Garden of Witches Review - The Cute Roguelite With Surprising Depth

 

Garden of Witches is a Cute Action Roguelite currently in early access.

Garden of Witches which I will refer to as GoW from here on out, is as stated a rogue lite aiming to be its own charming small adventure with easily lovable characters and aesthetic. It has a lot to offer even for an early access title, so without wasting anymore time, let's dive right in.

 

(Disclaimer: I received a free review copy!) 

Story:

"Long ago Witches were born from a boundless darkness. They knew neither why they were born, nor what their purpose was. Then, one day, the Dream Witch appeared in their world. This Dream Witch was able to create a world of her own design. Curios, the other witches asked if they could join her in her world. The Dream Witch graciously granted them entrance and it became known as the Garden."

What I just quoted was the intro of the game. You play as one of these witches who lives in the garden named Sil the Witch of Threads. She is chilling in her small cozy home, with her speaking cat Canele, finishing up some sewing before her room is bombarded with a nightmare tentacle. You see, as a Witch of the garden, in order to keep it running smoothly, her and the other witches have signed a contract. The contract is to make sure that once every year they will host a tea party simply to put Nahatra, the dream witch, back to sleep, and get rid of her nightmares.

However, it doesn't seem like the other witches are gonna be the one to host the party, or take the responsibility to make sure to invite anyone to it. So Sil picks up her pairs of giant scissors, and goes out to make sure everyone goes to the tea party herself.

I found the story of GoW to be very charming with a colorful cast of characters, and funny dialogue. GoW spends a good enough time to establish everyone you meet and the main character, all without feeling like you get too much story or too little. It feels like just the right amount to keep you interested in it. 

 

One would think that having a lot of story in a roguelite between stages would be a problem, and if it wasn't for the fast scroll skip button, the same would be true here; however, the game itself suggest you use it, as while it skips story, it only skips the story you have already experienced. So if anything, the writing has left me wanting more.

Gameplay:

As stated, GoW is an Action Roguelite where you progress by going from room to room, killing enemies, and then getting rewarded by passive buffs or skill changes. At the end of a stage you fight a big boss, and then you progress to the next one. To achieve this, Sil has several tools in her disposal to protect herself. First she has her giant melee scissors that after a certain amount of hits guarantee a big critical hit, she has a dash that allows her to be invincible for a second while also dodging out of the way of big attacks, and lastly, at the start of a run you get to choose her two spells. There are several ones you can get, and it is a bit random which one is available at the start. 

Thankfully you can reroll the starting spells a few times based on how many dice you have, and some of the spell are more magic based, such as summoning a cat doll that fights for you or a fireball (currently really strong), meanwhile the other skills tend to be more melee centric; like a big round slash to clear the room or a straight up counter enemy attacks. Truly it is up to you to decide which kind of playstyle you want to go for, but I ended up preferring the more mage based playstyle myself.

Every time you use a skill it goes into a cooldown period, and this wait time can be fairly long. There are passives you can find that decrease the wait, but others will upgrade the skill itself. One of the biggest ways GoW differentiate itself from the likes of Cult of the Lamb (which I would say is the closest comparison) is the Synergy system.

When you get a Synergy passive or upgrade to your spell it could be anything from "when you activate spell a crow or flower spawns" or "when your spell hits a target they start to burn." All of these synergies either buff you or attack the enemy directly, but the best thing of all is that they can all work with each other! The more you upgrade the same Synergy, the more you level it up, and  the randomized upgrades will interact with another synergy.

This effectively makes it so regardless of what combination of spells you choose, you can make them work with each other by just getting the right upgrades, and being smart with it. Honestly this is what makes the game really fun! Figuring out mid run how to make your build work with what you get, and not being afraid to experiment with everything. You could focus on Crows so that every time you attack you summon one. It would then attack simultaneously with both your melee attacks and spells, and if you also had fire synergy, all of your attacks would burn the targets while they also get pecked by crows.

After each run or death you can go to your handy diary, written by Sil herself, to permanently buff your stats.

