Developed by Nippon Ichi software and published by NIS America The Witch and The Hundred Knight is a hack and slash JRPG exclusive for the PS3 originally released in Japan in 2013 and after almost a year has managed to paddle its way to the western audience.
The Witch and a Hundred Knight was developed by the same developers that made Disgaea and the animation style matches this with the cut scenes and general mix of characters however do not be fooled by the cutesy animation that is somewhere in-between the nightmare before Christmas and Disney as the story and dialogue caters for a much older audience like the difference between the understanding of a cougar to a child and to someone who has the internet. The story starts off with you, the hundred knight being summoned by the great under-appreciated swamp witch Metalia who has summoned the great hundred knight to expand her territory by making pillars of temperance bloom in areas to spread her swamp mud, unfortunately she herself cannot step out of the swamp herself leaving all the combat and exploring to you. The story sounds simple enough but, as we all know nothings that simple and things get more and more complicated with different revelations and characters coming in to play and the sheer oddity some of them bring.
The game ensures that you know you are not playing on the good guy’s team as after defeating one of the first witch bosses and unsealing the pillar your master comes to “talk” with the beaten witch and kicks her coursing her to vomit blood. After this the witch is then referred to by Metalia as “vomiting whore”. This makes Metalia sound like a really unlikable character and a true witch among witches that defines that very, very Disney view of them being selfish, unkind and downright cruel however as the story progresses we are given a clearer view and even though she is a jerk her attitudes probably what’s so endearing like a grouchy cat that your Gran owns – after its clawed you a bit and stopped giving you those evil glares its actually quite soft (especially after kicking it out a window).
The combat and game mechanics is that of a hack and slash RPG that’s rather reminiscent of games like the older Diablo games and Atelier as each stage is a dungeon you have to progress through cutting through the enemy’s in a 3D environment obtaining a lot of the same kind of objects with different rarities such as common, rare, epic and legendary if you’re really lucky. At first the mechanics seem rather complicated and messy like a yarn of string after a cats been through with it. But, the game does a brilliant job of guiding you through each technique and showing you how it works with the Gical counter, the Grade points and Bonus point in each stage things can get easily confusing and that’s not mentioning the ability to change your facet to become more specialised in an area such as with spears or the variety of Tochka that you can summon and use.
The bosses are quite diverse to as there were numerous occasions I tried to approach a boss with the same strategy as I did with others only to be instantly thrown away and mercilessly beaten into the ground. An interesting mechanic about the game is that when you level up your weapons, your familiar and gain item in the field you have to return to Metalias house for these to take effect and actually given access to you giving you a perfect chance to get rid of some of that garbage you have collected, literally. This may seem annoying at times but it really gives you a chance to really go through your items and know what you have which comes in handy with boss fights.
Visually the game is stunning keeping to that “cutesy” kind of JRPG style it still manages to deliver very diverse looking and feeling dungeons from Deon woods to the dimension dungeon witch if I’m honest hurts the eyes if you’re in there too long but is still very pretty even if it does have an empty atmosphere about it, I guess like the constants on most top model shows. Again, the music is what you expect and apart from the sounds that you make while running and almost falling over due to loss of stamina (which is pretty funny when you actually do fall over) eventually getting quite irritating after 30+ hours of play time I did not feel I had to play something over to enhance the experience or get past some of the more dungeon crawly of the areas.
Overall this is a brilliant game that I would recommend to anyone that’s a fan of hack slash RPGs, JRPGS or anything that is just very well done, some parts can feel repetitive and I don’t think even with the complicated mechanics in the game you would be able to play through it again without it losing some of its charm but it is a brilliant change of pace and a game I think I’ll always personally remember whether for just some of its plain oddity. Now after saying the word “cutesy”, referring to Disney and speaking far too much about cats I need to go shoot some titans to re-affirm any hope of manliness.
Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.
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