Sorcery School (2023) Review

If you’re looking for a non-homophobic wizard game, I’d recommend this one. Yeah, it does go the whole ‘chosen one from the prophecy’ route, but thankfully it doesn’t start with that. Arriving at the Owl School of Magic, hands-on learning is key, as the place is crawling with monsters. The first magic discipline you study is Owl Magic, taught by Headmaster Horatio Hawthorne. As you fight monsters through the school, you’ll meet other students and teachers and unlock new spells to use on your journey. Winning battles earns money, which you can use to upgrade your magical solitaire cards, and souls, which increases your Magic Level and your energy. Fair warning, the more magic disciplines you learn, the more you realize Owl Magic is the weakest one. It can really only be used at the Owl School, and even then, it’s hard to win.

It's difficult to say which magic is the strongest. The more you level up your cards, the more powerful a discipline becomes. And even magic has limits. Snake Magic can technically work anywhere but is most effective in the Enchanted Forest. Water Magic is effective against fire monsters but is weak against ice monsters. Fire Magic works fighting ice monsters but barely scratches water monsters. Ice Magic can freeze out water monsters, but melts at fire monsters. Try not to pick the wrong magic style, or you’re almost guaranteed to lose. Both Owl and Snake Magic cards max out at level 30, but the others keep on going. I have yet to max any of the element cards. I have a feeling they’re going to be more important down the line.

There is a ‘Dark Lord’ you’ll have to defeat once you’ve learned everything, but that will take a while. I’ve been playing this game for ages now, and so I’ve only seen the guy in nightmarish visions, with the occasional appearance of his shadowy avatar. There’s a lot of stories and fights to get through first. Other than the main story, there are a few side quests. You save a few different teachers and unlock special events as a reward. For example, after helping a friend of the headmaster’s, Ogbert the goblin, he enlists you in the act of stealing gold from a gold mine. Don’t worry, it’s not as nefarious as it sounds: his fellow goblins are being forced to mine, so he’s just taking back what’s theirs. The gold mine and other events happen every few days and have time limits, so be sure to check out the Events page often.

I really like the monster variety this game offers. In the Owl School alone there’s different kinds of ghosts, supernatural creatures, and even aliens. Each comes with their own powers they will use to try and defeat you. An example would be a rat throwing an acorn at you. Trust me, things get more intense the farther you travel. There are some monsters that have a Rage mode, such as the evil Pirate Captain on Skull Island. You’ll want to do everything you can to cancel that out, otherwise the fight will be over quickly. Now, I like to think I know a thing or two about character creation, and there were a few monsters I wasn’t thrilled with. Mostly because certain powers repeated. Like, the little vampire and the magic mirror both attack you with bats. With the vampire it makes sense, but not so much with the mirror. Have it throw glass or a spell or something, there’s no need to copy another monster.

Another frustrating thing is the higher your magic level, the more grinding you have to do. Every battle only earns so many souls, and it feels like it takes forever to get anywhere. Believe me, I want to continue the story, but at the pace I’m going, it’ll take me years. And I’ve noticed a rather disturbing trend with the in-game ads lately. They look like they were made with AI and they’re very disgusting to look at. I don’t know why the game devs decided to go this route, but using AI to make ‘art’ is a very slippery slope and I would hate to see them fall into a hole they can’t climb out of. I’d hate to delete the game because they decided to be basically unethical. I mean, they used real artists to make the game, for Pete’s sake. What is going on?

Overall, 3/5. Subject to change if they get rid of the AI.