Witch Spring R

• Genre: RPG
• Time Played: 42 Hours
• Too Short/Long: I only played so much because I think I did pretty much everything you can do. There is a bit of back and forth grind that it simplifies, but it could have been made a little easier with more shortcuts or more/better mounts and expanded the story a little bit, to be a bit longer.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Extremely pleased, pleasantly surprised, I think it's another for the top favorite games list.
• Why I played: I loved Witch Spring 3: Re:Fine. At time of writing, a tabletop roleplaying character I am currently playing is largely based off the character from WS3.
• Recommend to others: I definitely would. The problem is it's PC only right now and the devs don't seem to have any plans for a console port. So if you're amenable to PC games, don't wait. They seem to be working on other stuff for console. It feels like it should be a Switch game though.

Witch Spring R is a remake of the first, a mobile game that wasn't a micro transaction heavy service game but just a cheap little rpg for a few bucks. The improvement is DRASTIC. I've played a few remakes this year and this one is the biggest leap by far. This is everything built from the ground up, all new graphics, music, content, art, content/story that was in the 2nd game mixed in, etc. A fully new game. I didn't play the original, because at the time it wasn't localized, but I have previously watched some videos and stuff like that. I just found out all Witch Spring games are now localized and have to wrestle with if I want to figure out how to play them since my phone runs a version of Android that is too new for them, or just hope and hold out for more remakes/ports.

It's gameplay style is another reason I think it would be great on Switch. It's very easy to pick up and play and as you progress you get the ability to quick battle weaker enemies to farm them for materials, since you have to make/upgrade most of your equipment/items yourself. You can play it so easily in short bursts that it very much supports grab and go, or sit down play and being able to suspend games and walk away easily, is something the Switch seems to handle a bit better than other modern consoles, even though other consoles could do that as well, PC just seems like the worst choice... but it's the largest audience, I get that too.

You play as a little gremlin named Pieberry who is a Witch, and that's bad because the Pope said so. So you're just trying to live here while witch hunts take place. Which all sounds far to serious for how cute the game is, but otherwise it's kind of typical rpg world stuff. You don't get a party exactly, but you can get a bunch of animal companions, but it's not a monster collecting game really either. You can solo just about everything, but it's more fun having animals and some are necessary for traversal/side quests. They're all great though, there isn't one I don't like, I just have some obvious favorites.

I loved the game. I didn't think I would like it more than Witch Spring 3, and there are still some aspects I might prefer about 3, but it can't really hold a candle to how well done this remake was. There are a couple weird things, like QA stuff that seems to have been neglected. Some text that overhangs. A missing word in a sentence, and the fact the item sorting is absolute garbage. Those three things are the biggest flaws in the game. Otherwise? Barely a complaint. Like I mentioned above, maybe with some reworking of some things, the pacing could have been better, but that kind of comes with the territory of being a remake. A remake of a game designed for phones. So if they want to at least follow the story and some of the key points of progression accurately, I can see how that would mess with the pacing, making it seems like some of the stuff you get is too late or maybe even too early in some cases.

They could have leaned into that a bit more and there could have even been more spell options, I feel like, but again, certain things that I will give them some leniency on for being a mobile game remake, and honestly it wasn't that it was definitely too small, I just wanted more. I wanted more variety. I wanted access to things sooner, and I wanted the world to be bigger.

But Witch Spring R isn't bigger. It's just the story of what happens with one little witch in her little witch house on one little continent that has a total of two whole towns. At least in this one. There are areas to are blocked from accessing via ocean that I believe were originally in Witch Spring 2. Maybe if they don't do a whole Witch Spring 2, they do a an R2 DLC or something? Since I can see the areas and almost go to them. Word is there probably won't be a full remake of 2 since so much of it's content was put in this one, but I just hope the series does well enough to keep going because I have loved both entries I've played so far.