"WARLOCKED!"
—The game making its love of digitized speech clear as soon as you turn on the game
A real-time strategy game made by Bits Studios and released for the Gameboy Color in 2000, it is noticeably one of the only strategy games ever put out for the system. In the game, you can play as one of two distinct factions, the Humans led by Queen Azarel or the Beasts led by Chief Zog who each have their own separate campaigns... So in others words, it is Warcraft for the GBC.
To the game's credit, it was able to get a genre that is usually best played on computers to not only be enjoyable on the GBC but actually control quite well on a system with a tiny screen and only four buttons. It is also has a unique addition in the form of Wizards, various magicians whom you will find in various missions. Each Wizard has very specific powers: some like Fire Wiz are offensive and will set enemies aflame killing them instantly, others give you buffs while they are out like Brick Wiz who strengthens your guard towers, and some have unusual powers like Raven Wiz who will turn one of your units in a small raven that is weak in combat but perfect for scouting. Some wizards you are guaranteed to get in certain missions, but most you get randomly and you can't get them all in one game so you will have to trade with someone else in order to get all the game's wizards.
The game went under most people's radars, but received mostly positive reviews. It was successful enough to have a sequel called Wizards in development for the Gameboy Advance, but this was sadly canceled due to a lack of publisher.
Warlocked provides examples of:
- Affably Evil: As bloodthirsty as he is to the Humans, Chief Zog is otherwise a surprisingly benign ruler who treats his underlings quite well.
- The Alliance: The Humans to a tee. They have honorable knights, freedom fighting elves, and a benevolent female ruler.
- Ambiguously Human: Some of the wizards. As this is a fantasy universe this can be easily handwaved with them just being members of different races; like Elf Wiz who is obviously an elf and Mystic Wiz being an orc-like person, but still some of the wizards really make you question what the heck they are like Tele Wiz who looks like an alien, Raven Wiz who actually has a raven head and big feathered wings coming out of his back, and Fuel Wiz who appears to be some sort of elemental being with a Moai head.
- Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Alongside the usual "you can't have a certain amount of units without enough houses" rule, you can only have two wizards out on the map at a time. The one exception is if you have two wizards out and you rescue a third one on the map.
- Artificial Stupidity: Probably the game's biggest flaw is that the pathfinding for units is... Less than optimal. Be sure to keep an eye on any units you've commanded to go a far way, they may just end up constantly walking into a wall that is in-between them and their destination. Fortunately the enemy AI is also rather dumb, sometimes forgetting to repair damaged buildings and sending a whole army after one grunt who entered their sight and chasing him even when your own army is attacking them.
- It's possible use Wizards to attack enemies from a distance and as long as you don't get them too close, they won't be attacked. You can even take out a dragon this way.
- Awesome, but Impractical:
- Tele Wiz, his spell is teleporting a targeted unit to a random part of the map. It sure sounds cool, but it is nigh-on useless. You could use his power to send one of your units to scout, but there are many more practical ways to accomplish this and you might just send them in the middle of enemy territory. You could also use him to teleport away enemies, but not only does this do no damage but Tele Wiz can only target one unit at a time.
- Pox Wiz can easily wipeout whole enemy armies, but can also accidentally devastate your own very easily. See Friendly Fireproof.
- To a lesser degree is Quake Wiz. His earthquake deals a ton of damage to all ground-based units, especially buildings making him really useful in laying siege to enemy bases. The impractical comes in with whom the spell targets: all ground-based units. This includes your own units, so you need to be sure to keep your units far away from where Quake Wiz is casting his magic. The other problem it will only hurt enemies on the ground, the good news is only two units in the whole game are aerial: ravens and dragons... The bad news is the latter unit happens to be the strongest unit in the game, making Quake Wiz useless against an enemy you would really be wanting to use magic on.
- Boring, but Practical: Crow Wiz and by extension his crows. He is able to turn any of your units into a crow, which has piddling attack power making it useless in battle. However, the crow is by far the best scout in the game due to its incredible speed and the ability to fly over all obstacles.
- Cartoon Bomb: Bomb Wiz can turn enemy units into these.
- Cosmetically Different Sides: Other than aesthetic, the Human and Beast army's units are perfectly alike: Grunts and Goblins both gather resources, Knights and Warriors are both tanky melee attackers, and both Elves and Skeletons are archers who fire arrows from a distance. They even both have some wizards who serve the exact same purposes: both Sage and Mystic Wiz do the exact same healing spell, the former just serves the Humans the latter the Beasts.
- Damage Is Fire: Do enough harm to any of the buildings and a small fire breaks out on top of them. Even the giant spiders.
- Developer's Foresight: What happens when you have Chicken Wiz or Pig Wiz turn someone into a chicken/pig but then set them aflame with Fire Wiz? You get roasted meat your units can eat!
- Elemental Powers
- An Ice Person: Ice Wiz. He engulfs his targets in frost, turning them into snowman that quickly melt away.
