Its already late and you overslept and you hurry because today is the big day. You remember asking your teacher about your test, but he only told you that “you would know once you get there”. You find yourself teleported to the test grounds and you are the last of the students, but you still have time. You run around the corridors reading the magic notes you find along the way, and also find a broom that is busy cleaning and decide that you need it. You now have a magic weapon that is not the best but is magic nonetheless.
While continuing down the hall, you continue to read the notes and find a stylish magic hat that suits you. Then you get to a part where you can show what you have learned, with a little target practice. After disposing of the targets, you proceed down the hall and arrive to where the teacher is and the rest of your fellow classmates. You have the guts to ask “Have we passed the test?”, and your teacher looks as you and tells you that no, that you have to continue training until you master your magic and until he makes sure that you are not a walking magic bomb waiting to explode. An explosion occurs and The Nine Parchments of the most powerful spells are blown by the wind, now it’s your time to show that you can become the best wizard and get back The Nine Parchments.
Nine Parchments is a multiplayer oriented( but single player doable) top down magic twin stick adventure, in which your primary objective is to retrieve the Nine Parchments. You will do this while traveling through some of the most rich and beautiful areas I have seen to date, where you can find treasure chests that sometimes contain exp points to level up. You may also find a magic hat or wand, or blue feathers(5 in each area), and of course enemies.
Speaking of enemies, as expected they are here to hinder your quest, but since all its fair in war and magic, they also possess magical properties. Some are weak to different types of spells, while others have magic barriers that give then immunity to different types of magic. For example the Blue enemies are immune to Ice type magic, but as you might have guessed they are weak to Fire magic. Some of them don’t have a magic weakness per se but carry a magic barrier that protects them. For example, a Blue one gives them immunity to Ice magic, but it can be dispelled with a few shots of Fire magic and so forth.
The Bosses are fun and varied and took all of my wits and quick magic casting and circling( you can swap your spells real time) to keep dealing damage constantly, while using the magic evade to avoid harm while mana was regenerating. Regarding spells, there are a lot, and as you progress you will gain more than the 3 you start with. They have different elemental affinities life Fire, Ice, Thunder, Poison(called death magic) etc, and there is also support magic that can give you a boost to your attack, heal you and so forth.
Now let’s talk about multiplayer. You can play locally or online, and I must say that I really like Nine Parchments I really do, but a decision that was made regarding multiplayer I just can’t understand. I’ll explain based on my experience: I was almost finished with the single player story mode, with only one parchment left. I had my powerful magic wands and hats, and decided it’s time for the major leagues: Online. I thought it’s time to play the game the way it was meant to be, so I went to the main menu and selected online multiplayer. I received a message stating that the progress would reset, so I then thought “yeah makes sense it wouldn’t be fair to continue where I left off”. So I got connected to another wizards who wanted adventure and set off to a wonderful world of online adventures……or so I thought.
Don’t get me wrong, this game was meant to be played cooperatively and once all 4 wizards are on, it is so much fun as passing each of the areas feels like a breeze because you have four times the firepower, but there are also four times the hazards. Why you ask? Simple, its because of the friendly fire and I can’t even imagine why friendly fire is enabled. Sure, for kicks and giggles its hilarious to burn or froze you magical peers, but how about fighting against a horde of monsters with different elemental affinities and immunities? That is when the joke is on you. You can and will be killed by friendly fire, and more so when there are several monsters on the screen. You’re like “yeah burn monsters!”, and another wizard decides to use the mighty thunder spell and you are caught in the middle of the area of effect. Thus one moment you are dealing cleansing flames and another it is just a big nope. A good thing in the middle of this chaos of monsters and friendly fire is that if you are defeated, no matter how, as long as there are wizards alive you can be revived. Thus you can get even or play in a way that you can avoid being a hazard to your teammates.
During my online sessions I was able to quickly get into a room and there was no lag whatsoever so it was a pleasant experience….but now I come to the other design idea that I can’t comprehend. Remember some lines ago that I stated that I only had one parchment left and whatnot. Well, after playing and killing and being killed by my wizard dudes, I decided to continue where I left off but oh boy was I in for a surprise!!Turns out that I had to start all over again from the beginning! Remember that message about progress reset and all that? Now I do! Honestly, I played again just for the sake of doing it, because I felt that I was punished for wanting to play online. While it’s true that my level and items and magic were retained, It ended up feeling more like a chore than anything else. I’m totally ok with starting online from the beginning, but my single player progress should stay as I left it. Maybe the devs can issue a patch to fix this, I get what they tried to do though, they wanted to raise the replay value and keep the experience fresh, but for me each time that I want to play online I shouldn’t also have to start again from the beginning with single player.
Bottom Line, Nine Parchments is a good and fun multiplayer game, with different wizards to choose from, and unlocking more as you progress in the game. However. it is not without its flaws. I can live with the friendly fire it’s fun, but I cannot live with starting all over each time I want to play online. And it is a shame because the game is so fun. If you don’t mind starting single player every time you play online, and find friendly fire hilarious I recommend Nine Parchments to you, it’s perfect for casual gamers, but dedicated players will find it annoying start from the beginning every time.
Disclaimer: A review code was provided