The Magician VR: The Cursed Wand Review

The Magician VR: The Cursed Wand is a spooky and mystical shooter that gives players their very own magic wand and a list of tricky spells to conjure – though you should expect plenty of grinding and practice before you become a master sorcerer.

I’m sure plenty of us have taken a spoon, pencil, or any other kind of stick-like object and pretended to draw a motion in the air like we’re trying to cast a magic spell – at least after we’ve watched Harry Potter. The Magician VR: The Cursed Wand lets you do exactly that and actually have a fireball shoot out afterward – though the path to being a master wizard is quite a challenge.

Spain-based developer Master Crowd Games entered the stage of VR with its musical title Rock Invasion, and now it looks to perform a magic show with its latest shooter, The Magician VR: The Cursed Wand. This mystifying VR experience was first announced back in January before finally emerging in time for the Halloween season.

You take on the role of a disgraced stage magician who comes across a magic wand enchanted by a mysterious spirit. Said spirit allows you to perform real magic spells, and the magician hopes to use this to find his missing twin brother. However, the world is currently being invaded by an undead army from another dimension called The Remnant, and it falls to you to use your newfound powers to blast these creatures back to the grave by finding the pages of the spirit’s lost spellbook before they take over your abandoned theater hideout.

The Magician VR: The Cursed Wand has a haunting, gothic atmosphere thanks to its grim visuals and haunting music. The world around you is a ruined place, and your adventure will carry you through grimy sewers and abandoned towns aflame. The spirit of the wand communicates through glowing, floating writing like a ghost in a horror movie, and the enemies crawl toward you with decaying flesh and sickly green eyes. I wouldn’t say the game’s too scary, though.

Once you’ve collected the corresponding spellbook pages, spells are performed by holding down the upper right trigger and drawing the required gesture in the air before letting go. These spells run the gamut of mystical energy bolts, shields made of playing cards that can block a few enemy attacks, and icy winds that can freeze foes to buy you more time to focus on another group.

It can be tricky to aim at first, as the small targeting reticle is rather easy to miss. The motion controls are fairly intuitive, even if the gestures themselves can be difficult to pull off when surrounded by enemies. Luckily, you can project which gesture you need to perform with a button press, and switching between them is as easy as pressing another button.

Battles take place in closed off areas that you access via a map in the main hub room. The objective is to defeat all of the enemies without dying yourself. On your left hand is a health/mana gauge that keeps track of how many hits you’ve taken and how much magic you’ve used. Take too many hits, and you will fail the battle and be sent back to the hub room. Each wave of enemies is headed toward the theater, and if you die during an attack there, the game ends.

Luckily, if this happens you can start a new run with your unlocked spells and upgrades. Be prepared to grind through the first few days of the game before building enough health and stamina to survive the more challenging later battles.

Clues about what happened to your twin brother come in the form of “Echoes,” which are earned from completed waves. When you collect enough Echoes, another clue unlocks in the theater. These take the form of mementos that appear on a shelf, each one a cryptic piece of the ever-expanding puzzle.

If you wish for an even greater challenge, you can try Nightmare mode, which streamlines the game to a fixed number of battles against stronger and longer waves of enemies. Here, one death will restart the campaign, no matter where that death occurs.

The Magician VR: The Cursed Wand – Final Verdict

The Magician VR: The Cursed Wand is an intense challenge, but it’s also a lot of fun. If you’ve ever wanted a VR Harry Potter game where you can wave a magic wand to perform all kinds of powerful spells, this is about as close as it gets. The motion controls are easy to pick up, yet difficult to master, and the story contains a creepy mystery to keep you moving through multiple playthroughs.

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