Magical Blush review: I fought my way through with magic in this electrifying metroidvania

Magical Blush is a game I had high expectations for after trying out the demo in the last Next Fest. It is an action-adventure metroidvania, which is out of my usual comfort zone, so I’ll be honest and say I was a little nervous to write this review!

I’m Brazilian and the fact that the game was developed by a Brazilian studio from Ceará, Alkacer, just brings me so much joy. The devs sprinkled the game with many Brazilian folklore references that put a smile on my face as I was playing it. But rest assured, you don’t need to know Brazilian folklore to appreciate the game, these are just fun easter eggs.

In my review today I will try to cover different aspects of the game and offer a critique around a few things that missed the mark in my opinion. I’ll say upfront that I had a lot of fun with the game, but by the last couple of hours of my playthrough some friction points were really getting to me.

This review is spoiler-free, so feel free to jump in.

Thank you DANGEN Entertainment for gifting me this review key!

Story & combat mechanics

You play as Arnin, a mage that just woke up from the astral plane to find her kingdom, Wyn, destroyed after the Elemental Lords were unleashed and her loyal crew missing. You will need to explore the world to contain the Elemental Lords, and in the process, you will learn new spells to battle your way through and rescue the survivors.

Another important plot detail is that your brother is also missing. Just like you, he is a powerful mage, and there’s some complicated lore to explain why he was awake when you weren’t.

The combat is fully elements-based: your spells use either fire, water, wind, earth or spirit, and the enemies have weaknesses according to their elements – fire enemies are more vulnerable to water attacks, etc. The game has two “wheels” that lets you customize 4 spells to each face button and you can alternate between these sets with a press of a button. I saw myself swapping my spells a lot based on which area I was heading to.

One neat detail in Magical Blush is that each area belonging to an Elemental Lord has the vibes of their corresponding element, from the monsters that spawn to the platforming challenges – for example, to get to the wind Lord, sometimes I had to traverse from one side to another using platforms that had small turbines I had to activate using my wind spells.

You start off with weaker spells and soon you get stronger ones that start requiring mana. In turn, the weaker spells recharge your mana, and I found myself equipping talismans that helped me consume less mana and/or recover it faster.

Overall, combat felt pretty fun and dynamic. I got a feeling for which spells were my favorites, due to damage, cooldown times and general easiness of use. I liked that the spells had automatic aim. Plus, the game has accessibility options if combat is not your thing. I fought one or two bosses while on the default mode, but I kept dying during one specific boss so I switched to casual mode and never looked back. Even though the game is not linear, I felt that I reached that boss too early because the game kept hinting at me going to another area first but I couldn’t find a way there for the life of me. I’m not sure if that’s a “me” issue or a game design one, but I did appreciate that the game let me change the difficulty level either way.

Traversing Wyn

I already mentioned that the game has several areas/biomes and they feel quite different. Exploring Wyn was pretty fun because of that diversity, and it tickled my brain to rearrange my spells and talismans each time I arrived some place new.

I feel that the Great Library might have been my favorite area due to the level of detail of the environment. It introduced a platforming element that was a big struggle for me to get right, a sort of magnet that lets Arnin float around it and jump towards a chosen direction.

Speaking of platforming, be aware that Magical Blush has a lot of it. And even though I like platforming, it frustrated me at times, to the point that I didn’t finish the last area and boss of the game, but watched a gameplay video instead.

I’ll elaborate. The game had fun concepts when it came to introducing different platforming elements, but I’ve accidentally jumped into the abyss way too many times, either caused by my own skill issues, lack of polished timing, or enemies shooting annoying projectiles at the absolute worst moments. The game is not super punishing as it doesn’t have long runbacks, it has plenty of save points where you can recover your health (plus your own health potions), however, it was super annoying to solve a complex platforming puzzle to retrieve an item (more specifically, a key), then fall down while you are bringing said item back, and having to repeat it all over again. Ahem. I said enough is enough, and maybe I will finish the last area/boss one day, but I had this review to write.

My final thoughts: is Magical Blush worth playing?

I had a good time playing Magical Blush. The pixel art was beautiful, including the mesmerizing hair physics from Arnin and the neat menu design (I’m a sucker for good game UI), the music was super catchy and spoke directly to my nostalgic, millennial, magical-girl-hero fan self.

As a Brazilian gamer, seeing how the bosses, their items and even some details in the environment were directly referencing our folklore made me super happy.

Where I think the game fell short for me was in the lack of polish of some platforming elements, combined with just too many projectiles trying to push me over the edge. Which ultimately happened, metaphorically speaking, when I didn’t finish the game. Solving puzzles is fun, but thinking you nailed a precision part just to be wrong by 1 pixel or 100ms was not. Secondly, personally, I felt that the story was too convoluted and could have been simplified; even now I am not sure I got all the details right, though that didn’t impact my enjoyment of actually playing the game (which is another argument for simplifying it).

Either way, I really think that Magical Blush is worth checking out and wishlisting. If you play it, I’d love to hear your thoughts on it!

Thank you for reading,

-Luna

*Image credits: game’s press kit.