The Witch and the Hundred Knight 2 is the second in a series this writer had never heard of, the game initially made an extremely poor first impression prompting thoughts that perhaps ignorance is bliss. I persevered however, mostly because words had to be typed and eventually found a very competent and enjoyable action RPG buried underneath an abysmal narrative full of irritating characters voiced by people who the developers presumably found on Craigslist and paid in small change.
characters are barely introduced and then exchange nonsense dialogue for far too long
A Story that Time Should Forget
The Witch and the Hundred Knight 2’s awful story is the reason it makes such a dreadful first impression. The first forever is spent with a series of characters that are barely introduced and then exchange nonsense dialogue while the character portraits zip over and back on the screen. It looks awful and sounds even worse. I implore everyone who reads this to go and seek out the opening 30 minutes of the game on YouTube and see how long you last watching it without the promise of eventually getting to play a game.
This writer lasted two hours before turning the voice volume down to zero and skipping every single piece of plot the game tried to digitally vomit all over my living room. What I can recall from those two hours is that there is a witch disease which causes eyes to grow in the middle of people’s foreheads. The witch disease also takes over the victim’s mind, transforming them into a witch with a completely different personality. There are witch hunters that work at a university and try to cure people, and the whole thing is a convoluted and poorly-realised mess featuring a stream of unlikable and puzzling characters.
There is the implication of a setting with depth and a world with organisations that are fully-realised, none of this is explained properly to the player.
A Bland and Garbled Cast of Characters
I shall now attempt to remember some of those characters; there was the main one with blue hair, her sister, who got infected and became a witch who is a completely separate personality from the sister. The witch who is occupying the body of the blue haired lady’s sister is the one who brings Hundred Knight to life from a doll that the blue haired lady’s sister owned. There is also a female witch hunter who forgot to put on trousers when she left the house, she works with a red haired eye patched child who is knocked unconscious within a few minutes of being introduced. There is the implication of a setting with depth with a world full of organisations that are fully realised, but none of this is explained to the player.
There is some fun stuff in here; the gameplay is the standard issue oblique-view, action RPG, Diablo-esque mass slaughter of waves of enemies. The combat has a very satisfying flow and enough depth to keep it interesting and challenging. The player is introduced to its many layers at a well measured pace over the course of opening hours.
The game has some quite clever mechanics in the mix here
Smashing Pumpkins (with Magic Hammers)
The player character Hundred Knight can equip up to five weapons and which he then uses in a row to build his combo. There is plenty of weapon variety here along with the standard colour rarity green to gold situation from almost every other game with a loot system. The game has some quite clever mechanics in the mix here, as the players’ combo increases so does the percentage chance of a drop and the chance for an epic or legendary drop. The Hundred Knight has different facets that he can change to mid battle; these facets change the knight’s appearance, stats and special moves.
Calorie Counting
The player also has to keep in mind the Hundred Knight’s action points and gigacalories, the latter are used to heal the Hundred Knight over time slowly or quickly with the press of a button. If the Hundred Knight runs out of gigacalories he enters a weakened state, lowering his attack and defence. If the player successfully completes a 5 hit combo with each of the weapons they have equipped they have a chance to absorb gigacalories from weakened enemies. This system adds more layers of strategy to fights as the larger enemies give more gigacalories but managing to land 5 hits in a row can be challenging.
if the Hundred Knight dies before returning to the base some of the items that have been picked up during fights will be lost
The Witch and the Hundred Knight 2 has a very robust upgrade system for the player’s weapons and armour. At the base hub the Hundred Knight can recycle unwanted weapons and armour the player has collected in the world to increase the power and defence of items. Another great system in this game is that the player doesn’t have immediate access to the items that are collected in the world. In order to access the items the player must revisit the base hub, and if the Hundred Knight dies before returning to the base some of the items that have been picked up will be lost. This is the first time in a long time that this reviewer has felt properly punished for not being good enough at a video game.
This is not a game that is going to set the world alight, but it is very competent with plenty of good systems that will keep the player engaged, the story certainly won’t. I have had a look at what amount the developers are asking for the game when it comes out, and yeah, its way too much for what they are actually selling. My advice is, look at the price it’s going on sale at and then wait until its half that.
