The Witch and the Hundred Knight was released for the PS3 in July of 2013, and it has been on my radar ever since, waiting in an Amazon wishlist reserved for games I will eventually purchase. As these things go, other games surpassed the mild curiosity I felt over this title, and so it went largely ignored. That is until a PS4 remaster: The Witch and the Hundred Knight Revival Edition came out and I finally got around to playing the game. I was not disappointed by the great characters and offbeat plot found within, though I did find some gameplay issues that hold the title back.
The Witch and the Hundred Knight tells the story of Metallia, a swamp witch of considerable power who is hatching a plan to extend her power. Metallia cannot live outside of her highly poisonous swamp, and so she seeks to expand it by finding these magical pillars, killing their guardians, and destroying them to expand her housing situation. Of course this would be hard to accomplish for Metallia herself as she cannot leave the swamp. So she decides to summon a powerful and terrifying familiar: The Hundred Knight. The character you control. Small, unimpressive and dumb, the Hundred Knight does not look like the monster Metallia was expecting. In fact, The Hundred Knight is not even smart enough to speak!
Me-Ta-llia. Back off, Lars Ulrich
Luckily what the Hundred Knight lacks in intelligence he makes up for with killing, and you will be doing a lot of that. The core of the game consists on navigating dungeons killing the enemies, gathering loot, and breaking open pillars which serve as your check points. Hundred Knight equips a series of weapons that represents an attack on a combo chain, with the ability to switch back and forth between three different chains. There are three types of weapons: slashing, blunt, and magical. Enemies have vulnerabilities and resistances to most of these, so it pays to make chains that are specialized for each type of damage. This means that loot is even more vital than in other ARPG’s. You don’t need one good sword, one good wand, and one good hammer. You need six of each to make your combos as hard hitting as possible.
Aside from your three weapons you have a few abilities that can also help you with combat. These range from spells that you can get to blow things up, access new areas, and capture enemies for better loot, to a consume ability that lets you eat an enemy (which takes a valuable loot slot in your stomach!). There are more combat mechanics, and the game doles them out slowly over the course of several levels. The AI of the enemies is supposed to have a dynamic mood meter that changes their mood depending on how the battle evolves. They flee if they are afraid, or become more aggressive if they get angry. Unfortunately this doesn’t make much of a difference as you are fighting the endless mobs the game throws at you.
O… Ok…
The problem is that all these nice mechanics are not really necessary. All you need to get through the combat in the game are the three weapon chains, and the dodge button. While I appreciate the attempt to try to craft a complex system, it feel superfluous as there is no real incentive to go through the trouble of learning advanced techniques. Even bosses and events where the advanced mechanics are introduced can be beaten without them. Combat then becomes a chore that you take care of in the way to the next story bit.
That is not to say that the game can’t be challenging, but its challenge comes in the most frustrating way possible. Due to plot reasons The Hundred Knight can’t be away from Metallia for too long, and so when you are in a dungeon, you have a timer that counts down. Once it reaches zero, you will start taking damage. This is a mechanic we’ve seen in ARPGs (specifically roguelikes, which this game is not) before and it’s one of the worst, most infuriating trends in the genre that refuses to go away. Effectively The Witch and the Hundred Knight is a game that asks you to explore for loot while simultaneously limiting the time you can spend doing so.
And what wonderful loot it is!
When you acquire loot in The Witch and the Hundred Knight, it won’t immediately go to your inventory. Rather it will go into Hundred Knight’s stomach, and only becomes available once you return to base. When you die, or if you leave the level via any means that isn’t a pillar, you will lose most or all of your items. You may also lose your experience. To make matters worse, the camera often gets blocked by the environment. Awnings, buildings, trees, they all get in the way, obstructing your view of the game. This means you need to waste time running away to lead enemies to an area where you can actually see what’s going on. That the vast majority of my game overs happened because of the countdown than because of my own lack of skill is immensely frustrating.
There is a game happening under all that
It is a shame, because I found to be the story of The Witch and the Hundred Knight almost worth the slog of its gameplay. Metallia herself is a fun, fleshed out character who (despite being irreversibly evil) is fun and endearing enough to get the player to engage in its story. The side characters are well rounded, the antagonists hypocritical and dastardly. The tone is generally playful and silly, but can also delve into some very dark areas at the drop of a hat. The dark and sad parts hit hard, but the game also knows to dole it out in small enough doses that the overall tone is playful even if things get very, very dark at times. It is not a marvel of writing, but it is silly and interesting enough that it made me want to see what will happen next, and had me wondering how it will all end. Be it not for the story, I would have probably dropped it a while ago.
The Revival Edition does have some additional content. Specifically, it has a gigantic dungeon that you advance through at the same pace as you advance through the main story line. This dungeon happens in a parallel time line, and features different version of the same characters that appear in the main story line. Despite the fact that it is at its core the same type of game, it can be a lot of fun to see the alternate versions of the characters. You also get to play as Metallia herself after filling up a meter. This is a lot of fun, and the developers really made an effort to make her play different from Hundred Knight. Sadly, the time you have as her is severely limited, and it is a feature only in this dungeon, which is a waste.
Playing as Metallia can be a treat
The Witch and the Hundred Knight has personality and a fun story in spades. If the rest of the game matched the quality of this, it would be one of the my favorite games of the year so far. Unfortunately, the bulk of the is the combat and exploration, and that is just not up to par. The combat is too shallow to be interesting, and that makes any challenge come from the contradictory game design rather than from any genuine difficulty. If the story sounds intriguing to you and you think you may be able to put up with the gameplay, I’d recommend waiting until its on sale to pick this up. It is simply not worth full price.
This review was performed on code provided by the publisher.
