Spellcaster University | PS5 Review

I had very high hopes about Spellcaster University since I am a huge fan of Harry Potter and get completely engrossed in all things magical. Imagine my glee when the opportunity arose to give this game a review. 

There’s something undeniably appealing about the idea of running your own magic school. Mix in card mechanics, quirky student archetypes, and whimsical fantasy factions, and you’ve got a brew that should be irresistible. Spellcaster University looked like a game tailor-made for my tastes—but after several hours, I found myself more exhausted than enchanted.

A Cauldron of Concepts

You’re the headmaster of a fledgling magic school in a fantasy realm teetering on the brink of destruction. Evil is about to arrive across the land, and your job is to train up as many capable spellcasters as you can before each inevitable invasion. Once the invasion begins (and evil wins), you’ll pack up and start again in a new region, bringing some bonuses with you. It’s a roguelike loop with a Hogwarts-by-way-of-card-deck flavor, which sounds like a dream on paper.

The lore is delivered through events and interactions with various factions: inquisitors who frown upon necromancy, orcs who just want a place to party, and pirates you can bribe to not burn your school down. There’s personality here, and I appreciated the creativity. But Spellcaster University doesn’t ease you in. Instead, it drops every element on your desk at once—student archetypes, inter-faction diplomacy, dozens of status effects—and expects you to keep pace.

There’s no real narrative arc to follow, either. Your “story” is a series of loosely connected runs where you try to get slightly better each time. Without a clear structure or sense of character attachment, it became hard for me to stay invested. I was building schools, yes—but none of them ever really felt like mine.

Autopilot with Extra Steps

This is where the game lost me. The core loop involves drawing cards to expand your school and tweaking class schedules or dorm assignments. There’s potential here, but instead of feeling like I was making strategic decisions, I felt like I was shuffling papers while the game ran itself. Students came and went with little fanfare or attachment. I wasn’t guiding a school so much as babysitting a busy spreadsheet.

The tutorial exists, but don’t expect it to make sense of the deluge of icons, traits, synergies, and inter-faction dynamics. It was like being handed a deck of tarot cards and told to run a college. The more I built and expanded, the more the game blurred into noise—too many rooms, too many traits, too many systems to juggle without ever feeling rewarding.

Pleasantly Forgettable Music and Graphics

There’s a cute charm to Spellcaster University’s art style—storybook-like, soft, and warm. The hand-drawn characters and buildings give the game a cozy, whimsical feel that fits the magical setting well. Animations are simple but clean, with just enough movement to keep the screen from feeling static. It’s visually inviting at first glance, and I found myself smiling at the quirky student portraits and spell effects early on.

The music matches the tone, with a light and airy fantasy soundtrack that’s pleasant enough to keep on in the background. It never grated, but it also never grabbed me. I couldn’t hum you a single tune from it, even after hours of play.

As your school grows, though, the visual clarity begins to suffer. Rooms pile up in chaotic ways, icons and overlays start to overlap, and the once-charming layout becomes a cluttered mess. It’s hard to appreciate the aesthetic when you’re squinting through a wall of tooltips, timers, and traits.

Spellcaster University Final Verdict

Spellcaster University has a solid foundation and a unique concept, but it doesn’t stick the landing. It throws too much at you too soon and asks you to care about systems it doesn’t clearly explain. The charm is there, but buried under an avalanche of micromanagement that doesn’t feel meaningful. I wanted to love this game—but instead, I watched it play itself while I clicked cards and lost interest.

That said, if you’re a fan of deep, systems-heavy tabletop deck-building games—where juggling multiple mechanics is half the fun—there’s a good chance you’ll absolutely love what this game is doing. For players who thrive on dense mechanics and emergent strategy, this might be a magical fit.

To hear me talk more about Spellcaster University, be sure to listen to the May 1st, 2025 episode of The Gaming Outsider Podcast around the 1:34:42 time stamp.

This review is based on a PlayStation 5 copy of Spellcaster University provided by Red Art Games for coverage purposes. It is also available on PlayStation 4, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam and GOG.