Okay, NOW it’s about time I made a review of the game that has my profile picture’s character in it.

If you couldn’t tell already, I am absolutely in love with The Owl House. I love basically everything about it; its characters, its world, the artstyle, the overarching plot over each episode, I don’t even think there’s a single episode I disliked even a little bit. It might be my favorite show of all time next to Nichijou. However, this isn’t a review of The Owl House as a show, thank fucking god. Having to do Hazelnut Hex justice was already stressful enough, if I had to do that for a show as amazing as The Owl House, I think I would actually implode. No, the reason I mention all this is because when you start to get hyper-obsessed with a franchise, you end up consuming a lot of media related to it, like Youtube videos, merchandise, and of course, web browser games. So I decided that upon finishing Season 3 of the Owl House, I’d take the time to check out more of what it had to offer, including its first and only game; The Owl House: Witch’s Apprentice. And it’s uh… well, it’s certainly a web browser game.

The premise of this game is, as expected, pretty simple. You’re Luz Noceda, and you have to fulfill certain duties for Eda to progress through the game, such as getting parts of her body back, or gathering materials to sell later. The gameplay is sort of what you’d expect from your standard web browser platformer, though it occasionally breaks up these segments with changes to the gameplay such as flying sections or minigames where you have to sell materials at a market. You also gain more abilities during the platforming sections as you go along, such as the ability to create platforms out of plants, using a shell to knock over stacks of enemies, a double jump, etc. Aside from the main game, you can also clear special levels in order to collect relics, items which sort of just act like an extra collectible, though they do reference every episode from Season 1, which is a really cool detail for fans of the show like me. That’s pretty much all I have to mention in terms of the basic gameplay, and I gotta say that it has a pretty decent amount of content for a web browser / iOS game. Because of that, I actually have a lot to say about this Witch’s Apprentice, at least, a lot more than I initially thought, so let’s go into a bit more detail about the main crux of the game; the platforming.

The platformer levels, like I mentioned, feel pretty standard and while they’re still fun, they don’t really stand out too much. There are two reasons why I feel this way, one of which is the level design. The levels often revolve around looking for a certain amount of items, be it fire crystals, a cauldron, one of Eda’s body parts, etc. Because of this, the levels opt to be quite open, which I don’t mind, but there are points where the levels kind of suffer from feeling like you’re just going through the motions. Enemies are typically out of the way, and there aren’t too many setpieces that stand out within the level, be it gimmicks or just super memorable platforming sections. The other reason why I feel like the levels are pretty standard is because of your initial moveset. At the start of the game, you only start with your typical running, jumping and ducking. However, as you progress through the game, you start to gain more abilities which you can use in the levels, such as a double jump, the ability to plant trees as platforms, freeze hordes of enemies, and use a snaggleback shell to topple over stacks of enemies. While I think this is a fantastic idea, it kind of suffers from a weird problem. From what I’ve researched, this game was also ported to iOS, meaning this was designed for mobile devices as well. Because of this, all of these abilities are all relegated to the same button. And by the same button, I mean the jump button. Because of this limitation, the game only allows you to use these abilities in certain sections where in designated (typically sparkling) areas, so for example, whenever you see a dirt pile on the ground, that’s when you’re able to plant a platform for you to stand on. Unfortunately, it’s for this reason that the level design typically doesn’t take advantage of these abilities, so you don’t need to use them too often. Hell, I remember getting an ability that lets you make a platform out of a cloud, but I don’t remember using it once. So for that reason, the levels can end up feeling repetitive and samey for a lot of people. But contrary to what I’m making it sound like, I don’t think the level design of this game is bad. I mean, it’s certainly no Big Tower Tiny Square in terms of level design, but I still had a lot of fun with the levels despite their problems. For a browser game, it’s just engaging enough to get into it when you could be focusing in class instead.

