The Witch and the Hundred Knight: Revival Edition Review

<p>We rarely find ourselves playing as an antagonist in any given game&comma; let alone the evildoer&&num;8217&semi;s right-hand man&period; <em>The Witch and the Hundred Knight<&sol;em> breaks this trend by putting you in the shoes of a mindless slave to a bad-mouthed witch&period; Metallia the Swamp Witch&comma; has summoned you&comma; The Hundred Knight&comma; from another dimension to do her bidding&period; Without any personal motivation whatsoever&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s your job to grind endless dungeon style levels to help Metallia cover the world in swampland&period; Now&comma; this plot-line doesn&&num;8217&semi;t exactly sound very appealing&comma; but <em>The Witch and the Hundred Knight<&sol;em> is able to master some J-RPG elements to save itself from utter failure&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;101869" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-101869" style&equals;"width&colon; 1600px" class&equals;"wp-caption alignnone"><img class&equals;"wp-image-101869 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;03&sol;03220337&sol;8&period;png" alt&equals;"The Witch and the Hundred Knight 1" width&equals;"1600" height&equals;"900" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-101869" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">The Hundred Knight is puny but deadly&period; &lpar;The Witch and the Hundred Knight&colon; Revival Edition&comma; Nippon Ichi Software&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>When you first begin your adventure as the Hundred Knight&comma; your past and present are practically a complete mystery&period; As with many J-RPG storylines&comma; you will uncover more about the game&&num;8217&semi;s universe as the story progresses&period; The majority of tutorial takes place in an alternate dimension filled with unknowns&period; The choppy instructional segment contains a random dragon&comma; cryptic old lady&comma; looping music&comma; and an obnoxious voice that&&num;8217&semi;s following you at all times&period; However&comma; the main issue with this tutorial is that it takes around a half an hour to complete without any save options&period; Frequent camera panning cut-scenes interrupt you at every turn&comma; and there is enough text being shown to write a brief novel&period; In fact&comma; there is a fifty page manual embedded within the game&&num;8217&semi;s menu in case you forget any of the more advanced controls or general tips&period; Too many things to keep track of are being thrown at you all at once from the start&period; Also&comma; most of the tutorial is just pointless dialogue that haphazardly leads into important instruction&period; Although the text can be sped up or skipped&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s very difficult to distinguish what is important to remember and what is meaningless&period; If the unskippable cut-scenes and dialogue were cut out&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;d say the tutorial could easily be completed in under 15 minutes&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>After exiting the tutorial world&comma; you are thrust into a magical kingdom filled with witches and monsters&period; Missions are provided to you by Metallia through a linear plot with amusing dialogue&period; There also is a ton of black humor and sarcasm that adds layers of depth to characters&period; Everything plot related actually comes together pretty naturally after the rough start&comma; and I greatly enjoyed the narrative&period; I can envision many people playing <em>The Witch and the Hundred Knight<&sol;em> solely for its immersive storyline&period; The 2-D art that appears during story scenes is very vibrant and appealing&period; The gameplay atmosphere is also beautiful and unique&comma; bringing forth a <em>Zelda<&sol;em>-esque feel&period; I really enjoyed the graphics overall&comma; and would say it&&num;8217&semi;s the game&&num;8217&semi;s strongest point&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;101870" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-101870" style&equals;"width&colon; 1280px" class&equals;"wp-caption alignnone"><img class&equals;"wp-image-101870 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;03&sol;03220312&sol;20131213113330&period;jpg" alt&equals;"The Witch and the Hundred Knight 2" width&equals;"1280" height&equals;"720" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-101870" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Dialogue is entertaining and the backdrops never fail to look beautiful&period; &lpar;The Witch and the Hundred Knight&colon; Revival Edition&comma; Nippon Ichi Software&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Objectives typically involve exploring dungeon-type stages and activating beacons&period; Missions then culminate with a boss battle that is often very exciting&period; All the bosses feel different to one another&comma; and are much fun to fight&period; Unfortunately&comma; I often found myself unable to vanquish these bosses without an hour or two of grinding on standard enemies beforehand&period; The XP and weapon grind is ridiculous and completely unnecessary&period; One burden that always weighs you down is the Gigacal mechanic&period; Gigacals serve as your energy level and will gradually deplete as you run around&period; Taking damage and simply exploring the map will decrease Gigacals&period; I found this feature to really take away from the game&period; All the energy meter does is stress you out and become a distraction&period; If you run out of Gigacals&comma; some items will be lost and you&&num;8217&semi;ll have to restart from a checkpoint&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em> The Witch and the Hundred Knight<&sol;em>&&num;8216&semi;s unique combat mechanic is creative&comma; but poorly executed&period; Instead of equipping one weapon at a time&comma; players are allowed to rig up to five weapons in any arrangement&period; When fighting enemies&comma; combos are based off of this order&period; The feature allows for interesting battles with weapons automatically switching as you attack&period; However&comma; a problem arises when certain enemies are immune to specific weapon types&period; This prevents you from successfully landing blows in many cases&period; Weapon combinations have to be constantly altered to fit the situation&comma; and this greatly breaks up combat flow&period; I learned to prefer using only one weapon type at a time to make things more simple and smooth&period; If monsters were not immune to any attacks&comma; the issue would be easily solved&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;101872" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-101872" style&equals;"width&colon; 1600px" class&equals;"wp-caption alignnone"><img class&equals;"wp-image-101872 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;03&sol;03220254&sol;10&period;png" alt&equals;"The Witch and the Hundred Knight 3" width&equals;"1600" height&equals;"900" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-101872" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">See that number 86&quest; That&&num;8217&semi;s the Gigacal level&period; I hate it&period; &lpar;The Witch and the Hundred Knight&colon; Revival Edition&comma; Nippon Ichi Software&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>I mentioned earlier that you cannot save at any point during the tutorial&period; Unfortunately&comma; you are still unable to save even an hour into the game&period; I actually lost my first fifty minutes or so of progress&comma; thinking that the game had saved automatically&period; Turns out auto-saving doesn&&num;8217&semi;t kick in until around the two hour mark&comma; and actually has to be manually enabled in the options menu&period; Also&comma; manual saving requires talking to this one NPC who is only located in your main hub area&period; This means you can only save the game if you leave or complete your current mission and head to the hub&period; Wouldn&&num;8217&semi;t it be easier to just be able to save from the menu&quest;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em> The Witch and the Hundred Knight<&sol;em> tries to combine a visual novel with a dungeon exploration game and ends up succeeding on a story level&comma; but lands short in terms of gameplay&period; Regarding story&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s interesting to be forced to make some really evil choices since the Hundred Knight has no real independence&period; Most of your actions are not moral&comma; and I love how the game makes you a little uncomfortable at times&period; Overall&comma; <em>The Witch and the Hundred Knight<&sol;em> plays like a great movie&comma; but gets interrupted by choppy gameplay and seemingly endless grinding&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><strong>A PS4 code was provided by NIS America for the purpose of this review&period; <&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;