Tried to enjoy it, but there was one small issue. It randomly crashed lmao

Will probably play sometime again, probably not on Switch either. I've read on the Wiki that this is apparently common on the Nintendo-emulated versions, but I didn't touch 3DS VC Shantae at all. Not risking it lmao

This review was originally posted on The Legend of Dark With Wiki, prior to it's closure and my retirement from said wiki, and is now fully archived on Backloggd. I do not condone NAN-A nor Inside System's actions. They have participated in morally grey actions within the community and inside the franchise itself. As such, these reviews can no longer be considered recommendations, and do not have any formal scores to them. I stress that you do not take these reviews at face value. Any content within this review is subject to being broken, questionable, outdated, low quality, or at times, unreadable. Additionally, these were made from a different point of view compared to my writings of today, so I please ask that you disregard any positive statements about NAN-A or Inside System. All of these articles may be found, in their original, intended form here, alongside their numerous revisions. Additionally, these reviews are liscensed under CC-BY SA 4.0, under wiki policy. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy the review.

DISCLAIMER: This entire review is based off of the Early Access beta. However, we felt the game had matured enough to warrant a review. Regardless, any changes made between the review and the current Early Access state will also be reviewed when they release. If you have any issues with that, read the whole review to understand all our points first, and then send your remarks. You can also ignore us and send your death threats to Blad#2469 just because someone is hating on a game. Try your best.

Brave Dungeon: The Meaning of Justice. Need I say more.

Brave Dungeon 2 is easily one of the most controversial games in the series, right next to good ol' 3, however, for different reasons. 3's changes to the gameplay made it one of the more love-it-or-hate-it games in the franchise, but The Meaning of Justice has been all over the place. From its development, reception, and release. Online civil wars were started over this game. I only thought that happened to Sonic, but no. This happens all the time in other communities, like Gunvolt for example. This game was just a spiral of disappointment, at least for me. I just got into the community when I found out Brave Dungeon 2 existed. I didn't even know Brave Dungeon existed, so I beat that, hated it, and then just waited for it's sequel. I kept waiting until an anonymous person (who I'll reveal later) gave me a code for the demo. I played it and really enjoyed it. So when the Early Access released, I was pretty psyched. Of course, I didn't get it until recently, and then those next 9 months of my life waiting for this game happened. And it made me rethink my entire opinion of the game, and basically anything remotely related to Dark Witch. I still love this series, but waiting for this game was a pain. I'm going to come clean right off the bat and say that this review won't be very positive. The easiest way to put it is that Brave Dungeon 2, while not a complete faliure, is a disaster. It's not terrible, but I wouldn't think twice about calling it the worst in the series. And I'm gonna lay it all out on the battlefield. But before we begin, I've got a couple of guests here. For the first, and probably last time in this series' history, we have not one, but 2 guests here! First, we have the other bureaucrat on this wiki, Mali!

I guess I'll add a little bit of info: As you probably know (or don't know), I'm Mali, and like blad said, I'm the other bureaucrat of this wiki. I have some feelings to say about Brave Dungeon: The Meaning of Justice. It's a game that I originally thought of it as being the best game next to Dark Witch 2. With all of the hype given when the game was first teasered, new pixel art, recurring characters to help join your sides, and a brand-new environment that has paths that feel familiar, while some are new to the table. I honestly liked this game, and for what the Early Access had to offer, it offered a different side of things. yeah, it had everything that the teasers and the demo (only available to those who purchased the BD Physical pack), but from what I've seen more, I've wished that INSIDE_SYSTEM had done a better job with this game. Can't wait to go over the things I've found.

Second up is a notorious game modder, who gave me the demo code, and who was also responsible for adding Yamcha into this game. Here's Oersted!

While I don't understand this wiki stuff, I guess I'm here. Blad is adding the text for me since I dont do stuff with wikis like these. I did the thing with Yamcha in BD2, and I'm a fan of the game, I think. Stuff's complicated, with everything that goes on with it.

Finally, if this review is too long for you, I've included a TL;DR at the end. With that said, it's about time we reviewed this game, so let's get into the best part, the development!

