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Wizard101: Zafaria Preview
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
KingsIsle released the Wizard101 Zafaria content expansion, in fact an entire new world in the Spiral, in November. Zafaria has brought several new spells, new content, new monsters and much more into the game. Check out our first impressions of Zafaria. Leave us a couple comments after reading. Enjoy!
As mentioned earlier in the week in our re-review of Wizard101, KingsIsle has been very assertive in their deployment of new content during 2011. The final and largest content update was released recently in the form of the Zafaria world. As the name indicates, Zafaria is a land filled with African and Australian creatures and environments. So veldt-like, in fact, that my daughter likens Zafaria to The Lion King and I swear I heard GO SIMBA echoing down the hallway from her room during our play sessions. *g*
Read more of Suzie Ford's Wizard101: Zafaria Preview.
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Comments
It's definitely a good game. I'm 25 and I played it for almost a year - definitely not just for kids. With a limited deck size, picking which cards you want to bring along can be tough later on. Only thing that irks me about the game is the bit of randomness to it; no matter how amazing your deck, a streak of misses can really make you QQ.
yeah its a very good game i played it for a few months and loved it i almost maxed out my character and made alot of friends along the way
id love to return to wizard101 and restart my balance wizard but i just cant afford it
LOVE IT!!! GREAT game for kids! makes me believe i can do any thing.for even more fun get membership!wicked game
I love Wizard101. Two of my wizards have completed all of Zafaria and two more are now in the Elephant Graveyard. All four are now level 70. My first two wizards did most of the fights by themselves except for the ones which required you to kill a lot of enemies in a small area. My wizards had to fight one at a time when they could find a spot in the ring because there weren't enoguh enemies to go around. As I got further into the game, I was ahead of the pack and my two wizards would fight the enemies by themselves. I paired a life wizard with a storm wizard the first time. This time, I paired a life wizard with a balance wizard. I bought one of the level 70 wizards one time mostly out of curiosity. My wizards were able to handle the battles except for the final battle at mirror lake. A friend happened to be online and helped me. The three of us completed the final battle. One of my wizards died once, fled and returned. My friend's wizard died once, fled and returned. My second wizard survived because of the use of satyr and rebirth. No doubt a fourth wizard would have been a big help, but we were able to accomplish our goal with just three.
Luckily, the mercenary system is much improved in that new mercs have been added that can definitely put the slam down on Zafaria's bestiary, that's for sure. The new spells don't hurt either. Whether it's the Ice wizard's Snow Angel spell or the Life wizard's Beast Lord, these are high octane spells that are generally area of effect. They deal serious damage to all of the monsters you're facing across the circle. It was not unusual for us to see damage levels in the 1200 HP range with an added bonus of damage over three rounds afterward.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that Zafaria's beasts are dumbed down either. They give as good as they get and can put a world of hurt on wizards who have not adequately prepared their decks or who neglected to bring along a healer.
The only drawback to the tougher monsters is that, unless you have a full four-member party, it's pretty hard to take down the monsters you face without a mercenary. We found that, even at level 60, we needed to hire a merc for nearly every battle. We didn't go for the top level 70s though and went for level 60 mercs which are half the price with nearly the power. Given the toughness of the battles and the desire to hire mercs, I would love to see KingsIsle give buyers the option to buy hirelings that would last for an hour or a day rather than just the single battle they currently last through. For 20-50 cents a battle, it can get pricey over the course of a play session.
My favorite part of Zafaria is the drum jungle and elephant graveyard. Overall I like Zafaria. A couple of suggestions I would have for KI is to make the quests less tedious. Collecting stuff from Fire Lion Ravagers and Musuth Berserkers again , again, and again is torturous, especially if you are trying to solo and still not collecting. Increasing the collection rate would help and/or changing the number of times you have to go back to the same mobs would make it less tedious.
Also, it would be helpful to have more clues about how bosses cheat. Pity the player that does not have text chat and does not know how to go to message boards to get help. I enjoy helping my friends through their quests, but helping a player without text chat get through a dungeon or tower where the bosses cheat is very difficult. Ex. How to you explain Tim Tim Snake eyes cheat to somebody without text chat?
Suzie, I posted another comment on one of your articles about puppet teams in the arena. Basically, its about high level wizards teaming up with low level wizards to beat up on pure low level teams. With the release of the Zafaria, the problem got worse because it is now level 70 with level 1-30 teams against pure adept and magus teams. When the new world comes out and the level cap is increased to 80, the problem will just get worse.