs gems to use them. While you do have infinite lives, having to redo such large chunks of the level just adds on to the tedium even more. It makes no sense since you'll always be getting more gems to earn than spend. Oh, and once again the lack of instruction occurs here as you won't know a checkpoint is a checkpoint until you actually use it.

-This is more of a lesser bug: there are secret areas denoted by a blue fairy sort of creature. Sometimes they're visible but other times they're not though they have an audio cue that is based on your proximity to them. Well, you'd want to lower the music volume a bit to hear them better, right? If you do that, you run into a bug that's present at this time: lowering the music volume also lowers the volume of these secret cues. If you turn up the volume when you're in proximity then turn it off, you'll still get the cue... for that area. Move on to the next secret area and the cue is once again gone. Thankfully, there's also some visual cues and some rather easy guesswork to reveal hidden areas.

-Halfway through, you'll fight the game's antagonist for the first time and he's got a second phase that suddenly turns the game into a shoot-'em-up. Again, no instruction makes this frustrating: no explanation of the controls and mechanics, no obvious indication the boss has regenerating health. (This also goes for the other levels where you have a new form to play with.) And if you don't damage the boss correctly, he'll regenerate that health within a second. On top of all of that, the game reduces you to four health containers, regardless if you have more.

-Enemies have a strict hitbox where you must hit them squarely on their top. If you're even a bit diagonal, you'll take damage. You'll also take contact damage if you touch a stunned enemy.

-Your status/inventory screen explains nothing. 7 hours in, I've collected a bunch of these blue orbs in every level and I don't even know what they're called or what they're for. I see the wands I've bought but no explanation of their effects. I see the gem bag but no idea what my maximum carry capacity is. Lastly, the list of levels only shows numbers, not their names. It can't be stressed enough how much this game just isn't explaining anything to you.

-My patience ultimately ran out when I had to do the game's shadow clone levels. Much like what you'd see in Mario games from the past years, you're chased by a clone that does your exact movements but with a short delay. Except it's a one hit kill, mercy invincibility won't help you, there's no checkpoints, and you still have to deal with the game's annoyances and frustrations.

This one rather annoys me as I was looking forward to playing this after playing the demo through Next Fest. Mago is, unfortunately, a nice looking and sounding 2D platformer that is brought down by its design issues. The game has a "show, don't tell" approach with its mechanics. That's well and good but it doesn't do a good job at *explaining* what things are. Here's some of the inconveniences you'll run into: -There's a double jump but it only works after bouncing off an enemy's head. -You have a limit on how many gems you can carry, which is your currency. While you can improve your capacity, the game never tells you how much more you can carry. -At the end of every area, there's a tower. On your first visit, you'll see a game show type of wheel and a character you pay. What happens when you interact with this character? You are immediately thrown into a timed six-stage randomized gauntlet. Yeah, a heads-up would have been nice. Those are annoying. Now let's get into what's genuinely frustrating and tedious: -I've come to dread seeing those gauntlet towers because, if RNGesus hates you, you'll end up doing them a minimum of SIX TIMES because three of the six prizes you can earn are heart containers and a major collectible. The other prizes consist of the gem currency and one of the vouchers for a costume. Besides the tedium of running the gauntlet over and over because you didn't get one of the better prizes, if you don't realize there's a cap on how many gems you can carry, you can actually LOSE the gems you've won outright because you were already at the cap. -The tedium of going through the gauntlets will set in VERY early because you have so little health early on. This coupled with the fact that you're probably still getting used to the controls (which are rather floaty), the only instruction on your task is a picture (again, a bit of text doesn't hurt, devs) and you need to spend your gems to attempt a gauntlet run in the first place, you will end up frustrated. -Mago is surprisingly stingy with its checkpoints, which is strange because it costs gems to use them. While you do have infinite lives, having to redo such large chunks of the level just adds on to the tedium even more. It makes no sense since you'll always be getting more gems to earn than spend. Oh, and once again the lack of instruction occurs here as you won't know a checkpoint is a checkpoint until you actually use it. -This is more of a lesser bug: there are secret areas denoted by a blue fairy sort of creature. Sometimes they're visible but other times they're not though they have an audio cue that is based on your proximity to them. Well, you'd want to lower the music volume a bit to hear them better, right? If you do that, you run into a bug that's present at this time: lowering the music volume also lowers the volume of these secret cues. If you turn up the volume when you're in proximity then turn it off, you'll still get the cue... for that area. Move on to the next secret area and the cue is once again gone. Thankfully, there's also some visual cues and some rather easy guesswork to reveal hidden areas. -Halfway through, you'll fight the game's antagonist for the first time and he's got a second phase that suddenly turns the game into a shoot-'em-up. Again, no instruction makes this frustrating: no explanation of the controls and mechanics, no obvious indication the boss has regenerating health. (This also goes for the other levels where you have a new form to play with.) And if you don't damage the boss correctly, he'll regenerate that health within a second. On top of all of that, the game reduces you to four health containers, regardless if you have more. -Enemies have a strict hitbox where you must hit them squarely on their top. If you're even a bit diagonal, you'll take damage. You'll also take contact damage if you touch a stunned enemy. -Your status/inventory screen explains nothing. 7 hours in, I've collected a bunch of these blue orbs in every level and I don't even know what they're called or what they're for. I see the wands I've bought but no explanation of their effects. I see the gem bag but no idea what my maximum carry capacity is. Lastly, the list of levels only shows numbers, not their names. It can't be stressed enough how much this game just isn't explaining anything to you. -My patience ultimately ran out when I had to do the game's shadow clone levels. Much like what you'd see in Mario games from the past years, you're chased by a clone that does your exact movements but with a short delay. Except it's a one hit kill, mercy invincibility won't help you, there's no checkpoints, and you still have to deal with the game's annoyances and frustrations.