Development
Yeah, I say the development, because how this game's development went is straight up comedy gold. Brave Dungeon 2 was revealed in 2018, to no fanfare. Like, I'm serious. All we got was Klinsy walking around a forest, fighting monsters, and using her revenge magic, RED FLAME PHOENIX! It looked interesting, though, and fans got excited. Brave Dungeon 2 was slated for a 2019 release, before being... delayed. Yeah, for the first time in Dark Witch history, a game has been delayed! It was jarring, to say the least. The first game might've technically been delayed by 4 months, but who the hell knew what a Legend of Dark Witch was at that time? The game wasn't even revealed at that point. So we waited, and come 2019... delayed... again. 2020... the game was delayed again, this time, indefinitely. But 2021 would thankfully give us news, for better, and for worse. NAN-A announced an early access, which would come out at an unspecified date. And I was pretty excited, but also a bit scared. Early Access games have a poor reception for being crappy and unfinished, but I wanted Brave Dungeon 2 as soon as possible, so I cut my losses and waited for the early access. I couldn't contain my excitement when in February 2022, the Early Access released, initially to positive reviews. And that's where Oersted comes in. Oersted already introduced himself, so I'll keep it brief. Oersted is a notorious Nintendo modder. His work ranges from RPG Maker Fes to Miitopia, Fire Emblem, and more. Lots of RPGs, to say the least. He also made/translated some PC RPG Maker games, so he has a lot of work under his belt. If you want a bigger description, see here. He dropped a multi-paragraph bomb on Steam, explaining his disdain of the game. And overnight, Oersted turned the 'Very Positive' reviews into 'Mixed'. Words are powerful, what can I say? Mali and I also published extremely long reviews, but nothing topped Oersted's review. Oersted also called out several poor positive reviews (ex. "yea."), which did get him (and me, although on a lesser scale) blasted a bit from Crippe, but this made the score drop even more. Unfortunately, this was counteracted with many other positive reviews, and now the game sits at a 50%. On the topic of reviews, what are our thoughts on the early access?

Early Access
The Early access of Brave Dungeon 2 is an even bigger joke than it's development history. We've got incredible amounts of reused assets, bugs that went over 80 updates without being fixed, borderline porn of Stoj being added, and all sorts of questionable stuff.

This early access was announced a while back, don't remember exactly when, but I went out of my way to buy it as soon as possible. What I got was a worse experience than the switch demo. This demo was originally released as a bonus for players who purchased Brave Dungeon 1's physical release for the Switch, and it's actually pretty impressive how much better this demo is compared to the entirety of early access.

As development progressed, NAN-A lied more and more about the developement, and the game progressively got worse and worse. It's impressive how NAN-A made the game worse nearly every update, adding new overpowered features, introducing new bugs, and such.

There isn't much else I can say here. It's a mess, and most Dark Witch fans are starting to realize this, which is great. The more people that vocalize their disdain for this game, the more likely NAN-A is to make the game ACTUALLY GOOD.

I can't agree more with Oersted here. Personally, I haven't invested into much Early Access games, but even then, I could tell this was ass. Don't buy Brave Dungeon 2 in it's current state, because you are ripping yourself off at $20. Wait for a price drop, don't even bother. Oh wait, the game will cost $30 AT LAUNCH. $30. I'm not convinced. Not only are we on version 0.93, there are still a crap ton of bugs, and on top of that, there are a lot of issues with it, bugs not withstanding. Brave Dungeon 2 is simply not worth it at this point in the game. But if there's one good thing about Brave Dungeon 2, it has to be the soundtrack.

Music
This is really one of the only unambiguously positive things we have to say about this game. This OST is awesome. Seriously, I did an entire gamerip just to listen to it outside of the game. I'll make it public one day, but it needs some fixing. I can't think of any bad tracks to it's name. I'd go more in-depth, but I don't know all of the tracks yet, and I don't play with headphones on. So for now, I'll just leave it at that. The only negative I have to say is that Nightmare re-uses themes from Brave Dungeon. A remix would've been nice.

In my opinion, this is the only redeeming factor of the game. Every soundtrack in this game is almost as great as Dark Witch 3's and 2s. I know Raito is only the only composer yet again, which can be noticeable with how many instruments he reuses in the soundtrack, but I have to say that this game will have an exception. My only issue is the battle theme, the intro, and the title screen. I wished that Raito had done a better job with this. especially the title screen. it's LITERALLY just the Brave Dungeon title screen and Dark Witch 3's title screen, but with different instruments to give it a different feeling. While that may be a bit of a change in pace, it's noticeable for a huge fan like me, and I could've expected something else. I give the music s solid 8/10 for this game.

Story
The overall story of the game is soulless and uninteresting. I can sum up all 3 main stories in one sentence.

Al's Story - Get through big mazelike forest to make a path to Hampden Tower. Klinsy's Story - Get through 3 mazelike archives to get books that can break the seal to Hampden Tower. Papelne's Story - Build a town and bridge, completely unrelated to Hampden Tower for some reason.

That's it. There's no more to the initial stories, no real character development. Things are pulled out of nowhere like Mari suddenly having the ability to sense danger near bosses in Al's story. This is never brought up again, and is only used in two cutscenes. Why even introduce something like this?

