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Assuage the wizard's anger or forget your diploma for good.

Life as a trainee wizard has its bad moments. By sheer coincidence you have just encountered one of these. There you were, testing out your hard-earned skills on a door opening exercise, when suddenly and, quite by accident, you manage to fling every single phial and scroll belonging to the great wizard through a strange portal that you happened to open up into a parallel universe.

Not something that happens every day, admittedly, but when it does, you can be sure that your master is going to be pretty sore. In fact, he's so sore, that if you don't get out there and recover his valuables, you'd better forget being a magician and take up window cleaning.

So, as you might have guessed, the object of Mystical is to go out and take on everything this weird and wonderful parallel world can fling at you in a desperate bid to find the phials, and it's not half a bad adventure either.

Starting out in this one or two player game, your character is followed by a dark shadow; the Golem. If you want a friend to play, hit fire before he disappears and you're both on your way.

If you're on your own, the Golem can come in very handy in helping to get rid of the many adversaries you will meet upon your way. By jumping up and down, he can crush many a nasty you might have missed with your spells.

By avoiding or killing the host of baddies, be they wicked clerics or goofy ghoulies, you must collect as many phials and scrolls as you can. Pressing Space as you pass over spells will allow you to store them in your pouch. If not, a few seconds after you pass over them, you can use the spell to eliminate your opponents.

As you near the end of each stage, you will encounter a small pentacle. Getting into this is a necessity to move on. However, blocking your way at every level, is a fiendish god of this parallel universe, cram-packed with magic and not afraid to use it on you.

Defeating the gods is really a matter of trial and error. Select the appropriate spells from your pouch using the space bar and fire away.

All in all, there are twelve different stages of this superb action/adventure, set over four very different worlds, each with its own particular brand of hostiles.

Throughout the game, the Grand Wizard is watching over you, ready to grant some very handy extra lives and to transport you between dimensions when necessary.

However, don't rely too much on his help. Mess up and you're in big trouble. At the end of each world, take a stock of your spells, using the inventory and trust your own judgement as to which ones you will need in the next stage.

All in all, Mystical is a very enjoyable offering. The graphics are exceptional and the vertical scrolling is smooth. There are some neat sound effects and for those of you who like your action at a fairly leisurely pace, Mystical should fit the bill nicely.

Not too fast and never boring, Mystical is fun in a sort of cutesy way that should appeal to most serious gamesters.