The Mage's Tale

WARNING ! THIS GAME HAS NO PROPER INDEX SUPPORT !

as i said, this game doesnt have a proper index support, if you dont have the patience to put up with it, rather not buy this game. the game basicly views your index knuckles as wands. your hands are weirdly placed, grabbing objects is a pain. but its playable.

in short though the game itself is fun and intressting, well made and doesnt take itself seriously. many secrets and many little intressting things. the grafics are also pretty nice.

what throws me off alot, is that weird....african ? nordic ? music in the lobby and loading screens, it doesnt fit at all with the game. but it sounds nice


so overall, a good game. would be able to enjoy it much more if it had proper index support.

Wasn't able to get game to start. Game crashes immediately with Unreal error screen. Tried everything what was available in the interwebs, but no luck. Had to refund the game.

I remembered a year or so ago I started then just stopped playing. I don't know why I stopped but I tried to play it again and maybe It's just the fact that I have a new pc but even though It's better the game just crashes before a minute can pass after launching it. In general unless this game gets an update I wouldn't recommend buying it.

game keeps crashing after 30seconds, playing on oculus quest 3
not playable

i liked the variety of puzzles, the locations were also varied and sometimes stunning... the combat wasn't really for me but finding the curse and lightning and enhanced effect spell saved it... the shield is very important to block the guided projectiles that occur towards the end although i found pressing the thumbstick and holding it in excruciating at times... its worth the slog to see all the puzzles! great characters, voice acting and humour throughout. i was expecting a short adventure but can't believe its only taken 3.2 hours to finish- cant be right-feels like a massive journey and a bargain on sale.

Crashes every time I try to enter a new game and thus I have not been able to get past the menu portion. Not worth the original price of $30 nor the $7 I spent when on sale, if I can't even play.

This is one of the few games of this kind (RPG/VR) that's immersive enough for it to feel like you are there and weave and move to avoid getting hit by spells and arrows. Love the wacky humor and hope they make more vr games even if it's not an rpg... Highly recommended. Its not long game but very enjoyable.

I couldn't get it to work. It keeps on crashing at the title page.

To be fair, the developers were genuinely wanting to hel;p and quite responsive when I contacted them, however I don't think I should have to jump through hoops (doing a bunch of uninstallations and restarting everytime to see what would make it work) just to be able to play the game.

If in the future this game gets a major update and this issue is resolved, maybe I will finally get to play it.

I thoroughly enjoyed this game from beginning to completion, and wanted to mention a few things:

1) There was once or twice I got 'stuck' / clipped in a wall (or otherwise an area I shouldn't be in) -- basically a bug. I wouldn't have been able to progress in the game, since I'd always 'continue' in that stuck-state. There is a button combination for each VR device to reset you...it's the top sticky thread in the Discussions area, so check it out.

2) At a glance this might seem like a 'dungeon / cave crawler' and, I suppose to an extent, it is. The levels will be quite varied though, so don't think it's going to look like every other dungeon crawler out there. You'll get to some very creative levels as the game progresses -- even some almost "Dante's Inferno"-esque! :)

3) There are a lot of side-puzzles that are optional. I had fun doing a good number of them, but it doesn't seem they're required. You'll make it through the game fine without the perks of them if you so choose.

4) The game is gorgeous, and lengthy in a rewarding way. There's a story and it's enjoyable, albeit don't expect a full-on RPG conversation system. ;) My playthrough lasted almost exactly 12 hours (Steam didn't log an hour or so), though I played an arena pass afterwards...so over 12 hours of Quality, clearly hand-crafted content.

5) A lot of people were complaining about controls, etc. I didn't run into any aside from the clipping in #1 (only once or twice). Either on my Quest 2 via Airlink doesn't have them, or the devs have since patched them all. I never once felt like things were clunky or odd though.