When it comes to the fourth and final chapter, there is borderline no story. When done right, this can be really good! It's not good. Each character, after unsealing Hampden Tower, was defeated by the spirity within it, and was thrown about the land, similar to Live-A-Live's final chapter. HOWEVER, each character simply just... Retreated. They weren't defeated or anything. They simply fled because every character suddenly became a coward.

When you find everyone, they all suddenly become "Brave Heroes" and stop the spirit of Hampden Tower. In the end, they all go their seperate ways, with some being paid. No development, no dificulty.

As a +12 hour RPG, this was one of the most disappointing parts of Brave Dungeon 2, and unlike Brave Dungeon 1, there's a lot of dialogue in this game. At random points, more notably in Al's story, a cutscene will just... begin. No fanfare or anything, the screen just goes to black and shows the heroes slowly walking. It was really jarring when I got to a campsite and then... nothing. It just takes me out of the experience and is really distracting. Thankfully, you can skip the cutscenes, because the actual dialogue is nothing. Don't even bother with the story here. It's not that good. I should also note that this game has literally no official translation. Yeah. Everything comes from internet translators, so the dialogue is... well... Typos flood your screen, and everyone sounds like a robot. I'm going to cut NAN-A some slack here, he barely knows English, but I'm sure there are a lot of people who would be willing to translate the game for NAN-A; why not get Circle/FHW to do it? Say what you will about the other games' translation, but anything is better than fucking Google Translate. NAN-A even opened a channel in the Early Access server where you can improve the translation, which ultimately proves redundant as the official translation is coming later. So what's the point? NAN-A didn't even commit to the FULL MACHINE TRANSLATION. This is absolutely laughable, and when my screen fills with Japanese text, I just burst out laughing. If you're going to be lazy, at least commit to it. I think it'd be less of a blow if the game was in full Japanese.

EDIT 1/28/23: I think that last part is now false? I’m not 100% sure, but Google Translate is now used for the entire game. Hooray. Why it couldn’t have been like this 80 updates ago is beyond me, but at least I can read the text now. Also, fun fact: they use impact in the team talk menu. Yeah, I’m not kidding.

EDIT 2/23/23: This is no longer true, and now the entire game is translated by an anonymous third-party. It took way too long, though.

Gameplay
Overall
The gameplay style is mostly overhauled, and I think it was for better and for worse.

Brave Dungeon 2 is structured like this; you have 3 stories to play as, each sporting different gameplay styles. Because of this, some stories are better than others. Why we couldn't stick to one playstyle for the entire game is questionable, but I'll entertain the idea. The battle system is the same across playthroughs, so lets get the redundant stuff out of the way, before we get to the 3 stories.

Dungeons
The dungeons in this game are so much better in this game. First of all, the game takes a sort of open-world approach, at least for Al and Papelne. Al has one big dungeon, and you collect keys along the way to progress. Believe it or not, this system is actually pretty fun. The main problem with it is that there's no fast travel. So often you'll have to bash your head against the wall just to get to the next map. It's not terribly annoying, but I should still point it out regardless. Papelne's dungeon is an open world game, which is kinda cool. You craft materials, but you tire out pretty quickly, meaning you have to go back home and rest up. Klinsy's playthrough is more akin to the original Brave Dungeon. The level up system is also different. You have 10 stars to fill, and once you complete 5, you get the level 2 stars. Fill the Level 1 and 2 stars and you get a class change. Then you have 3 more levels to unlock and then you get Rank X. Throughout filling the stars, you get buffs depending on how much star is filled. You can switch around stars, giving a large margin of player choice, which is always a plus in my book. Overall, I liked the dungeons more in Brave Dungeon 2. They're a solid improvement over the first Brave Dungeon, for the most part. But we'll get to that later.

