I dont think its bad, but...

[OutofPlace51]

(quick mention: I mention the first game having a demo and this is technically true. From what I remember, there was one that you could play before the game if you asked the dev for a very early copy of the game. From what I can remember, there was only one biome that would go on for infinidom and the game would get harder and harder. You could buy some arcana and relics and robes like this demo, but there was a bit more to it. Even if I frequently compare these demos in this quick review, I dont think that they are completely equal, as I assume that more time was put into that demo than this demo so far. So dont think its entirely fair to compare the two demos YET! I assume since I got an update to this demo recently, that they may regularly update the demo and add more spells, tweak the game, and whatnot. So take my comparisons with a grain of salt.)
Also, I have to post this review in chunks cause its too long. Oof.

[OutofPlace51]

Ill start with what I like:
* I like many of the arcana, especially the wind basic arcana. Was fun zooming into opponents and doing a one two, and makes the game alot more fast pased than if you dont have it. Some of the other ones felt nice too like the rock kick. I'll go more into it later. I do also like the signatures and them being easier to charge than last game, due to how this games combat works, talk more bout that later too.
* This may be a bit of a controversial one, but I like the spell upgrade system. Theres the basic give spells bonus stat up, and the enchanting it into a better version. I'll talk about the enchants later, but I'll say that there are some fun ones like dragon dance. I do like the stat bonuses too, especially giving the wind basic crit up. Makes it nice.
* Im not sure how to feel about the cursed relics, but I think I like them? They're kinda generic so far, but its a demo, so I understand. I do like that there are chaos enemies in the portals to get the cursed relics though. I like the concept of the chaos enimies and I feel like this is something the first game could have, and I like having the cursed relics be a bit balanced by having you work a bit for them. Dont get me wrong, theyre cursed relics, but some of them are just strictly good with almost no downsides so its neet putting a bit more effort to get them. Wish there was a bit more to it, but again, a demo.
* I like fighting optional minibosses. Theyre no joke some of the funnest bosses in the demo. You'll rarely see them, but if you do, theyre neet. Except the chest one, but well talk bout em later.
* Umm..... I like that only pots give you gold and resources so you dont have to individually break every breakable in the dungeon... Im not sure how true that is, but it seems to be a higher chance for pots specificallty.
* Anything else? I guess I like the concept of seeing the final boss at nearly the start of the game? At least I'm assuming hes the final boss since thats what they said in the dialogue.

[OutofPlace51]

