Spellcaster’s Assistant

Genre: Top-Down Arcade

Players: 1

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Review:

Spellcaster’s Assistant is an Top-Down Arcade-style game released on the Wii U in 2018. This game has players taking the role of the titular spellcaster’s assistant, who must put away spellbooks in a wizard’s library while avoiding dangerous bookworms and other enemies.

This game uses simple, 8-bit-style pixel art 2D visuals with some cute character designs, backed by a chiptune soundtrack based on various classical songs. It’s nothing extraordinary, but there’s something endearing about it all the same.

The gameplay here is actually pretty creative. Books are scattered all around a level, and the player must go to each and take it to its appropriate color-coded bookshelf. However, enemies will instantly kill the player if they touch him, and he’s normally powerless to fend them off.

However, while the player is holding a magic book, they have access to that book’s spells – green lets loose a powerful blast in one direction, blue creates a three-way shot, and red releases a bomb with a dangerous blast (that can hurt you too). When a book’s power has been fully expended, you can no longer carry it for a moment, and if you put the book away, you no longer have access to its spells, so you must make smart use of the books and be mindful of the time limit to ensure the books all get put away before you run out of time.

It’s a clever concept, and the game finds enough creative things to do with it to keep things interesting. If I had to find a complaint, it’s that some enemies are damage sponges, which can be a bit annoying. However, for this game’s low $4 price tag, this is a surprisingly good retro-style game on the Wii U, and I definitely recommend Wii owners pick it up before the Wii U eShop closes permanently in March 2023 (tomorrow!)

tl;dr – Spellcaster’s Assistant is an Top-Down Arcade-style game that has players putting away spellbooks in a wizard’s library while avoiding dangerous bookworms and other enemies. The gameplay in this game is creative and varied enough to be more than worth the low $4 price tag. If you’re a Wii U owner who appreciates retro-style games, this is definitely one you’ll want to get before the Wii U eShop closes permanently in March 2023 (tomorrow!)

Grade: B

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