Battles
The battles in this game are not fun at all. The main issue is the insultingly easy difficulty. I played on Lunatic mode, the hardest difficulty you can play from the start. And while the game is insultingly easy, battles take forever. I suspect the only thing that changes with difficulty is the amount of HP enemies have. I switched from Lunatic to Very, Very Easy, and I noticed enemies died within 2-3 hits, but on Lunatic, it took several hits before they died, leading to a much more tedious experience. Yeah, the other Dark Witch games did this, but if you knew what you were doing, this was a non-issue. They made you experiment with the game's mechanics, and that made you a better player. Even the original Brave Dungeon did this. Brave Dungeon is also debatably an easy game, but it did difficulty well. Enemies were slightly buffed, but they also took the same amount of damage to kill. So what's the point of playing on Lunatic? More EXP, but in this game, EXP is heavily skewed in your favor, Lunatic or not. You get so much exp, and at one point I was 8 levels above the enemies in a new floor. What's even worse is the godawful bosses. I deeply apologize to Litty, because these bosses are a drag. And worse yet, they re-use bosses left and right. Jesus Christ, I never want to see the ghost boss in my life ever again. And this Shady boss fight can kiss my ass. The Flubber one also sucked as well. Let's go every single one, shall we? The ghost boss is so tedious. He makes it so some opponents can't attack, and this fight nearly broke me on Lunatic. It's just not fun, and it doesn't matter on lower difficulties as you can easily 3-shot this guy. Shady's fight is easy if you break one of her rules. If you use Hyper Freeze, Shady's clones attack your entire party. But this fuels your revenge meter. So if you use Mari or Al, just spam their revenge magics, and then use Seama to attack the real Shady. It's so easy to do, and if you're at a high level, you can just tank the fight until you win. Good game design, ladies and gentlemen. Breaking the rules makes you win the fight effortlessly. Finally, Flubber. He'll grow big at some points, and you can't attack him. But just... don't attack him when he's big. He literally will not even attempt to attack you. God, I thought the Syega Machines in 3 were bad, but this... it SUCKS. Enough said. To make matters even worse, these run into the same issue as Brave Dungeon in that the battles get repetitive. There's barely any variety in the battles, and when there is (the boss battles), it sucks. I don't know what else to say, the battles in this game just aren't good. Overall, the battle system in Brave Dungeon 2 is decent, but the battles themselves are terrible, and this pretty much killed the game for me.

Al
Al is a big improvement over the dungeon crawling from Brave Dungeon. First off, the dungeon design was really good in this game. Aside from the fact that you can force open everything, this was easily one of the best parts of Brave Dungeon 2, for as much as that's worth. But other than that, I have no real complaints here. The enemies also chase you here, and that means you can actually run away from encounters now. Battles are really easy, but it's nice that NAN-A allowed us to do this. Even he knew the battles sucked in this game. You also fight bosses, but if I remember correctly, there's no real reason to do it, unless it's a scripted boss (which is necessary for progression). You can also craft Seama items, but they aren't all that good, save for the speed ups. A glitch is in the game that allows you to have infinite keys though, so go wild. Overall, this gets a 6/10 from me. Not bad on it's own, but with the issue of combat, it went from good to just bland.

Klinsy
Okay, so I haven't really played enough of Brave Dungeon 2 to know about Klinsy's side to the story, but from what I've seen and can tell is that the gameplay takes more of like the original Brave Dungeon. The enemies are static, most of the stages have a 1 block gap in between, and during the story, you find Stoj to play as. There are also some seals that are more like a puzzle game. You have four different types of blocks, and you have to find where on the board does it match the blocks you can have. You can choose to brute force it, but you have to wait a bit until doing it again, or you can escape the battle(?) I don't remember.

Going back to Stoj, oh my gosh, they have OVERHAULED her design! I know it's the same pixel artist that worked on the first Dark Witch, but jeesus! Stoj looks nothing like her original counterpart! I can say the same for Neville, too. Her new look is pretty on the spot and an overhaul, too. The eyes on her pixel art don't look as weird as what they've looked like in the original and Dark Witch 3. (I'm bringing 3 up because she looks nothing different than her BD look) However, they reverted back to the original pixel art for her second-class change, which can be a bit tacky, but instead we get her smiling. That's the first time she is smiling! Not a big detail to point out, but once you look at her revenge artwork, it's sick.

I think Klinsy's stage is the worst playthrough in Brave Dungeon 2. Not only does it revert all of the good changes from Al's playthrough, the bosses are absolutely the worst part of the game. It singlehandedly ruined my entire experience. The dungeon design is like the original Brave Dungeon, flat and boring, and even though there are gimmicks in the stage, they all fucking suck. The playthrough also has puzzles that interrupt the flow of the game, and are PISS easy. They also nerfed Stoj so hard, it's not even funny. In Brave Dungeon, admittedly she was a bit overpowered. She did decent damage, and had some really good healing skills. But you took a lot of damage in Brave Dungeon, and we can't have any difficulty here! In Brave Dungeon 2, she won't be doing damage anytime soon. This was a bullheaded move. So the only time you can do damage with Stoj is with her Revenge Magic, which isn't that good. Sure, it hits all enemies, but it does zero-to-no damage. Ultimately, Stoj went from one of the best party members to straight up useless. Klinsy's playthrough introduces weaknesses, and while that sounds cool, there are only, 2-3 elements, which is LAME. I thought this was Brave Dungeon, not Mega Man Zero. Hitting a weakness doesn't do much anyways, it only does 10 more damage. But back to the bosses, FUCK ALL OF THESE WITH EVERY FIBER OF MY BODY. Once I got to the Lava Library, I genuinely thought my playthrough was over at this point. I died over 5 times before I beat him on VERY VERY EASY. The other bosses are piss easy. For the love of god, DON'T PLAY ON LUNATIC, or these bosses will take FOREVER. I give this a 3/10. It was a complete drag, and it was just plain unfun. Plus, the Stoj nerf was just insult to injury.

