Good...but far from great
As was previously mentioned, this game is an enjoyable time waster. For a while. Then it just gets boring. After completing the Pyromancy spells and beating the end boss I have to say, that's plenty for me. I *could* go back and master the Frost and Divinity tiers. I *could* play the Survival mode. Truth be told, though...I just plain won't. I have no desire to play this after beating the boss, and while I am a little sorry to say that, I simply don't desire a replay. Lack of any kind of coherent story didn't help. I can accept the lack of plot in the name of gameplay, but I generally prefer something with a little more meat on its bones.
The graphics lack variety and aren't anything special in all their 8-bit glory. The music kind of takes center stage, and while I enjoy a good soundtrack as I hammer away at evil minions this one lacks variety and loops so frequently that I even got sick of the tunes. It was also mentioned before that the landscape has no variation: it's just grass, grass, and more grass. Dullsville.
The level cap isn't really such a bad idea in my opinion, but level 15 does seem like a really weird place to end the experience gain. Why not something that seems to make more sense, like 25 or 30? I do think that it would be nice to increase the leveling rate a little while raising the limit so that all three magic tiers can be mastered at the very least. To me that just seems like a no-brainer that will easily please all the completionists out there.
The last problem is kind of a big one for me, and that was how much the graphics slowed down the further I got in the game. It was awful, and the game is already a little on the slow side to begin with. By the time I got to level 8 it felt as though everything - main character, spells, enemies - were slogging through a stagnant bog. Considering the simplicity of the graphics this didn't really make sense...even when there were two dozen enemies on screen and I was constantly strafing magic spells to wipe them out.
Overall opinion: 6.5/10. I feel that the work put into this deserves more than a 6, and yet I also think that 7 is kind of generous at the same time. I'm being nice and rounding up on the stars, and really generous by voting 4 out of 5. Like I said early on, I enjoyed playing Wizard's Run through the boss. Good luck, and I hope you see these critical reviews as a challenge to ramp up your mad skills! Peace.