mysterytoast

Witchspring R

Began: 4/10/2025 (but most progress made 5/11 onwards)
Completed: 5/21/2025
Playtime (62/65 achievements): 44.8 hours
Purchased during the Autumn 2023 sale.
Going into this, my impression was that this game is like the Atelier series. I suppose aesthetically that’s true, but there’s more a focus on stat growth (and character growth as part of that) and less item creation.
The game… is cute. Pieberry’s voice gets kinda grating once you get to the point where you’re running around grinding items via quick hunts, but that’s kind of my fault for getting to that point. I like the art and model style, the story was sweet and I’m glad it has a happy ending for almost every character. I can absolutely see where it connects to the other games in the series. (I’ve seen people who dislike the romance subplot because of the character and how he acts at the beginning, but now that I’ve seen it what I’ve concluded is that those people are moral purists and they better not have been wrong or rude or mad ever in their life.)
The combat was also a lot of fun! I played chapter 4 onwards on hard difficulty (and before that normal for mobs, but hard for bosses) and while it still wasn’t difficult, I liked how much complexity you could glean out of it, from the spell modding system to weapon swapping to hp attacks and blessings and skill effect chaining, and Black Joe’s item mechanic (I also liked jacking Peanut Shark to 285% attack and dropping nukes on my enemies). I also enjoyed the pet summoning system and how that opened up even more combos, even if the whole “knock to 30% hp and mind control” thing gets a bit frustrating due to how the game also encourages stat growth.
I guess my main issue was how underwhelming difficulty felt. In another game, Normal difficulty would actually be Easy. Hard feels like the “intended” difficulty — that’s when you start getting more complex attack patterns and (may, didn’t need it for the final sequence lmao) need to use some defensive strategies. Also, it felt like hp was by far the most impactful resource. Not only was it just easier to obtain than defense and agility, the other two “defensive” stats, a lot of bosses, especially early on, felt like they required a minimum amount of health that couldn’t equivalently be overcome by investing that time in another defensive stat. If an attack dealt 800 health, it felt more worthwhile to hit that threshold than to reduce that damage. But maybe that’s just me.
I’m still missing 3 achievements for the White Wood weapons as well as Weapon Master. I’m not really sure what I’m missing for Weapon Master — it could be that NG+ exclusive weapon, or it could be getting the other two achievements? I’m not sure if it’s possible to have all 3 weapon paths even on NG+. Supposedly 10% of those who played the game have this achievement though, so I’m not sure what I’m missing, and even the forums aren’t much help. Oh well, I’m not a 100% completionist anyway… but I might do some NG+ at some point. The game is fun enough to earn a return.