Papelne
Papelne's story was the only story I liked in this game. Yeah, in my opinion, it was actually pretty fun. And you know why? The godawful battle system is almost entirely optional here! You can avoid pretty much any battle here. From what I remember, the only time combat is required is to get white pearls from the seals, which is a bit of a grind. Papelne's story is a semi-open world game, where you travel around a map. You have a stamina meter that doesn't automatically replenish, but thankfully you can upgrade it, and the map is pretty small. You also move decently fast, to travel is a non-issue. Outside of traveling, it's basically a town simulator. You get materials to craft stuff, and then you use those materials to level up the town. Most stuff is optional, but the buildings are needed to beat the game. The town simulator is quite relaxing, and for the first time, I didn't want to stop playing the game. I completed it in one long session, and it was a blast. If this was a bit longer and the grinding was cut to a minimum, I'd buy it as its own game. I give it an 8/10.

Papelne's Story is as empty as GM_Flatgrass from Garry's Mod. Charl has hired you to build a city on an insland unrelated to Hampden Tower, which is somehow "right next to it". You then Build a tent, crafting station, inn, warehouse, staff building, and bridge. That's it. That's the entire story. Patty joins after you make the Inn, and Rudy can join if you visit an optional "Lost City" which is home to some Dog like Fae, along with two other more humanoid Fae when you have Patty in the Party. You can't access the town without having Patty, so it's pointless going before you have her. You then have to go to a beach on the other side of the map. WHY? After you build the bridge, you fight some bigass bird. You kill it, bridge is repaired, and nothing of note happens. Cue the final chapter of the game.

Final story
The final story in Brave Dungeon is unlocked after you beat all the stories on one file. You start off with Blad and Stoj. Yeah, yikes. Blad is really weak when you get her. Sure, she levels up very fast, but why even make her this weak to begin with? Oh right, because they want you to get the other characters, which are actually good because you spent one-third of the game with all of them. Yeah, this is stupid. They did Blad dirty, even though she won the popularity poll. A shame. Also, is it just me, but why does her idle animation look so cute? My final party was Blad, Stoj, Al, and Mari. Turns out that was a good choice because Al and Stoj have a skill that gives everyone BARRIER AND GUARD. Yeah, that made leveling up Blad easier. And if you have a capacity meter accessory, you can just break the game in two, like a Zero boss. To add insult to injury, Lovely Heels is an Al healing skill that's just way too overpowered. I don't know what else to say, this game is really easy. And that's coming from a Dark Witch 2 mega-fan (and spoiler alert, that's my favorite game). At least Dark Witch 2 had Lunatic Mode, which was amazing. Anyways, at Hampden Tower, you have 4 dungeons. You don't need to do them, and they really only exist for grinding purposes. Intentionally making the player grind is not good game design, game! But go on, I guess. The worst part is that you CAN'T LEAVE HAMPDEN TOWER UNLESS YOU DIE TO A BOSS IN THE DUNGEONS. Needless to say, this leads to frustration, as if you barge straight into Hampden Tower with Blad and Stoj, like I did, you get BONED. And you'll be looking for a long time on how to actually escape this place. What happened to the anti-frustration features from 3, as poorly designed as that game is? But whenever you want, you can fight Charl.

Alright, time for a confession. I cheated on the final boss, and I'll explain why. I was right at the finish line, and I thought, "Will the final boss really make me change my mind?" Why should I waste hours grinding just to even try the final boss? So you know what? Fuck it. Typically I avoid cheating in games unless A. I beat the game, or B. I make it seperate from my main save. The only time I really violated those rules was with Terraria, but that was just to get silver bullets so I could actually fight the twins. So that's what I did. I got Oersted's files and fought the boss that way. This game was just completely unfun at this point, so I can't care less if I cheated. But if you want to call me out for cheating, that's fine. I don't really care. Just as a self imposed limitation, I used a Level 100, pre-new game plus save.

