Sometimes life throws the most profound and unexpected conundrums our way. What is truth? Is free will real or just an illusion?
Where is the line between insanity and creativity? What makes a doggo the Goodest Boy or Girl? Is this lamp edible?
Luckily, Super Cane Magic ZERO has some answers for you.
Super Cane Magic ZERO Review
Developed by Team Evil in conjunction with Italian comic artist Sio, Super Cane Magic ZERO invites you to lean into the absurd. The game takes the tried-and-true rogue-like action RPG formula and turns it into something utterly comedic.
It’s a game about dogs, food, aliens and magic, set in the vibrant and zany world of WOTF in which sentient cakes rule and literally everything is edible.
Super Cane Magic ZERO casts you as its amnesiac protagonist tasked with saving the planetoid from a havoc-wreaking magical dog named “AAAH!”
Which is probably the best name for a crazy dog that I’ve ever heard.
A Magical Dog With a Shady Past and Nothing Left to Lose
It’s immediately obvious that the game bakes hilarity into every facet. You’ll choose between four classes. Each has its own unique special abilities like fiery bacon explosions, chilly outbursts and healing candy.
The classes have a complex set of stats that can be enhanced with some seriously top-shelf gear as you progress.
My favourite stat is Ego, which “Influences the effectiveness of your special ability. The effectiveness is 100%.”
Checks out.
You’re helpfully dropped into a tutorial stage, marked by signs with instructions on how to interact with the world around you and how to progress.
I found some of the instructions a bit difficult to follow; rather like trying to decipher IKEA instructions. I’m a simple person. But once I grokked what they meant, the mechanics turned out to be beautifully simple.
Makin’ Bacon Pancakes
Picking up items is the name of the game. If you can pick it up, you can throw it. Even better, if you can pick it up, you can eat it.
I like that in a game.
An awful lot of the fun lies in discovering what results eating a particular item might have. Some snacks available for your delectation are better for you than others; they might increase your strength or add health and buffs.
Some inanimate objects are mildly bad for you and others will see you explode. For instance, some objects that I’m proud to report I’ve eaten have included lava doughnuts, a lamp, a Game Boy, a severed foot, and several varieties of rock.
Because of course.
He Protec, He Attac
But eating everything in sight—whilst endlessly entertaining—is not the only fun to be had. Fighting baddies is a delight, from the range of characters and their abilities through to the mechanics you can choose to employ to defeat them.
You can pick up items and throw them at your enemy, hit them with your equipped weapons, use your special abilities, or pick them up and throw them into lava or a wall. I’m not the most talented or methodical fighter, but I spent a lot of time cackling at my favoured maneuver: picking up one enemy to throw at another.
Meta AF.
The game makes fights a relatively simple affair (unless you’re playing on “Party Hard” mode; in which case, God help you). Controls for this are beautifully simple and intuitive, on both keyboard and controller. Fights don’t ultimately require much strategy to win, but it’s hugely satisfying to win a fight in the most ridiculous circumstances possible.
In time you’ll gain points to drop into your talent tree (or “beliefs”, bless). These talents will give you new abilities or increase your stats. For example, deciding whether to have a frozen outer shell or a meteor occasionally come to my aid was the first big choice I made.
Naturally, I chose the meteor. Because meteor.
However, as cool as the talents are, they are a tad repetitive. I’d have liked to see a few more unique talents thrown in there, but it’s a minor gripe.
Fancy Pants
If all of this wasn’t ludicrous enough, the story itself is an absolute hoot. It’s barely cohesive and feels like an outrageous plot featuring improbable characters conjured up by a super-imaginative child (Axe Cop, anyone?), and animated with shades of Adventure Time. And it absolutely, somehow, works.
I’m not exactly sure why I ended up in a horse dimension in my pursuit of a crazy magical dog previously owned by a cake-loving wizard, but once I embraced the experience, I was totally down for it.
The icing on this cake salad is its relationship-and-teamwork-testing local multiplayer modes. Players can team up to 4 players to co-op their way through the story mode—which is not only hilarious but super helpful and efficient when it comes to solving puzzles—or go head-to-head in several quirky arena settings.
I thought soloing the game was fun, but then I tried multiplayer. Experiencing the game with a friend or several takes it to a whole new level of ridiculous.
Super Cane Magic ZERO is a joy to experience. Once you’ve accepted that you’re not in Kansas anymore, you’re in for a wild ride.
Super Cane Magic ZERO was reviewed on PC using a digital code provided by Studio Evil.
PowerUp! Reviews
Game Title: Super Cane Magic ZERO
Game Description: A joyfully absurd rogue-like action RPG in the style of Adventure Time.
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Everything is food - 10/1010/10
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Hilarious cast of characters - 9/109/10
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Choose your own combat style - 8.5/108.5/10
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Option to play co-op or arena adds a new (though not necessarily a horse) dimension - 9/109/10
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Quirky Adventure Time vibes - 8/108/10
