A teenage witch by the name of Maria seeks to enter a school of witchcraft and wizardry, but to do so she must best the old wizard Memphis’ tough entrance exam! This is FixedStar Works’ block puzzle game, Magical Cube.

Gameplay

Magical Cube is a mission-clear puzzle game. Your objective is to defeat your opponent by blasting your way through their hitpoints with Maria’s magical attacks, which are executed by clearing blocks off the field.

Here are the basics, you cam grab a hold of a block and move its entire row, sort of like a Rubik’s Cube. When you get three or more blocks of the same color in a row, those blocks will disappear allowing for new blocks to fall into their place. On top of the boxes are all sorts of items. When a row of blocks disappears, all items on top of them will either disappear, be collected, or grant an effect.

There are four different types of items: creature, currency, power up, and special. All items other than the special items have a duration timer associated with them which upon running out will either cause them to vanish from play or grant a beneficial effect to your opponent. Each type of item will effect gameplay in its own way.  For example, the creature items are absorbed by your opponent and will increase the effectiveness of their attacks. In the case of special items, their effects are unique to each opponent and will persist until the cube on which they reside is destroyed. The simplest item types is the currency coins, which simply serve to allow you to upgrade y our equipment.

Magical Cube’s equipment will grant special passive effects to aid you in your battles. The items take the form of all sorts of clothing and accessories and adds a pretty amusing RPG element to the game. While the dress up concept is similar stylistically to that of recently released Ninja Chop!! it seems that there is a wider variety of offerings in Magical Cube, which is certainty very welcome. There are numerous tiers of equipment, which are unlocked as you progress through the game. Which is sort of a problem in Magical Cube, and brings us to its major shortcoming.

Let’s talk about difficulty. Firstly, I didn’t beat this game. In fact, I didn’t even beat the third boss. The first two bosses of the game which you may face in the demo, are not in any way shape or form indicative of the difficulty that is experienced beyond those encounters. Magical Cube is excruciatingly difficult to the point that it more or less ruins the game for anyone seeking a casual to moderately challenging game experience. As it turns out, I was making such a noise about the difficulty of this game, that Brooks also took on the challenge of Magical Cube. While he progressed considerably farther than I, he has yet to beat it. Fortunately, he was willing to take time out of his personal vendetta against the golem boss, who he affectionately refers to as  ”that rock bastard”, to collaborate with me on this review.

One of the more annoying dervations of the games difficulty is the way in which the blocks are destroyed. That is to say, the way the blocks disappear and are then replaced. As the blocks disappear and are replaced by new blocks from above, the entire field, quite literally, freezes. This creates a situation were the traditionally joyous  experience of having long chains of block destruction becomes  a serious tactical disadvantage. This is, of course, due to the previously mentioned importance of the timed items on the playing field continuing to count down while you are powerless.

The sad reality is that these are complaints with a very simple solution. Had multiple difficulty modes been added the game could have been made considerably more accessible to people, like me, who just simply aren’t good enough to progress into the deeper parts of this game. In all actuality, had this oversight been addressed, the game would have been one of the better puzzle games on the XBLIG.

Audio Visual

When one stops to consider its five dollar price tag, Magical Cube has a strikingly high production quality. Its 3D world features unique stage settings for each of the various opponents filled with flavor adding set pieces. Each opponent also comes with their own attack effects and special item models which themselves have their own special visual effects. In terms of animation all the characters seem to move well, whether it be to cast a spell or dance, take a hit, or dance a jig on your cold lifeless corpse. In the case of manga styled Maria, her model is especially polished and accommodates all of the purchasable items quite well. Even the volley of particle effect magical attacks are well done with numerous different types of attacks from various schools of magic.

The music and sound effects are every bit as polished as the graphics. The main theme and menu music is fairly catchy and the game play sound effects are solid. There is even some voice acting in the game for Maria who will hoot and holler during spellcasting and occasionally will throw something very japanese sounding out at you.

In terms of both Magical Cube’s audio and graphics, it has a level production quality that greatly exceeds what you would expect from a game of its price.

Summary

Magical Cube is a good game that suffers tremendously from its lack of selectable difficulty modes. So much so that the game is nearly impossible to recommend to anyone seeking a casual puzzle game experience. Even those of moderate skill levels should be weary of this title as it is really only going to appeal to the hardcore block puzzlers.  In terms of XBLIG games it comes in a little high at 400 Microsoft Big Ones, but given its high production quality it’s a very respectable price. I can recommend this game as a buy to those who have a particularly strong inclination to all things cubed, but the rest of us mortals seeking a casual experience should look elsewhere. To those of you who decide to try the demo, please be aware that it is not indicative of the game’s difficulty soon after the trial mode.