Alright, so Charl. His first phase is rather easy, unless you're underleveled. You fight his first form, which just stands there, occasionally using rather powerful moves. Well, powerful for Brave Dungeon 2 standards. This is the only time in the game where I saw someone take over 1000 damage in one move. Wow, how impressive! Can you make any attack remove over half someone's HP next? Next, after you kill Charl, you get into Charl's ultimate form. There are 5 targets on screen. I actually don't know if you're required to kill the other targets, but that doesn't matter, because Al + Blad = powerful attack that hits all enemies. This fight is so short that I don't have anything to say about it. Neat design, though.

Postgame
Fanart
A first for Dark Witch. A dedicated fanart section so you can see some of the art that is directly advertised by NAN-A to promote other people's artwork. However, most of it is directly related to the character Mari, and the main translator and the beta tester for Dark Witch: Crippe. I do not know why NAN-A chose to add a bunch of Mari art into the game, but that's nothing compared to the biggest issue of this section: The Lwed, NSFW images that have been featured directly by NAN-A. Adding lewd art into the game was easily one of the most boneheaded decisions NAN-A could've done here. I don't object to an art section entirely; nor do I object to T-rated games having mildly sexual content, take Skullgirls as a random example; but Brave Dungeon 2 is a family-friendly game on it's own. And the artworks here went way, WAY too far. And yes, I don't care that the first Brave Dungeon was rated T, this is fucking unacceptable. One has Papelne thinking about cake (not a dirty joke), one where Urken has half of her ass on screen (thankfully her panties are covered by her conveniently placed foot), and one where Stoj has a pretty revealing costume. And no, I don't care that she's 5000 years or whatever, nor do I care that it's fictional. Fuck that logic, and fuck you if you're defending this stuff. If I wanted almost-naked young anime girls, I'd play Gal-Gun, not Brave Dungeon 2.

Oh, and guess what NAN-A did? He retweeted NSFW of Seama as well to promote the game.[1] Are you kidding me?

Bajel
After you beat the game, you can unlock Bajel. Perhaps Oersted could make a write up below, because I couldn't care enough to get her.

Bajel is certainly a character that's unlockable. Her moves are generally a bit stronger than most other characters, but she's still weaker than Al, since Al is the obvious protagonist. Some of her passive skills used to be good, but they're pretty niche due to not having much room to grow at all, since the only challenge that remains is Nightmare, AND she joins at Level ONE. Like Stoj however, she can ignore damaging tiles on the floor due to the fact that she has wings. So as a party leader, She might be a better Stoj, but outside of that, she's nearly useless.

Nightmare
In this game, Nightmare has the same look and feel as the original. Hell, it even has the same music, and the retextured red and black eneimes as the original with all of the previous bosses coming in without any changes whatsoever, giving more of the fact that INSIDE_SYSTEM loves to reuse content in their games. However, the game has the original + new layouts with some provided by the fans who've worked with the Early Access program. The final boss was stated to be something completely different, but all it was is Zizou with her sister, Mati. This boss has even more HP than what she had in the original (She had 15 million but is currently unknown how much she has now), and they're extremely hard to beat offensively, and it requires additional setups in order to actually defeat the boss.

Zizou and Mati are certainly a fight. With a recent update making status ailments worse against enemies the higher the difficulty is (Version 0.93.3), the already nearly impossible fight has become even harder. Oh, and this fight was implemented before the two even reused "Was that meeting despair", so the fight was complete and utter silence outside sound effects! It took about 30 updates for music to be added here. Kind of pathetic, huh?

Guess what happens after you beat Nightmare? Spoilers for anyone who hasn't beaten Nightmare yet, but you don't even get to play as Zizou or Mati! What's probably going to happen is that Zizou and Mati are going to be added as DLC, and I have proof! Check out the Brave Dungeon 2 page, and you'll see why. This was the biggest insult when it comes to BD2. Instead of unlocking Zizou/Mati through... oh I don't know, BEATING THE GAME! Just make them paid DLC for everyone to buy for $2-10 dollars (that's my guess). DLC in RPGs is very hard to get right. Most often, it's done poorly. Look at Persona 5 Royal, for example. It had some nice costumes for purchase, which is nice. They also give you the original Persona 5 DLC for free, which is great. But the paid personas. Oh my god. Izanagi-no-Okami Picaro. Buy this and you win the game. So if this is really DLC, just make it good NAN-A. Don't make it a cakewalk (hell, some difficulty would be nice), make them actually worth a damn, and don't do this in the future.