- Blow You Away: Wind Wiz. He summons a tornado onto a target that rends all nearby, including your own units so use his powers wisely.
- Dishing Out Dirt: Mud Wiz and Fuel Wiz. The former turns enemies into piles of mud, the much more useful latter turns them into Fuel which can then be collected.
- Having a Blast: Bomb Wiz. He turns an enemy into a bomb which then explodes, hurting all enemy units and buildings.
- Healing Hands: Sage and Mystic Wiz are both unusual examples of this: alongside the usual healing of allies, they can turn enemies into big hearts that your units can then collect to heal up with.
- Playing with Fire: Fire Wiz. He throws flames at a group of enemies turning them to ash, or healing food if they were turned into a chicken or pig.
- Poisonous Person: Toxic Wiz and Poison Wiz, who both utilize poison in different ways: Toxic Wiz makes a big cloud of pestilent smoke that devastates units but can't hurt buildings, and Poison Wiz raises the attack power of your archers by tipping their arrows in poison. Interestingly, the latter was an apprentice to the former.
- Shock and Awe: Storm Wiz. He conjures a lightning storm that destroys a group of enemies instantly.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: With a few exceptions, you can almost immediately figure out what a wizard's powers are just by looking at their name.
- Excuse Plot: Why are the Humans and Beasts at war? It doesn’t matter, now go lead those armies!
- Forced Transformation: A very common type of spell amongst the Wizards is turning a unit, enemy or otherwise, into something.
- Friendly Fireproof: Often played straight, but this is dangerously averted with attacks like Wind Wiz's Tornado and Quake Wiz's earthquake. The most nasty is probably Pox Wiz, who infects a unit which then explodes spreading the disease to other nearby units... As useful as this can be, it is way too easy to wipeout your own army with just one misplaced unit getting hit by a dying enemy and then spreading the pox to the rest of your units.
- Giant Spider: There are truly colossal spiders who live in the tropical areas. For the Humans they are a threat, but for the Beasts they are actually close allies who act as your castles.
- Green Hill Zone: The Woods levels, big grassy plains that have a large amount of trees. It counts as Human territory and it is where their tutorials take place.
- Intellectual Animal: Though their in-game sprites have them look humanoid, Chicken Wiz and Pig Wiz are heavily implied in their lore to be intelligent animals who learned magic.
- Lethal Lava Land: The Lava levels, volcanic areas with lots of lava and ominous mountains. Also the home turf of the Beasts.
- Lightning Bruiser: Dragons are not only powerful and durable, but move surprisingly fast for their size and can fly over all obstacles.
- Mercenary Units: Most of the wizards seem to be neutral to the conflict between Humans and Beasts and will simply serve the side who helps them in a mission. The exceptions are Queen Azarel, Chicken Wiz, Elf Wiz, and Sage who are on the Human side and Chief Zog, Pig Wiz, Necromancer, and Mystic Wiz who are on the Beast side.
- Multiple Endings: There are two very short endings, one for each side.
- Human: Queen Azarel congratulates her followers for ridding the world of Zog and they return to her castle to celebrate.
- Beast: Zog congratulates his fighters for beating the human armies and tells them to lock Queen Azarel up in his tower... Until she agrees to marry him.
- Our Dragons Are Different: In some levels you can find dragon eggs, these hatch into adorable big-headed dragons whom you must take to your castle to raise. Once time has passed, they grow into massive winged serpents who have a slow but powerful fire breath that devastates units and buildings. Since they are flying they also cannot be hurt by Knights/Warriors, they can only be hurt by arrows and magic.
- Palmtree Panic: The Tropics levels, spacious sand lands with lots of palm trees and huge spiders. Thanks to making an alliance with these giants spiders, the Beasts dominate this area.
- Schizo Tech: A few of the wizards have made some big leaps in technology, most notably Toxic Wiz is wearing a modern gas mask.
- Simple, yet Awesome: Some of the Wizards have very basic abilities that are still exceptionally handy. The best example is probably Sweat Wiz, who increases the speed units collect gold and wood just by being on the map. Flashy? Nope. Useful? Most definitely.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The Snow levels, chilly tundra's with snow covered trees. Interestingly, in contrast to most benevolent fantasy kingdoms this is the home turf of the Humans instead of a greener area.
- Squishy Wizard: While not quite as frail as most mages in video games, the wizards certainly can't take as much punishment as other military units.
- Two Girls to a Team: Queen Azarel and Sage are the only female wizards in the game and are both on the Human side.
- Underground Level: The Caves levels, huge gloomy caverns that are neutral ground where neither faction has established much control.
- You Require More Vespene Gas: There are two resources in the game: Gold which you get from mines and is used to recruit units, and Fuel which you get from trees or rocks (depending on the map) and is used to build buildings and recruit archers alongside the aforementioned gold.
