LAST TIME ON ZEUSDEEGOOSE!
Zeus has made up his mind on the past; it WAS good. But peeking into the future once more, he sees the second box with another child. Zeus opens the new box once more, seeing if anything can be salvaged from it…

Has there ever been a bad rhythm game before??? Because, if not, Rudymical is certainly a contender for one of the least fun I’ve ever played.

Wow. Just wow. How do you fumble the ball THIS badly? Rudymical comes off as a cute as hell rhythm game, but leaves me frustrated at how astonishingly bad it is. Rudymical is filled with frustrating game design that ultimately leaves me pissed off that I even decided to replay it for this review series. It’s THAT fundamentally awful, to the point where this actually might be my least favorite in the series now. I may have called it average previously, but after replaying it, it’s really not all that great. Oh boy, where do I begin??? Rudymical is a “Music Episode”; translation, it’s just Dark Witch 2 if it fucking sucked. I didn't really like this game in my original review (I think I gave it a 6/10??? Don't remember), and after a replay, I realized that the game just flat out sucks. This is the rare time where the Dark Witch fandom would actually agree with me. I've heard love, good, bad, and straight up hateful reviews for this game. Soooo… high, high hopes, am I right? Let’s just get this mess over with.

As I just said, Rudymical is a rhythm game based off of The Legend of Dark Witch 2, and Dark Witch 2 alone. There are 13 stages, with the final boss sporting 2 individual tracks. It’s a poultry amount, compared to something like Muse Dash (which is also cheaper), but why not, I’ll humor it. For now. Because in the stages themselves, you’re slashing balls in all four directions, at max. Each individual difficulty adds a direction, so Easy only has you slashing one at minimum. Asunto Numero Uno. The controls are REALLY fucking awful. It parallels FNF for how funnily awful it is. Each Arrow Key is the direction you slash in. And it just simply fucking sucks. Yeah, this was originally a Nintendo Switch game, but even then, it was pretty uncomfortable there, too. And with no option to rebind your controls, you’re left with an unsatisfying scheme that really doesn’t work all that well. Asunto Numero Dos. The charting itself is really, REALLY rough. This alone kills Rudymical as a rhythm game. The charting is really THAT abysmal. It feels so poorly correlated to the song. And the song itself really doesn't feel satisfying to play. No satisfaction within, nor are the songs even coherent. And combined with the abysmal controls, it feels absolutely abhorrent to play. Rudymical fails to find that perfect difficulty curve, as Easy and Normal are far too easy, while Hard and Lunatic are near impossible. Because of the wacky charting, poor controls, and an irritating difficulty curve, Rudymical will piss you off more than anything. And these are compounded by the BIGGEST issue. Asunto Numero Tres. The visual design itself. This one should've been a freebie. In almost every rhythm game, the displays are very simple. It's no frills, for a reason. So that you can actually focus on the required inputs required to beat a fucking song. Rudymical is too visually noisy to the point of frustration. Rather than your typical scrolling notes, the balls (your notes) bounce all over the screen, throwing you off easily. Sometimes they're slow, other times they'll just chuck 10 balls straight at your face. It's so incredibly frustrating, and not to mention, slashing balls creates shards of the balls, really obscuring your vision. Yes, there are small spheres that appear around your player character, but so what? I hadn't discovered this until I beat the damn game! And don't even get me started on Lunatic Mode, dude. I dread the thought of even S Ranking any of the songs because the controls and visuals themselves are simply THAT bad. I could probably tolerate the Easy mode, but anything above Hard seems like a nightmare. And because of these issu- oh, wait one more. Asunto Numero Cinco. THE SFX. “YAH YAH ICH YAH YA”- SHUT THE FUCK UP!!

Rudymical ranks among my least favorite games in the entire series. And that's saying A LOT. This one was just shockingly abysmal, both as a rhythm game and as a Dark Witch entry as a whole. I didn't try out the iOS version, as I simply refuse to support a person who endorses lolic- oh shit, NAN-A didn't work on this one? You win this time, bitch. It seems like that one would be a whole lot better given the actually playable control scheme. Eh, who cares, either way. What, do you'd think I'd waste 7 hard earned ones on some mobile game and then get -2 Likes on Backloggd? Shiiiiit. But yeah. I thought Rudymical was terrible. Don't play it. Muse Dash is 2.99 on Steam, just buy it instead if you're looking for a simple rhythm game fix on the cheap. So… What's up next? Hmmm, another spin-off? And it's an RPG? Welp, what can go wrong?