The Good
The music is a banger.
Exploring is fun.
Nice character designs.
Great pixel art, with smooth animation. The whole game looks pretty good, and the art style is pretty consistent, compared to the original Brave Dungeon.
Decent character progression. The Mind
Some decent improvements to the gameplay.
The Bad
The battle system.
Bugs. We really couldn't find a place to put this, but yeah, this game has so many bugs, it's not funny. And people think Sonic 06 and Cyberpunk were bad with this. I already mentioned one of them, but Oersted can easily list many below.
Like hell I'm listing all of the bugs. Wait until the full release and I'll consider making a list.
Terrible boss fights, getting borderline unfair at points.
Poor story, which really sucks for an RPG.
Klinsy's playthrough.
Some parts are untranslated. (Note: This seems to be no longer true)
Some fps drops at points, particularly if you run the game above 60FPS. We noticed some short freezes, particularly if you're in a new area for the first time in one session.
Re-used assets.
I'm just gonna personally add my thoughts onto this part. This has when a common issue of ANY game INSIDE_SYSTEM has released. Yes, even spanning all of the way back to their Touhou games back in the 2010s. Touhou: Unorganised Heroes is i believe the first game he'd worked on, and it is baffling to see that the designs for the enemies came all of the way from this game, with some still acting the same way without any changes whatsoever. For Brave Dungeon though, some of the enemies have new attacks, which puts up the pace a little bit, but my issue is this: Ever sinee the first Dark Witch, they basically brought all of the enemies from that game and put them in here without any major changes to the design at all. It's like if Nintendo were to make the Goomba or any enemy from Super Mario 64 and use it in every subsequent Mario game after that. It would just look really werid to some, especially me. And the music? I know I've talked about this already, but while Raito's music are all bangers with some sounding a bit boring, most songs reuse the same instruments instead of finding new instruments to make music with. It just makes eveyrthing feel the same and such, and I řally REALLY hope that NAN-A will take a different direction with The Legend of Dark Witch as a whole.
Another thing we couldn't really mention. This game re-uses a crap ton of assets, and while the other games did this a bit, it never stopped being noticeable here. The attacks look goofy at points, like Patty's attack, which is annoyingly slow.
The Early Access program is a disaster.
Mindless difficulty, even on Lunatic.
Difficulty spikes are frequent, leading to lots of frustration throughout 15 hours.
Conclusion (all 3)
Overall, Brave Dungeon 2 is frustrating. Not because it's really all that bad. The core gameplay could be fun, but Brave Dungeon 2 is brought down by issues that bog down the whole experience, and as a result, Brave Dungeon 2 didn't do any justice for the original Brave Dungeon.

Our scores are as follows:

Scores
Reviewer Score
Average (rounded) 3/10 (5/10 with original scores)
Blad 3/10 (originally 6/10)
Mali 4.5/10 (originally 7/10)
Oersted 2/10
And that unfortunately ends the review series on a really sour note. This game has a bunch of promise, but it ended up half baked. No joke, this is one of my least favorite games of all time. Note I said "least favorite", not "worst". Objectively, the game is below average, but it doesn't feel like a below average game. What should've been a slam dunk crashed and burned. I must note that when I reviewed 3, I didn't TYPE IN ALL CAPS LIKE THIS. That's because that game was so close to being great, but they dropped the ball. This game actively frustrated me. It fails to improve over Brave Dungeon, and just isn't a good game period. I also didn't mention this because it applies to all of the games I review, but this one in particular; if you like Brave Dungeon 2, great! As long as you acknowledge the flaws it has, that's totally fine, and that's not the point of this reviews. You can enjoy a game in spite of it's genuine flaws. But if you blatantly ignore the issues with a game, just hear us out for once. Ignoring the problems with a game doesn't make it go away; it just makes the series worse. NAN-A will see the positive reception of these games, and keep doing that, and improve it. Look at Episode 2, and, in some eyes, Episode 3. If NAN-A sees the mixed/negative reception, he'll fix the future games even more. So if you like Brave Dungeon 2, that's fine, just don't force everyone to like it. Also, some of you may be asking why we're reviewing the game now instead of waiting for the full release. After all, that's not fair, is it? I'm just going to say this: I don't care if it's in Early Access. NAN-A wants us to pay $20 (EDIT: 4/11/23: NOW 30$) for this. A game that's technically not finished yet. I can only name a few indie games that meet/exceed 20$, and when they are, they're well worth it. Celeste, Cuphead, OMORI, Skul, CrossCode, My Friend Pedro, and more. Or one of my personal favorites: Afterbirth. These are all worth 20$, and these are well acclaimed by critics and players alike, and in Isaac's case, it's worth 25$. If you want even more stuff with Isaac, it costs 50$. And it's worth every penny, at least from what I've seen. So when Brave Dungeon 2 comes along as a 20$ game that's not even finished, it's just pathetic. If you're seriously saying "Don't review the game as it isn't finished", you can't review Sonic 06. I'm less insulted by including a free demo with a physical edition, as it has a bunch of stuff with it, including a demo. That's awesome. But this game? What a fucking joke. Some of you may have noticed how long this review was, and that's because I wanted this game to be good. I wanted it to be up there with the likes of Dark Witch 2 and (arguably) 3 and 1. But it just didn't win me over, and there's no way in hell I can recommend this game. Not only is it worse than mediocre, unlike some of the other Dark Witch games, this game is just utter hell throughout this runtime, and even more insulting, this is coming from my favorite game franchise of all time! And to see NAN-A put out something so unambiguously revolting is baffling. I've ranted for a bit, so let's end this.

