You're a wizard, Harry!
The Unspoken justifies its exclusivity to the Oculus Rift by making great use of the Oculus Touch controllers to believably give you the hands of a spellcaster. It’s a physically engaging urban-wizard duel that challenges you with aim, what spells to cast, how much time it takes to cast them, and where in the dense arenas you’ll cast them from.
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I felt as though I'd always been a spellcaster.
Having you conjure a library of elaborate spells with hand gestures is a complicated concept that The Unspoken makes simple, easy to pick up, and physically impactful. Smart button mapping makes each unique movement feel natural, whether it’s holding a trigger to grow a fireball, or using a charm to scoop up orbs of green liquid and throw a powerful magic bomb. Each movement is different enough to one another that they’re all individually memorable, and I quickly felt as though I’d always been a spellcaster, and always known the motions. Even if the controls don’t require much aerobic action, I so strongly felt like I was physically directing my fireballs that I consistently worked up a sweat.
You have control over the magnitude of most spells, incorporating thoughtful timing and careful aim into what can be a very frantic battle. When you aren’t carefully blocking and deflecting with one hand and spellcasting with the other, there’s an entire playing field to be used to your advantage. You have to collect the mana orbs that float on pedestals around your half of the map in order to fuel your more elaborate spells, and sometimes larger white orbs appear and float between the two of you, with whoever lands the most hits getting the mana. It presents you with the choice of whether to attack them while they go for it, or try to get it yourself. Otherwise, you’ll spend a lot of time scanning the environment and adjusting your location for a line of sight on your enemy as they warp from point to point, or evading their line of attack. The action is fast-paced by design, but big, open arena levels and smart directional audio prevent this from ever feeling too overwhelming.
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Big, open arena levals and smart directional audio.
The trick of these spell gestures and puzzles is that the more in-depth they get - such as using color-coded keys to unlock a birdcage to unleash a demon on your enemy - the less you’re paying attention to what your enemy is doing while you’re solving them. You’re forced to split your focus, and taking your eye off the ball for a few seconds can give them a chance to smack you in the face with something big and mean.
Thanks to diverse strategic options, you can easily be overwhelmed by the enemy player, or in the matches against the one, pretty basic AI enemy. Whether that’s by having the platforms you need to teleport between destroyed by a Golem they’ve summoned or by your own bad aim with a few time-consuming spells, the tide of a battle can turn quickly enough that every game feels different from the last.
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Surprisingly deep progression.
There’s some surprisingly deep progression, too, with different unlockable wizard classes that cater to whichever playstyle you favor, and you can choose to start with a variety of different spells. For instance, I eventually swapped out the standard fireball for telekinesis, letting me pull objects from around the map to throw at my enemy. It’s functionally mostly the same, but it looks pretty cool and can change the angle of attack that an enemy has to watch for in order to block. Instead of the default shield-shattering spear, I swapped in a paper airplane that, when thrown, transforms into spirit bomber planes that attack the enemy. While the one game mode is satisfying to play, after around 45 minutes I was wishing for more - like 2v2 multiplayer, or maybe a wave-based mode.
Teleporting from platform to platform is probably the most stressful component of The Unspoken, since it doesn’t always work immediately. It can be tricky to target the exact spot that will light it up to signal it’s ready for you to teleport, and when you’re on one of the platforms in the front and want to retreat backward, sometimes the Oculus cameras will lose track of your hand when turn to look behind you because your body is between the sensor and the controller. That’s really only fixable by buying a third sensor for $80. Those movement obstructions are probably the only thing that reminds you you’re playing a game, because they briefly stop you from creating magic with your hands.
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The gritty art style is a delight to virtually exist in.
Even your apartment, which serves as simple hub area to house an easy-to-navigate 3D menu that you can teleport around to swap out your skills and view a map of the city, further fleshes out the lore of The Unspoken. It lightly showcases the underground magical society inhabiting an alternate-reality Chicago with aesthetic consistency in each of the handful of maps. Despite some minor visual glitches, The Unspoken’s distinct, gritty art style is a delight to virtually exist in.
The Verdict
The Unspoken demands attention to timing and strategy without being too stressful, and has creative spell variety without being overwhelming. Each spell is conjured with a unique, but totally natural-feeling motion that’s aided by near-flawless tracking from the Touch controllers, except when teleporting between platforms is involved. And even though there isn’t a huge amount of variety in AI enemies and maps, what’s here is a special kind of VR magic.
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