ZEUSDEEGOOSE SCORE: 3/10
MISSION RANKING: D-
CODE NAME: MISS MISS

LAST TIME ON ZEUSDEEGOOSE!
The stars don't look so bright for Zeus. He took a peek into the past and got a pinch in the face. But at the very least, he knows that the past itself isn't flawed, but rather the future. He turns towards the second box, opening it cautiously, but also curious at the past’s quality...

The Queen of the 4/10 indie series.

Before my Binding of Isaac and Blaster Master Zero III era (we’re still in it!), THIS was my favorite game of all time. Honestly, looking back, yeah, no. I was an obsessed fan of the series, and it just happened to be the best game in my former favorite series of all time, so yeah, the high regard I had for it wasn't COMPLETELY unwarranted. After all, I had really liked 1, and 2 was an unambiguous improvement over it. But even back then, I knew I had played better games. Honestly, my prior favorite game to this, Miitopia, was more deserving of that title. But I still hold Dark Witch 2 as the fundamentally best game in the series, and the only one I've fully completed, from start to finish on both 3DS AND Steam. Needless to say, I was all over this game back in the day. I think I genuinely had over a hundred hours in it on 3DS alone. But, enough talking about how past me used to waste his time. It's time to talk about the best game in the series! Wait, how many games do I have lef- FIVE?!?!?!

Kicking off with the story once again, it's ALSO the best in the series. Pure Syega, marks its introduction into the story. Rather than be limited to specific types of magic, Pure Syega is used for general Magic. The discovery of the Pure Syega is credited to Germa; having an unparalleled research field in the world of Beatus. However, for reasons unknown, the researchers of Germa move into Liana, undercover. This sudden move sparks the attention of Zizou Olympia, who descends upon the earth once again to make sure there’s no foul play. The lore of The Legend of Dark Witch was kickstarted with the release of 2, however, future games would mostly lay down on the story. But I think Dark Witch 2, on it’s own, has a pretty cool story, actually. The characters are a lot better and more expressive and lively, rather than the prior, more stoic approach of Chronicle 2D Act. Something I also really love about The Legend of Dark Witch 2’s story is the narrative cohesion. Not only do we get the researchers interacting in the all new “After Talks”, giving everyone a distinct personality, making them actual characters, but unlike the first game, when Zizou finally reaches Germa after defeating the prior researchers, in the background of the second tier stages, you see the castle of Germa, where the final boss lies. It’s a really striking set piece, with its blood red sticking out in even the darkest of nights. I’d talk about the villain more, but that’ll be saved for a little bit later.

Dark Witch 2 overhauls the gameplay of the first game, and prioritizes player choice over all else. First off, there’s a few more difficulty options than before, more specifically one. Very, Very Easy makes the game... Very, Very Easy. There’s not a whole lot to it. You do more damage, the levels get these invisible blocks, and allows you to defeat some otherwise invincible enemies. All of these difficulty options make for an ideal choice, as Dark Witch 2 is actually a fair bit easier than its predecessor. The level design is a lot easier than Chronicle 2D Act’s levels, and while the game throws a few curveballs in your way, the levels aren’t all too challenging. The hardest level without a doubt is Codino’s stage; in fact, why don’t we talk about the stage structure? First up, we have the first 8 stages; Icke, the tutorial, Kuito, who has the best music in the game, Klinsy’s stage, the library, Herbert, my personal least favorite of the 8, Urken, a really fun stage, Mari, another okay stage, Litty, yet another great stage, and Rudy’s stage, 10/10. In terms of Normal Mode, Dark Witch 2 definitely has its ups and downs compared to 1. That sounds like a bad thing; and we’ll get to how they fix that later, but I actually thought, at least in Normal Mode, the level design was a little bit less involved than 2D Act’s stages, which is a bit of a shame, but the game more than makes up that with it’s various improvements and tweaks.

