Near-Mage is an adventure taking place in Romania, the country where indie developer Stuck In Attic of Gibbous – A Cthulhu Adventure fame is based. A trip down the world of realms beyond the sight of common people, the tale follows a young lady in her summer vacation in Transylvania – where she discovers that she has magic abilities. With marvellously coloured scenes, great handcrafted animation, and the feeling that this is Harry Potter’s brother from another mother, this ought to be good.
Sadly, despite being an obvious labour of love, there are a lot of things that keep Near-Mage from being a pleasant experience.
Ilinca ‘Illy’ Vraja, a brainy but indecisive young lass spends most of her time with a controller in hand than a career path in mind, to the dismay of her parents. A mysterious letter by her mysterious great-aunt Domnica provides a short-term solution: fly away from the USA and towards Romania to spend some time in a calm little town. Relax, have fun, and maybe find the will to decide what to do with her future.
Illy soon pulls away the veil of mundane reality and discovers Rakus; a hidden world where the supernatural is real, and an institute teaches the art of “magick”. In a plot twist one could see a mile away, it turns out that the heroine comes from a long bloodline of witches, and she now has the chance to enrol into what is basically an Eastern European Hogwarts.
The concept of a school for magicians screams Harry Potter. A secret place with its own traditions, a variety of different kinds of mythological creatures, and even the logo of Near-Mage. Everything . It is very much like a Harry Potter fanfic. Some characters and creatures look like barely altered variations of the originals – just so this won’t receive a cease-and-desist order. For example, the owl-like critters that act as the mail service of the institute. As a member, Illy attends classes where she learns “near-spells” – basic elemental magic that can then be combined to create incantations of all kinds to complete all sorts of missions.
Unfortunately, despite its magical concept and promise of puzzle-solving blended with RPG mechanics, Near-Mage is a visual novel wearing an adventure game costume. Problems need zero thinking, amounting to fetch quests with most of the challenge stripped away by overenthusiastic glowing hands that point in the right direction. Spellcasting, while sometimes inventive, is ultimately reduced to automatic and largely ornamental interactions. A glowing pendant signals when and where the main character can use magick, turning what would be a time for creative experimentation into a glorified “use key on door” moment.
The handholding is generally so excessive it might as well be “Polyjuice Potion” made from training wheels. It rarely lets you to solve anything on your own. If you’re looking for something that needs the use of some good ‘ol grey matter, try elsewhere. The only thing that can occasionally “challenge” players is navigation – due to needing to find the next scripted event in line, not because there’s something here that requires any effort. Okay, in defence of the game, maybe sometimes you just want to enjoy a fairytale without the hassle of puzzle-solving.
So, how does this fare on the storytelling department? While Near-Mage opens as a promising Young Adult-esque coming-of-age tale of a girl finding her place, it focuses less on Illy’s personal journey and more on a – predictable – main story that soon loses its steam. A sluggish pacing that makes it hard to stay interested. There are many branching dialogue sequences with plenty of moral dilemmas and the like, but the writing is kind of… soulless, making it hard to care.
The perfect example of how soulless everything is would be Rakus itself, the corners of which are filled with numerous NPCs that give life to what would otherwise be just a bunch of pretty backgrounds. There’s a clear effort to imbue the world with heart and humour, yet few amongst the crowd (if any) have anything of substance to say. Unfortunately, Illy is disappointingly flat as well. She rarely shows any strong sentiment despite all the wackiness around her, and the voice-acting is a bit too monotone.
There’s a sense that nothing truly changes. Illy learns spells but doesn’t grow as a person or a mage. A shame, really, because just by looking at Near-Mage it’s obvious that the team behind this poured its soul into it. Every single locale is brimming with an enchanting aura, with the dark blues, oranges, reds and purples mixing gorgeously with the eternal twilight of Rakus. Even the non-magic town of Sighișoara is extra colourful, much like its real-life counterpart.
The more simplistic colouring of the characters due to a lack of decent shading makes them stand out like paper cutouts, but their animation is top-notch. As mentioned before there’s an astonishing number of bizarre fellows walking around. Finally, as the cherry on top of this beautiful cake, Illy can change clothes and hairstyles. Too bad the dressing is more interesting than what’s underneath…
A shame as I do love the art style and direction on this one!