6) Only 2.5% of people have the, well "Completed the game" achievement. Near the tail end of the game I was also getting achievements that only 1.5%, 1.4% of people are getting. Take your time and enjoy this one...I think it's meant to be savored & not 'rushed'. I played it seated in an office chair, so I could swivel and change directions easy & was able to play for good chunks of time comfortably.

I hope some of the above is useful if you're thinking about this game. I myself loved it, and I hope you do too!

very good game. nice visuals. easy to figure out spells and creating modifiers. lots of fun so far. Very long game with lots of battles running for your life and casting spells. Puzzles are simple to mind bending. Very much worth the money.

If you like games where every single room is a puzzle and you are constantly being attacked by numerous enemies that respawn and you are constantly needing to mix, manage, and switch between several spells to complete these puzzles and you enjoy facing the same respawning enemies over and over again then this is the game for you. Not my cup of tea though. I prefer games where I can relax and enjoy myself. The first few levels were enjoyable. However, the Mage's Tale actually gets more and more frustrating the longer you play because you can't take ten steps without another puzzle. Enemies also start breaking your tiny shield and exploding themselves and you will most assuredly be repeating the same battle sequences over and over again. This game is also very buggy. Every other time I loaded the game, there would be no sound at all and I would have to restart Steam-VR. Sometimes, it would flat out crash when trying to load a previous save. As far as the magic spells go, you constantly have to keep returning to a confusing spell workshop where you must choose between an assortment of convoluted spells and mix them together correctly in order to proceed in solving puzzles to continue. I also found myself referring to a walkthrough several times to see what I needed to do next. This game also takes up almost 30 GB of hard drive space. I cannot recommend this game for those who do not enjoy what seems like endless puzzle rooms and an unbalanced amount of respawning enemies because this can be more frustrating than fun for those like me.

This game is brilliant, I waited and got it on sale and I cannot understand why it gets any negative reviews. Very polished, smooth graphics and excellent game play. It's not a sword fighting game, you use magic and solve puzzles. Nice change really. 11 out of 10!

Works GREAT on my first HTC Vive VR headset and even on my completely wireless Oculus Quest 2 :-)

Solid game by 2017 standards but plays rough with modern hardware (or at least an Index). The controllers would frequently spasm out like Elephant Man at a rave and go flying off in any given direction during a battle. It was rare and not defining by any means but worth a mention.

But even then, as a pure dungeon crawler this game a lot to offer. Calling this an RPG is a bit of a stretch though. You can add effects + boosts to spells and also pick a binary level up buff each time (20% spell recharge vs + 2 Health etc) but even by action RPG standards this is just more or less a shooting gallery with solid puzzles and a great atmosphere.

But in 2021, give it a shot at 50-60% off. There's a solid game to be found here and somehow doesn't overstay its welcome even with a 10 hour runtime. Now if Inxile wants to port Bard's Tale IV to VR, I'd pay about $100 for that.

I bought it thinking it would be fun. And it does look like fun, however it has no support for newer controllers such as Reverb G2. Tried everything I could to rebind things under SteamVR, however nothing works. The emulated gamepad barely makes me move and is nowhere close to being playable.

A solid adventure with a lot to love, and one or two rough edges

Wonderful experience. The puzzle is not too difficult which I like. The graphics is lovely to gawk at. The sound is good. I love the one sound they have; it's beautiful. A point of improvement is the sound effect of the magic like fireball and lightning. It doesn't sound like something awesome, distructive, and terrifying. Instead, it sounds flat and wimpy. On the whole, I really enjoyed this game.

I wanted to like The Mage's Tale more after all the positive reviews I read but I found the spell casting not particularly satisfying and the wave mechanics annoying. Having the area cordoned off and enemies teleport in randomly just doesn't do it for me. I might have been more able to get past that if the spell casting felt more "authentic". I know that sounds bizarre given the distinctly non-magical world we live in but it felt more like inputs to a game and less like interacting with a real environment. Yes you have to move your arm to cast a spell but it didn't seem to matter how so much. Aiming seemed to be much more governed by where I was looking than which direction I was throwing, which I personally disliked immediately. Given how polished the presentation is I was expecting more immersiveness with the controls, which I found underwhelming.

