Wytchwood

I’ve been looking forward to this game and it did not disappoint.

First impressions

Cozy ambiance. Excellent soundtrack. Play at your pace. Vibrant and detailed areas. Quirky characters. Unique art style. Grotesque. Witty, sarcastic and dry humor.  Creepy/Gloomy tales.

Realistic use of ingredients. There’s often an explanation as to why certain spells or reagents are needed.

Frame rate is very smooth except towards the end when you reach the Snow Peak but you only spend a minute or so in there so it was a minor inconvenience at best.

You start as a witch with no memories and your first task is to find your Grimoire. This contains your most powerful spells and reagents… except it’s empty.

Once you are past the tutorial, you are charged with collecting 12 wicked souls for the Goat in order to awaken the Sleeping Maiden in the shrine.

Gathering ingredients is easy enough. They can be picked from the ground, chests, extracted with tools or spells from various creatures.

Some ingredients such as Jar of Water is a combination of Empty Jar and using it on any water source that has the Empty Jar as its weakness.

Some reagents are created from a combination of reagents or spells or both.

Observation is a basic witch skill you pick up early on the game which reveals weaknesses. It provides hints and recipes for fending off enemies. Spells and Reagents appear in your grimoire after using Observation.

Dryads, for example, look like trees but their weakness is Cinderbox.

Leeches, for example, have a weakness to Spirit Salts. Ingredients can be harvested after using the Spirit Salts.

A gate portal allows you to explore areas other than your house and backyard. Only the Forest and your home are available at first. The rest of the areas must be unlocked as you explore. Seven areas will be available for exploration once you find all the portals.

There are many characters to interact with. They might supply you with hints, tools, quests or might even turn out to be enemies.

This game is all about completing quests and crafting spells or reagents which I found very enjoyable.

Every time you collect four souls for the Goat, you must return home to deliver the souls and rest.

Tips

As you uncover new quests, the old one is untracked so make sure you are on the right quest/chapter.

Harvest ingredients even when you don’t need them. Surplus will avoid you repetitive trips.

Try to discover portals when exploring a new area as it will make your life easier. Always use Observe on glowing structures or suspicious spots.

Final Thoughts

While playing the game, I was met with some hindrances such as occasional freezes, errors and crashing. These weren’t constant and seemed to happen after hours of gameplay. No progress was lost during these mishaps. It’s a new game and some bugs are bound to exist.

Animals are used to represent human greed, avarice and malice — and there’s a twist of irony in many of these stories.

I wish it the game was longer as I really enjoyed it.

The stories I found the most chilling were: The Leech, The Wolf and The Hog.