Games worth discovering

The Knight Witch - beautiful and challenging metroidvania

3K View2022-12-01

Beautiful visuals, fluid gameplay, an interesting and well-paced story, challenging (boss-)fights. As long as you enjoy metroidvanias, aren't afraid of (little) bullet hell games and don't hate card decks... a joy to play.

After a worldwide war where the Knight Witches defeated a billionaire who devasted the earth, the rest of humanity (including you and your husband) were forced to live in an underground village. 14 peaceful years later suddenly an army of orcs (or in this case golems) invade the underground city and capture your friends. You are not a Knight Witch (yet), but you once trained to become one and so you can already fight and fly.

You fly around and shoot your enemies using twin-stick controls. Or you do not use the right stick at all, and you will fire by instinct. Your shots will all be on target that way, but they are weaker than aimed shots. This is not the only unusual feature of the game. You can also craft a spell card deck in one of the beacons you find every few rooms. Collect many new spell cards during the game, there are more than three dozens. The spells are all quite different and help you during combat. Hit enemies with your regular shots to gain mana which you need to cast the spells. The really unusual thing is that you always have three spells available, randomly selected from your pre-constructed card deck, randomly assigned to three gamepad buttons. So you need to know how each spell works and how its icon looks like to make good use of it during combat. There is nothing more embrassing than intending to cast a long range attack spell and casting a melee sword attack instead.

Combat is a bit like a bullet hell shooter, you evade a large number of enemy bullets, hide behind walls, circle your foes while shooting with your auto-aiming gun (or trying to aim yourself for even more powerful shots), and you use your spells for additional damage. Evading is more important than attacking. The game is divided into rooms, like in a roguelike. Kill all enemies to open the exits. Quite a few rooms do not contain enemies, but only stuff to collect or interact. Collect green shards to buy armor from the baker skeletons (merchants). Collect Yupi cards to buy new spells. Collect various upgrades to become permanently stonger. An automap shows the current region. You can develop close bonds to inhabitants and gain support from them. You give press conferences and tell the population how the war is going... or lie to them. You gain followers on social networks to become stronger. Bosses leave mighty weapons behind that you can use in the future. When you die, you are transported back to the last beacon.

The visual presentation is absolutely gorgeous and every room looks different, there are little things to find, different enemies and hazards, large areas with multiple rooms. Gamepad worked fine. Team 17 is on a run, they have become my favorite indie publisher. Hell Let Loose, Blashphemous, Bravery and Greed, Ship of Fools, Neon Abyss, Greak, Crown Trick, Batora, Tymesia, Narita Boy and Monster Sanctuary just to name some my recent favorites, and now The Knight Witch as well, one of the best metroidvanias of the year.

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