Maybe if I had played this before other VR titles in the genre I have enjoyed more (such as Vanishing Realms) I could have stuck it out to the bitter end but I couldn't talk myself into finishing this. I wish I could enjoy the game more because it is definitely a looker and I love the scattered secrets. Alas I must pass.

The Mage's Tale is the second game I bought after purchasing my VR setup and this is my first review.

It's visually stunning, the audio is wonderful and the gameplay challenging enough not to get boring, nor have you stuck for ages trying to get past a certain point. The controls do what they are supposed to. So much fun It's hard to take a break! Having made it through to the end, I can look forward to going back and in and exploring further to find all the collectibles and play the bits I missed...

When I look for new games to purchase now (a few months later) I find myself measuring every other game by this standard and few make the grade.

I thoroughly recommend it and look forward to InExile's follow up.

It has a good feel to it, but the locomotion isn't optimized very well. a lot of things in the game aren't explained very well and for 40 dollars it doesn't feel anything to brag about. I played for about an hour and though it had cool concepts and ideas that i would like to see in future Fantasy VRRPG's. It just felt very weak in overall design.

This game sets a new bar for VR. HIgh level of visual polish, great sound, voice acting, story, gameplay, you name it. It also has plenty of content for a VR game. I have played a lot of VR, and this is the first one that feels like a AAA title. If you like fantasy at all, or ever wanted to be a wizard, this is your game. Handily beats both Vanishing Realms and Karnage Chronicles (although I loved both of those, too).

This game is filled with both awesome and terrible things to write about.
To start out with the things i find terrible;

the alignment of the hands is just wrong for the vive controllers, way off. whenever i look at my hands a lot of my immersion breaks. and whenever i have to pick something up my immersion is completely lost, very very clunky feeling.
In fact everyithing regarding controllers is ways off from ideal.
The movement is whats most annoying, the "free locomotion" is head oriented which is something most people looking for free locomotion just dont like. i personally hate it.
The clunky controls flows onto the spellcasting aswell, its messy to try to change spell and everything is reached through offputting menues that dont work half the time. The spells are used by pushing your trigger and pointing. doesnt feel very magelike at all.
The first time i started the game i couldnt even use the menues even though they where right in my face, because the developers intended me to do something else first; drop a "new game" flask into a cauldron way to the left of the options menues. i restarted the game twice to try to change stuff in the menu since i assumed the game werent reading my controller inputs or something. when i finally had realised the game didnt intend me to use the menues right in front me to change the settings to what i prefer and i got into the game, i played for a long time before i could "spawn" the options menu in the game world, the menu spawned half inside a wall so i could only use half of the menu.

what is good;
The world building, visuals(even though i cannot supersample through any menu) and character of the whole game is really good. The art is just phenomenal. whenever i pick up some cool treasure a cool looking frog appears so you can throw your loot into its mouth, the loot then appears in your "home" so you can use it to make new spells and such. the whole frog thing is really cool. When i want to enter my "home" ingame i hold my hand up and look into the sky, which feels wizard like and really cool. Talking walls, cool puzzles, lenghty gameplay. I cannot stress enough how much character this game got, the world building is just so awesome! i havent played enough to comment on the story, but i am intrigued to see where it all lands.

