Let’s Play Magic Carpet 2! Magic Carpet 2 is one of the rare examples in the video game world where the sequel is just as good as the first game.
I’m not going to say it’s better, but I can’t say it’s any worse than the first installment. The first one could be a little glitchy and some parts of this game are, as well, but all in all it’s a great followup. My favorite aspect of the first game is what I think it benefits from most: it’s simplicity. You collect mana in order to build up your castle until you have enough to clear the level. There are monsters and other wizards to contend with, but that’s basically it.
Magic Carpet 2 is basically the same premise, but everything is a bit more detailed. There are underground levels as well as night levels, plus you have multiple levels of each spell in this game, allowing you to cast more powerful versions of each spell once you have enough mana which leads to some amazing and devastating (for the other wizards) effects.
For my money, there’s still not a whole lot of more satisfying video gaming experiences than dropping level three lightning storm after storm on a rival’s castle, then speeding around and possessing all of their mana for your balloons to collect in the chaos, watching that wizard fly back and not having the mana to rebuild their castle so all that they can do is watch, or try throwing some weak fireballs at you. So good.
They also add an actual episodic story and plot to this game. In the first Magic Carpet, all you had to do was “restore each world to equilibrium” via mana possession or something to that effect. In Magic Carpet 2, your wizard guide takes you through 25 levels which all have more varied objectives. So again, ultimately Magic Carpet 2 got a bit more cute and was a lot of fun to play, but there’s still something about the simplicity of the first game that was just right.