Thank you Team17 for sending us this game to review!

The Knight Witch begins with a retelling of events that almost ended everyone’s lives fourteen years ago.  The world was unified under the house of Daigadai who did unspeakable things to the planet and the ecosystem in the name of science and technology.   The Children of Gaia appeared in response to save the planet, but their efforts were futile against Daigadai’s golems.  When all hope seemed lost, the Knight Witches appeared and started to kick some serious butt.

Knight Witches are fueled by trust.  The more people that believe in them, the more powerful they become.  The Knight Witches include Faruru the Conjurer, Skyra the Weapon Master, Irene the Trickster, and Robyn the Angel of Destruction.  Robyn was their captain and by far the most powerful of them.  

After the story is told, you’ll get to play as Robyn while going through the in-game tutorial on how to maneuver around and attack foes.  After the tutorial, you’ll be whisked to present day and be introduced to your character, Rayne.  Often referred to as the fifth Knight Witch, Rayne trained with the Knight Witches, but for some reason didn’t make the cut to fight alongside of them.  If you’re diligent on looking through every nook and cranny, you’ll discover some journal fragments that will reveal what really happened and why!

The townsfolk are getting ready to honor the Knight Witch Robyn’s achievements when there’s an invasion of golems.  Rayne’s first objective is to find out why the town is getting attacked and to locate her husband, Akai.  As Rayne dodges enemy bullets, she can auto attack or aim directly, Twin Stick Shooter style.  There are many beacons/checkpoints that will replenish your health hearts, but they’ll respawn enemies as well.  If you gather your thoughts at a beacon, you’ll be shown your current objective.   There’s also a guiding light that can give you the general direction of which way you need to be going.  

As you explore different areas, the map will populate with places that you have been to.  There are some puzzles that can’t be solved right away and will often require backtracking, which is a key concept in Metroidvania titles.  There are multiple captive villagers that will gladly give you their trust/power if you rescue them.  Each area also has a skeleton shop owner who sells temporary armor, which can take a hit for you in lieu of losing a heart.  Throughout the game, you’ll come across rooms that will give you an opportunity to increase your number of health hearts or mana orbs.  It’s a touch choice.

As you attack enemies, they’ll often drop mana orbs.  These orbs power special attack moves that are acquired though battle cards.  You can change your battle card deck at beacons.  In the castle is a woman who can clone your favorite cards for you.  This comes in handy as some cards are way more powerful than others.  

Some cards will throw multiple swords or bombs while others will dispense a slew of bullets.  The machine gun card is a handy ability too.  I just wish the card boosts lasted longer!  When it comes to boss battles or enemy ambushes, you’ll be relying on these cards to make it out alive.

The visuals are really colorful and cartoonish in nature.  There’s a wide variety of enemies and many of them are pretty intimidating.   The environments are nicely detailed and there’s plenty of variety there too.  

The sound effects and background music are good, but not great.  Unfortunately, there is no voice acting.  The dialogue is good, but often riddled with language (*ss, d*mn).

Other moral concerns worth mentioning include magic (card) use.  The goddess Gaia is brought up frequently.  The biggest moral conundrum for me was being encouraged to lie to the public in order to  (falsely) gain their trust for power.  

If you enjoy shoot ‘em up and Metroidvania games, The Knight Witch is worth looking into.  It’s quite challenging out of the box, but there is a cheat system built into the game if you want less of a challenge.  The biggest moral challenge was deciding how to address the people.  I often erred on the side of truth.  The choice can be yours for $19.99 or less.