Last updated on December 17th, 2025 at 04:37 am
Magic Research 2 – Simulation Game Review
Magic Research 2 is a Simulation/Roleplaying game from Matias Ezequiel Colotto, first launched in 21st May 2024.
It’s rated 12+ and currently has 104+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Magic Research 2 Stand Out
Experience the long-awaited sequel to Magic Research!
In Magic Research 2, you are a rookie wizard with a single ambition: to find or create the Philosopher's Stone, a legendary magical item that is said to be able to cure any illness. As you do so, you will learn more than you ever imagined about Magic and about the world around you. What kinds of adventures await you?
- Use your arsenal of more than 120 distinct spells to make progress
- Study the Elements! Learn new ways to use Magic in your path to mastery
- Transmute (magically craft) over 250 different items to help you on your journey
- Control a team of Wizards that will cast Spells for you
- Enjoy a deep, semi-automated combat system as you make your way through dozens of areas to explore
- Discover tons of secrets – many of which will change the way you play the game!
- Encounter over a hundred distinct Storylines with powerful bonuses along your journey
- Restart the game and make progress faster each time with retirement bonuses
- Over 60 hours of addictive gameplay – with a clear ending! (Or perhaps more than one…?)
- Optimized both for phones and tablet devices
You do not need to have played Magic Research in order to enjoy Magic Research 2!
This Simulation game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Magic Research 2 is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 9th August 2024
Recent improvements include:
- Fix crash on startup when there is no save data present (i.e. for new players of the game)
Download & Availability
Magic Research 2 is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Magic Research 2 on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
This game is now our gold standard for incremental games. If youre reading this, buy it. Its incredibly good.
10/10 amazing game. Any news on DLC or sequel.
We enjoyed the first game and wanted to give the sequel a go. Did not disappoint. Cant wait to see what the developer does next.
The game adds some changes to the previous game, with more complexities and yet we 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 its 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. We think that would be relieved with familiar search time being tweaked down a bit. Besides those two minor complaints, Ive loved the story and the way it progresses and love this and the last game. Well done.
This game hooked us very quickly and in a way we didnt think it was possible.
We like Magic Research so much we bought them both on mobile and on steam. We just wish there was a macOS version.
One of the best idle games out there. The first was an incredible experience and while we preferred that to this sequel. Magic Research 2 is still one of the greatest idle games on the App Store currently. Ive tried a lot of them. Our biggest gripe is theres a lot more resources to juggle this time around but thankfully the info does get displayed well as long as you find which menu its under.
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. Im not sure how we 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.
The flow of the game is amazing and addicting. We almost have nothing bad to say. The major problem for us 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. We were originally having a blast replaying the game with the post game features, but eventually the lack of automation hurt our interest as it became too much of a chore. Our first time clearing this game was probably the most fun Ive had playing an incremental though.
Why do time pieces cap out at 100k? We 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 youre into idles. ADD med paradise. Not sure how one person even thinks of all that stuff. Maybe serious outlines.
This is a really fun game. Definitely worth the price when it is working. However, the app our started rapidly pushing buttons on its own and overheating our phone. We even went so far as to remove our $50 screen protector thinking that was the culprit. This game has turned out to be much more costly than we thought.
We remember loving the first game. Sunk a stupid amount of hours into it. It dont remember the UI being as painful. Something about this version just doesnt 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.
Love the game but wow it lags and gets choppy in the late game. Tried playing with all the settings, nothing helps.
We played his first game and completed it 100%. Easily one of our favorite phone games. So stoked to play this new one.
Amazing game with so much content! The flow of new (and meaningful!) abilities keeps the game perpetually fresh. Our 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 dont feel like Sisyphus. Short and sweet, definitely worth the purchase.
Magic Research 2 is one of the most compelling incremental (idle, but more active) games Ive ever played. It has tons of content, fun writing, lots of features, interesting systems, and compelling challenges. Its also under constant development – multiple times Ive thought itd us 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. Ive put at least 10 hours of active play time into it and still have lots to go. Thanks Matias for another classic.
As much as we absolutely love the first game we finished this one and tried to go back to the first and really missed the second games quality of life features like weapon upgrading, better auto battling and a more engaging story. Guess Im going right back to this again after completely beating it about a week ago.
If you told us this game had a 100,000 likes Id believe it. Its so fun that we can hardly put it down.
What can we say? This is a sequel to one of our favorite games and its perfect in every way. We are getting tons of lag past mid game however making it somewhat hard to play. Ive toggled all the settings the help performance and its still pretty bad on our iPhone 13 Pro. Not enough to take a star. We believe this will be addressed in an update soon.
But this one is a very nice improvement and have enjoyed it far more than the cost. This dev needs a lot more credit.
This is the first game in a long time that Ive been REALLY into. Its the perfect blend of idle and active play and theres so much content.
Magic Research 2 is fantastic. Building off its predecessor, it comes with many excellent quality of life improvements, more engaging story, and way more builds. We rarely ever new game + , but this game is too good, already half way into 2 replay. Dont hesitate to buy if you like incremental games.
This game is great, super addictive. One small request though, could we get an auto fight boss button? This would be great for getting through the tedious earlier areas after a retirement, and would also be quite useful if youd like to farm a boss while warping.