I really only have one major issue with the level design, but before I get to that, I want to discuss the enemies. Aside from the abilities you gain later, you only have running and jumping to get you by. So, how do you deal with the enemies in this game? Well, by jumping on their heads, Mario style, of course! However, doing this feels kinda finicky. Most of the time it works, but other times you fall through the enemy and take damage. However, I didn’t find this too frustrating, as the damage you take really doesn’t matter that much, and this feels like the perfect time to segue into my biggest problem with Witch’s Apprentice; the health power-ups, or rather, the massive abundance of health power-ups that you just can’t seem to get away from. I’m not joking when I say the amount of health power-ups in these levels is egregious. Seriously, dodging the health power-ups might be harder than dodging the damn enemies! I’m willing to be more forgiving of the game’s other issues due to it being both a web browser game and an iOS game, but this is the one thing about Witch’s Apprentice that I feel like should’ve been changed. Before we move on, I have one more thing to address regarding the levels in Witch’s Apprentice, specifically the relic levels. These are bonus levels that you can play to collect relics referencing episodes from Season 1, however, the levels themselves are structured really strangely. Normally, the levels in the main game start you out in the town, then you go to the forest levels and then the market levels last. However, after collecting the 16th relic in the market area, the next area sent me back to the town? It feels like all of the relic levels are ordered strangely like this, and I don’t really take any issue with it, but I just found it pretty weird and I have no clue when I’m going to get the chance to mention this again.

Aside from the main platforming levels, there are two levels which opt to change up the gameplay. One of them is a flying level where you have to retrieve Eda’s body as it’s flying on a magic staff, meaning that you have to fly on a magic staff to get it back. This sounds like a really fun idea, but it’s kinda plagued by a terrible control scheme. Rather than using the arrow keys like a normal game, you instead have to hold the mouse to fly up, and once you release it, you go down, which is incredibly awkward and just not that fun to control. At least the level is really short, though I do think the potential for Kaznapped-esque shooter sections was kinda wasted here. The other aforementioned level in this game is one where you’re supposed to sell Eda’s stuff at the market within a certain time limit. This one was surprisingly really challenging at first because I thought that you had to drag the item to the person who wanted it. However, whenever I dragged it, it always moved really slowly towards the person and I would always run out of time. What you’re actually supposed to do is flick the item towards the person who wants it, which I had no idea was the case until I got game over, like, 6 times. After you figure that out, the level itself is pretty easy.

That’s normally where I’d leave the review at, but since this is an Owl House game, I want to talk about the game’s story real quick. The game’s story starts off with you having to do busywork for Eda, like getting back her fallen body parts, and gathering stuff to then sell at the market. However, once you’ve finished selling stuff, Luz realizes that she’s lost King at the market. Once you go back, however, the guard from the first episode has him captive, so you’ve gotta get stuff for this guy so you can free him. Unfortunately, it turns out the dude just conned you, and now he’s ready to make King into his lunch. So once you head back to the Owl House, you and Eda set out to stop this guy and get back King, and after you get him back, that’s when the game ends. It’s not really too much, but for a web browser game like this, it works fine enough, and captures the Season 1 energy quite well. Plus, all of the cutscenes are fully voice acted too, which, for a free web browser game, is genuinely sick. There are also dialogue options you can choose to change up the scenario, but these don’t really affect anything in the grand scheme of things as none of these characters remember any of what you chose. Overall, the plot works really well for what Witch’s Apprentice is going for.

The Owl House: Witch’s Apprentice has a ton of problems, but even then, I still had a decent enough time with it, and for a free browser game, there’s clearly a ton of effort put into it. I know for sure I would’ve been playing this game in class all the time had I discovered it back then. However, it kind of just makes me wish that Disney would let Dana Terrace cook and make an actual Owl House game on consoles and Steam. There’s a lot of potential when it comes down to the Boiling Isles and its world, we could go through Hexside and learn spells, hell, we could even do a Sonic Adventure thing where each main character could have their own campaign to go through. There’s a lot of untapped potential in this game and this franchise as a whole, so maybe someday we could finally see another Owl House game like this. As it stands, though, for a free web browser game, it’s pretty good. I don’t think my rating would be nearly as high if this wasn’t a web browser game that was also designed for iOS, but even so, I still enjoyed my time with it. If you’re a fan of The Owl House, I’d recommend giving it a try at least once. (6/10)

(Also, fun fact, I submitted this game on IGDB.)

It’s about time I made a review of the game whose main character is literally my profile picture.

…wait.

Hazelnut Hex has always been a game that just hit all the right buttons for me. Even as far back as when the game was announced on Nintendo’s Youtube channel, Hazelnut Hex intrigued me, especially as someone who was (and still is) obsessed with Touhou, but rarely got to actually play those games. That, alongside the game’s gorgeous presentation and charming premise, made Hazelnut Hex one of the games I looked forward to the most in 2022, and I am still absolutely thrilled to say that Hazelnut Hex did not disappoint. This is genuinely one of my all-time favorite games to play and revisit. And upon finally beating the game’s Moderate mode, I figured it was finally time to share everything that made me love this game so much, and why it’s stuck with me even after first playing it.

