Take control of the Wizball and fight to restore the lost colors to the gray and lifeless world.

Story

Wiz and his magical cat had been living happily in the brightly colored Wizworld until one day… A malevolent force angered by the lush colors seeks to eliminate all brilliance and thus drains all the colors from Wizworld. The evil Zark and his horrible minions revel in the new, gray and lifeless Wizworld. Wiz and his pet cat decides that this can’t go on and takes matters into their own hands. They now set out to restore Wizworld to its former glory.

The Game

Wizball is an innovative horizontally scrolling shoot ’em up game in which you play as the Wizball. Your goal is to collect various colors to color the very world you play in. This is done by shooting floating color balls that, when defeated, falls down as droplets of their corresponding colors. Before the drop hits the ground and scatters, you must collect it with the magical cat that flies around with you in a small capsule. You have access to three stages at a time and the different stages host differently colored balls. Once you know what colors are needed for any given stage you need to find out in which of the three stages you can find that color. You transport between the different stages through holes in the ground, and as you unlock new stages the same old holes may take you to new places. As if this wasn’t challenging enough, the stages are filled with Zark’s minions that are out to get you.

Content

When the game starts, you are very vulnerable and have limited fire power. The Wizball will bounce up and down, and you have limited control of it. Before Zark’s minions start roaming the stage, you are given a chance to collect some power-ups that will give you more control over your vessel, and more powerful weapons. The power-ups are green pearls that are dropped by some of the enemies. The magical cat capsule (known as the Catellite) is a power-up you need to get before you can start collecting color drops. Wizball will die from one single hit and some enemies can be fast and surprise you when you least expect it, so this is by no means an easy game.

The various power-ups that can be collected include special thrusters that allow you to control Wizball while it is in air, antigravity functionality that makes Wizball float giving you full control of its movement and various weapons. There’s also the Smart Bomb that kills everything on screen and special shields that will protect you and the Catellite for a limited time. Sometimes you will also encounter magical white drops come from those color balls. These give you extra lives and are a total necessity. Some other special drops exist such as the blue one that calls the “filth patrol” (Zark’s police minions) to the scene.

When you manage to fill one cauldron on the stage with the right color, you’ll get the chance to play the bonus stage where enemies keep swarming the screen and your goal is to survive for as long as possible. After that you’ll get to select a permanent power-up. Normally you lose your collected power-ups and weapons upon death, but these are permanent. This makes it much easier to get back on track if you should die, and is a much welcomed feature.

Once you have the necessary power-ups your control over Wizball is good. It will roll around in mid air as you command but it will still bounce off of surfaces you bump into and you need to take the momentum of speed into consideration when avoiding enemies and enemy bullets. The game does an excellent job at balancing the amount of action going on at the same time – intense and easy moments interchange constantly and keeps the sense of tension alive.

The biggest strength with this game is its hooking ability. Once you get the game and its quirks and start making progress in it, it will be hard to let it go. It’s fun an addictive to collect the colors and see how the colors change the world around you. The game becomes increasingly harder for each stage, but simply curiosity may demand you to beat the current stage and witness the next one.

There is a perplexing quirk in the game that makes it possible to avoid enemy bullets completely by flying close to the ground. I have not been able to figure out if this is a feature or a bug, but it can be exploited to some extreme lengths. Especially when it means that you can hide the Wizball close to the ground while the Catellite takes care of the enemies, relatively risk-free.

Multiplayer

Wizball can be played with one to four players taking turns or in a two player co-op mode where player one controls the Wizball and player two controls the Catellite. Playing this way makes the game much easier because otherwise you would have to control the Wizball and the Catellite by yourself – and while maneuvering the Catellite you would need to temporarily give up the controls with the Wizball. (This is done by holding down the fire button).

The Catellite is a very flexible weapon and can suffer multiple hits before it is destroyed. So in two player mode it could act as your main weapon against the numerous enemies as well.

Graphics

The graphics in Wizball depicts the world of Wizworld beautifully. Seeing the stages get colored in as you play and progress through the game is a neat treat in itself. It surely helps keeping the environments fresh and interesting. Both the enemies and stages are varied, so there’s definitely plenty for you to see and explore here. Even though the action can get really intense from time to time the game keeps running smoothly, with only minor frame rate drops.

Sound

The music in this game has pretty much reached a legendary status by now. The theme song is very dreamy and mystic – some kind of ambient electronic moody tune is going on there. White it doesn’t exactly sound like something coming from a shoot ’em up game, it still a great addition to the game and builds up a strange atmosphere. The high score music mixes a bossa nova type rhythm with a melancholic synth sound. It’s kind of experimental but manages to make a long-lasting impression. The sound effects are very iconic to this game – you’ll hear the Catellite meow, your lasers go off, and it sounds great.

Summary

Wizball is an perfect example of what can be done by simply mixing a standard side scrolling shoot ’em up game with some new fresh ideas. There is really no other game quite like it, so in that respect the game stands on its own. With two players blasting away and searching for those color drops the game is an incredible experience. If you play alone there’s a risk that the challenges in the game might overwhelm you, but if you give it a few tires you’re sure to develop the skills to handle it. Everyone who has a thing for shoot ’em ups should give this game a good try. Chances are that they too will embrace it as one of the coolest games ever made.

Developed By: Sensible Software
Published By: Ocean Software
Version Reviewed: Commodore 64
Genre: Shoot ‘em Up
Players: 1-4 Alternating
Also Available On: Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Amiga, Atari ST, DOS, Virtual Console
Released: 1987