I’ve been delving into a flurry of Team 17 published games and I am not regretting it one bit, simply because the majority of their catalogue is indie gold. After recently reviewing Ship Of Fools which you can read all about HERE, it was onto The Knight Witch, a gloriously illustrated Metroidvania with some blended fast-paced shoot ’em-up action. Developed by Super Awesome Hyper Dimensional Mega Team, the game is now available on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Playstation 4/5, Nintendo Switch and Windows PC.

Introduction

The introduction to the game is served with some background story with cutscenes and tells the tale of a war which infiltrated the community and was won by the Knight Witches. After learning a fair bit about the core characters and what happened, we then cut to Rayne who will become your playable character after a brief session with some of the mechanics of the game. Rayne is a little downhearted as she wasn’t one of the Knight Witches who claimed all the reputation and popularity as a hero following the Great War. Her husband, however, cheers her up and reminds her of how special she is and that she still has the abilities. He sets up a training area for her to get to grips with combat, flying and magic once more and leaves her to it.

The Brutal War Returns

Soon after this, all hell breaks loose and hostility is in the area. All alone, you venture out into the open and attempt to find out what is going on and try and discover where your husband has buggered off to. During these first moments, you’ll be introduced to the deck-building elements of the game. These cards will allow you to disperse magical powers and forceful attacks on enemies and bosses. Each card has a number which displays how many blue orbs it takes to be able to utilise it. Orbs are collected from slayed enemies and throughout the world.

Gameplay

The gameplay loop is super fun and mostly a case of navigating throughout the five main areas of the game by flying around. Here you’ll be collecting loot, dispatching enemies, defeating bosses, saving certain characters and more. Flying around felt weirdly enjoyable and had a sense of floatiness to it and is controlled using the analogue sticks. Firing at enemies is really easy as well and a case of using the sticks again to direct where you want your blows to land. What I did find early on is how punishing the game can be if you go in all guns blazing. You’ll need to always be thoughtful in your approach and constantly adjust your positioning as one hit to Rayne and you’ll lose a heart of health. Lose them all and you’ll be wiped out completely.

Up & Down Difficulty

For the most part, the game flows exceptionally well, but the challenge fluctuates in difficulty. I didn’t mind this constant up-and-down change as it teaches the player not to get complacent. If you struggle to cope with the manual aiming system, you can opt to have this automatic but after testing this myself it took some of the fun and test away for me personally. At times you’ll be faced with a boss fight that could be rather tough unless you have specific cards to assist you. There was a shield ability that can temporarily block anything coming your way, without this on one particular fight I really struggled.

Graphics & Audio

Thanks to the talented art design team, this is a visual masterpiece as far as I am concerned within the indie space. The visuals are simply gorgeous, crisp and wonderful to look at. The solid control mechanics complement everything that is happening on screen and there isn’t any slowdown or bugs in sight. It almost feels as if you’re deep within a real-life comic book, the presentation is that good. Environments are interesting as well as intriguing and make you want to fly around and explore to ensure you have discovered everything on offer. The creation of the bosses is absolutely fantastic and gives you the feel as if you’re tiny fighting huge powerful enemies.

A Visual Delight

Gunfire, power-ups, explosions and the works all display wonderfully and light up the entire screen. Bring with this some carefully crafted cutscenes which again are wonderful to survey. Whilst I wished there was voice acted narrative here as I feel it would have added to the experience, it wasn’t the end of the world. Dialogue is readable and easy to pick up and understand. The story isn’t overbearing and complex; if you follow it word for word, you’ll absorb it and realise it is a solid storyline. Sound effects are as you’d expect and everything is in sync with how projectile impact with some excellent varied music in the soundtrack hitting both the calmer and more intense moments in the adventure.

In Conclusion

Admittedly I have an awful habit of reading a synopsis of a game and glancing at screenshots and writing a game off sometimes. With The Knight Witch, I saw Metroidvania and saw the card system and was a little bit hesitant to pick this one up for a review. After playing this for close to 20 hours, I have to say I am absolutely glad I did and I became besotted with everything about the game. The card system is simple to understand and not overly complex compared to other Metroidvania titles out there and an interesting storyline with likeable characters sets the concrete foundations of a classic indie title with the incredible graphics being the cherry on the cake. For such a reasonable price point, I’d say it is well worth a punt if the genre scratches your itch, you won’t regret the investment.