PC Longplay [590] Magic Carpet 2: The Netherworlds

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Played by: Eino
ABOUT THE GAME: The original Magic Carpet was developed by Bullfrog and released in 1994. This sequel was released the following year. Magic Carpet was one of the most innovative games of its time and 20 years later there's still nothing quite like it out there. Some individuals have been trying to remake the game, but those projects have yet to produce anything substantial. This sequel is better than the original in almost every way. New type of cave levels give much needed variation and expand different approaches for achieving specific goals. Spell experience is a welcome addition. It not only increases the number of spells available, but also allows more tactical freedom for the player to decide mana cost vs. effectiveness. Many spells are not very useful though, at least in single-player mode. There are also more monster types and narration during levels. In addition to intro, couple of cutscenes in the game where the boss guy is shown to summon new types of creatures and be bossy. Besides that there is not much actual story and the speeches in levels are there mostly for the atmosphere. Only complaint is that the game is easier than the first one and not much of a challenge to complete. It is though fun to figure out new ways to complete it faster and with different tactics. The first game has too many levels without enough variation and even if it had an innovative concept, the levels get too repetitive. The sequel was only released for DOS, unlike the first game that got ported to PSX and Sega Saturn. The sequel is sadly not as well known, at least in part because lack of console ports. Console versions however don't manage to do the game justice: Those are slow, have worse graphics and require to be played with a console controller, not allowing proper control of the game. Similarly with some other DOS games, this one is a bit unstable when played in 640x480 resolution and has some bugs, probably the release was rushed. Some levels are really difficult to get through without crashing if playstyle is too aggressive. For the last three levels I disabled all visual effects, it helped with these problems.
ABOUT THE LONGPLAY: Every secret level is shown, 100 % spells collected in all level and no deaths. In many levels bonus experience scrolls can be obtained with some specific trigger, for example killing every creature of specific type etc. In few early levels I used a cheat to kill all creatures after completing the level just to show secrets in these levels, but after that I didn't bother. However, all the fast to get scrolls obtained by killing creatures are shown. There's no need to get these extra bonuses and no challenge killing every minor creature manually. Actually by using the cheat spell exp normally accumulated by killing these creatures was lost. If some spells are not acquired at first chance for example by missing secret levels, spells can be obtained later from enemy wizards. I didn't remember there was an option menu for adjusting volume when pausing ingame. Otherwise I would've done so, volume is set to max as default and SFX get distorted at times as a result. Sorry about that. -
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