Magical Whip: Wizards of the Phantasmal Forest

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Magical Whip: Wizards of Phantasmal Forest is an Action Game developed by Silver Star Japan and published by Agetec, Inc. The simplicity of the graphics and audio presentation harken back to the arcade games of old and the gameplay consists of fifty fixed-screen stages in which the Player Character must defeat all enemies using his or her eponymous magical whip to proceed.

There are two nameless Player Characters:

• The male character, who has five hit points but low magic, meaning he cannot attack very much.
• The female character, who has only two hit points but a lot of magic.

The game, available on DSiWare, has similarities to classic arcade games such as Bubble Bobble.

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Tropes used in Magical Whip: Wizards of the Phantasmal Forest include:

• Airborne Mook: Bats, ghosts, dangling spiders, and jack-o'-lanterns.
• Collision Damage
• Denial of Diagonal Attack
• Department of Redundancy Department: From the trailer:

"My magic may be weak.. But my strength is strong!"

• Directionally Solid Platforms: All over the place. In fact, the game has no solid ceilings at all. You can even jump into thick walls from below, you just won't be able to move left and right in them.

One level makes devious use of these: the level is nothing but some platforms stretching the full length of the screen. There is no way to move back down after jumping on a platform, so you have to be careful not to accidentally jump up to a higher one.

• Excuse Plot: The two characters just happen to get stuck in a mysterious forest teeming with hostile creatures.
• Floating Platforms: Most platforms in the game are floating. Some move up and down in the air.
• The Goomba: Slimes. The green ones have one hit point and just move back and forth, the purple ones have one hit point and chase you, and the red ones have two hit points and chase you.
• Graphics Induced Super Deformed: The characters aren't very tall to begin with, but they look just plain tiny during gameplay.
• Inconveniently-Placed Conveyor Belt: In some levels. One level is made of tiny squares of conveyor belts arranged like staircases, making the mere act of jumping an exercise in timing.
• Instant 180-Degree Turn: Even in midair.
• Jump Physics: In midair, you can change direction and even speed.
• King Mook: Fought as bosses every fifth level.
• Kung Fu-Proof Mook: Ghosts cannot be harmed by thrown enemies. They must be lashed with the magical whip.
• Lightning Bruiser: Knights, which are big, fast, and have up to eight hit points, the most of any regular enemy in the game.
• The Lost Woods: The game's only setting, the eponymous Phantasmal Forest the apprentice wizards are trying to escape.
• Mercy Invincibility
• Nintendo Hard: The game starts you off with four lives and three continues. More continues can be found hidden in certain levels. The game is still immensely difficult due to tricky level maps and the sheer number of enemies, many of which are airborne and difficult to hit. In addition to the enemies, bolts of lightning are constantly falling in many levels.
• Poison Mushroom: Poison berries and evil berries, which lower health and magic, respectively.
• Power-Up: The hidden flight berry lets you jump in midair ad infinitum until you die or complete the level in which you found it.
• Respawn Point: Typically the bottom-left corner of the playing field.
• Shield Bearing Mook: Knights, who must be attacked from the back.
• Squishy Wizard: The female character has a lot of magic power, so she can dish out punishment more rapidly than the male character. She kicks the bucket after getting hit just two times, however.
• Stalked by the Bell: Take too long on a stage and the Grim Reaper will appear on screen and float towards you insidiously.
• Whip It Good: Magical variant with two lengths, the longer of which takes a considerable amount of magic to use but has three times the range of the shorter length. Once an enemy is out of hit points, it can be picked up with the whip and then thrown.