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”Blasted by Spell, Bonked by Staff”

Little Witch Nobeta (LWN) is an indie project I’ve been following since 2020 demo because of the gameplay mechanics and of course, cute anime girl!, developed by Taiwanese team named Pupuya Games. Please keep it mind this is subjective opinion based on my experience (19 hrs. - early access / 7 hrs. – full release). You may disagree and enjoy the game without nitpicking which is totally fine.

A Journey to Find Trueself

The game tells the story in the perspective of Nobeta, a skillful witch who is seeking the truth of her past by descending into the depths of mysterious castle. It’s a simple plot and yet somehow intriguing because of cryptic dialogues and mystery. I enjoy learning a bit of character background and tragic story related to crafted soul. The sympathy toward non-living matter is one thing I learn from the story which can be complicated feelings, but still carry sense of comfort and connectedness between characters. I wish the game has more screenplays for each character to build up and fully develop.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2869454651
The dark gloomy world and cute character design in anime aesthetic is such a nice contrast and sweet spot for people who prefer light-hearted story and less graphic. In-game animation work and combat feedback are very well done even it sometimes looks bit stiff in cutscene and awkward camera angle. I also appreciate minor changes in animation and voice tone which tie to a certain part of the story.

Empower, Enchant, and Engage!

LWN plays like third-person shooter with some soul-like elements. Player progresses and fights through each area interconnected by small hubs and gate. Defeat enemy to earn soul as upgrade currency and lose some if you die. Exploration rewards shortcut, useful consumable, spell tomes (only way to upgrade elemental spells), and collectable which reveal a piece of backstory of game world. Goddess statue serves as checkpoint, allows player to upgrade stats (pretty straightforward and self-explained), buy items, fast travel, and change Nobeta costume. The world resets and common enemies respawn every time player revisits the statue. This is pretty much soul-like formula if you’re not familiar with this genre.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2869456956
LWN emphasizes on positioning ranged combat with melee backup. You start with arcane spell and learn more spells as you progress. I like how each spell represents and function similar to IRL firearms (ice – machine gun, fire – shotgun, thunder - sniper). Each spells also can be fully charged to alter additional effects or perform powerful charged shot.
Your movement and evasion are tied to stamina bar while casting spell is limited to mana gauge in order to prevent player from spamming. You can gain mana back by direct-hit melee, dodging attack, or counter magic (melee attack right before the enemy hits player). It may requires timing and practice for different enemy/boss but the payoff is worth and satisfying. Dodge or melee during casting spell also greatly boosts charge speed which comes in handy when your ability is not fully optimized and timing is crucial.
There are also minor features like headshot damage, body part damage (some bosses), enemy does friendly fire, and movement tricks allow player to bypass or reach some hidden area. Probably not by intended design, but it’s fun to mess around
The combat in general is probably the strongest point of the game which keeps me replaying from time to time including aggressive and tricky boss fight. Death penalty might be more generous compared to other soul-like games, but the full release still deliver skill-based and high-risk high-reward combat mechanics. Simple yet engaging

An Unfulfilled Witchcraft

However, there are some aspects of both level and gameplay design that could have done better. The environment has no improvement from early access; they consist of bland and generic looking hall and long corridor, full of empty space. The later stages might have different tone, but you still notice tons of reused assets and same looking environment/structure throughout the campaign. I think adding detail and interaction could benefit the environmental storytelling and relationship between characters (especially Nobeta and Black Cat, both need more screenplay to develop).
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2869458889
The game also suffers from lack of interesting enemy design and variation especially non-boss types. You’ll mostly encounter same dark spirit and dolls with slight change of skin and attack pattern. There are few encounters that encourage player to utilize special ability of full charged spell like breaking shield or interrupt deadly move, but that’s about it. Once I got Lv.3-4 fire and lightning spell and abuse dodge/absorption ability. Things become unbalanced as they can trivialize and breeze through most fights (Arcane full charge is also great for knocking boss from distance). You don’t expect depths of elemental-based combat here but treat it like typical third-person shooter. Similar to puzzles which only involve specific spells and timing for couple times. I just personally wish the elemental spells play much more important role and expand its creativity.
My expectation is probably bit high from this indie title. Considering that the amount of budget could went into mentioned aspect instead of focusing on marketing and promotion.

Performance / Replayability

There is technical report by players, but I had no major issue or game-breaking bug during 26 hrs. of total playtime. Most common problems I found are enemy stuck in some level geometry (mostly pile of rock or between pillars) and visual glitch on grass sprite. Performance is solid for Unity game with stable 60 FPS (Win7, GTX1050ti, 8 GB RAM, 1080p on max settings) and responsive keyboard control.
The game offers two based difficulties and new game plus which carry all player progression. NG+ is required if you aim to max out stats and duplicate tome to fully upgrade spells. Optional costume can be obtained by specific condition and animated comic which include jokes and backstory of each doll (and they take space more than an actual game).

Audio / Soundtrack

LWN has decent amount of soundtrack from boss battle theme to sad and depressing main theme. They are good along with ambient soundtrack. My only gripe is few sections have no background music at all. For sound effects, most are strong and punchy which help to enhance combat feedback. Plus, ambulance siren on critical health is so goofy and I love it.
The game features fully Japanese voice over dialogue and collectable lore. Boss characters are voiced by Hololive members (Popular JP VTubers). Either you are VTuber / VA fan or not, I personally enjoy their work and respect voice talents that put their effort and personality into each character despite amount of their short screenplay (ignore those negative review bomb that have nothing to do with game but just pure anti). Voice-over index of each collectable is surprising even I found it’s unnecessary and could be improved better in-game story/dialogue.

Closing

Overall, I do enjoy what the game has offered. Maxed out everything and complete multiple playthroughs. It has many interesting ideas and utilities of each spells even the some aspects feel underdeveloped and hold its full potential. It’s worth full price if you’re looking for anime action game with decent challenge or being completionist like me. I hope the developers expand their in-game creativity and improve wherever their next project would be.
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