Magic Academy sounds like a really cool game. The name itself inspires Harry Potter-like visions of wizards and magical creatures. The problem is that Magic Academy is nothing like that. It follows the main character attempting to discover the mystery behind their sister’s disappearance at the Magic Academy. Instructors, administrators, and others offer up their help in exchange for some help on your end. It’s a very flimsy premise, and while it may suit the genre, it’s a poor piece of narrative. The writing itself is also fairly tedious, and treats the player as if they’re simple-minded and wouldn’t understand complex words.

The visuals catch you off guard. You’re hit with beautifully painted backdrops, but you immediately realize something is off when even the characters are static visuals. Don’t get me wrong: as painted art, this stuff is pretty great. But that’s also its downfall.  The touchable items are too well blended in with the background, and having multiple versions of a single item (two mice, for instance) can frustrate a player very quickly. Add that the zooming doesn’t change the UI scaling, so the UI ends up covering portions of the game area, and the game itself becomes very visually frustrating, and the appeal of the beautifully painted art is lost. But what is off about these static visuals? What could be so wrong about this game?

And then it hits you. The reason why the game felt so “off” — it’s a damn eye-spy game. One of the most tedious and boring sub-genres of adventure/puzzle game, eye-spy games offer very little in the way of captivating gameplay, and Magic Academy doesn’t break the mold. The touch sensitivity and touch-boxes on the items are terrible, and the pinch-to-zoom counts as an item tap. The game does offer a visual hint button, but it’s on a very long cooldown, so it loses a lot of its “oh man, I’m saved” appeal very quickly. It’s entirely frustrating to play. Oh, but let’s not forget the horrible mini-games either. The first one you encounter appears to be one of those slider puzzles, but in actuality, it’s a very simple rotation puzzle. The fact that even the puzzles treat you like you’re simple-minded is maddening.

The music is probably the only redeeming quality of the game. It’s upbeat, it’s appropriately mystical sounding, but keeps that in check by staying mature in its tone. It’s just generally a nice example of decent fantasy music. Did I mention it’s also likely the only redeeming quality of this game?

The game isn’t cheap, by iOS standards, coming in at $2.99. I was surprised by the price: this game would probably be barely worth $.99 to an eye-spy lover. It’s shocking really, and the way the game is advertised in the pictures and blurb for it on the app store is an obvious marketing ploy, and not the actual way you’ll experience the game.

Magic Academy gets a 1/5, because it deals in absolute extremes. It’s either too slow, or too fast; too complex, or too simple. And even if you’re one of the rare few who enjoy eye-spy games, this isn’t even a good example of one. There is an abundance of poor design in this game and that takes away any redeeming qualities it has; it took all of my effort to slog my way through the game, tapping item after item, completing terrible mini-game after terrible mini-game. There are much better games than this, and better eye-spy games if that’s what you’re after.

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