The first thing I want to cover is the game’s fantastic presentation. Like, everything about this game’s presentation is absolutely stellar. The catchy music, the artstyle, the character and enemy designs, the arcadey feel you get from playing the game, nearly every detail in this game feels like it has a ton of love poured into it. Hell, at the very start of the game, you get a screen referencing the “winners don’t do drugs” messages you’d see in US arcade machines, but instead it says, “Winner’s don’t skip breakfast”, which I think is just so damn genius and fits in so well thematically with the rest of the game. Hazelnut Hex is loaded with charming moments like this. The game’s boss dialogue, while short, was filled with little moments that made me chuckle, and as a pun enthusiast, it was fun seeing basically every enemy being named after a pun. However, I feel like where this game succeeds the most in terms of presentation is its art style. As a cute-em-up, the game definitely needs to strive for a cute artstyle, and Hazelnut Hex’s artstyle is just absolutely perfect for this. Everything is completely coated in pastel colors and drenched with purple outlines, and it all just looks incredibly pleasant without being too in your face. The way everything is designed ups the charm factor for me as well, specifically the characters and enemies. Even though a lot of the main characters show up pretty briefly, I found all of them to be memorable with great designs and fun personalities. My favorites are probably Jules and ESPECIALLY Nat. Words cannot DESCRIBE just how much I love Nat as a character, but I’ll probably save that for like a “favorite characters” list or something. The enemies have such cool designs and they’re animated so well, like, Chunderfins, my guy, did you have to go so damn hard on something that’s gonna appear for like, 3 seconds on screen? Also, I’m sorry, but can I just talk about how fucking FIRE this game’s soundtrack is? Just listen to Stage 5’s theme and you'll have a good idea on how fantastic this game’s soundtrack is. Honestly, I could go on and on about how much care and charm was put into this game’s presentation, but we’d be here all day, and we still have a whole game to talk about. You might wonder why I’d put so much focus on an aspect of the game that’s ultimately trivial compared to, you know, the actual game. But as I’ve mentioned in my Cat Girl Without Salad review, presentation still plays a pretty important role when it comes down to making games. When it comes down to it, Hazelnut Hex’s entire aesthetic and vibe played a huge part in why it stuck with me to this day. Overall, this game just absolutely nails the cute-em-up aesthetic, but has such an immensely charming identity that I can’t say I’ve seen in really any other game. Like Cat Girl Without Salad, the presentation really could carry this game alone, but I’ve gushed about it for long enough. How does the gameplay itself hold up?

Gameplay-wise, Hazelnut Hex is what you’d expect from your average Touhou-like shooter. You have your 3 different shot types, screen clearing bombs, the usual bullet hell fare. You also get a charge shot which, from what I know, is unique to Hazelnut Hex. It’s a really cool (albeit somewhat overpowered) mechanic, which allows you to charge up a shot that can pierce through bullets if you aren’t currently shooting. It can be really handy for people new to these games, but it can also be pretty risk-reward at times since you aren't shooting while charging up the shot, which is pretty nice. Aside from that though, that’s basically Hazelnut Hex’s gameplay. What you see is pretty much what you get. There isn’t too much setting Hazelnut Hex apart from your typical bullet hell at first glance, however, I don’t think this is a bad thing. Hazelnut Hex isn’t trying to be something super groundbreaking or introduce any new concepts, it’s just meant to be a really solid shooter game with a charming artstyle. what it may lack in totally unique concepts, it more than makes up for with its incredibly solid gameplay.

Rather than trying to establish something new in the cute-em-up genre, Hazelnut Hex takes what was already fun and polishes and refines it to an insane degree. This might be one of the most polished and well-designed games I think I’ve ever played. Seriously, I can’t think of a single section in this game that I disliked even a little bit, it’s just that fun. The flow of these stages are also immaculate. It’s so much fun to blast through enemies quickly once you’ve become accustomed to the game, and even if you haven’t, they’re still very fun to go through and are really well-paced. Simply put, it’s just a good, clean, fun experience. However… this is kind of where it starts to get hard to write about this game. Because Hazelnut Hex relies on its polish and great flow as opposed to something super standoff-ish (aside from its aesthetics and music), it’s kind of hard to write about what exactly I love about Hazelnut Hex without mentioning things that just apply to a great bullet hell game in general. Like, what would I write about that wouldn’t already apply to, say, Touhou 8, a game with a ton of polish in its patterns as well, yet also contains a player-swap mechanic? I don’t know, but I guess it can’t really be helped, so I’ll try to explain my love for this genre as best as I can. Please bear with me here!

