I bought this game back in 2022, and it lay gathering dust in my backlog for 2 years before I got around to playing it. No fault of the game, really, the order in which I play things is rather arbitrary.

Wytchwood tells the tale of a witch with a cauldron for a head, who must collect 12 souls for a goat in order to fulfil her contract with him. To do this, you must collect ingredients and craft a range of reagents and thingummies in order to progress the story. Some craftables are collected to give to someone or something for the story, others are made as a means of getting more ingredients.

The art style is charming, and the music does a good job of setting the tone for each region. The witch herself is a snarky old bird who goes about her business with exasperation at every nitwit she comes across, and I found myself enjoying her character quite a bit.

However, while this game is entertaining, it suffers from a chronic grind that I was not expecting, especially towards the end. I found myself running all over the map collecting ingredients from different regions all over again to craft some of the late game items, and for that, I knock off a point from an otherwise amusing 12 hour experience.

Sights & Sounds:
- The art direction is fantastic. I loved the style of the various environments and characters
- The music isn't all amazing, but some tracks are bangers. The Mountain and Graveyard themes are excellent (especially when the horns kick in on the Graveyard theme and it turns kinda jazzy)
- Some of the sound effects are disorienting when playing with headphones. For example, I'm not sure why different parts of the walking sound come through different channels on my headset

Story & Vibes:
- The central thrust of the game's plot involves capturing the souls of 12 evil animals in order to save a mysterious sleeping maiden. Each boss animal has its own questline associated with it
- The game is super chill. The stakes are low throughout, so you won't be feeling too much pressure

Playability & Replayability:
- The game's main mechanic involves gathering materials, crafting magical items, and delivering or using those items as appropriate. Your enjoyment of the game largely depends on how much nice artwork and music get you through the admittedly somewhat tedious gameplay
- There's not really any combat in the traditional sense. You do use items to defeat various enemies in the game, but it's mostly in the pursuit of rarer crafting materials
- The game only takes 10-15 hours to complete depending on how well-prepared you are. Some items you'll want to have plenty of on hand: Skeeter Snoots, Toxic Thistle, Water, Milk, Fireflies, Clay, Frog Slime, Reedy Twine, Soporific Mushrooms, and Embers

Overall Impressions:
- The game ran perfectly the whole way through, but it won't be taxing your rig too much anyway
- No bugs, skill checks, or progression blockers encountered. It's a pretty easy game
- People looking for a game that can be 100%ed easily will like this one; you get all the achievements simply by progressing the plot

Final Verdict
- 7/10. It's a cute little game, but as I mentioned, some may find the central mechanic tedious. This is a game that anyone can play but not all will appreciate. Worth it if it goes on sale, in my opinion, but if you don't like it after the first story quest (after the intro), you probably won't like the rest of the game

A good short jaunt of a game but I feel like the game loop kind of wears itself out after a bit. I think especially at the last 4 where some of the recipes requires multiple back and forth visits and it starts to really wear on you. The game is basically a loop of gathering items and crafting to assist villagers in this fairy tale world. That's the entire game. It's not terrible and I thought the storylines were fun abridged versions of mother goose stories. Generally I could recommend it but I wouldn't recommend it in a sitting or two. One thing to also mention is on PS5 the game is inexcusably unoptimized. The game slow downs constantly with minor particles effects and I had to do a work around to make achievements work.

One of those hard to review games when I don't think there is something wrong, it is just not vibing with me.

The good stuff: The visuals are great and the story has a great mix of creepy and funny.

The (maybe) bad stuff: The gameplay drags, probably too much backtracking? I usually really enjoy crafting systems so a game about crafting shouldn't make me feel like this but I just don't want to craft another pot and fill it with water again.

Played until the end of the "first act" (collecting four souls) and I feel satisfied.

Fun concepts, fun gameplay. Except that after half way done, the game started to drag on and the fun gameplay became tedious and repititive that the short game time felt so long.

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เนื้อเรื่องเกี่ยวกับแม่มดที่อาศัยอยู่ในป่าที่ต้องทำภารกิจตามเก็บวิญญาณให้กับแพะปริศนาที่มาทวงสัญญาที่เราทำไว้

โดยภารกิจตามเก็บวิญญาณก็จะแยกย่อยออกเป็นเนื้อเรื่องเล็ก ๆ โดนใช้สไตล์การเล่าและมีข้อคิดสอนใจคล้ายนิทาน

เล่นง่ายมาก แค่เก็บของที่อยู่ตามฉากและเอามาคราฟท์เป็นไอเท็มที่ต้องใช้เอาไปทำอย่างอื่นหรือเป็นไอเท็มสำหรับเควสท์ คือเป็นเกมแนว Fetch quests น่ะแหละ

ภาพเพลินตามาก เสียดายตรงที่หลัง ๆ น่าเบื่อซ้ำเดิมมากเกินไป ต้องวกไปเวียนมาเก็บของจนเริ่มจำเจ ตัวเกมไม่ได้ยาว ตะบี้ตะบันเล่นทีเดียวจะเกิดอาการเบื่อได้ เหมาะเล่นเรื่อย ๆ ช้า ๆ มากกว่า จำเพลงประกอบไม่ได้ว่าเพราะมั้ย แต่เนื้อเรื่องของเควสท์/นิทานย่อยสนุกดี เป็นตัวชูโรงตรงนั้นแหละ

ใครจะเล่นแนะนำให้เก็บไอเท็มดะ ตุนไว้เยอะ ๆ เพราะหลัง ๆ ต้องใช้เยอะมาก จะได้ไม่ต้องวกไปวกมาหลายรอบ

To put Wytchwood's mechanics simply, it's a crafting fetch quest. You pick things up. You craft. Get harder recipes. Repeat.

