Battlemage: Magic by Mail

Awful. The story felt both rushed and railroaded. You go from squire to mixing with nobles, but so quickly it strains credibility. The same speed makes it so you can't develop relationships effectively (particularly as choices you might be intrigued to befriend can be dead-set against your goals with no opportunity to win them over). I tried to play to my strengths, developing stats I liked (in particular illusion and healing, class, and ambition). But I was punished for this. The game rewards you if you play as the author expects/intends you to play it. On most CoG you can find some kind of winning combination through a variety of means. I didn't come away from my playthrough feeling that it was possible to win with the kind of play style I preferred. You might like this story if you happen to play the author wants, and if you don't mind feeling rushed. I can't recommend such a story.

hmmmm Ill give this a hesitant thumbs up. Its one of those stories, where I was treated with pretty much failure upon failure for each choice I made. I lost every event at every tournament, I sucked as a mage anytime it mattered, oh and got kicked out of being a squire for said practicing of magic. All of Which could mean that Im just really bad at choosing. It could be that the story is just set up with alot of "failure" baked in. Would require several more play throughs to find out, but meh if you dont win me over the first time, Im not really inclined to go through again and again and figure out what it is you wanted me to do to get to your good ending. Bottom line this is not a play through the story "your way" kind of game, but a "figure out the right choices" game. Some people like that. as always YMMV. PS just go for death and elemental magic, healing and illusion choices are NOT there when you need them, and often provoke negative reactions from those around you even when your using them on their behalf. How Dare You Heal Me Sir! Edited: 08/15/2021 for grammatical errors that were bugging me every time I read over the review ; ) If I trip over reading my own words, a correction is Obviously needed.

The story has a similar tendency of other past stories by Choice of Games. Effectively every single leader character is a women to push feminism, and there is an unlikely and unrealistic grouping of diversity to push crt. For this specific story, there is little to no indication as to what choice levels up a stat or which choice requires a stat to indicate if it will be successful or not. The locations go from what sounds like a classic European setting to the middle of a desert, which is not very realistic even in a might and magic style setting. The placement of magic being looked down in society seems forced and contrived with no decent explanation given. The moral choices are not that meaningful with a few forcing the player to be shoved back to a narrow path. I half expected this to become a multi story game with this being the first of other books, yet this whole story is stuffed into one book with time passing rather quick. In what seems a few days is listed in the story as being as much as a few years. I expected more out of this to the point I had this game on my wishlist, only to be disappointed by the usual contrived and forced leftist propaganda paraded all around in a half baked story that could of been much better with poor use of stats.

Overall, a solid B. I did not notice a single spelling mistake on two playthroughs, the story was coherent, and the game generally indicated reasonably well which skill would be used. Romances are moderately underwhelming, as is the ending; what happens to your character over the span of years is summarized in a few pages. Some skills are far, far more useful than others; they weren't terribly well balanced, but it was not though it was especially egregious. The world was reasonably well-described, though many things are discovered through reference and inference. Overall, not a bad game, and worth the money, it just lacked a special something that would have brought it from decent to truly great. Recommended, but perhaps best purchased when on sale.

What a snooozefest. Forgetable NPCs a story with no substance. Just disappointing overall.

