I watched the store page video and this game looked terrible. The graphics were garish and hideous, the animation was stilted and awkward, and the gameplay looked janky and uncomfortable. The reviews pointed out serious flaws like in-game copy protection and game-breaking bugs. It was so off-putting it seemed as though Mystical was daring anyone to play it. But, if I'm in the right mood I can find things to like in even bad games, and I can't resist a retro throwback when it's on sale for pocket change, so I bought this and gave it a whirl.
Before even playing, I decided to look up the manual so I would be prepared for the copy protection. I found the manual here:
https://amiga.abime.net/manual/2501-2600/2539_manual0.pdf?v=3013
Reading that before playing the game was incredibly confusing. You are told you can stockpile phials and scrolls by quickly pressing the Space Button when walking on them, or you can cast them instantly by standing on them for a few seconds. You can select which stockpiled spell you want with Shift. You can cast the spell with Enter. If the spell allows you to shoot projectiles, you press the Space Button to shoot. What you're not told is that simply running over phials and scrolls without stopping also seems to stockpile them... I think? Except sometimes when you'll automatically cast the spell even if you're running. Also, when you encounter walls or rocks, instead of preventing your movement you'll kind of "scoot" over them quickly, sometimes out of harm's way!
Anyway, by fumbling my way through the first level (the deluge of unfamiliar spells was overwhelming at first) I was presented with a bizarre menu screen showing a series of phials and scrolls, the first of which was circled. The Arrow Keys did nothing, Shift did nothing, Space did nothing, and Enter just made the circled symbol disappear, after which it did nothing. If I pressed escape I was brought to another, similar screen where I was given a "line number" and a "row number". This must have been the copyright protection. But the aforementioned keys still did nothing, and pressing escape just quit the application.
"I can figure this out," I told myself. The actual copyright protection codes, although directly referenced as the "CODES MYSTICAL sheet", were not included in the manual I linked. However, the sheet is included on the game's store page by clicking on "manual" (strangely enough, the actual manual is not included). So if the copyright screen tells me to check Line 7, Column 2, then I look on the "CODES MYSTICAL" sheet and get three numbers: 10, 05, and 08. I just gotta type those in, right? No, the number keys do nothing.
So I re-read the manual I found and it explains that the screen I saw immediately upon beating the level was the Inventory screen, where I can assign phials and scrolls I picked up to any of my 10 pouches. I can select the desired phial or scroll with F3 and F4, select the desired pouch slot with F1 and F2, and place said phial/scroll into said pouch with Enter. These controls carry on to the copyright screen, except I have three pouches to choose from instead of ten. This must be how I enter my three numbers (10, 05 and 08), right? But all I can do is select from all available spells. Then I reread the instructions again and I realized that I had to cross-reference my three numbers with the list of Spell Symbols in the manual. So, for instance, number 10 is "The Ice Storm", number 05 is "Imprisonment", and number 08 is "Metamorphosis" (I had originally thought these pages served only as a list to help us remember what the spells do). Put those three spells in order into three three pouches and BOOM. Rock 'n roll.
Note: While I did use the manual in conjunction with the "CODES MYSTICAL" sheet to get past the copyright protection, I think it might be possible to get past it using the "CODES MYSTICAL" sheet alone, since I believe the numbers line up with the order of the phials and scrolls. "01", for instance, would be the first phial, "02" the next, and so on.
Anyway, on to the game! The first several minutes were, in fact, awkward and confusing. I couldn't figure out what any of the many spells were actually doing. Some seemed very effective, some seemed to do nothing, I was still trying to get a hang of the controls, the music and sound effects were obnoxious, the graphics were chaotic and difficult to parse, and the game seemed to behave erratically in terms of spell use and level completion (you can only beat a level by standing on the star on the ground for a couple of seconds, but sometimes it doesn't seem to work properly)... It was very rough.
But I stuck with it and, believe it or not, I started to see Mystical's charm. It's actually pretty cool that there are so many spells and that their effects are so varied. You can turn enemies into frogs, scare them into running away, imprison them in cages, get a fire shield that burns them to a crisp, send out a cloud that kills them on contect, summon a sword that hunts them down, turn them into snowmen (that then melt), turn them into stone statues, strike them down with lightning, get a barrier that deflects projectiles... There's, like, a whole bunch of effects. Some of them synergize well with each other. I felt truly OP when I had a genie spread-shotting projectiles while my magic sword flew around picking off those not hit by the genie. There's a spell that sends out a single-use spray of lasers ("The Bloody Blades"), and casting that while I had the "multiply vision X 3" spell active almost brought the game to a halt with a massive blast of dense projectiles. I thought that was cool.
Another interesting thing is that different enemies react different ways to different weapons. You can turn people into frogs with one shot of the "Metamorphosis" spell, but Tree-people are resistant to those projectiles. Those same Tree People, though, can be taken down instantly with fireballs (in a satisfying burst of flame, no less). I'd argue that seeing all the fun little animations of the spell effects is one of the game's selling points.
I also started to find my groove with choosing when to manually cast spells over using them instantly. I would hold off on using the screen-clearing spells until several enemies were on screen, I would use the terrain to help me dodge enemies when I found myself without projectiles, I would learn how to dodge boss attacks, I even started to use a little strategy when deciding what order to put my spells into my pouches... There is actually a game to be played here, and while it's FAR from great it's not nearly as bad as first impressions made it seem.
I'm a huge fan of retro games being made available on Steam, not just because I love re-visiting games I grew up with, but because I would otherwise never end up hearing about (let alone playing) charming little games like this. It is a bit disappointing that so little effort was put into this port. There are no bells & whistles, no save states or rewinding, no achievements or trading cards or point shop items, not even a scan of the manual (which contains a lot of very useful information)... But it's still a lot of fun to be able to jump back in time and explore oddities like this. On special, it is dirt cheap and easy to take a chance on, particularly if you are a fan of niche retro titles. Recommended.