Okay, thats the positives, now lets get on with what I didnt like:
* This is really oversaid and I don't think it's that bad, but... The graphics. They re okay, but honestly really remind me of a copy pasta of Hades. Other than that, theyre not horrid, they work. But I wouldve either preferred an extension of the pixel graphic or something more unique looking. I feel like a 3d art style couldve worked. Just look at risk of rain 2, Originally a pixel art game, then transformed game entirly, but kept the basic. And people do like risk of rain 2. They can make it work, they just havent seem to have done it.
* The characters and writing. Id rather not dive deep into them, so to keep it short. I dont mind the tournament guy, the architect can be okay. But everything else, even the things I just mentioned, can be kinda cringe. Its not the worst I've heard I guess, and can sometimes be charming, but usually is kinda eh. I wont dive more into it since its the least gameplay focused thing, but it meh, moving on.
* Some of the most generic maps ever. Will usually be one path with some paths that lead to one room hordes, a side boss, or a shop. The main path is known through some sparklez that lead to the end. There are probs at least 4-5 manatory horde rooms from the start to the end of the dungeon. A few of them will have an elite enemy or two to make things different. There might be a portal to a cursed relic trial or a tourdament where youll fight either multiple elites or a miniboss. The end will either have nothing the first time, heal the second time, and both shops the third time. There also will be one relic choice at the start, and there will be chests and arcana upgrades. The chests will either have curency, (both types), some healing, and/or a relic. I spent all this time explaining all of this to tell you that this is very generic and alot worse than the first game. The fact that the dungeons are alot more generic and samey than the demo to the first game should say something itself. I dont want to also explain the first games map in great detail or we be here forever, but basically, the dungeon is a whole lot bigger and randomizes all of its paths and rooms. Every floor has a mini boss to fight to get to the next floor so the end actually has some more trial to finish the floor on so theres actually a fun end to the floor. The game doesn't tell you exactly where the end is, so your basically required to explore unless you have the map relic, and to profit from this, there isn't just a side path that leads to one reward every bit and then, there can basically be whatever anywhere and its up to you to figure out your options based on what rooms you can go to. To be fair, the first wizard of legend, you can basically just mindlessly wander around in the early sections and eventually get what you want and there isn't really a strategy to reach the end quicker without the map, so I can see that as a flaw with the first games floors, but that doesn't mean the game should dum its floors down so its basically a straight line that has bonus rewards if i go left for a minute then go straight back on the path. And to continue a bit more, why isnt there a map? Once you get to the end of the floor, you can teliport straight back there from anywhere on the floor. If you wanted to find a shop you were saving for to get that one relic or spell or wanted to pickup that spare healing orb, gotta backtrack and check every room if you dont know exactly where it is. At least you can teliport back quickly from anywhere, so I guess thats the latter half done? For being a sequel to the first game, there doesn't seem to be much of anything besides the basics that these games share map design wise. I could also explain more about gold being stingyer and thus having less kit than in the first game purly because of the map size, but I dont want to go any deeper, since theres alot more to cover, and I want to sleep. Anyways, if there was something that if the devs only took one things out of this quick review, I'd be happy if it was just this.
* The enemies are really generic. As stated above, I like the idea of the chaos enemies, but thats honestly the only ones that stood out to me. From what I can tell, theres the generic skelly class enemies (basic, archer, digger, spawner, I guess shaman), earthy enemies, (small rock, big rock, rock spawner, ent guy, plant shooter), buggy enemies, (dragonfly, mucus shooter), and elite versions of the ent, big rock, shaman dude, digger, and any others I couldnt remember. If I had to guess, there will be enemies based on different elements like the rock/plant guys in the forest to reflect the different elements and the generic enemies get more strength and attacks as you go up the levels. Anyway, I think it's fair to say these enemies arent as fun to fight as the original. I dont think I have to explain it more than that these enemies are really bland. The only ones that seem interesting outside of the chaos ones are the digger, spawners. and the elites. The rest seem really generic and all dont really fill much more than the basic stuff. And I hope that this isnt the case and this is just the begining of them. Cause I can see potential for world building sake for the ememies to be more wildlife like compared to the first games more human and dungeon dwelling like enemies. However, the first games enemies are established better since the very start of the first games demo just by each of the basic enemies serving a different purpose in attacking you and challenging you. From the theif who tries to sneak up to you, the archer who will try to hit you with near perfect hits that you have to dash around, the mage that fires plenty of projectiles meant to be weaved around, the warrior that is meant to be the basic one and keep your attention, the spearman with deadly reach that can outrange you if your blindly running straight at him, and the summoner that can summon more things to annoy you as your dealing with all the other things. And I just mentioned the basic common enemies. There were plenty of enemies that kept you on your toes in plenty of different ways. TO be fair to this, it is just a demo. However, considering the first games demo, I think its fair to compare the ememies and say that the first games ememies were much more interesting to fight for the most part. I personally think to help with this aside from having the enemies get stronger forms as the game goes on, the main thing they should do is just add more enemies, preferably just add more of the enemies from the first game. I'd even take having only a few of the enemies appear as chaos enemies as a nod to the first game, this game should reference the first game more that one mid boss and some arcana. Idk, just some food for thought as I don't think that the enemies are even that big of a problem for this demo compared to some other things. Just make less generic enemies please.
