This game mostly wins on charm points. The game is simply charming and innocent, I didn’t play many of these types of games so it’s a nice refresher, and the story has some valuable lessons, such as the value of your friendship, love and how giving privileges to everyone makes said privileges pretty much worthless. What separated rich from poor was magic, but giving magic to everyone blurs the line, making it something non-exclusive, non-exotic. And it questions if the magic is really needed and the conflicts it brings which can be pretty deep. Also, there are some unintentionally funny moments. Rip.
That being said, gameplay wise it’s pretty basic. There are parts where you have to select your target by touching it, then cast magic with a magic board by drawing symbols on the touch screen, followed by a quick circle. There are a few moments where you have to basically trial and error which spell you have to use, which I’m not a fan of, and if you fail a spell, the game will forget about your target so you have to select it again. Thankfully most of the time the game explicitly tells you what magic you need to use or you can figure it out yourself so it’s not that big of a deal. Later on you unlock magic duels, and I’m honestly not really a fan of these. Again, it feels like trial and error to figure out which spells work against you opponent. But when you figure out what works, you can just spam the same spell over and over until submission, it’s always worth it to go for the highest level spell, and there’s pretty much no strategy. The game does explain which element is strong against which, but surprisingly it won’t repeat itself again. I thought this is a game for tiny babies, I mean it told me a few times how to use magic board once I obtained it, even though I figured it out the first time because it’s a very simple mechanic. It’s not a big issue if you don’t know what element beats what, again spamming whatever magic works… works. Later on you unlock combined magic which combines two spells which are super OP, but you don’t have a lot of duels after that. And they even take it away for the final battle. Not that it matters since you can fall back on spamming the same cast. It’s just not an engaging mechanic honestly. Needless to say I didn’t participate in “Witch One”, basically an in-game arena where you battle for the first rank. Also, wow, “Witch One”, what a name. Most of the game you’ll find yourself walking around trying to find something or reading dialogue. One minor criticism I have with dialogue is dialogue log, you can't open it during conversations and it can't remember a lot of lines, which makes it kinda useless? Yes you can view a few lines at the end of the conversation, but doesn't that make it worthless? I appreciate the inclusion, but I really would've liked to be able to open it at any time and review the lines. There are secrets in this game that are pretty well hidden, they unlock music tracks and images in museum on the main menu. I didn’t manage to find a lor of these, though to be fair I didn’t try too hard searching them, you can usually find them by tapping on surroundings and occasionally using magic.
The presentation of this game is honestly pretty great. The 2D art and character portraits, animations and expressions are pretty good, and even 3D environments and models look decent. And it features good music.
Overall a fairly basic gameplay experience but it features a charming and somewhat engaging story. In a way it feels like playing a fairy tale you read to your children, with good characters, setting and lessons.
That being said, gameplay wise it’s pretty basic. There are parts where you have to select your target by touching it, then cast magic with a magic board by drawing symbols on the touch screen, followed by a quick circle. There are a few moments where you have to basically trial and error which spell you have to use, which I’m not a fan of, and if you fail a spell, the game will forget about your target so you have to select it again. Thankfully most of the time the game explicitly tells you what magic you need to use or you can figure it out yourself so it’s not that big of a deal. Later on you unlock magic duels, and I’m honestly not really a fan of these. Again, it feels like trial and error to figure out which spells work against you opponent. But when you figure out what works, you can just spam the same spell over and over until submission, it’s always worth it to go for the highest level spell, and there’s pretty much no strategy. The game does explain which element is strong against which, but surprisingly it won’t repeat itself again. I thought this is a game for tiny babies, I mean it told me a few times how to use magic board once I obtained it, even though I figured it out the first time because it’s a very simple mechanic. It’s not a big issue if you don’t know what element beats what, again spamming whatever magic works… works. Later on you unlock combined magic which combines two spells which are super OP, but you don’t have a lot of duels after that. And they even take it away for the final battle. Not that it matters since you can fall back on spamming the same cast. It’s just not an engaging mechanic honestly. Needless to say I didn’t participate in “Witch One”, basically an in-game arena where you battle for the first rank. Also, wow, “Witch One”, what a name. Most of the game you’ll find yourself walking around trying to find something or reading dialogue. One minor criticism I have with dialogue is dialogue log, you can't open it during conversations and it can't remember a lot of lines, which makes it kinda useless? Yes you can view a few lines at the end of the conversation, but doesn't that make it worthless? I appreciate the inclusion, but I really would've liked to be able to open it at any time and review the lines. There are secrets in this game that are pretty well hidden, they unlock music tracks and images in museum on the main menu. I didn’t manage to find a lor of these, though to be fair I didn’t try too hard searching them, you can usually find them by tapping on surroundings and occasionally using magic.
The presentation of this game is honestly pretty great. The 2D art and character portraits, animations and expressions are pretty good, and even 3D environments and models look decent. And it features good music.
Overall a fairly basic gameplay experience but it features a charming and somewhat engaging story. In a way it feels like playing a fairy tale you read to your children, with good characters, setting and lessons.