Fictorum - Review @ Gamereactor

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Gamereactor has reviewed the action RPG Fictorum:

Fictorum
A good spell-casting mechanic isn't enough to save Fictorum.

If we were to tell you an RPG existed that combined destructible environments with varied spell-casting you'd probably say that this sounded like something cool to try out, especially if you're inclined in the way of fantasy games, and at first glance of Scraping Bottom Games' Fictorum we also thought the same. This remained true for the first half an hour of play as well, but then the sheen of the initial idea and the fun mechanics wore off a little bit, and we started to see the cracks in Fictorum emerging.

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As the hours crept into our playthrough though, we found ourselves asking why we were bothering, and that's Fictorum's biggest shortcoming. After moving from peak to peak, battle to battle, map to map, it all starts to feel extremely repetitive, especially when you cycle through the same events on-screen as well. Granted, we pick up increasingly better gear, upgrade ourselves, and trade a bit, but all of this is just different methods to take on the same repetitive formula.

In short, the excellent spell-casting mechanic at the heart of Fictorum isn't enough to produce a well-rounded and enjoyable experience. Sure, it's great fun in the first hour or so to blow up buildings or multi-shot some enemies with your spells, but once you've done that time and time again over a number of different levels, the novelty wears off very quickly, so much so in fact that we found ourselves just rushing through levels to the portals to get done quicker. Without any meat to really sink your teeth into, then, Fictorum feels a little barebones, although we're interested to see if any other games will take a look at its spell-casting and learn something from it.

Score: 6/10​