All of the upgrades will increase your attack, so even if you're having a hard time, you will eventually get so powerful that you can force through by just sheer power. 

 

Some of you may ask at this point "so is the game difficult or. . ." Yes, the game can be rather intense at different moments.  

 

The bosses in particular get progressively harder in each chapter, but they gain a noticeable difficulty spike in chapter 3, and their patterns start to become very eccentric or rather fast paced. I would say it can even feel a bit unfair at some points, due to your dash having a fairly slow cooldown. Of course you can fix that issue by upgrading your cooldown, but to me it kind of felt like I had to upgrade my cooldown just to stand a chance. 

Thankfully the game has several difficulty selections in case you want to just enjoy the story instead of sweat hard, but in my case I went with normal difficulty, and as you progress the games chapters you will earn new tools to make life easier and to use during your runs through the Garden.

Pros and Cons:

I am just going to say this outright: this game looks gorgeous! The hand drawn character portraits and the enemies and animations make this into a very aesthetically pleasing looking game. Every character has several portraits to illustrate their feelings in any given moment, and they are all of high quality. The music is very cozy and surprisingly jazzy, fitting the games aesthetic, and when it wants to, it can go rather "hard" in a good way!

Current main selling point of the game  is its story, characters and gameplay, but I feel that there are some things that need improving (and of course I have kept in mind this is a early access game, so most likely the things I will list will get changed overtime). Currently the melee in the game feels a bit weak compared to just making a spell spamming build, and more often than not you're left a bit vulnerable when you try to melee attack. This is because Sil stands almost still when she attacks with her scissors compared spells that are instant on button press to activate.

To make up for this her scissor attacks do have knockback on them, which does work on the majority of enemies, but it doesn't help much against bosses; in particular, when the bosses get rather ridiculous with their attack patterns (almost felt like I was playing a bullet hell shooter at times to be quite honest). Thankfully the developers have already stated in their community feedback posts that they have taken note of this for the future, so hopefully by the time the game is fully finished, both melee style and spell style are gonna be much more balanced and fun to use. 

That being said, I do feel that the melee combat is still a bit "clunky." It just doesn't feel satisfying hitting with the scissors compared to throwing a fireball at the enemy, and considering the scissors is Sil's main weapon, I hope that the developers have taken note of this as well. I want a bit more "oomph" and "slice" when hitting the enemy, and the main attack really should feel really satisfying to use.

The game is rather short, with it clocking in around 4-7 hours depending on your skill level as a player. However, that being said compared to most early access games, GoW has its full story available. Of course there is gonna be more added as the game progresses, with more bosses, more regions, I presume also more spells, or maybe even weapons. The developers have already stated that there will be more story added, but right now you can have a mostly full experience, and I personally felt satisfied with what I went though. Still I do want more, which I think is a good sign of things to come.

If there is one thing I do wish existed in the game though, it would be something more than just the Roguelite. Now don't get me wrong, the Roguelite gameplay is the main thing you do in this game obviously, but if we compared with Cult of the Lamb and similar games, having those small breaks in between runs by just exploring or interacting with characters would do wonders for this game. To be honest, its mostly because I want to learn more and want to spend more time with characters without the rapid pace of each chapter. Again, thankfully the developers have teased that they will add side quests in the future etc. Hopefully this means there is a bit more than just the Roguelite part in the future!

Closing thoughts:

Garden of Witches surprised me in many ways with its gorgeous hand drawn art style and animations. It's a cute cozy game with a very likeable story, a great soundtrack, and surprisingly deep gameplay! Despite its current flaws, the game is very enjoyable and feels like a complete package; this is rare for a game currently in early access these days. 

The developers have already promised and shown teasers of more things to come, and with what I have experienced so far, I can safely say that I am looking forward to it a lot. It does have a very addictive fun game loop, and it leaves you wanting more.

So it shouldn't come as a surprise that I warmly recommend this game even in its early access state and wish the best of luck to the developers. If anything you should at least check it out on their  Steam page.

 

Verdict: Recommended