I knew the gameplay was relaxing before starting so I was okay with it. The downside with this is how repetitive the game plays. After 10 hours, I was starting to feel it was overstaying its welcome.

I absolutely love the world. The illustrative art style and narrative/dialogue makes you feel you're inside a fairy tale book. It's done very well. I liked exploring and getting to know the souls I was collecting. Overall, a fun casual game.

a bit grindy near the end but i am willing to overlook that due to how stunning this game is. everything about it is delightful - the art style is so beautiful, the music matches each area perfectly (most of the ost has been added to my study playlist!), the characters are charming (even if they are only present briefly), and the story is simple but effective. i genuinely cannot recommend this game enough, its one of my favourite gaming experiences ive ever had <3 definitely check it out if youre interested! (:

- first impression - really wonderful game! the soundtrack is beautiful and matches the little witch cottagecore vibe that the visual art seeks to achieve. the collection/craft side of the game can be repetitive, but I think it adds to the allure of the game rather than taking away from it. after all, i'm playing as a witch! my only gripe with the game is nitpicky - since there is no sprint mechanic, moving around can feel slow at times (possibly due to my aspect ratio, as running cardinally seems slower than diagonally)

Wytchwood is a beautiful idyllic game with a unique storybook art style where you play as a justice-driven witch who has to compulsively grab every single useful twig, loose rock, and patch of grass off of the ground because by god, she's going to need it later, she can feel it.

The core mechanic of the game is exactly what you see in the trailer - you are a crone from the swamps and you will wander through the various locales, scoop up exotic ingredients by crafting various items that will allow you to find rarer items, and use them all together to reap punishment on the twelve horrible souls that definitely deserve it. (well, one soul is three people working together, but details, details) By the end of the game, you'll have morphed into a fairytale witch yourself because you'll have an almost encyclopedic knowledge of what is found where in the world and what it's all used for.

The game isn't being coy when it says its genre is Capital C Crafting over anything else - the biggest gameplay loop is "pick thing off ground, use thing to make a second thing, use second thing to gather third thing, use third thing to craft important item with other third things in a chain" and if that sounds overwhelming, then you will hate the later portions of the game where every step of the way is filled with like ten different Things To Get. Finding all the things isn't THAT difficult but there certainly are some reagents that will get on your nerves. I for one learned to hate jars of water! Perhaps you'll hate crab claws or mosquito needles!

But don't worry, it's not just digging up rocks and gathering bundles of straw. The game's story is where Wytchwood really shines, and it's what pushed me to keep going as I checked off each item in my woodland gathering shopping list. The main character is a wonderful grumpy little witch full of piss and vinegar and there's little dabs of dry wit in every written line and description. The dialogue and the storylines are all so distinctive and interesting, with each character getting a very stylish dialogue portrait, with a fun biting dark humor to them that fits the amazing art style.

It wouldn't be fun to be a witch casting dark magicks on someone who doesn't deserve it, and the game's twelve animal-themed antagonists all have interesting stories and a variety of reasons as to why you'll feel good about killing them and reaping their souls to give to Maybe Satan We Don't Know. The first villain I dispatched was a humanoid leech who was faking a plague outbreak so that she could fill an entire wine cellar with poisoned blood because, in her words, "black fever adds a certain nutty quality", and I did it because an old lady asked for me to find her missing husband. It's the little touches to the story that make all the relentless twig-gathering worth it.

But that does not stop the twig gathering from being relentless (oh god you need so many twigs), and so you craft craft craft until the game ends about 8-10 hours later, and the ending just kinda ends on a vague little plot twist. The words "repetitive" and "slog" are often used to describe this game, and I'd be lying if I said these were unfair. But! If you're the kind of person who finds peace in gathering up a stock of supplies and then gets a short burst of joy from being overprepared for the current fetch quest and being able to make the complicated object right then and there, this is definitely worth a try. No one is going to judge you if you decimate the forest's population of fireflies. Honest.

P.S. During the first four souls, I assumed that the reason there were animal people is because their wickedness had corrupted their form and they were all wearing the skin of beasts as the result of their hubris (especially with the Ox, who has a normal human family), only to enter a village and find out that no, there's also friendly animal people and this is just a setting similar to Shovel Knight where the humans and the animal men live together in harmony.