* The bosses and combat in this game are different. This is probably my most nitpickyart of this review, but lets go anyway. Lets start with the combat first to explain the bosses better later. Specifically with either boss enemies and elite enemies, they will have a bar below their health that will go up as you use attacks on them. Once it fills up to max, it will show that they are staggered and they will be vulnerable to damage for a little amount of time. I dont personally like this mechanic much compared to the first games stagger. Its more complicated and in my opinion, takes away a bit more of what I like with the first games boss combat. To make it short, bosses in the first game always had a set attack amount they did before giving a window of stagger. When you hit them during this window, they will be staggered and have a certain amount of stars over their head depending on what they were staggered with. You can have them gain stars or lengthen the time it takes for the stars to go away (Im not going to mechanically research exactly which one it is since I'd rather not this be any longer than it is, but I bet it's one of them) and the amount the stun will either decrease or the amount you can increase the stun will decrease/increase for how long the boss is stunned (again, not going too deep into this, so idk which one exactly. And also, If im wrong about how wizard of legend 1s boss stagger machanic works at all or if im missing something, please tell me since I'd rather not go too too deep with super mechanical stuff and know exactly how everything works before giving my personal opinion, thanks.) This mechanic's whole thing is the oportunity to get your full combo off for a super satisfying combo of spells and frequent enough to where its constantly satisfying and your constantly being able to use you spells as effectivly as you can. Now I know that this new system isn't bad. It does encourage you more to do more risky plays than the first one, and i do think that this system can work, its jsut that there are some problems with it and those problems make me prefer the first games boss stagger more. Those problems being that the staggar is very inbalanced. You see, there is a specific boss in this demo that perfectly shows all my problems i have with this games boss staggar. That being the stupid fera-torr clone boss. Or the ogre ill call it for short. You see, bosses attack patterns in this game are very different from the first game. Elites are basically the same from what I can tell, they just pause instead of giving a staggar window like the last games mini bosses. The main bosses however act a bit differently. This now sounds very obvious, but imma mention it anyway since i wrote the earlier stuff anyway just for this stuff, so lets go. So when the boss does an attack, they will pause for a moment, the time differs between each boss, and then attack again. The attack will be ranged or melee depending on your distance to the boss. This isnt a major problem, but I personally think the pause times should be a bit longer because some of these attacks can be kinda mean. Especially with some of the bosses, there is little choreographs for when they are doing certain attacks, especially melee attacks. This can be a problem with the ogre boss with him constantly using melee swings anytime your trying to up his meter, it can catch you of guard many times before getting used to it. Doesnt help either that he has another melee attack that he slams into the ground and then slowly has the green stuff go forward (idk why its green, but its see-able so I guess it works) to where if you dash backwards, itll hit you most likely, so your best bet is to dodge to the side when dodgning ogre melee. Another boss imma bring up to help show my point sis the lightning mid boss. Since his little ring attack he does as his melee goes as he does a dash, pauses for a tiny time, then does an orbiting boomerang lightning attack. Probably the second meanest attack a boss can throw at you, especially for newer players that would assume that very breif pause would be longer and would be an opportunity to attack (defenatly wasn't something I did myself a few times). So why am I bringing this up. My main problem is the best way to dodge any boss attack, especially their melee attacks is to abuse dodge i-frames. For all of the boss attacks that I mentioned, I would normally tell myself that its just skill issue and that I should just learn their patterns better and defeat them once I've done that. Even if all of that is true, (I wont lie), I personally feel like learning their attack patterns turns into just learn what attacks give you time to up the staggar bar and press space at the right time when the enemy does their attack. And since im up in their face most of the time, they will mostly do only their melee attacks and move twords me or do maybe one dash to the side, so especially with the earth mid boss, if you are rushing him, he will ALWAYS only do his one two dash punch, or his 5 punch attack, and if you don't kill him fast enough, he will maybe do his aoe earth signature. Ive only seen him do his drill spam and his other moves (I forgot them since ive only seen his two melee attacks and maybe the drill one for most of my runs), if he is at a distance from me when I retreat to far from his melees'. The i-frames abuse being basically the best choice is perfectly shown with the lightning bosses lightning chain attack, as with the slower movement in this one that the first one, and that the area to get to the safe zone is a long distance that Im not actually sure you can get to unless you already knew exactly where it was going to be, so instead of dashing to the safezone and taking damage, just abuse i-frames until he is finished, then go back to getting his stagger bar up. Just one other thing I want to mention about bosses, especially with the ogre boss, if you dont have the right spells or the right spell combo prepared for staggaring elites, especially against the ogre boss, then these boss fights become alot more of attrition fights where you poke the boss and sloowwly get his meter up til you finally get the staggar so you can use your combo. This can make a fight last much longer and in my honest opinion, less fun. Also, last thing since this is super long and this has been going on too long, the chest optional boss stinks. It has almost no choreographs and its water ball attack has basically none and is annoying as all to dodge. Basically all I think would need to be done to make boss combat funner would be make the staggar bar be slightly easier to raise and have the staggar time last a bit longer to have it be more in line with he first games staggar. Also make bosses not repeat the same attacks based mostly on your distance to them. Have them dash more to evade you if you must, just let them use mroe of their attacks. I dont know how you would change Thats it, now onto the next point. If there was something in this long page of text that seems wrong, tell me since I wanna move on.