The excellent slot system of the first game has been retained, but lower difficulties make it so that you lose less of your slots upon death. I prefer the more difficult, rewarding system of the past, but this works too. What Dark Witch 2 absolutely BLOWS 1 out of the water in is the amount of depth the slot system itself has. No longer are you limited to the individual Syega pieces Dark Witch 1 gave you, now the Pure Syega pieces act like currency, and this is easily the best change in Episode 2’s gameplay ALONE. You can upgrade your existing slots, or buy entirely new abilities and customize your slots to your liking. And to ensure balance, they group each individual slot type based on how powerful it is. Blue, the cheapest and most affordable, focuses on your mobility, Yellow gives you another action, like Flight or Dashing, you get two weapon slots (Comet and Liner are now separate), and Red, the most expensive, gives you power. You could definitely cruise by on the defaults alone (hell, I didn't experiment with this system until after playing through a few times), but some of these upgrades are simply too good to pass up on. I usually go with Express, which lets you dart around at lightning speeds, Dash, which also lets you dash all across the map at the press of a button, Comet (thankfully buffed from before), Punishment, a seriously awesome charge shot, and simply Power. Unfortunately, I didn’t find the red slots to be all that viable for combat (although they were pretty neat), but they weren’t horrible by any means. The Growpart in general has just been expanded a ton, with all new items and upgrades to get, all of which are pretty great. All of the abilities have second tier upgrades, and you even have items which you can activate during a stage, most of which being pretty awesome! It’s a great system, but it’s almost... too perfect.

Yeah, I’m going to just say it. Dark Witch 2 is a pretty easy game. With all of the stuff you’re given, the game really should put up more of a fight. You’ll be at the final boss before you know it, and while everything from Chronicle 2D Act is pretty much perfected, the game itself needed more challenge. If you were thinking that during your first playthrough, I can’t blame you. But, if you’re the dedicated Dark Witch 2 lover, you’ll find a lot more to do post-final boss. And that’s the perfect segway into LUNATIC MODE.

Inarguably, the best way to play The Legend of Dark Witch 2 is its Lunatic Mode, which saved the game from being in 7/10 territory for me. It feels like this was how the game was meant to be played. Almost all issues regarding difficulty are neutered with this game mode. It hits that perfect sweet spot between casual and hard, not being frustrating to play through at all. It really feels that you have to use everything to your advantage to win. You have to have very fast reaction times, not slip up on your own too many times, and by god, the bosses are sadistic on this difficulty. It’s hard, but VERY satisfying to fully complete. And we’re not even done with the postgame! Dark Witch 2 is waaaaay bigger than its predecessor! Secrets, more abilities, 3 goddamn characters to play as, it’s all here!

My favorite stage in any Dark Witch game has got to go to Franzer’s stage, ESPECIALLY in Lunatic Mode. Not only is there an awesome buildup to it all, Franzer herself is the perfect villain to the entire Dark Witch series. Almost all of the villains have wanted Syega in one way or another, but not to the extent of Franzer. She’s dedicated most of her life to this, even poisoning herself with Syega just to make her wish a reality. And she doesn’t want that taken away from her. And once you beat her once, she’s not going down, oh, no no no no! She taps into the Syega just to defeat Zizou. And this time she sports an actual boss battle, unlike Riva! It’s a great end to a great game, but we’re still not done.

Switch over to Sola and Riva to face the true final boss, but first, what about Sola? Bomb Balls, Double Jump, best DW2 character, next! Next up is Riva, and they reworked her so well here. She starts with Punishment and a Sword Slash, which got reworked into an actual slash in this game. And you’ll need those reworks, because ZIZOU LUNATIC 2 IS THE BEST FIGHT IN THE ENTIRE SERIES. HOLY SHIT, Phase 2 is genuinely some of the toughest shit to come out of The Legend of Dark Witch’s entire series, There’s just SO much to deal with at once. All of the Technical Skills from this game are used, showing how this is the same Zizou we’ve been playing as, and now she’s beating OUR ass! It’s a really awesome way to send off the best game in the series, by god do I kind of miss this game now.

I don’t really attempt to set a tone for most of my reviews, but for this review series specifically, I usually use a passive aggressive tone. That’s not the case here, because by god, rose tinted glasses off, Dark Witch 2 is actually a pretty banger game. Not a must play or anything, hell, it’s probably not even in my Top 50 games of all time, but it really feels like NAN-A fired off on all cylinders here, and actually gave a shit about The Legend of Dark Witch! While I’d very much hesitate to call myself a fan of The Legend of Dark Witch, 2 is proof that almost any game concept, no matter how initially flawed, can truly work. But, once again, I can’t truly recommend that you go out and buy the game, because NAN-A fucking SUCKS, but if you had to pick up one of the games in this damned series (with gold dabloons preferably, iykyk), make it this one. The Legend of Dark Witch 2 is awesome! No regrets… oh boy. I have 5 fucking games left. Welp, time to go off into the deep end, because let me tell you, there’s no light at the end of the tunnel for this series... Next up is Rudymical. Wait - a rhythm game?! I love rhythm game- and Rudymical uses the Friday Night Funkin’ control scheme. I am in HELL.

