Review for The Witch and the Hundred Knight 2. Game for PlayStation 4, the video game was released on 23/02/2017
The development house Nippon Ichi, famous for the series of tactical JRPGs that fall under the name of Disgaea, in 2013 tried to move away from its classic genre to move towards the action JRPG with The Witch and the Hundred Knight, released at the time on Playstation 3 to then have a reinterpretation (read "remastering") on Playstation 4 in 2016.
Although both critics and gamers were not particularly impressed by the title, which has barely reached pass according to almost all the gaming press, Nippon Ichi has announced its direct successor, The Witch and the Hundred Knight 2, for February 2017 in Japan and for March 2018 in the rest of the world.
Will they have learned from their mistakes?
The dance of the witches
Although The Witch and the Hundred Knight 2 is the direct sequel to the first chapter, it does not take up neither the plot nor the characters but only the spirit. Amalie is a teenage girl who lost her parents to a witch a few years before the story begins. Her younger sister, Milm, one day contracts the "Witch Disease" that is the disease of witches, which essentially makes her a latent witch ready to wake up at any moment. Amalie's goal will then be to save her sister from the unfortunate fate with the help of the brave Hundred Knight, a puppet that has come to life.
The basic concept is very simple and phoned as is the progression of the story, at least in part: the twists and turns will often be predictable and predictable, and the plot will proceed rather slowly due to the eternal length of the dialogues.
A point in favor of the narrative sector is the prerogative of every Nippon Ichi title starting from Disgaea: the goliardic spirit and the irreverent presence of black humor. Although, as has already been said, the story is trivial, in the course of the narration there will still be elements and rather ambiguous characters that will improve the general rendering of the storytelling, with jokes and winks that are sometimes subtle, sometimes not. The distinction between good and evil is rather ambiguous in The Witch and the Hundred Knight 2 and many cast members will soon point out to us.
The Witch and the Hundred Knight characters in general work: all except the protagonist, Amalie, who will turn out to be harmful and hateful from start to finish.
Everything else is boring
We come to the technical sector: The Witch and the Hundred Knight 2 is a JRPG action with an isometric view. Our protagonist will have a good amount of weapons available, divided according to rarity and type of damage (cut, hit and magic), moreover a greater variety is given by the "Facets", literally "Aspects" that Hunny can wear and that will guarantee certain characteristics, such as greater physical defense in spite of the magical one, and so on.
You can then choose your fighting style based on both the situation and therefore the weaknesses of the enemies, and our simple preferences. The title offers many other small facets of gameplay, such as the Gigacalories mechanism, (which Hundred Knight constantly feeds on and which constitute a sort of timer at the end of which our protagonist is weakened) or the Tochka, small minions that can be summoned and so on. . The gameplay would therefore be quite fun and varied if the game were not excessively long, for what it offers.
The main problem is underlying. To continue it will be necessary to go from point A to point B, marked on a mini map, passing through always similar environments, fighting enemies that will differ just in color and, more rarely, shape. In each area there will be, for example, a type of enemy weak to the cut and one weak to the blow and, continuing with the hours of play it will also be quite easy to recognize them at a glance.
This limitation, conjugated to a rather obnoxious camera that will often hide enemies behind rocks and hills (which theoretically should become invisible by turning the camera, but not always do), will lead to an excess of boredom over time. Repeating the same actions, in the same areas, against the same enemies for 30 or 40 hours of play is not exactly the closest synonym to the word "fun".
Another problem lies in the aesthetic factor: in general The Witch and the Hundred Knight 2 is very colorful and very pleasant to see. The sprites of the various characters in the parts of the dialogues are very detailed and full of details that make them unique and very singular unfortunately the speech changes in combat. A very intrusive HUD, the constant use of exaggerated effects and the perennial presence of blur (and an annoying fog), will make everything overly confusing both at the beginning and after many hours of play.
A commendation should be made to the bosses of the various chapters: there are many and, apart from a couple of cases, they are all very beautiful aesthetically and different to defeat. It will be necessary to understand which strategy to use each time and arm yourself with holy patience because they will hurt (very badly), especially in the advanced stages of the game.
As for the sound sector, although the soundtracks are almost all forgettable, the game offers two voiceovers, the Japanese and the English, which do justice to the ironic tones that permeate the game world, being deliberately light-hearted and caciaroni.
In conclusion, The Witch and the Hundred Knight 2 could have been much more. The funny and irreverent characters are not enough to revive a banal, albeit pleasant, narrative. Adding an imprecise, confusing and intrusive technical sector to a repetition that leads to boredom, the title fails to excite and remains rather limited. A wasted opportunity, too bad.
► The Witch and the Hundred Knight 2 is an Action-Hack and Slash-JRPG game developed by Nippon Ichi and published by NIS America for PlayStation 4, the video game was released on 23/02/2017