[OutofPlace51]

* The balancing. It needs work. I think that would be obvious enough since this is an early demo, but I want to clarify a bit. Specifically with two arcanas. The air arrow standard and the enhanced wind punch basic. Basically, from what I can tell, the staggar bar on elites and bosses goes up more with attacks took than with damage took. So basically with certain arcana, especially the wind arrows, if you just go to their face and use it full blast, they are basically staggared. It would go to a point that I would staggar a boss with the wind arrows, and then save the recharged versiopn until their staggar was down so I can immediately get it back up again. This gets to the point to where I can basically beat the mid bosses in about 15~20 seconds if I'm lucky enough with their attacks. Then if you upgrade the arrows with the boomerang effect, then its just straight up broken. Even the ogre boss would be nearly staggared in only one attack, and anything else is staggared without fail. I think if it hasnt been thought up already, this should be the proven case that the devs should look at making the staggar bar scale more with damage than with attack amount. And probably also nerf the air arrows as well. On the other hand, there are some just weaker attacks that kinda stink. To be fair, wizard of legend 1 also has this problem, but what it didnt have was enchanted spells being straight up worse than their unenchanted versions. I dont have too many examples since I mostly played with only around 6~ spells, so ill go with one that is basically a nerf, but could be seen as an upgrade. The air punch basic arcana is fun and great. You zoom to an enemy and punch em alot, its fun. Its 'enhanced' version is just worse. Its whole point is that every attack you do forcibly dashes you forward. And sure, if you wanna dodge something or quickly swap attacking enemies, sure itll dash you. However, saying you will dash into the enemy and stick to them to do your attacks is wishing for too much. Most of the time, youll either dash right past them or slide around them when you do stick. And since basics are your msot reliable way to up a boss's staggar meter, this can really screw you over if you were hoping for a more powerful combo attack or some more aoe. Anyway, since this is a demo, this is obviously something that will be fixed as the game goes on.
* The rougelite elements are really generic. First off, the weird orb in the top of the hub basically is your basic rougelite make game easier with currency thing. Want a ton of starting money? There you go. Want extra hp, you got it. Basically some very generic, 'make game easier' options. Can't say I enjoy this, and can't say anything more since I never used it. Same with the robes as they are alot more generic than in the first game. The only two robes that wernt just minor buffs or something that only mattered at the start were the signature charge one and the damage one. Those ones I could see in the first game, but still could be better, since at lease the signare charge robe in wizard of legend 1 has at least two buffs and not just one. Also, just a pet peeve, but hope they make the red robe actually give a buff after getting other robes like the first game so its not just useless. Thats it, there aint much compared to the nightmare paragraphs above.
* The arcanas and their 'enchants'. Just to keep this short since I already explained it above in balancing a bit. I will say, I do like many of the arcana. Some of them being from the first game, some of them are new. And as I said, I like about half of them, the other half are kinda meh though. A pattern you will see with many of the 'new' arcana. Lets take the fireball basic for example. When you use it, just a basic fireball combo. Okay, guess its new, kinda seems a bit more generic than before. But then you find its enchant, and its literally just the fire yo-yo basic from the first game. As you will see, many of the current arcana are just downgraded versions of a first games arcana, then they have an enchant that just brings them back to form. I can understand why they did this, as theres theoretically alot of arcana in the full version, and at least twice as many enchanted versions. So I can understand that part, but still feel kinda lazy. I would prefer they either just bring back the arcana and make better enchanted versions of those, or just focus on making more new arcanas.
* The little things. Mainly some little bugs and missing things that brought down my experience a little bit. Honestlky, if I was a betting man, these things would probably be the only things in this review that would be fixed. Here we go:
- I will mention this again. No map. Would love a map in a dungeon crawler.
- When you change the volume settings and exit the game and reopen it, the settings only apply after the loud intro. My ears hurt and would prefer the whole experience to be quieter.
- When I change the controls, the ui that displays the button to press to interact or use the arcana doesnt change. So if you change interact to and your artifact slot to f. The interact button ui will still be f and the 5th arcana slot button will still display r. This is a simple thing that messes with my brain and thus forces me to keep the default controls. Please fix.
- The lock on seems to either lock onto not where your mosue is pointing, but to the closest thing in the direction your character is going to attack to. So if I point my mouse at an enemy and theres a fence post to my right, my attack will be locked ontot he fence and will continue to be attacked even if I want to attack the enemy until I either move to a better spot or destroy the fence. Its not a big thing, but does make the game more akward to play.

[OutofPlace51]

And those are my main thoughts on the demo. Overall, I do like this game and do think its pretty fun, but I do see alot of problems with it and for now, prefer most things from the first game. Even if this is a demo, it does reflect on where they play to take the game, so I think its fair to compare this to the first, at least to a certain extent. And I do like thing in this demo, and hope they keep and improve on those elements. However, these things dont make me ignore the things that just seem worse or more generic than the first game, having it lose plenty of its charm that the first one thrived in. I hope they take some of the feedback and evolve what they have and not just repeat the first game like what many people in the general discussions seem to want. Anyway, I tired and want this quick review to eb over, so I'll stop here. If I got anything wrong or if theres anything more you want to say, just comment below and tell me something.

Oh yea, almost forgot:
6/10

[OutofPlace51]

One last thing, I miss the dash arcana. There religated to being a relic now. Other than wondering if you can stack them, I do miss them dearly.

[OutofPlace51]

One more thing I missed and yes, it be long already, but just wanna add this. The basic arcana upgrade crystals let you choose a basic Stat upgrade for one of your spells, a total of three options, with one being free, and the rest being 25-50 gold. Now, my problem with this one is that you can't opt out of choosing an upgrade once you click on it. So if you are short on gold or maybe want to save the gold just in case a shop shows up with a good relic, you can't pless on the crystal. Now maybe this would be fine and could see this maybe being another thing to manage, if it weren't for the fact that if you want to find it again, you have to backtrack to each room until you find it again since again, no map. Not something big, but pet peeve I had with the upgrade system.