Twin witch sisters Abra and Cadabra decide to use their magic to dye their clothes, but when the spell goes wrong, all sorts of colored monsters appear from their cauldron and cause havoc everywhere.  Now it’s up to the twins to use their color magic to zap all the monsters in this two-player focused action puzzle game.  It’s available on Switch and PC, but reviewed on Switch here.

The playfield is set up like a grid, and monsters of different colors come from the middle and creep outward from either side.  Abra and Cadabra are on each side and can move up and down.  Use the shoulder trigger buttons to fire a blast.  If the blast is the same color as an enemy, they will disappear.  You can switch from four colors using the face buttons.  If the monsters reach the barriers on each side enough times, it’s Game Over and you must start the level over again.  Sometimes monsters leave behind crystals.  If you zap them with the same color blast, you’ll collect them.  Gather four and you can push both shoulder buttons to cast a spell that turns all the monsters certain colors.  Although I didn’t find this very useful when I was playing.  Each level has a different objective to pass.  Sometimes you must zap certain colored enemies, cast a certain number of spells, survive for a given amount of time, etc.  You can also earn extra stars by completing side missions.  Stars allow you to unlock extra levels and other goodies like new outfits for the witches.  The whole game kind of reminds me of an action oriented Plants vs. Zombies.

You can play this game with one or two players.  In single player, you control one witch at a time and switch out using the L and R shoulder buttons.  The witch you aren’t controlling moves on her own, but boy is she dumb and slow.  I think the game would’ve been better if you could’ve controlled each witch using the L and R analog sticks.  That would’ve gotten rid of one less button press, and made the controls less fiddly.  Because of this, single player is near impossible early on.  I wasn’t able to get past an early level where you had to survive for three minutes.  I was able to get past it with a second player, but we didn’t go too long after that because the game is just not very interesting or fun.

Kid Factor:

When you zap enemies with spells, they just dissolve into nothing.  If a spell hits the sister on the other side, she’ll just say ‘ouch’ but that’s as violent as it gets.  Reading skill is needed for the text, and younger gamers may find it too difficult.  Magic Twins is rated E for Everyone.

Tags: Game Reviews