283. Magician Lord (ADK, Arcade (PS2) 1990)

Up next on our tour of SNK Arcade Classics Vol. 1, it's Magician Lord, one of the 11 Neo Geo launch titles released with the arcade system in 1990. Magician Lord is an action platformer that stars a blue-robed wizard who attempts to blow up everything he sees (seriously, every enemy explodes for some reason).

I don't know if I've ever played an arcade platformer that feels great, and Magician Lord is no exception. The jump is terrible, it feels like you're an actor in a high school play being pulled up by ropes. You have a single attack that shoots a small magic wave projectile in front of you, though you can collect an occasional powerup to increase the size of your shot.

In spite of the gnarly platforming and passable shooting at its core, Magician Lord still manages to bring some fun by way of variety. There are semi frequent powerup orbs that transform you into a more powerful dragon or ninja, though you return to your weaker wizard self after a couple hits. The game moves along at breakneck speed, one second you're fighting a skeleton with a shield, then a floating face chastises you and tells you to face god, but then you're in a fiery pit and have to fight a weird worm creature.  It's like if Altered Beast was a little bit better / easier.

And Magician Lord just keeps going on like this. The second level was huge and felt like a Metroid level full of long passageways, dead ends and an elevator.  The 3rd level switch the scenery up and throws you into a gross kind of flesh zone full of body horrors. Eventually, the difficulty ramps up to a point where my interest in  seeing where each level was going was outweighed by the annoying difficulty and controls.

3/5, cool ideas and variety, but bad jumping and shooting nip the fun in the bud