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sh4dow83 rated WitchWay

sh4dow83 rated a game 5 years ago
A downloadable game for Windows.
So much promise, I got really excited at first because I haven't played a decent Metroidvania in so long and WitchWay looks and feels great. So great in fact that I wondered why this never got released on Steam/GOG.
And actually, I still don't. Especially since there definitely seems to be more than 2.5h worth of content here. I played for about 1-2 hours and had only found the first key and 3 of the "eyes".
But it would need quite a bit of polish.

For one thing, the omission of an actual Metroidvania-style map is a sin. It's clear by the game's design that it was conscious choice but I don't think that it was a good one.
Because - am I going to bother backtracking to search for where the door for the green key was?
No. That's the end of the game for me.
This kind of game design may have been acceptable during Game Boy Classic times when 8 year old kids had tons of time to waste but 30+ me doesn't care for it.

And then there are other sort of major issues like opening shortcuts to make backtracking faster but... the game sometimes resets the rooms and so the shortcuts get blocked again.
Speaking about resetting things - bunnies that I had already collected would reappear and increase the "bunny collection counter" a second time.

Considering the map design, it's weirdly convenient that the game doesn't reset the room when you die. BUT there are more bugs buried here. For some reason, the game doesn't simply keep the state as it was when you died but respawns you in a seemingly random location (spawned me in a hidden area once) and the same goes for blocks. Which can lead to blocks that are in locations where if you try to interact with them, the game crashes.

Even at its low price here, I can't recommend the game. Because cheap as it is, I've found it very frustrating to see what could be an amazing experience (basic gameplay is great!) ultimately ruined by the things described above.