# Magic Research 2 — user reviews > 53 indexed App Store user reviews of Magic Research 2 by Matias Ezequiel Colotto, rated 4.80/5 from 115 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/magic-research-2/id6478566840/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/magic-research-2/id6478566840.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 104 · 4★ 2 · 3★ 5 · 2★ 2 · 1★ 2 ## What do users think of Magic Research 2? Overall sentiment: positive **Pros** - 🚀 Fantastic sequel, better than the first - 👍 Incredible sense of progression - 💡 Fun build types, best in genre - 👍 Incremental masterclass, gold standard - 👍 True semi-idle masterpiece - 👍 Awesome game, no IAP - 👍 Dev active on Discord - 👍 Worth your time, did not disappoint - 👍 Absolutely worth the price - 👍 Adds complexities, still delivers - 👍 Loved the story and progression - 👍 Absolutely fantastic, hooked quickly - 👍 Wonderful semi-idle game - 👍 Critically acclaimed, well-designed - 👍 Replayable, satisfying - 👍 Multiplicative bonuses, viable builds - 👍 Well-designed and balanced - 👍 Quick reaction to issues - 👍 Amazing game, deep and rewarding - 👍 Beautifully crafted, fun writing - 👍 Hooked for a week, so much content - 👍 Perpetually fresh abilities - 👍 Concrete ending, not Sisyphus - 👍 Top-notch incremental game, compelling - 👍 Tons of content, fun writing - 👍 Interesting systems, compelling challenges - 👍 Constant development, labor of love - 👍 Better than the 1st, QOL improvements - 👍 More active gameplay, engaging story - 👍 Highly recommend, fun with less attention - 👍 Great sequel, exploring the world - 👍 Strategy and problem solving required - 👍 Systems interact, multiple solutions - 👍 Awesome and addictive, can't put down - 👍 Perfect in every way - 👍 Nice improvement, enjoyed more than cost - 👍 Really into it, blend of idle/active - 👍 Fantastic, QOL improvements, engaging story - 👍 Too good, replayable - 👍 Great game, super addictive - 👍 Great game, hesitant to pay, glad I did - 👍 Best idle game - 👍 Power fantasy of micromanagement - 👍 Loose incremental, requires input - 👍 Power fantasy through exploration - 👍 Specializing spells, more powerful - 👍 Tic-tac-toe board for strategy - 👍 Much more specialized than MR1 - 👍 Exponentially better writing than MR1 - 👍 More to discover, fleshed out game - 👍 UI gets better with updates - 👍 Well-thought-out help section - 👍 Compendium is helpful - 👍 Better than the first game - 👍 Feels like the same game, more entertaining - 👍 Game is good, daily updates - 👍 Feels better with each update - 👍 Great game, compendium unlocks bosses - 👍 Fantastic sequel, vet perspective - 👍 Overwhelming at first, then amazing - 👍 New systems and elements, better than MR1 - 👍 High level of polish, documentation - 👍 Time currency flexibility, easy to step away - 👍 Best made games on the App Store - 👍 Absolutely excellent sequel, brand new experience - 👍 Awesome game, more active gameplay - 👍 Great idea, nicely executed, sense of detail - 👍 One-time buy, no subscription - 👍 Fantastic sequel, improvement on first - 👍 Keeps core elements, adds new features - 👍 Convenient QOL features - 👍 Story is fun, writing engaging - 👍 Worthy successor, developer puts out hits - 👍 Phenomenal game, refreshing sequel - 👍 Most cherished experiences in mobile gaming - 👍 Balanced and engaging genre game - 👍 Mechanical design is perfect - 👍 More complex and rich update - 👍 Solo developer, invested extra time - 👍 Great sequel so far, smoother experience - 👍 Number go up brain feel good - 👍 Overwhelms in the beginning, need time - 👍 Great job developing an awesome game **Cons** - 🐛 Extremely complicated, tedious timers - 🐛 UI is absolutely atrocious - 🐛 Time pieces cap out at 100k - 🐛 UI issues, not easy to navigate - 🐛 Sorting doesn't sort exactly as wanted - 🐛 Need to farm areas, late game - 🐛 Familiar search time needs tweaking - 🐛 UI is painful, doesn't flow right - 🐛 Transmute screen cumbersome - 🐛 Inventory becomes a jumbled mess - 🐛 Each screen requires scrolling - 🐛 Bugged, app pushes buttons on its own - 🐛 Overheats phone - 🐛 More costly than thought - 🐛 Lags and gets choppy in late game - 🐛 Micromanaging process at retirement - 🐛 Repetitive button pressing for automation - 🐛 Lack of automation hurts interest - 🐛 Crashes on startup - 🐛 Tedious micromanaging process - 🐛 UI is a big issue - 🐛 Hard to navigate inventory - 🐛 Tedious and frustrating UI amplified - 🐛 Cannot understand how developer tests it - 🐛 Too much time retreading steps - 🐛 Waiting for dead end to retire - 🐛 Doing exact same things over and over - 🐛 QOL improvement per run - 🐛 Each run takes hours, not fun - 🐛 Poor writing is distracting - 🐛 Author's English not good - 🐛 Distracting, low quality style - 🐛 Grammatical errors add cognitive load - 🐛 Overwhelms in the beginning - 🐛 Story is lackluster - 🐛 Text is dialogue and descriptions, not functional **Commonly reported bugs** - App instantly crashes on open - Game crashes on startup - App started rapidly pushing buttons on its own - Overheating phone - Lags and gets choppy in the late game - Compendium doesn't unlock for bosses unless already beat **Most requested features** - DLC or sequel news - macOS version - Better automation and convenience features - Tweak familiar search time down - Release the next one - More Please - Auto fight boss button - Compendium unlocks bosses before beating them - Less dialogue and descriptions, more functional text ## Newest reviews (14 of 53) ### 5/5 — Detailed and engaging *2024-10-25, version 1.8.6* I like Magic Research so much I bought them both on mobile and on steam. I just wish there was a macOS version. ### 5/5 — Wonderful semi-idle game *2024-09-17* One of the best idle games out there. The first was an incredible experience and while I preferred that to this sequel. Magic Research 2 is still one of the greatest idle games on the App Store currently. I’ve tried a lot of them. My biggest gripe is there’s a lot more resources to juggle this time around but thankfully the info does get displayed well as long as you find which menu it’s under! ### 4/5 — Incredible game. Almost perfect, needs better automation and convenience features. *2024-08-29* The flow of the game is amazing and addicting. I almost have nothing bad to say. The major problem for me is that the game has a dreadful micromanaging processs at the beginning of each retirement and at many of the feature unlocks. You need to manually and repetitively press the same buttons over and over again each retirement every time you unlock something to set up automation. If you forget, your run is stunted until you remember. I was originally having a blast replaying the game with the post game features, but eventually the lack of automation hurt my interest as it became too much of a chore. My first time clearing this game was probably the most fun I’ve had playing an incremental though. ### 5/5 — Where a 50 hour game experience feels long, this 120+ hour game flies by *2024-08-15* This game scratches that deep seated itch to find ridiculous patterns to optimizing the workflows without being too cumbersome like Minecraft or factorial feel when playing on the go. I’m not sure how I spent 121 hours on a game like this but here we are. Definitely worth the purchase at double the price, let alone what the developer is charging here. ### 5/5 — Extraordinarily Well Designed; Replayable; Satisfying *2024-08-11* This game was critically acclaimed on an incremental games community, and I was convinced to buy it. After a day of getting familiar with the game, I probably was already hooked. The way the storylines interact with the retirement mechanic makes the decisions in this game much more complex and rewarding. All bonuses are multiplicative, meaning that stacking bonuses doesn’t have diminishing returns. Almost every build is viable. I’m genuinely impressed and how well the Dev designed and balanced this game. ### 5/5 — Awesome! *2024-08-10* EDIT: The issue is gone! Thanks a lot for the quick reaction. Love the game and can recommend it without any hesitation! The game features many well-designed quality of life improvements, compared to Part 1, without taking the fun out of it. ORIGINAL: Hey there, really loved Magic Research (1). Sadly when i try to open the App it instantly crashes. When that issue is gone i will change my rating :) ### 5/5 — Fantastic!! *2024-08-03, version 1.6.4* I played his first game and completed it 100%. Easily one of my favorite phone games. So stoked to play this new one! ### 5/5 — Amazing game *2024-07-31* Requires strategy adjustment for bosses. Very deep game, and rewarding when you finally beat it. There is also some post game content for replayability. ### 5/5 — Beautifully crafted game *2024-07-28* It’s very fun, and the writing and enemy designs are really good! ### 5/5 — Hooked for a week *2024-07-27* Amazing game with so much content! The flow of new (and meaningful!) abilities keeps the game perpetually fresh. My favorite part of the game is the multiplicative bonuses. Best game of the genre by far, and has a concrete ending to work towards so you don’t feel like Sisyphus. Short and sweet, definitely worth the purchase. ### 5/5 — Top-notch incremental game *2024-07-24* Magic Research 2 is one of the most compelling incremental (idle, but more active) games I’ve ever played. It has tons of content, fun writing, lots of features, interesting systems, and compelling challenges. It’s also under constant development - multiple times I’ve thought “it’d me nice if this was more like this”, and then within a week it was already updated. A labor of love that deserves to be purchased and played. I’ve put at least 10 hours of active play time into it and still have lots to go. Thanks Matias for another classic! ### 5/5 — Better than the 1st *2024-07-21* As much as I absolutely love the first game I finished this one and tried to go back to the first and really missed the second game’s quality of life features like weapon upgrading, better auto battling and a more engaging story. Guess I’m going right back to this again after completely beating it about a week ago ### 5/5 — Highly recommend *2024-07-13, version 1.5.7* fun with less attention ### 5/5 — Great sequel *2024-07-10* I’m really enjoying exploring this world. The progress requires some strategy and problem solving. I really love all the different ways the different systems interact, making multiple solutions to hurdles possible. Thank you for publishing this sequel and I’m looking forward to your future games! ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Game crashes on startup *2024-08-08, version 1.8.5* Can't open game at all. Will change rating when addressed. ### 1/5 — Entirely Devoid *2024-06-04, version 1.2.16* Hardly idle, extremely complicated and feels like babysitting a bunch of tedious timers. Not at all what I was expecting. ### 1/5 — And no lessons were learned… *2024-05-28, version 1.2.12* Loved the first game except for one aspect: the tedious and frustrating UI. I stopped playing this one after 20 minutes because basically everything that was tedious and frustrating about the first game is amplified by about 300% here. I can’t even understand how the developer tests it and doesn’t find it extremely cumbersome. ### 2/5 — Entirely Devoid *2026-01-17, version 1.8.6* Hardly idle, extremely complicated and feels like babysitting a bunch of tedious timers. The UI is absolutely atrocious as well. ### 2/5 — Could be better *2024-05-28* Too much time is spent retreading your steps over and over as you wait to reach a dead end just to “retire” and start all over again but with increased stats. You’ll be doing all the exact same things over and over and over with unlocking maybe a single QOL improvement per run. The issue is that each run can take hours and putting dozens upon dozens of hours of doing nothing but leaving the screen open is not fun. ### 3/5 — why do *2025-10-22* why do time pieces cap out at 100k? i dont feel like that makes sense for a paid game. Just took like 5 days off to accrue time pieces, come back in, realized they were capped. rest of the game is mind blowingly good if you’re into idles. ADD med paradise. not sure how one person even thinks of all that stuff. maybe serious outlines? ### 3/5 — Great, but bugged. *2025-01-28* This is a really fun game. Definitely worth the price when it is working. However, the app my started rapidly pushing buttons on its own and overheating my phone. I even went so far as to remove my $50 screen protector thinking that was the culprit. This game has turned out to be much more costly than I thought. ### 3/5 — UI *2025-01-01* I remember loving the first game. Sunk a stupid amount of hours into it. It don’t remember the UI being as painful. Something about this version just doesn’t flow right. Transmuting at the start of each run is a main action but the transmute screen is cumbersome and the inventory becomes a jumbled mess. Each screen requires scrolling but jusssssst a little bit. Like a slightly smaller UI and it would fit on one page. ### 3/5 — Good game, bad performance *2024-10-19, version 1.8.6* Love the game but wow it lags and gets choppy in the late game. Tried playing with all the settings, nothing helps. ### 3/5 — Poor writing is distracting and taxing *2024-05-26* Sooo much of the game is reading, but the author’s English is not good. In addition to being distracting, just reading through the low quality style and grammatical errors adds a whole extra cognitive load on the player. People are paying real money for this. The developer should make at LEAST a rudimentary effort to run his text through ChatGPT for improvements in prose and conciseness, while eliminating grammar problems. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Magic research 2 *2026-04-14* Honestly this game is fantastic, the first one was amazing and some how this blew it out of the water. One of the only mobile games I look forward to what’s coming next. ### 5/5 — Incredible game *2025-12-26, version 1.8.6* Amazing sense of progression and fun build types, one of the best in the genre on the App Store ### 5/5 — Incremental Masterclass *2025-10-01, version 1.8.6* This game is now my gold standard for incremental games. If you’re reading this, buy it. It’s incredibly good. ### 5/5 — A true semi-idle masterpiece *2025-09-26, version 1.8.6* 10/10 amazing game. Any news on DLC or sequel? ### 5/5 — Génial *2025-09-13* Vivement le 3 !! ### 5/5 — Awesome game *2025-07-05* Loved it a lot. No iap. Dev active on discord ### 5/5 — Worth your time *2025-06-23, version 1.8.6* I enjoyed the first game and wanted to give the sequel a go. Did not disappoint. Cant wait to see what the developer does next. ### 5/5 — Absolutely Worth *2025-06-06* The game adds some changes to the previous game, with more complexities and yet I feel like it still delivers. There are some UI issues that are usual with games like this. When the inventory is important, like it is in this game, it leads to complaints that it’s not as easy to navigate, but most sorting will not sort in the *exact* way that you want. That aside, the other difficulty is feeling the need to farm areas, especially in late game. I think that would be relieved with familiar search time being tweaked down a bit. Besides those two minor complaints, I’ve loved the story and the way it progresses and love this and the last game. Well done! ### 5/5 — Absolutely fantastic *2025-04-09, version 1.8.6* This game hooked me very quickly and in a way I didn’t think it was possible ### 5/5 — Pls i need MR3 *2024-11-02* Release the next one please --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-01.*