Wizkid: The Story of Wizball II

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Game Review

Wizkid: The Story of Wizball II is a strange arcade adventure created by Sensible Software and published by Ocean in 1992 for Amiga, Atari ST, and MS-DOS.

Programmed and designed by Chris Yates and Jon Hare, the game is supposed to be the sequel of Wizball, the famous 8-bit title created by Sensible founders. The reality is the games are pretty different: Wizball was strange, but at least it was a bouncing ball, jumping on the screen and obeying the gravity law. It could be considered a platformer. In this case, it's tough to find a proper genre: Wizkid: The Story of Wizball II is 50% arcade and 50% adventure. The hero is a "head" (vaguely resembling a green Pac-Man) that flies on the screen. Each level comprises several single screens that will need to be cleaned by enemies (scary, terrible enemies such as.. butterflies). To do that, Wizkid will have to hit some Arkanoid-style bricks, throwing them against the creatures.

At some point, the game changes into an arcade adventure. Collecting enough musical notes, Wizkid will reobtain his body, and, at that point, the game changes completely. Our hero becomes able to interact with objects and solve puzzles, and in this way, he will try to reach Zark's castle.

I know that describing Wizkid with words is tricky, so my suggestion is to stop reading and try this game.

Reviews at the time were positive, and many people still consider it one of the best Amiga games ever created. Some others think that the people mentioned above are mad. The choice is yours!

Review by: Manu
Published: 15 February 2020 8:31 pm