Magic Research 2 is very similar to its predecessor, with addition of different mechanics that allow you to specialize much more than the last. This review will lack information that was similar to the last, as Im sure most people have played the last. To the title, this game is micromanagement heaven. If you dont like micromanagement, then we would highly avoid this game. If you become overwhelmed easily as well, avoid this game. If you have the patience and love doing the same thing over and over and getting faster at it, then this game is perfect for you. This game is an incremental. As you play, things are slow and can throw a lot of things in your face. Learning these and navigating the new mechanics can be extremely satisfying. Its a very loose incremental as things still require a lot of your input, but youll be doing them much faster than before. To the title, this game is a power fantasy through the exploration. Once extremely hard bosses will be easy. Youll learn how to deal with them. Equipment is transmuted, and eventually youll be able to merge equipment. With each merge youll feel even more powerful than before. There is also a mechanic that allows you to specialize different spells. You can make certain skills more powerful, longer, or cheaper. Also there is a tictactoe board. This board allows you to put pieces in that will interact with other pieces. These can do many different things. Its a bit too micromanagey for our taste, but it definitely helps when you need to push a boss or get unlocks. MR2 is much like MR but much more specialized. Its also a lot more mechanics than the last, some are great, some are okay depending on your playstyle. The writing is exponentially better than the last, which is a HUGE plus. There is a lot more to discover, lots more equipment, and feels much more like a fleshed out game. Also, one of the biggest issues with the game is the UI. However, with every update which comes out every day, it gets better. There is also a help section that is so well thought out, and is extremely helpful. Same with the compendium. The UI is also extremely customizable. Overall, we do think this game is better than the first game. It feels very much like the same game, but with mechanics that make it stick out and more entertaining. Great game.
Sooo much of the game is reading, but the authors 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.
One note to start – as an MR1 vet, getting back into the game at the start can be a bit of a mental slog. It feels a bit overwhelming at first. At least on Steam on a full screen. Its hard to decide what to do next or to put it down. Like things on screen are happening fast but it still feels slow, if that makes sense. It feels anxious. We moved our Steam demo save to our phone on release day and by the time we retired and was into our second run, it all started to feel more familiar. That is by no means a reason to take a star off, because the game that opens up once you find your feet is amazing. The dev did a fantastic job on the sequel. We were a bit worried it might not live up to the hype Id had for it. When Id learned MR was their first game and that when we played it for the first time, it had only been out a short amount of time, we were surprised. Because it was so good, and felt like it probably had a year of polish. Its like the old saying that every band has their whole life to release their first album, hence the sophomore slump. But no, they went and made a better MR with new systems and elements. And the level of documentation they put into the help section, with hints, its rare to see a game with this level of polish. And for anyone who hasnt played the first one, Ill touch on our favorite feature. Instead of needing to leave your phone on overnight, or waking up with basic offline rewards, you are given a time currency that you can use to spend in different ways – speed up game time, trigger events, or instant research time. The flexibility this system provides makes it so much easier to step away or turn your screen off. Filtering out all the games built around IAP dopamine, ad watching simulators, p2w PvP, etc. That rake in millions, this, a text-based incremental game of all things, is one of the best made games on the App Store.
Hardly idle, extremely complicated and feels like babysitting a bunch of tedious timers. Not at all what we were expecting.
Awesome game, quite different from the first one, a lot more active gameplay, even more addicting.
A true improvement on the first, that keeps the core elements intact, while adding tons of new fun features, as well as many convenient quality of life features. The story, while simple is fun, and the writing is engaging and enjoyable. All in all, a worthy successor to a fantastic first game, and one that shows the developer truly only puts out hits. Cant wait to see what he puts out next.
Playing the first Magic Research was without a doubt one of our most cherished experiences in mobile gaming, if not gaming entirely. Ive never been able to find a more balanced and engaging game of this genre. Its mechanical design is completely perfect and we can VERY confidently say that this sequel is an even more complex and rich update to the first. Its quite absurd to us how there are negative reviews to this BRAND NEW release. Our brother, nobody is asking for insight into the developers grammar if youre concerned with cOgNitiVe oVeRLoaD because of bad English then its simply clear youre just not the target audience for this game. Go get an Audible subscription if perfect grammar is your literal only concern. This is a solo developer who genuinely had no need to invest the EXTRA time to write a story line at all on top of the insane backend structure of the mechanics. Come on.
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. Youll 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.
Loved the first game except for one aspect: the tedious and frustrating UI. We 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. We cant even understand how the developer tests it and doesnt find it extremely cumbersome.
We really like this game, but some things just arent making any sense right now to us in a larger picture for what this game is supposed to be so we struggle to give it 5 stars right now. When we continue deeper into the game and dont feel so overwhelmed by new systems we will revisit this review. The story is also pretty lackluster thus far, we wish that the text was less dialogue and descriptions and more functional. Overall we would recommend giving at least the demo a shot. Great job developing an awesome game- just need more time to play before we could give it the 5 star.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.8.6
- Size: 35.56 MB
- iOS: 13.0 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory: Infrequent/Mild Horror/Fear Themes, Frequent/Intense Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
- Developer: Matias Ezequiel Colotto
Last updated: 9th August 2024 | Genre: Simulation, Roleplaying | Developer: Matias Ezequiel Colotto