The Witch And The Hundred Knight Review

When asked to review this game, I was thrilled - a Japanese action RPG, what could go wrong? By well-known RPG maker Nippon Ichi Software (developers of the Disgaea series) and in development for three years to iron out problems and to make it look extra special? Sounds good!

The game opens on you, a demon who begins hearing an echoing voice. Your first task is to give yourself a name, with a very difficult to use on-screen keyboard. What you choose doesn’t matter as the voice - your boss - gives you the name ‘Hundred Knight’. That’s right, like the title of the game. Hundred Knight soon evolves and gets given a helmet and weapon - “The Dumbass Long Sword”. So-named by the Great Swamp Witch Metalia, your boss, highlighting the humour of the game.

The humour sometimes struggles to come through, however. Given Metalia’s penchant for swearing, it is often undermined by pure immaturity. She swears as if she has only just discovered bad words and is showing off to her friends - though the F-word is muted and the subtitles contain Wingding symbols.

On the subject of Metallia, she demonstrates her evil in the side-task she demands you carry out when you reach a village: she tells you to raid the houses and shops. This lowers one of the many behind-the-scenes numbers, the karma rating. This affects the prices in shops, though there is plenty of free loot found in chests and the actual raids. Succeeding in a raid gives you items in the form of a so-called ‘Family Treasure’ - which is just an item such as a health pickup or Antidote. After getting the celebratory ‘Witch Domination’ and confetti across the screen, you can ‘Visit’ the house again and get another item. This, given the items dropped by the monsters, found in chests and gained from completing the level mean you soon have more than you need.

Speaking of monsters, the creatures you fight have interesting models and look very nice. They grow in level along with you, so continue to present some sort of challenge in numbers. You are eventually given magical attacks, though they take so long to deploy you will wonder why you didn’t just stab them. Sadly, this gets very repetitive quite quickly. You can select up to five weapons to hack, slash and smash your way across each map, which you swing successively to create a combo. These are either swords, lances, spears, hammers or staffs, each causing different damage or effects to the different types of enemies. Bats, for instance, are unaffected by anything except staffs. When you get a weapon combo that works, however, you will only wind up selling everything else you come across as they level up with use. When you collect things in the field, they are stored in Hundred Knight’s stomach - his version of a backpack. Items are stored there until you return to Metalia in her swamp, then you can sell them.

Metalia is, thankfully, not the only cast member. She is joined by her butler Arlecchino, who constantly calls her Master Lia for reasons all his own. Metalia constantly telling him “It’s Metalia” gets old after the second twenty-minute conversation which progresses the story. There is one before and after each level, which put the epic conversations of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty to shame. Usually voiced, but sometimes just subtitles. Hundred Knight doesn’t speak, though players can make their wishes known on a few occasions with the Self Assertion wheel. Affirm gives a positive reply, Deny gives a negative reply, Question is backtalk and Ignore is exactly that. The rest of the cast’s voice acting is decent, as is the rest of the sound, though the music does get repetitive very easily, especially as the same music plays over each story progression on repeat.

The story is very ordinary and straightforward - you have been summoned to do the bidding of Metalia to help spread her swamp across the world. Her poisonous, deadly swamp which kills almost anyone who remains in it for an hour. There are twists, but nothing Shyamalan-esque. It is your job to leave the swamp and go destroy the Pillars, each of which lies at the end of the level and hidden by a Protector. However you have a time limit to destroy it, in the shape of the Gigacal counter - a flame over Hundred Knight’s head and counter in the top left of the screen. It starts going down from 100% the moment you enter the level and the rate varies depending on what you are doing. The counter can be raised slightly by using one of the several smaller warp pillars which litter the maps, trading bonus points for Gcals. You can also earn bonus points to give yourself a little extra defense or attack power. The warp pillars can also be used to return to Metalia, where your Gigacals will return to 100% - then you can return to the same pillar and resume your mission.

If you leave the level early, or lose all of your HP or Gigacals, you lose the chance to get a lot of loot. Warping to the swamp allows you to keep your items, however. There is a lot of experience and items to be collected by remaining in the level for as long as possible. Returning to finished levels and getting 100% map completion gains you a nice amount of Exp - I leveled up four times just for getting an additional 40% of the map.

In conclusion, it seems brash for the sake of brashness, long-winded for no reason but very pretty to look at. It does what it should, but sadly misses the mark of being a great RPG. It has too many items and too little to do, with no side-quests. The first Act takes about 4 hours, unless you skip all of the dialogue then it quickly loses its length. The fighting quickly gets boring, with a single button being used the majority of the time and the bosses being a case of perseverance rather than skill.