{"id":17036,"date":"2017-10-18T00:01:53","date_gmt":"2017-10-18T00:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=17036"},"modified":"2017-10-15T16:17:48","modified_gmt":"2017-10-15T16:17:48","slug":"mystik-belle-ps4-xbox-one-pc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2017\/10\/18\/mystik-belle-ps4-xbox-one-pc\/","title":{"rendered":"Mystik Belle (PS4, Xbox One, PC)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Belle is a first-year witch student at the Hagmore Academy.\u00a0 Late one night while practicing fire magic outside her room, a mysterious stranger crashes into her and runs away, and next thing she knows, she\u2019s in trouble for spilling a special brew.\u00a0 Now she must find ingredients to make the brew again and find out who really spilled it in the first place.\u00a0 Mystik Belle is a 2-D side scrolling platformer that also has elements of point and click adventures, as you must find items and combine them to bypass obstacles and progress the story along.\u00a0 The game\u2019s graphics and style look like a 16-bit title, although it also makes me think of something that could\u2019ve been done on the GBA.\u00a0 With its spooky settings and bosses that include Frankenstein-like monsters, werewolves, and giant spiders, it\u2019s also a good pick to play around Halloween.\u00a0 Mystik Belle was originally on PC, but WayForward published it to download on PS4 and Xbox One (PS4 version reviewed here).\u00a0 WayForward didn\u2019t actually make the game, but it does feel like something they would\u2019ve done.<\/p>\n

Belle can run and jump, as well as shoot fire spells to attack enemies.\u00a0 As you play the game, you\u2019ll learn new spells and abilities to help you bypass obstacles.\u00a0 Hold down the button to charge up a lighting spell, which has various uses. \u00a0You\u2019ll also learn to double jump, dash, and more.\u00a0 As you defeat enemies, you\u2019ll earn experience points and gain levels, which will give you more energy for your health meter as well as sometimes even powering up your fire spell.\u00a0 You\u2019ll explore the witch academy as well as the Detention Dungeon, spooky forests, caves, and more.\u00a0 The game\u2019s map is interconnected, so it plays a bit like a Metroid title.\u00a0 Scattered about the areas are items that you can combine and use in certain screens to help you bypass obstacles.\u00a0 The game places such a heavy emphasis on this aspect that it\u2019s a lot like a point-and-click adventure, too.<\/p>\n

This game has a few problems here and there, though.\u00a0 One, goals and objectives aren\u2019t very clear, so it\u2019s tough sometimes to know where to go and what items you need and where to find them.\u00a0 Don\u2019t feel bad if you have to use a guide for this game.\u00a0 Also, like a Metroid game, you have to do a lot of backtracking.\u00a0 Normally I don\u2019t have a problem with this, but Belle\u2019s movements and jumping feels a bit sluggish, even with her double jump, so backtracking doesn\u2019t seem as fun.\u00a0 Even worse, you can only hold a limited amount of items and some of them aren\u2019t even used for anything.\u00a0 You can put items in a chest to take out later, and these chests are scattered about the map.\u00a0 But it just adds even more backtracking to the process.\u00a0 Some may also find this game a bit too short.\u00a0 There is even a speedrunning trophy you can earn for beating the game in less than an hour.\u00a0 And even if you take your time like I did, you\u2019ll still be able to beat it in a handful of hours.\u00a0 Although I didn\u2019t have a problem with that, as the game still felt very fulfilling at such a short length.<\/p>\n

But even with those problems, I still played the game all the way through and got all but one of the trophies, so it can\u2019t be THAT bad.\u00a0 The retro graphics are charming and the lighting effects are neat.\u00a0 Plus the 8-bit music has a spooky fun vibe to it.\u00a0 Retro game fans who enjoy books like Harry Potter or even anime like Little Witch Academia will appreciate the game\u2019s themes.\u00a0 If you are patient enough to overcome the game\u2019s shortcomings, you will want to check out this title.\u00a0 Good pick for Halloween gaming, too.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kid Factor<\/strong>
\nMystik Belle is rated E-10 with ESRB descriptors of Fantasy Violence and Crude Humor. You can blast enemies with fire and lighting spells, but downed characters just explode into pixels when defeated.\u00a0 The games references to things like cat poop, and Belle causes all sorts of mischief on her adventures.\u00a0 She even has to gather materials to make explosives at one point, but luckily the professor of the school mixes it for her (he\u2019ll even scold her for suggesting she do it).\u00a0 Reading skill is a must, and younger gamers may find the game too difficult and obtuse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Belle is a first-year witch student at the Hagmore Academy.\u00a0 Late one night while practicing fire magic outside her room, a mysterious stranger crashes into her and runs away, and next thing she knows, she\u2019s in trouble for spilling a special brew.\u00a0 Now she must find ingredients to make the brew again and find out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17028,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17036"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17038,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17036\/revisions\/17038"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}