I'd like to thank Ratalaika Games for the review key to this title.

Not everyone wants a long, drawn-out adventure RPG. Sometimes you just want one you can put down and pick up whenever, and which is simple for a young child to get into. Mages and Treasures promises to be the game ideal on both those counts.

Mages and Treasures has a very simple plot. You are a mage who was happily working in your workshop, when a bunch of evil magical creatures left a note that they stole your greatest treasure for their own selfish ends. Obviously not happy about this, you set out to get it back.

The gameplay is simple. From a top-down perspective, you control your character, moving between various maps and grabbing keys and items to keep progressing. Occasionally, you'll have to solve some basic puzzles or defeat various foes to open paths forward as well. The eventual goal is to get to the end to recover your lost treasure.

Graphically, this uses a hand-drawn, NES style aesthetic with a kid appeal. The colors are bright and the characters look like something out of a kid's show. The music and sound effects are nothing overly remarkable, mostly chiptune style stuff with a simple yet pleasant beat, but it gets the lighthearted mood across pretty well.

The controls are shown to you in a brief image outlining their Switch key assignments, which you can review from the menu. Aside from this, there is little in the way of a tutorial, which may disorient those unused to adventure games, but any gamer who has experience will adapt quickly.

Stability is excellent. I played this on a handheld Switch and found it loads very quickly, runs at full speed, and I had no issues that would inhibit play for extended periods. Given it's not an overly long game, a veteran gamer could beat it an afternoon if they wanted to this is ideal for casual gamers on the go.

Morally, there are two things of possible moral concern. Violence is of the cartoonish variety, with enemies disappearing into amusing poofs when defeated. The magic in the game is of the entirely made-up variety, though given the overly casual way the game endorses its use, it may be of mild concern for parents worried their children may not be able to tell fiction from reality.

Mages and Treasures isn't overly deep or long, but cheap for its price. Morally, aside from the above-noted concerns, it's pretty appropriate for most age groups.