The Witch and The Hundred Knight: Revival Edition, an RPG for Beginners

Overview

Released last month by NIS America for the PS4 as an enhanced port, The Witch and The Hundred Knight: Revival Edition is an action role-playing game that revolves around Metallia, a powerful witch who summons the legendary Hundred Knight to defeat her rival, the Forest Witch Malia. The first edition was released exclusively for the PS3 in 2013 by Nippon Ichi Software and received criticism for several gameplay and technical issues, which included one very annoying bug that forced the game to return to the system menu and losing all unsaved data.

Story

The Witch and the Hundred Knight has a very unconventional story with a witch that is not afraid to speak her mind. Metallia has been imprisoned in a small swamp and to get out she recruits the help of the Hundred Knight. The Hundred Knight helps the witch by going around the world to spread her swamp, increase her power, and defeat Malia. From the very start, Metallia doesn’t hesitate to look down on you and treat you like dirt. She judges your every move, decision, and makes you questions everything you’ve done up until now. Unfortunately, you have an IQ of zero and don’t know any better, so you follow her every order.

Gameplay

Throughout the game, however, you can increase your intelligence and when asked a question you can either ignore, agree, disagree, or be indecisive. Gameplay-wise, the game is just like any standard action RPG game. Players learn new powers, special abilities and how to equip armor, weapons, and “facets,” which alter the stats of the weapons and the Hundred Knight.  The Witch and the Hundred Knight has a top-down isometric view that bears a striking resemblance to Diablo II. The Hundred Knight can raid houses and attack the villagers, but do it too much and it will bring you bad karma.

There are two things that bother me, the tutorial and the Giga Calories. The tutorial is very detailed, which is great for people new to RPGs. You learn the basics of attacking, movement, how to interact with the different characters, and much more. The problem is that this makes the game feel very slow for experienced players and there’s no option to skip the tutorial. The Giga Calories are like your health in mobile games, once you’ve reached your limit you have to reset again before you can go on a full journey. I like that they’re trying something new and different, but it feels like something I shouldn’t have to worry about in an RPG.

Mechanics

I usually dread hearing the English dubs because of Naruto, but NIS America did a great job with the translation and dubbing of the video game. They truly captured Metallia’s superiority and made her comments rude, but cute. I like the visuals during dialogue, but gameplay visuals can improve a bit. The camera angle, in particular, makes it hard to find chests and attack enemies. While the game has improved from its 2013 predecessor, there are still a couple bugs to work on.

The Witch and the Hundred Knight is a great introduction to action RPG games. I remember the first RPG I started playing had no tutorial and I had to figure out everything on my own or ask for help from online players. This was very discouraging since many players were snobby and treated me as a noob. The Witch and the Hundred Knight teaches most if not all the basics of an RPG. Experienced players may dislike how detailed the tutorial is because they’re learning everything they already know.  The game has a few minor issues, but the bug from the original 2013 game is gone. The Witch and the Hundred Knight is an improvement of the original, has an unconventional story, and Metallia is just too cute not to love, even if she treats you like dirt.

Buy it here on Amazon.