Conclusively; everything related to storytelling and worldbuilding is magical and feels intriguing and awesome. It feels very inspired when it comes to its world, and i have a feeling the part of the team making the level's, story and artwork just kept working like mad creating some wonderful stuff; expecting the team working on the VR aspects, controls and movement spell-system to just catch up. which never happened. It does not feel like a Virtual reality game due to simplistic non immersive magic-system, menues and very clunky and bad controls. The teams that made this and The wizards should team up or atleast learn from eachother through collaboration, stuff i find lacking in the wizards is made much better here and stuff i find lacking here is made much better in the wizards.
This could have been one of my favorite VR games and its sad that the "boring" part of creating a magical world just ruins the experience and immersion so much.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAcm0FjXlx70tMcSXhT_4ixDdctgT1D_4
I know it says I only have .9 hours in this game but I have logged a TON of time ont he oculus release with revive.

The time has come for all of the HTC Vive faithfull that have held off purchasing this game to FINALLY dive into what is my all time favorite VR RPG thus far!
The Mage's Tale, from InXile, the makers of The Bard's Tale among other great RPGs, brings to VR something that we just don't really have still,. even after almost a year of being released on the Rift. I couldn't wait for the vive release so I got it and played on Revive which worked perfectly. This game pulls you in with amazement even with the InXile logo. Then the main menu screen. It's just,.. so... BEAUTIFUL! Lets break this down:

Graphics: The graphics in this game are AAA for sure. I have looked at the VIVE version and honestly I feel like they are a bit crisper in the oculus version, but I bumped up the SS to 2 and they looked great Everything just looks so beautiful. I remember being pulled in with the opening script standing next to my Master and his Imp cronie,. (maybe not an Imp,. I don't know some little magic rude flying dude) It really stunned me standing next to such great fleshed out animated character models. now since this games release there have been many game with great models mind you but this was one of the first I experienced. Then the treat of watching a great battle between my master the the big bad which is what begins your actual quest,. to the opening scene traveling downward in this massive cavern on the hand of a giant golden statue. It is truely breath taking and with each new area you open it just gets better and better and more awe inspiring. Everything from environment to characters to effects are just top notch!

Sound: The sound does not dissapoint. Holy cow it is so good. the way everything echos through the dungeouns, the faint eirey whispers, the effects of your spells, the absolutly fantastic voice acting, not to mention hilarious. I haven't been insulted so much since I was married! hahaha! The battle song is driving and with the tougher enemies and bosses it amps up and brings a great tension to your fights.

Locomotion: after playing the Vive version a bit I do prefer the teleport on the oculus with revive since you just slide your thumb on the trackpad instead of having to push it. The game offers teleport and smooth loco. I don't always hate teleport and on the oculus version with revive at least, I prefered it in this game. But I have talked to friends that really enjoyed playing it with the smooth loco option. on rift it is coupled to the HMD so I did not enjoy it as much as other types of smooth loco. either works well though so there is a choice which I would hope any VR dev would include in thier game at this point.

Game play: The Mage's Tale plays like a dream! I was dissapointed when if first came out because I was like "what,. just spell casting? no sword play?" wanting more of the Vanishing Realms/Karnage Chronicles type of RPG, but that quickly dissapeard after I got a taste of the power I felt throwing fire balls and zapping the crap out of enemies with the lighting spell! The game has a big cauldron in your workshop, which you access by holding your hand over your head, a really great touch and kick butt effect, where you can craft your spells with different ingredients you find along the way either right in your face or through the many secret areas located through out the dungeons. There is a little goblin you can practice your new spells on and see if you like the result or not. really a nice thing to have. There are a couple areas where you keep your collectables you find all over in the game and there are a TON of them. I have yet to find them all and have spent well over 100 hours playing this game. The battles are just a blast! the start off pretty easy and pick up with intensity and difficult as you go with several different types of enemies. some may want more enemies but I was happy with the number in game. The puzzles are a lot of fun as well. None of them are going to stretch your brain too hard but the game uses such a great utilization of motion control and VR that they are still fun to do. This game took me around 11 hours to beat the first time. As far as replayablity, I for one never get tired of jumping back in.
I cannot reccomend this game enough. Everything about it is just top notch! do yourself a favor and add this to your library,. because really,. you will either love it,. or you will be wrong! 11 out of 10!