Sorcery Review

Sorcery was a game that debuted amid huge fanfare at E3 2010 that kind of disappeared in 2011 but finally came to light here in 2012. It promises to bring the life of magic and sorcery into your hands, leveraging the PlayStation Move controller device. You’ll fighting through endless monsters as a young boy named Finn as he unleashes his vast sorcery powers. While Sorcery has nice use of the Move controller system and a decent storyline, you’ll probably tire quickly of the monotony behind combat. Ultimately it comes together as a decent game best enjoyed by folks that absolutely are dying to use their Move controller as a magic wand.

Story

The story in Sorcery is pretty decent. You take on the role of a young boy named Finn who is a sorcerer’s apprentice with huge potential. Now, the Nightmare Queen has broken an ancient pact to unleash chaos in the land and it’s up to you to master your powers and fight back. As Finn, you’re joined by a faithful and sarcastic talking cat named Erline that will egg you on during your various quests. At one of the first critical points in the story, Erline fully expects Finn to run away crying at the first sight of a ghost, but instead, Finn rises up to prove he’s going to be one powerful sorcerer. That lays the foundation for the rest of the story as you rise up to harness your powers to fight the oncoming horde of evil-doers with magic.

Graphics

The graphics powering Sorcery are pretty decent and some of the zones you’ll encounter are actually really well designed. It’s unfortunate that this doesn’t hold true throughout the game, but there’ll be more than one zone that you’ll appreciate aesthetically. The art direction is in line with standard D&D stuff, with heavy Irish/Scottish themes throughout. The special effects of your spells are probably the highlight of the game, but the monotonous baddies that you’ll fight is probably what you’ll remember most from the game graphically.

Sound

The voice acting in the game is decently done, although many of the intended jokes fall pretty flat. Perhaps those jokes are just intended for a much younger audience which makes us think that this game is probably best enjoyed for the gamers that are within the 10-12 year age group. Regardless, the sound was adequate with plenty of cool sound effects for spells and decent voice acting.

Game Play

Get the ice ready because you’re going to need it. Maybe we just “played it wrong” but it felt like during combat it was more of an exercise in flicking your wrist one-million times rather than the elegant wizardry combat you might have expected. Rather than one or two big spells to clear a mob, you’ll flick your wrist about a hundred times. This gets very repetitive and obnoxious after playing the game for 45 minutes. Will your 11 year old gamer care? Probably not, continuing our thought that this game is best intended for young gamers that can’t get enough magic “stuff” in their lives.

The controls though aren’t without merit. While the camera occasionally gets wonky, especially during boss duels, running around and casting spells is actually quite fun. The sensitivity in the Move is really appreciated by the game and will be something that will stand out in your experience with the game. Directing spells is decently accurate although there were times that we simply couldn’t explain how spells were ending up where they were.

The game won’t take you all that long to complete, about eight hours total if you take your time and try not to power through the whole thing. It might make for a nice experience for younger gamers who might want to get that gratification of winning the game sooner rather than later.

Overall Impression

Sorcery is a decent attempt to leverage the PlayStation Move device that has some decent graphics, decent sound and modestly fun game play. While we found that adult gamers probably won’t care for this game, chances are younger gamers that are enthusiastic about this genre certainly will.

Overall Ratings – Sorcery (PS3)

Gameplay:	7/10
Story:	7/10
Graphics:	7/10
Sound:	7/10
OVERALL SCORE:	70%