The Knight Witch is quite the project that features the talents of a team of developers, many of whom worked on games such as RiME, Moonlighter, and Plants VS Zombies. It’s also a mashup of multiple genres, something I’m not always a fan of, but the team has managed to craft a really fun experience that combines that action and exploration of Metroidvania games, the frenetic action of the SHMUP genre, and a little CCG action. It also serves to show that the most fun video games are ones from studios free of boardrooms and focus groups, and are willing to take chances on something different.
In The Knight Witch, you take on the role of Rayne, a magical girl who, alongside her people, escape underground after a huge battle that seemingly destroys the surface world and all who live on it. This battle of technology and magic was only won by the work and sacrifices of the Knight Witches, a group of powerful girls with magical abilities who get their powers from the magical link to their people. The more people love them the more powerful they become. Rayne is one of these girls, and while chosen, her powers didn’t manifest until years after the great war took place, leaving her on the sidelines.
The game picks ups when the surface world is attacking once again and the Knight Witches go missing trying to defend the people, only something isn’t quite right about. With Rayne the last available fighter, her powers finally manifest and she is tasked with saving her underground world and helping her sisters defeat this new menace. On the surface this is a pretty basic series of events for any video game, but the developers have managed to craft an interesting story with enough twists and turns to keep you invested, something pretty rare for a smaller release.
Gameplay is where the game shines, but it will take a little bit of time for you to warm up too. The game is laid out like Metroid, and so you’ll be traveling and discovering new areas filled with monsters and bosses. It also means you’ll be doing a fair bit of backtracking in order to complete side quests and to open up new areas in old stages. This can oftentimes be tedious but the world of The Knight Witch is just so damn gorgeous and animated. This is because each area is unique and the fact everything is beautifully hand-drawn. The world feels full and alive because of the great use of art.
The action is where things take a bit to wrap you head around. Rayne is a flying witch and thus the game plays a lot like a traditional SHMUP. The problem with this comes because most every SHMUP has you moving in a single direction. You move up the screen and enemies move down the screen, or from left to right. Because this is a Metroid-style game you will be moving around enemies, past obstacles, and avoiding the bullet hell aspect of a SHMUP from all around you. Fire can come from every direction making movement in the games tight areas a real challenge, or annoyance.
Shooting is also strange as if you are using a keyboard and mouse you are going to be manual firing, something that makes the game incredibly hard as it’s often easy to lose the position of your mouse in hectic combat. If you are using a controller things work better as the game give you auto-tracking to your bullets but does lessen their impact because of it, but this also adds to some issues. You’ll always target the enemy nearest you which is fine most of the time, but when a lot of enemies are tracking you from all sides, sometimes the nearest enemy isn’t the one that’s the biggest threat.
Thankfully, you can use the right joystick to take over manual control, but jumping between the two can be a little bit of Twister gymnastics on any controller. All of this is compounded as your special abilities are tied to a shifting card system. You can collect cards and then set their abilities to a rotating deck that seems to change at will. This is actually a fun concept that has you trying to build the perfect deck that fits how you play, but it sometimes becomes a real hindrance in actual gameplay because of the random RNG nature of it.
Those that play SHMUPs a lot can already see the issue with this type of setup. In order to activate a card you need to look at the corner of the screen to see what card you have drawn. In fact, you’ll be looking down at your cards quite a bit, especially during boss battles and when surrounded by lots of enemies. The issue is that when you look down you aren’t looking at the bullet-hell spray that you are trying to avoid. Imagine playing Ikaruga and looking to the left of the tv every few seconds while still working to avoid bullets. This leads to a lot of needless damage and deaths that don’t feel all that fair. And don’t get me started on the submarine sections that lock your firing to only right and left.
That’s a real problem if you are coming into The Knight Witch as a SHMUP fan, but if you are approaching this as a Metroidvania fan then you’ll be great. Once I dropped my SHMUP tendencies and played the game like I would Metroid, that’s when the game began to open up and become a lot more enjoyable. In fact, The Knight Witch became a pretty great time with a story that kept me wanting to push forward through all my deaths! Still, because the team tried to cram a lot of styles into a single package the game does end up becoming a master of none.
That said, The Knight Witch is a lot of fun if you know what to expect when coming into it. It’s also a solid recommendation for the $20 price point, and even more so if you see it during a Steam sale. It features a fun story with lots of twists and turns and can provide you a real challenge, even if some the games frustration comes from cheap feeling deaths. It’s a strong enough start to what I hope becomes a series that the developers can build and improve on.
Pros:
+ Great Visuals
+ Unique Gameplay
+ Compelling Story
Cons:
– Cramped Combat
– Random Difficulty Spikes
– Deck RNG
Final Score:
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