ZEUSDEEGOOSE SCORE: 8/10
MISSION RANKING: B+
CODE NAME: DOPE-ASS WITCH

LAST TIME ON ZEUSDEEGOOSE!
zeusdeegoose’s look into the box wasn’t so bad, but upon looking into the void once more, he saw the future. He quickly realized that not as it was before. The first box birthed a child! With no other options, zeusdeegoose decided to record his thoughts once more. The future was familiar, yet so slightly off that he hated it. Can he put his finger on why? Or is the past really that bad? Who knows...

The Afterbirth Plus of The Legend of Dark Witch series.

Peeking a bit into the future, this game was released in between what I dub “The Great Dark Witch Hiatus”, and I'm only covering it right now because it's the remaster of Dark Witch 1. Renovation was released in a time where The Legend of Dark Witch content was severely lacking, where we hadn’t seen a true followup to anything in the series. Disregarding rereleases, ports, and the like, not a drop of Dark Witch came to fruition. This was largely due to Brave Dungeon 2’s… development cycle, which was stuck in limbo for a good while. No trailers, no info, nothing. While Brave Dungeon 2 was going to be the celebration for the series’ 5th Anniversary, it was eventually superseded with… this game, titled The Legend of Dark Witch Renovation, or rather confusingly, simply The Legend of Dark Witch on Nintendo Switch. No, not to confuse it with The Legend of Dark Witch on 3DS. It’s a remaster (???) of The Legend of Dark Witch, as its title implies, and does it do that well? NO. Rant incoming, folks. This is gonna be a bumpy ride.

Renovation is a “””remaster””” of Chronicle 2D Act, which I had already held in some decent regards. Sure, it was short, but sweet, never wasting your time but being a perfect game for speedrunners and completionists. Renovation is attempting to fix an already good game, and doesn’t need to, nor does it add ANYTHING to The Legend of Dark Witch to warrant a $3 price increase. Not to mention, at least on Steam, they increased the price of the original to $8 as well. No new content from Renovation (unless you count changing the player color), just a price increase because FUCK you as a consumer. So, what does Renovation hold?

A shitty, borderline Waifu2x sprite upscale??? Aside from the hand drawn characters and bosses, the sprites go through this weird, Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection-ass filter, and has always, and will always look like total dogshit. Why the FUCK are you charging me $8 for something I can do in Citra for FREE??? Oh, and y’all motherfuckers are calling this GOOD sprite work??? LMAO! And the actual hand drawn sprites look mediocre at best. The new portraits at least look okay, inferior to the originals, but good lord, it still looks terrible overall! Really the only unambiguously good update to the graphics is the UI. I fucking love the new UI! It’s actually well drawn, and looks really nice and modern! But other than that, the new graphics are a dud. But the most cardinal sin is the inability to fix these issues individually. Cave Story on the fucking Wii let you tweak the game to your liking. Want the Old graphics with the New soundtrack? You’re weird, but SURE! In order to fix some of the new issues, you need to revert almost EVERY change Renovation makes, a mixture of good and bad changes!
- Capacity meter from 2 (actually a good change)
- New art (dogshit)
- Slot loss changes between difficulties (literally the point of the original game’s challenge)
- Comet buff (actually a good change)
- Health drop adjustments (whatever)
- New minigames (who the fuck cares)
- New VAs (whatever)
- Boss Arrangement (actually a good change)
- Boss Battle BGM (who the fuck cares)

Oh, but you know what ISN’T FUCKING TOGGLEABLE??? The FUCKING SCREEN SHAKING AFTER TAKING ANY SORT OF HIT. I’M GOING TO HAVE AN EPILEPTIC SEIZURE. If I have to enable the Steam Console just to rollback this shit, then you have FAILED. You know what else gives me a seizure??? THE DROPPED FRAMESSSSSSSSSSKOPEKPEOKDOPEK

For SOME reason, a 2014 GAME fails to run well on a PC built in 2020, much less on a Nintendo Switch. I don’t even think this is excusable. I have no idea why, but I experience constant frame drops on PC, and even just booting into a stage freezes the game for a few seconds. Literally. WHY. I have NO idea what the fuck is going on, considering that Dark Witch 1 (and 2) had an perfectly fine PC ports, with 2 adding even more content. And since it took a few extra weeks to release Renovation on Steam, you'd THINK the optimization would be good, but no. We spent 5 minutes on this game, oh shit! We can’t add TOO much good content! We have to make the game objectively WORSE!

