I like this game but the story’s pacing is really fucking bad. The filler puzzles are unique and a nice way to take breaks from the sorry, but at the same time that just hurts the pacing further. I think there were parts of the writing that were really drawn out even if they were supposed to highlight a character’s insanity (cough Lime dialogue cough). If not for pacing being such a HUGE part of this game, I would’ve given Witch’s Heart a higher rating. The game in general is just very cute and creative.

Charlotte and Wilardo are peak characters though.

witch 's heart é um dos meus jogos favoritos! eu entendo por que as pessoas podem não gostar desse jogo, principalmente pela a gameplay que eu pessoalmente acho muito chato principalmente a parte de ajudar demônios já que bloqueia seu avanço, mais de qualquer forma eu amo esse jogo acho a história bem interessante na minha opinião teria maneiras melhores de apresentar os mistérios, porém acho a maneira que apresentam consideravelmente boa.
os personagens são carismáticos e me dá uma vontade real de jogar para ver o destino deles em cada rota mais em geral cada rota só fica interessante no final delas pelo menos para mim. duas coisas que eu esperava mais e gostaria que fosse melhor, a primeira seria os presentes você mal ganha nada dando presentes coisas como conversas especiais ou algo assim não tem, é meio chato na minha opinião, até mesmo quando damos um diamante(o melhor presente do jogo) eles tem uma reação de 2 falas. a segunda coisas e a falta de bad endings so temos 1 no total que é no prólogo isso não um problema em si mais e algo que realmente sinto falta principalmente nesse estilo de jogo .
basicamente eu recomendo esse jogo por que pessoalmente gostei bastante mesmo com bastante problemas ^^

(desculpa por qualquer erro de português)

In the opening, a young woman named Claire runs into an old mansion to escape from the rain, oblivious to the intense and terrible journey that was to await her. Much akin, my lack of reading comprehension on vgperson's website made me wander into this game, just wanting another cool and cozy RPG Maker experience, unprepared to lose my mind at the journey ahead. What presents itself as a pulpy horror anthology, and very often is one, turned out to be the root of one person's ongoing mega project that's left me incredibly enticed.

An interesting realization came upon me while playing Witch's Heart: one that probably should have been obvious much sooner, but feels particularly pronounced here. RPG Maker has been utilized by a lot of professional illustrators who wish to display their creative visions in game form: Miwashiba, Omocat, Deep Sea Prisoner, Segawa (I think), Nemlei, IZ (the creator of this game). It makes sense why, it's a relatively easy to get into series of engines that does a lot of the lower-level work for you. Oftentimes this leads to a lot of the fidelity of the games being showcased through illustrated stills, playing to the creators' strengths, and it's something I really love. It makes connecting with the characters in these games so much easier when provided such a vivid visual showcase of them. Witch's Heart is no exception, with a frankly absurd number of CGs throughout each cutscene that add so much to the experience.

When initially faced with the chapter selection, I was under the impression each would lead to an ending of ambiguous canonicity, like much of its RPG Maker ilk. I was kind of right, but you end up playing each storyline in order, with each one rearranging similar set pieces to tell a new storyline that builds off the ones that come before. This framing ends is used really well to shine a spotlight on each of the characters. My early favorite was Ashe, the silliest zoomiest Poochy-bait-est character ever, but despite not being present much until the end, Noel grew on me a ton as well. The story framing also ended up playing into the story itself, culminating in a moment that made a bit emotional towards the end (which isn’t an easy thing to do)!

While most of the story is communicated in effectively a visual novel format, thrown in are adventure segments comparable to moon, where you wander the mansion helping out the monstrous inhabitants. The connective tissue between these two different modes is almost non-existent. You’re just told “okay go help the monsters” for no real reason, not even in the macro sense of why you’re helping them out in the first place. Claire is just that nice, I guess. The total non-sequiturity throws a wrench into the pacing at times, especially when the adventure segments are slammed right before a big story moment. Then you have to figure out how to continue the story and, damn, sometimes you’re just forced to check every room to continue. Thankfully, the mansion itself is fairly small, but it ends up as a consistency annoyance regardless.

In spite of the pacing issues, however, the adventure segments themselves are a cozy time. Much like how the story overlays upon itself with each route, colorful “fantasy zones”, stretching beyond the walls of the mansion, reveal themselves. Each one id full of its own nooks and crannies to explore and often portals deeper into completely different worlds. Venturing through each neon-illuminated landscape can feel almost like a tiny version of Yume Nikki. You even get new tools across each route to interact with these worlds in new ways.

Some areas even include something that could be considered combat!…? In a very bold decision, the game tries to approximate Zelda 1-esque combat under the limitations of the RPG Maker 2003 engine, and it goes about as well as you’d expect. Every time you press the attack button, it pauses to check for an interaction, making it all feel so start-and-stop. It sucks. I can appreciate the attempt to do something different, but it sucks. Graciously, you don’t have to engage with the combat much at all, but it leaves me wondering why bother having it in the first place. It never feels like the game benefits from the combat in a thematic sense, and it finds plenty of non-combat ways to up the tension.

All these issues, as easy they are to gripe about, slip away with just how engrossing the story is. Finishing the third storyline right before having to leave for work left me with such an itch, desperately wanting to know how the book closes on these characters. And well, I still don’t know! Upon completing the fourth route, I discovered this is but Act I of the full Witch’s Heart story and that’s… exciting! I’m all for getting more time with this cast, to see how this story can be layered upon further. Only 2 of the remaining 5 routes have been released in the six years since the original release, but I’m ready to the process. This is now my Deltarune.