It's about time that I start reviewing games again, and here's one that I've touched on before! The Legend of Dark Witch 3: Wisdom and Lunacy. To this day, this game still remains only on the now defunct 3ds and NAN-A, the main developer of the game (and is in charge of INSIDE_SYSTEM) still hasn't made plans to port the game to Switch or PC (Idk if this changed, I've blocked him on Twitter for him blocking people over them finding out the bugs for Brave Dungeon 2 for Switch/PC on the Discord server and on the Steam forums when it was in early access), but for now, only obtaining this game through other means is the way to get it.

So, what thoughts have changed since then? A lot, now since I've gotten a better grasp on how a game should work with its story and its gameplay. Dark Witch 3:a story tends to be more involved than its predecessor, Dark Witch 2 (Despite being "mainline" from NAN-A, I'm not counting Brave Dungeon as that), in terms of how the actions set by the characters happen and whatnot. The game's intro scene introduces magic, which the Beastmen (Or Fae, this series doesn't have a coherent way to explain the difference between a human, a Beastmen or a Fae at all) have naturally without having to use any other form of element to use it. And then right after explaining its use, it introduces Syega, a substance of magic that the humans use to allow them to perform well... Magic stuff. They use it just the way that the Fae do, except it's not natural to them. With that out of the way, the game would then explain the plot more, with how the Humans and the Fae live in harmony with some fights still happening sometimes. A place in Beatus (this game's universe) called the Old Islands, has a small 9 person group called the Magic Lion Corps and has the ultimate plan to wipe out the Fae once and for all. BUT! A certain thing happened where the traitor (the girl in the middle of the intro scene when it shows the characters is named Day) has been apparently backstabbed by the Corps and had no other response but to be exiled from the Old Islands, separating the Corps for a while now.

Eventually, Day comes back bent with revenge against the Corps and it's up for Zizou to collect information from the former members of the Corps to eventually meet up with Day to get a better understanding of the situation. Now I have a bunch to say right off the bat. I don't want to make things too long (idk if there's a cap to this LMFAO) but pretty much what happens when you go through the Megaman like Boss rush before the final boss, you talk to day to try to make her understand that none of the Corps hate her or resented her or anything but before she even gave a right response, the surprise enemy Simeone comes in, saying pretty much that she tricked Day. And that's about it for Zizou. I don't want to say too much about Days story because I've already explained so much of Zizou's, so here's a small thing for her: She goes to the lion corps herself for the revenge they got, they tell her that nothing has been wrong, and that she'll eventually find the truth (she's canonically stupid according to her short description on the menus so she can't easily cling onto the information that the corps give to her) and after defeating both Zizou and her sister Mati, Day even wonders what the hell all of this was for. But then again, the Corpa comes back apologizing for what has happened and then that's it for the game's story. How is the gameplay finally?

It's... Solid. Solid is the right answer I would give. Compared to 1 and 2, the game takes a lot out to balance the system that was normally used: Instead of the Capacity Meter from 2, you get a capsule system more like Gradius: Puck it up, select your item, and install it. Same concept. You also don't have access to overpowered shots like Comet and:or Punishment (although Day magically has it when you FIGHT her, not play as her), and just when you've obtained access to the Revenge moves in 2, they kept it exclusive to the enemies in 3 for an extra challenge.

Another thing that I want to point out is the inconsistency with a bunch of things in this game... How did Day obtain Capacity Zero if it's believed to be a skill that only Goddesses (Mati is the sister goddess of Zizou remember) have, and why in Day's story in the intro stage still make implications that she used it on Zizou but in reality she didn't, and used what the game had to offer? I'll give it this though: Day is strong as hell (I'll get to this soon) and honestly it makes sense that the Cutscene can be played the same as it did with Zizou. But there's the thing: Days' NORMAL revenge attack is Ultima Splash, and judging by her sprite in the Cutscene, she liked it like it was the one that she used. Why didn't it differ depending on which character you've chosen? I don't know. Dark Witch tenda to have a bunch of inconsistent stuff with stuff like this I can't count.

To me, the gameplay is trying its best to make the game as balanced as it can, to even putting enemies in areas that people would try to make an attempt to cheese. That's probably why they also nerfed Lord Attack, to make you bounce off the enemy so that you don't just Phase through them. But here's the problem with all of this: For balancing, this is a good move. But it limits the choices you can have for the characters' movesets. You can't even increase how many shots you can do with Paplene Trade unlike 2 and you're stuck to having 3 as maximum. You could always update the damage output a la what I said, but in return, it does make your shots faster which I honestly feel that it's a downgrade imo.

For Day, you got this low range homing attack that seeks to be much more effective than Zizou's linear shot? I guess that's why they made the character exclusive to when you finish the game as her cause technically if you're a careful player, Day is effectively stronger than a goddess and that says a lot. Her Lord attack speed is also a bit longer than Zizou's. I wonder why.

I've mentioned gameplay, story, and what's next... Post game? There's no shot giving less of a reason to play it, and for unlocking Lunatic, you have to find every single Syega piece every stage. And that's already a pain in the ass to so because of how well hidden they are inside of this game due to how more expansive the stages are...Lunatic in this game is actually the hardest in the entire series: Not only it has enemies that have suicide bullets, everything is extremely fast, and the attack patterns for bosses are intensified. Zametti and Mari would like to speak to you in that regard. My main complaint though, is why do you need to find all Syega pieces in this game to unlock Lunatic? And some of the After Talks, ofc. Oh, I forgot to mention those.

The After Talks in this game are much more engaging and like with the story, more coherent. Seeing Zizou talk to the magic lion corps either for serious talk or for funsies is always a good thing. They introduced it in 2 and gave more justice to it in 3. Day even got some of her own with some exclusive dialogue from the 4 Fae that you fight in the middle part of the game if you've met certain requirements. You also get to finally have a 1 on 1 conversation with Simeone and Day by also meeting some of those said requirements and honestly, I've spoiled so much that you're going to have to find what they talk about in the after talk. I would say more after that but you can probably tell that I'm running out of things to say..

I'm just going to conclude my thoughts here cause I'm writing this all before I'm supposed to go to sleep: The Legend of Dark Witch 3 takes 2 and then makes attempts to fix the game either for the better or for the worse. It's all up for the fans to make the decision for that (but I don't care about the fans because of a ton of reasons), and for me? It's a good decision. If you want to see more of this, then just check out my profile or wait until my next entry :=)