I'm really hesitant to criticise this game (but I'm gonna anyway) because most of the issues I had with it where more to do with the fact that it is more geared toward a younger audience rather than young adults and above which is my fault for doing more research. This review would be somewhat neutral, coming from a young adult so take this with a grain of salt starting with the negative as I may be salty for getting the 'bad' ending. [h1]-Cons:[/h1] The pacing was fine up to the midpoint of the story, but after that, we rush over through the introduction of new characters, the climax, and 3 obvious 'plot twists', like we are just teleporting from one scene to the next quickly without letting anything sink in. I would normally replay games to see the other ending, but after my first playthrough I just found the story structure rather basic and unsatisfying when completed, I'll properly dislike this game more if I force myself to continue. [h1]+Pros:[/h1] If there's something I like about this game for, it is the options to customize your character from their appearance, sexuality, and the type of magic through the journey where you would have multiple choices to choose from that affect the endings you can get, from what I've seen and I, might be wrong on this, but there are a few to end on. There are also stats to tell you how well-liked you are by other characters as well as what type of magic you are keen on using if anyone is interested. Furthermore, I have found minimum grammar mistakes with a few hiccups on the way, but who am I to tell you that, judging from this review and I've only last played this game in February this year, I'm bound to miss something. [h1]Conclusion:[/h1] Ending this off, I have to say it felt weird to be so critical of a game that isn't catered toward me that I'm willing to update this review if I somehow had a child to play this game if they wanted, to get their perspective on it. Speaking of that, I would only recommend this game to those who are maybe 16 and younger, who don't mind reading heavy text-based games, and who would like to create their characters in fantasy land. [hr][/hr] [i]I know this is weird to ask after a review, but if anyone wanted to recommend any of Choices of Games games as I don't want to end this off with a sour taste in my mouth, with Battlemage being the first one I played published by them, I would appreciate it. As they have too many games for me to choose from, I don't know where to start or which is good or bad for my taste, I only have most of their Vampire: The Masquerade series on my wishlist for now. Either way, thank you for reading and take care.[/i]

6.5/10 It wasn't bad, but I couldn't get as immersed in it as I have with some of the other COG's In a game where the player character is supposed to be customizable or meant to represent the reader, the railroading should be as limited as possible, if it can't be eliminated altogether. One of my biggest and most common pet peeves is when the player character is described saying, doing, or feeling a bunch of things that the player didn't choose. I understand this has to happen sometimes, but not as often as it does As a personal preference, I'd rather my character be a silent protagonist and not have his feelings or actions described unless they're ones I choose. I don't like when they assume I feel sad or nervous or excited or happy about something; just let me choose how I feel about it, or don't describe the character's feelings at all Also, there were several times when it forced me to give an opinion on a matter I have no interest in or make small talk with an NPC I don't care about. Like, I don't care about Fizza; stop trying to force me to reconcile with Fizza. I have nothing to say to her. Conversely, there were other characters who I would have liked to get to know better, but there weren't many opportunities for that My character's supposed to care about his knight, but the only time we ever interact is either in a group discussing battle tactics, or just a summary like "You help him get his weapons and armor ready". Even the romance options often felt like they weren't explored enough. For example, I chatted with Adriano literally twice--once about getting horse feed and the second time about a mob--before suddenly there's an option to kiss him. But where was the relationship development? The writing itself is good, like the grammar and descriptions. But the relationship development is sorely lacking The biggest positive is that the stats are really intuitive. It's usually clear if a choice raises or checks elemental magic, physical power, illusion, etc. That's an important trait, since I'm not good at the COG's where it's too vague which stat is being checked. Apart from the fighting options, the rest of the choices in general are mediocre. Usually there are 3 options, but about 25% of the time, none of them were appealing

I'm a simple man. I see magic. I see swords and knights. I like. I do wish this game had some kind of stat tracker option? But otherwise...it's fun.

Well, I always love story that has magic, swords, and knights in it. Overall, it's an okay game with an okay story to have when it's on sale or discount. 6/10 from me. I think this is not a CYOA game, because whatever options I choose the story is just going with the flow. Overall, the story is easy to understand (I'm not from English speaking country). Just need to play the full game 2 times to get bad and good ending achievements. The romance part is to few and not good (I tried Fizza and then Yuwen). And the personality stats are kind of not too important. As far as I know, it's only for the summary story at the end.

Necromancy in this game is useless in combat! Who would have known?! I've focused on necromancy and can't do anything. And what magic schools are most impactful besides elemental magic? Ilusion and healing. Ilusion and healing are the most helpful in combat and other events! Just animate some corpses, summon a demon or shoot necrotic energy from your palms ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥! What a stupid idea to have necromancy as a ,,subtle magic school that helps in subterfuge". Uhh!