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INCANTATION Company: Titus Released: December 1996 Genre: Side-Scroller Graphics: 7.0 Control: 6.0 Sound/Music: 6.5 Storyline: 6.5 Review by: Corbie Dillard ©2008 SUPER-NES.COM

If it's one genre of game that the Super Nintendo had a lot of offerings of, it's the side scroller. Some were good, some not so good. Incantation would fall in the latter category. It's easy to see the potential the game has, but unfortunately it just never seems to come together the way you wish it would. It really has some nice elements to it, but the lack of difficulty and the overall repetetive gameplay seem to bring this title down. You'd think a game released as late as 1996 would have much better visuals than Incantation does. It has it's moments of brilliance, but they're few and far between.  You character does have a smooth animation to him, but most other enemies, aside from the bosses, don't animate much at all. The bosses themselves are drawn fairly well and animate nicely, although still not to the degree of quality that the main characters shows. One of the few redeeming qualities of this title's graphics is the parralax scrolling. It's probably the only thing that kept me from giving the game a 5.0 to be honest. The bottom line is, when you do come across these few points in the game's levels that look really sharp, it only makes all of the other average visuals look even worse. This game was created near the very end of the Super Nintendo's lifespan and when you stack it up against the more impressive games of this time period, like Yoshi's Island or Kirby's Dreamland 3, the visuals in this game just seem flat and altogether uninspiring. If ever there was a game that you needed to turn the volume down while playing it's this one. Not only are the tracks bland for the most part, they're also extremely short which means they repeat over and over during the course of each level which makes them grate on your nerves even more. This is one of the poorest game soundtrack offerings I've ever encountered in a video game and is a complete travesty considering the power of the Super Nintendo's outstanding sound chip. Even the sound effects are annoying, especially the girlish squeal your character makes when he takes a hit. I'm not sure what the developers of this game were thinking, but it's fairly obvious that this soundtrack was thrown together at the last minute and that fact is realized quickly and painfully. It seems Titus wanted to be consistent when it came to the design of this game so much so that as mediocre as the music in the game is, the gameplay strongly follows suit. It's not much more than your basic run, jump, and shoot kind of side scroller. You control your little wizard, running and jumping at necessary times and even shooting with your magic wand. The hit detection isn't terrible, but it's not nearly as accurate as it should be for this type of game. I also didn't like the slight pause in between jumping and being able to shoot the wand. It made boss fights take a little getting used to, but luckily the game is so easy in most parts that it really didn't matter in the end. As I said above, the game has a few redeeming qualities, but most of these just never come together with the rest of the game to stand out as anything more than average. This might be a good game for very young children with it's easy level of difficulty, but serious side-scroller fans willl blow right through this one. Incantation has some decent visuals, but every other category in this game just feels terribly substandard. The game has a very rushed feel to it, and it's obvious that it could have used a lot more tweaking before it's release. If you're a side-scroller nut that's not too picky, you might actually enjoy this game. It's got just enough playability to warrant at least a once-over, but gamers who've been spoiled by the superiority of the later generation gems like Yoshi's Island are most likely going to be a little dissapointed in this mediocre effort. If you're looking for something a little different in a side-scroller you'd be better off giving Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel a try. It's got a lot more to offer than Incantation ever dreamed of.