One thing I love about Hazelnut Hex (and the bullet hell / cute-em-up genre as a whole), is that it can be really difficult to grasp at first due to the insane amounts of bullets on screen, but over time you eventually grow to learn the enemies’ patterns and mechanics, and can get to a point where you’ve mastered certain sections. Even the first stage can be overwhelming to someone who hasn’t gotten used to the game yet, as it has a ton of bullets flying towards you, and while it’s not so overwhelming as to make the first section nearly impossible, it can still be intimidating and take some time to get used to. However, as you make more attempts through the stages, you eventually get to learn more about what the stages themselves hold, how to deal with certain enemies, more about the mechanics of the game, and over time, you feel more of an incentive to get better and better at the stages. Hazelnut Hex in particular does such a fantastic job in allowing people to get more accustomed to its mechanics, which is why I think it’s a perfect bullet hell game for those entering into the genre. Like I mentioned earlier, Hazelnut Hex’s charge shot is a perfect tool for people new to these games, and can take a lot of the pressure off by removing a lot of what’s going on the screen. Plus, the game has unlimited continues, so you can beat the whole game in one go and see everything before coming back to it. Still, even with all of these helpful features, Hazelnut Hex still lends itself to being quite challenging. Bullet hells are, well, still bullet hells, and because there’s a lot of stuff flying on the screen, they require a lot of reflexes in order to avoid getting hit as much as possible. Even when you’ve mastered everything the level has to offer, you still have to put it into action, but when you’ve gotten to a point where you can finally zigzag past all those bullet patterns that intimidated you in the first level, you’re left with such a satisfying feeling that I couldn’t do justice through description alone. But I think what I love most about bullet hells is just how replayable they are. They don’t even have to have that much content in them, just having consistently fun dodging and shooting gameplay is going to make me seriously want to come back to them. They’re incredibly addicting and I really can’t tell you why. But there’s also something about bullet hells that make me want to get better at them and learn about their more nuanced mechanics. For example, Hazelnut Hex has a mechanic that they don’t explicitly mention, where the closer you are to an enemy, the more damage you’ll do to them, which is just such a fun thing to be able to put into practice. There’s a ton of other things like this that keep you coming back to it, like the game’s Moderate mode, genuinely one of the best Hard modes I’ve ever played in a game. Even little things like getting the boss dodge bonus (defeating a boss without using the charge shot) at the end of a boss battle make me want to come back and hone my craft even more. I don’t know what it is about the bullet hell genre in particular that makes me want to come back to it so often, but frankly, I’m not complaining, because each time I do, I have a ton of fun.

Though, now that I’ve talked about why I love bullet hells as a genre, what does this have to do with Hazelnut Hex in particular? Well, I say this because Hazelnut Hex captures all of these feelings perfectly and encapsulates everything I love about this genre. Sure, you’re going to struggle a bit as you first play it, and even when you’ve beaten the game, you’ve lost a ton of continues. But as you keep playing the game, you’re going to start to get more of a feel for it, until you reach that point where you can finally triumph over the game, and even when you do, you’ve had such a fun time that you still want to come back for even more. That’s what I love most about Hazelnut Hex.

Before I finish up this review, there are a few nitpicks I want to get out of the way. As much as I love Hazelnut Hex, it’s not perfect (I mean, no game is). So I’d just like to go over a few of its flaws that I’d like to see being fixed if Chunderfins ever decides to make a sequel to this game or even just another shmup in general. For one, this game is pretty damn short, only having 5 stages. While I’ve stated in the past that I typically prefer shorter games as opposed to longer ones, Hazelnut Hex is one of the few games that made me kinda sad that there wasn’t more, especially since in terms of extra content, you really only have Moderate mode to go off of. At first, I was thinking a sixth stage might’ve fixed this problem for me, as the main villain, Lamona, kinda just shows up out of nowhere at the end of Stage 5. However, as I’ve played more and more of Hazelnut Hex, I’ve started to realize that the main campaign is pretty well paced as is. I still think a 6th stage would’ve been cool, but I’d prefer something like an Extra Stage like in Touhou Project, as it keeps the main campaign flowing well while also giving players some new content. I think an Extra Stage would be cool to see in a non-Touhou game, maybe for this stage we could fight Ghost Lamona. I think that’d be pretty cool. There’s only one other issues with this game that I think is really worth mentioning, and that’s that the shot types are kiiinda lame? There’s 3 shot types, but there’s not much of a change between the three aside from range and speed, so you’re typically just gonna go with the one with bigger range. The 3 shot types definitely should’ve had more differences to each other, maybe one of them could have homing properties, one of them has low range but deals more damage, and the other could be your standard shot type. I really only changed one, but I think that would be enough, because this shot type lineup needs just a little bit more variety to make it great. Other than that, though, those are basically my nitpicks with the game. They’re really minor, and don’t do anything to ruin the game even a little bit, but I still felt like they were worth mentioning.

