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"'Dizzykins'?"

I don't give out perfect 10's as easily as some reviewers around gamefaqs.com. A game has to be really, really special to rate into the double digits with me, and even my most favorite games like Maniac Mansion or Robot Alchemic Drive usually have some foible that prevents it from taking home the gold. But there are a select few, like Magicland Dizzy.

You might know Dizzy, since he's the only egg to ever save the world. In his first adventure he killed the evil wizard Zaks and brought relative peace to his magical kingdom. Zaks has somehow returned from the dead, unfortunately, and cast a spell that has warped Dizzy and all of his egg pals into Magicland. Each is trapped by some kind of evil spell (Dylan, the nature boy, has beeen turned into a bush. Denzil, who thinks he's so cool, has been frozen solid, etc.). For some reason Zaks hasn't done anything to Dizzy, but it's good for his friends because he's free to find a way to save them all.

If you know Dizzy, you probably know what kind of game to expect already. Dizzy flips and climbs through the numerous and quickly changing landscapes of Magicland to find the items he needs to overcome various problems. Namely, restoring all of his friends to normal. But Magicland is the crowning achievement of the Dizzy series. No others can compare to it despite the similarities each entry in the series shares.

Magicland is a richer magical kingdom than Dizzy ever goes to in any of his numerous games. There's a castle dividing the land into halves (although at the far end there's another one, made of ice, which is Zaks' hideout). There's a swamp, a volcano, networks of platforms suspended in trees, and the ubiquitous underground tunnels holding hidden treasure. There's plenty of magic diamonds around to restore depleted health, and which are ultimately necessary to winning the game even once Dizzy's friends are found and Zaks is defeated, as in many other Dizzy games.

Maybe the mechanics don't sound like much, but it's hard to deny the charm of a Dizzy game once you sit down and play it, and never is that more true than in Magicland. I just wanted to see more of them, find more of its items and interact with more of its inhabitants, and most of all enjoy its catchy theme song for as long as I could.

The problems are also, for the most part, not as nerve-wrackingly difficult as in other adventure games, including other Dizzy games. As you go around and explore and find more things you can pick up, you'll probably begin thinking at once where you can use what, like that cross might protect Dizzy from the vampire, and that suspicious pellet might take care of the ghosts in the swamp...I suppose Dizzy's relative helplessness might turn some people off to the game, but if I feel like playing a game where I kill a monster rather than outsmart it, I got plenty of those to choose from.

This was the peak of the Dizzy series, and I can't think of anything I'd do to improve Magicland Dizzy. So it gets the coveted 10 out of 10, and my recommendation to any adventure gamers who might still be out there.


Reviewer's Score: 10/10 | Originally Posted: 06/25/04