Pros: Well known literary characters. Diverse and entertaining puzzles. Great artwork and music. Cons: Unfair penalties. Short. Azada is back with more new puzzles to complete and new mysteries to uncover in Azada: Ancient Magic. As the story reveals, you return to Uncle Argus’s library to help Tito reveal the mystery of the books. It turns out that a strong and powerful evil inhabits the books' pages. The situation gets worse and Tito needs your help again. Solve the puzzles contained in those magical books and help the book’s character find his card to free him. Tito gives you a magical medallion for staying in touch. Like the previous Azada, Azada: Ancient Magic is an adventure-like game that uses point-and-click mechanics. The books make up the levels, which are packed with many puzzles and items. You need just to choose one of the 21 books and the main character will present you his story. You’ll meet well known literary characters like Dracula, Robinson Crusoe, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. When you pick the book from the shelf, you step into the puzzle. There are usually several pages within a book. Move around the book to look for clues, puzzles and items that can be useful. When you find an item, it enters your inventory and stays there until it can be used. Don’t forget that some items can interact with one another in your inventory to create new items. In Azada, you had to complete puzzles one by one. In Azada: Ancient Magic, you can freely move around pages. Moreover, it is important to go from page to page as items for a single puzzle can be spread over multiple pages in the book. All the puzzles are interconnected and it is essential that if you miss something, you will open following puzzles. When you find the card and complete all scenes, you can free the main character by giving him his card. By the way, you can replay any puzzle game after you have unlocked it. Just choose a book to open its puzzle. If you are stuck, you can use hints. There are usually two hints per level and you can't earn extra hints. But the game is not too difficult, so two hints are enough. Furthermore, when you press the hint button, Tito asks you if you want to use a hint or lets you know that you need to move to another page and solve another puzzle. That is a kind of helpful, isn’t it? At least you know where to search. When the page is solved, you will see “page completed” note on the hint button. Additionally, you have orbs which allow you to skip some of the puzzles in case you don’t like them or struggle to complete them. Unlike its prequel, Azada: Ancient Magic has two game modes: Adventure and Relaxed. In Relaxed Mode, there are no time limits or no penalties. But in Adventure Mode, you can't use a hint for four. Plus, you're unfairly penalized at times if you experiment with various items on the screen. The puzzles in Azada: Ancient Magic are diverse and entertaining. You won't find Sudoku or slider puzzles. Instead, you'll enjoy original and fresh mini-games. For the most part, they are not very hard. They're rather challenging and intertwine nicely with the plot. Having completed a book, you may be asked to go to the upper level of Argus’ library where you will see an odd machine. A specific puzzle waits for you there. The characters’ cards are inserted into the machine and you have to find special symbols that are only seen using special lenses. When you find all the symbols, you have to arrange them according to the given pattern. That will help you to find out the source of wickedness in the library. Azada: Ancient Magic has gorgeous and eye-catching artwork. The music is the same as in the Azada, but enhanced with specially created soundtracks for each book. It gives each story a unique atmosphere. Azada: Ancient Magic is a nice and high quality game. Its only drawback is that the game is a bit short. But, this can be an advantage. Azada: Ancient Magic can please a many people especially adventure lovers and puzzle solvers. The game proves to one of the best among its rivals and is worth your attention.
