Wizorb

Genre: Arcade Brick Breaker

Players: 1

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Review:

Wizorb is an Arcade-style Brick Breaker released on PC in 2011, ported to mobile devices in 2012, and then ported to Nintendo Switch a full decade later in 2022. This game takes the usual trappings of the genre and decks them out in a retro-style look with a medieval fantasy theme.

The presentation here is excellent, making use of colorful 2D pixel art visuals with some really nice animation. These visuals are backed by a catchy chiptune soundtrack that reminded me somewhat of songs from the original Legend of Zelda.

As for the gameplay itself, this is mostly a pretty straightforward Brick Breaker, but a solid one with some good physics. The biggest twist to the typical gameplay here are spells that players can use at any time by pressing A or B for light magic or dark magic – light magic spells move around your ball to hopefully a more ideal position, while black magic spells make your ball stronger and allow you to shoot fireballs from your paddle (er… I mean wand). This magic can be replenished by pickups that drop from blocks, or from shops that appear every few levels or so to offer this alongside extra lives and temporary paddle upgrades.

Yeah, on that last note, Wizorb is a fairly challenging entry in the Brick Breaker genre, largely because the ball speed increases pretty steadily within each of the game’s levels, zipping around quickly by the time you’re done with the level if you haven’t died yet. The game gives players plenty of opportunities to earn extra lives, but it’s pretty likely that you’ll be using up those lives almost as quickly as you earn them.

One other issue I have with this game is the “temporary” nature of its power-up. You lose it when you die which, as I said above, means you’ll likely lose it relatively quickly. What’s more, this game seems to miss a big opportunity because there’s a town players can visit in between dungeon raids, with townsfolk asking for cash handouts to fix their houses. This seems like it would be a great setup for earning permanent upgrades, but alas all you ever seem to get in exchange for the money you spend in the village are single-use items like keys.

Still, while the difficulty seems overly high and the game avoids features that could have made it much better, Wizorb is nevertheless a fun and charming Brick Breaker that’s well worth the $5 price tag, especially if you’re a fan of the genre.

tl;dr – Wizorb is an Arcade-style Brick Breaker with a medieval fantasy theme. The challenge level is a bit high for my tastes, and I’m frustrated that the game completely avoids the opportunity to add fun permanent upgrades, but for $5 this is still a solid entry in the genre worth checking out.

Grade: B

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