by 
AKA “Magical Girl Dark Souls.”
Some time ago, I binged a series of YouTube videos recommending indie Souls-likes and games with similar “feel” (though not necessarily identically mechanically). Northern Journey was one such game. This was the other. I didn’t anticipate either experience being quite so good. I’m not sure why this game was created, but then again that’s something you could say of most anime. Okay, okay – I’ll get to the point.
I can’t think of a better descriptor of Little Witch Nobeta than “Magical Girl Dark Souls.” You play as Nobeta, a young girl who enters a castle to find a throne. You fight your way through strange enemies and cursed ruins using a variety of magical abilities, all while learning more about your past and the world around you from items found throughout the castle.
First the criticisms: I beat the game, having fairly thoroughly explored everything and defeated a side boss or two, in around 8 hours. The few times I died were almost entirely due to falling off of things (and once by getting trapped between two enemies against a wall – but aren’t those both the signs of a Souls game anyway?). While there are challenging points, I would say this is far more a “relaxing” (for Souls-like veterans) fight through a short story than a Dark Souls marathon. The castle does loop back around a few times, but your experience will be entirely linear unless you choose to grind for levels.
With that out of the way, there is a lot of good here – which I wasn’t expecting given the strong anime vibes I was getting going in. The characters are charming and the story is engaging (admittedly I’m a sucker for magical girl anime, so keep that it mind). The eight hours it took to beat was almost entirely positive, and the magic combat is deep enough to keep you interested much of the time (though since it is primarily ranged, it is fairly easy). I was consistently surprised how well they built the world through the collectibles you find, and the mood of the castle is perfect. Supplementing this was not only a effective voice cast, but a quite enjoyable soundtrack which kept surprising me with its quality. On the technical side, there were plenty of control/game options to get your experience just right (no native ultrawide, but at this point I’m used to jumping through hoops for it. Happily, Borderless Gaming fixed it for me – and what would a Dark Souls game be without resolution issues?).
As long as you face your time with the expectation of a fun little romp through a Souls-esque castle with anime girls, you won’t be disappointed. There’s even omake and a couple episode anime backstory for each of the characters once you finish the game as long as you obsessively find the collectibles, which was a pleasant (albeit faintly amusing) surprise for me. Tier One (as long as you can stand anime).