The ONLY truly new piece of content they added is terrible. The Day Stage, originating from Dark Witch 3. As a $2 DLC (LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOO). And the stage itself fucking sucks nuts. Get hit once in the air and you might as well be fucking DEAD. I'm a big fan of Verri’s stage, but goddamn, GODDAMN. And the boss is super easy, so what the fuck??? It's just awful, and the fact that they charged me 2 bucks for an awful, 2 minute stage fucking SUCKS. Why couldn't this have been included for free, or at least have 2 or more stages attached to it? And sure, it released after the game did, but Blaster Master Zero, Terraria, Hollow Knight, Dead Estate, and probably more, all got a shit ton of new content all for free over the years, with the only exception being Blaster Master Zero. But guess what that game had as DLC? For $2, you get an ENTIRELY new character, with all new mechanics. If other small indie game studios can do it, then what the HELL is NAN-A’s excuse? God, this reminds me of Vergil’s Downfall from DmC: Devil May Cry. Yeah, remember that shit? For 10 dollars, you got like, 1 hour of content. It’s genuinely so ass, man... Just like Renovation!

Renovation is a fucking embarrasment. It adds almost nothing to an already great game, and its changes are more filler than legitimate upgrades, being even contentious or straight up BAD at points. Literally just play Classic, Renovation is TERRIBLE. Or don’t even play Classic, because NAN-A blocks his criticizers on Twitter, so OOPSIES! Spend your $8 towards Spelunky, or Isaac, or Blaster Master Zero, Terraria, or whatever. Don’t buy this. Hell, don't buy The Legend of Dark Witch in general! You're only setting up for the cold, grim fate that is disappointment.

I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again. Despite most of my popular reviews, I DREAD being a pessimist on zeusdeegoose. Yeah, it feels good to rag on something as blatantly awful as Super Meat Boy Forever, but in the end, I find gushing about the games I actually love! And Renovation taints something that I really fuck with, in a way that I cant say about some of the other re-releases in this series, or in general, to be honest. Is Renovation a fine way to experience the inaugural game in the series? Yeah, I’m not taking that away from anybody. But I feel like it could’ve and should’ve gone farther to warrant a rerelease of this kind, making the game arguably worse in some scenarios. No matter how much I like Dark Witch 1, I don’t think it’s perfect. Far from it, in fact! Hence why I gave it an 7.5/10, rather a perfect 10/10, like... every game on my favorites list! And likewise, there’s much more room for improvement here and there. Like, okay, you went through the troubles of renovating every boss, why not the stages? Why not make hand drawn sprites for everybody, not just Zizou? So many missed opportunities here! But so many missed opportunities does not make a great game, and as such, in good faith, I cannot recommend Renovation. AND NEITHER CAN THE PEOPLE! You see, in 2023, I hosted a Legend of Dark Witch games poll, as a send off to my presence on the wiki. And most people rated Renovation lower than Chronicle 2D Act! A commonly cited issue was the artstyle, but other than that, most were impartial to it. I, and a few others, were not however, and while it’s a growing vocal minority, I still think that warrants criticism. Because in order to even unlock the better experience, you have to... BEAT THE GAME. That then allows you to purchase an upgrade to switch between the 2014 original and Renovation, which is genuinely so stupid. Why isn’t this the default? And that lack of care is why I ultimately prefer Classic to Renovation. Renovation feels like it could’ve been something greater, but unfortunately, a few months in a game’s development could’ve been the make it or break it. And for this story, it was broken…
In terms of zeusdeegoose ratings, for remasters and expansions, I really only rate the added content itself, and on that front, Renovation was an absolute failure, so I can only really rate it with a low score. On its own, it's okay I suppose, but it could’ve AND should’ve been waaaaay better. Oh, and what’s next, you may ask? An actually fun game? Can’t wait!

ZEUSDEEGOOSE SCORE: 2/10
MISSION RANKING: E
CODE NAME: DAMAGED WITCH