And with that, that’s all I have to say about Hazelnut Hex! This was definitely one of my more… rambly reviews on this site, but I really can’t help it. If you couldn’t tell already, Hazelnut Hex is a game I’m immensely passionate about, and something about it definitely latched on to me ever since I first played it back in late 2022. I really can’t recommend this game enough, especially since words can’t describe how much I think this game rocks. I absolutely implore you to try this game out for yourself. It might not live rent free in your head like it does for me, but even if you only plan on playing it once, I can confirm that you’ll definitely have a great time with it. (9.5/10)

Before we finish, I want to give a HUGE shoutout to @Phantasm for helping me put together this review and for fixing it up. Absolutely give them a follow as they’ve been a great help and make excellent reviews. With that, that’s basically all I have to say for now. I’ll see y’all in the inevitable Owl House: Witch’s Apprentice review.

Cat Girl without Salad is a joke game (if you couldn’t already tell from the name). From what I’ve heard, it was based on an April Fools’ Day announcement by WayForward, but around 2016, they decided to make it into a real game. So it isn’t meant to be anything mind-blowing. That being said, there’s a ton of promising ideas here on display that I think could’ve made this game truly fantastic had they been fleshed out more.

The main gimmick of this game are the shot types that are meant to play like different game genres, ie. rhythm, platformer, puzzle, etc. This is such an insanely cool idea in concept and is a really clever way of integrating different genres into a shoot-em-up like this. In execution, however, well, it’s kind of a mixed bag. While a few of the shot types (particularly the puzzle and arcade ones) work really well for this type of game and happen to be pretty efficient as well, about 60% of them just kind of end up being really inefficient to use. Which is disappointing, because these aren’t exactly bad ideas. Like the rhythm game one. It’s actually a decent idea in concept, but it really needed some more time on the drawing board because not only is there not much of a reward for getting it, but it ends up being distracting as all hell too. You’re really just better off sticking with your peashooter as opposed to using this, and honestly, the peashooter is pretty boring with not much depth to it. While there’s a lot of potential on display here with all of these shot types, a lot of them definitely needed some time in the oven before being brought out.

Speaking of things that needed more time in the oven, the stages. Overall, they’re pretty boring. Because you’ll be using the peashooter most of the time, you’ll pretty quickly find that it doesn’t really do that much damage to enemies, so oftentimes you’ll just be dodging enemies that are just going to try to run into you. They don’t even really shoot that many bullets at you, so this is most of what the stage is usually going to be. However, I do have to say that the bosses are definitely the highlight of this game. Not only do all of them ooze personality, a lot of their patterns reflect this and are pretty fun to dodge at that. However, all of this comes with one major flaw that makes this game pretty hard to recommend. This game is three stages long. I’m not kidding. You can beat the entire game in about 30 minutes, MAXIMUM. You don’t even really get any extra content for beating the game. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind short games (in fact, I actually kind of prefer shorter games over games that drag on for too long), but three stages is just way too little for a game like this, especially since you don’t really get anything for beating the game. That, combined with the game’s easy difficulty and repetitive levels, means that there’s not much incentive to really revisit this game.

With all that being said, however, I can’t bring myself to criticize this game but so much. The charm and absolute chaotic energy of this game absolutely carried it for me. You can tell the developers had a ton of fun making this game, from the enemy designs to the boss patterns and ESPECIALLY the dialogue. I had a smile on my face nearly the entire time I was playing. To me, Cat Girl without Salad was carried by its presentation, and how much it relishes itself in being a joke game, and for what it’s trying to do, I think it works out pretty well. Because even despite its many problems, I still had fun with the game. I do think it’s a shame that its ideas weren’t fleshed out more, as the base of a great game is definitely here, and I really hope that WayForward decides to make another game like this. As it stands though, Cat Girl Without Salad is a pretty cute joke game, but not really anything more than just that. (6/10)