TL;DR: Brave Dungeon 2 is not worth it, and I'd heavily suggest avoiding it if you enjoy anything fun at all. It's barely worth it's asking price of 30$, let alone 10$. This is worth 3$ at most. While it has some good music and some decent fundamental gameplay, it fucks up what it got right before and is ultimately a terrible game, and the worst in the Dark Witch franchise. Yes, sorry Yuzrnaime, even worse than Break Rock Syega Crystal and 3. The only reason you should play it is to see yourself in the credits if you're there, and nothing more.

Anyways, my work here is done. I really appreciate your support throughout the entire journey, and I hope you all enjoyed the review series. If Mali or Oersted want to add stuff to the end of this, they can. Anyways, see you guys once Dark Witch 4 releases! And pray to god it's good. Because if it's not, I'm retiring from this series.

And thus ends the Dark Witch review series, not with a bang, but a whimper.

This review was originally posted on The Legend of Dark With Wiki, prior to it's closure and my retirement from said wiki, and is now fully archived on Backloggd. I do not condone NAN-A nor Inside System's actions. They have participated in morally grey actions within the community and inside the franchise itself. As such, these reviews can no longer be considered recommendations, and do not have any formal scores to them. I stress that you do not take these reviews at face value. Any content within this review is subject to being broken, questionable, outdated, low quality, or at times, unreadable. Additionally, these were made from a different point of view compared to my writings of today, so I please ask that you disregard any positive statements about NAN-A or Inside System. All of these articles may be found, in their original, intended form here, alongside their numerous revisions. Additionally, these reviews are liscensed under CC-BY SA 4.0, under wiki policy. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy the review.

For a series like Dark Witch, you'd expect way more spinoffs, right? Well, that couldn't be farther from the truth. We only have 3 spinoffs, and today I'm gonna look at all 3 of them (or 2, but we'll get into that later). First up is Rudymical.

Rudymical
Rudymical is a rhythm game, where you slash balls (i forgot their official name) in 3 directions and jump to avoid hazards. You have 4 difficulties, one unlocked by beating the game. It's a retelling of The Legend of Dark Witch 2, plus a furry who's looking for a good time, and fights herself. I'm assuming Riva was out for breakfast, as she's all but absent in this game. There are 2 versions with some differences (mainly in the difficulty, mobile and the console versions. Today, I'll look at the console versions, as the controls are a little better (at least in my opinion).

Gameplay
So you know Rudymical from The Legend of Dark Witch 2? Well, this is basically that mode, but bigger. As I mentioned, you slash balls and get ranked on your performance. The ranking system is harsh, and you can only miss 1-2 balls to get an A rank. Easy and Normal can be fun at times, and they're pretty easy to S-rank. You have 14 stages, all based on the music of Dark Witch 2, which is amazing. By S ranking stages, you get some new characters/skins. New to the console versions are a 2-player VS/deathmatch, and achievements (if you play on Steam). There are 4 difficulties, Easy, Normal, Hard, and Lunatic. And this is my main issue with Rudymical. It's either too hard to be enjoyable, or too easy to be worth a damn. I play on Normal, but for the love of god, do not play on Hard mode, unless you got a good night's sleep, because you need really good reaction times to even get the Syega Crystals here. And don't even get me started on Lunatic. On Normal, the game is WAY easier, so I suggest you play on this mode, but Normal is too easy, so I just end up kicking ass. If Rudymical could give a decent balance towards the two, I'd be praising it a whole lot more, but in it's current state, I can't really enjoy Rudymical. I'm really sorry, but it was just too much to take. Another issue I have is with the notes themselves. This is coming for an above average rhythm game player, so keep that in mind as some of the issues I have with this game stem from that. The balls bounce around at varying speeds, depending on how they feel. This just threw me off, and while it gives the game personality, it made the game worse. The circles that appear around your character somewhat mitigate this issue, but that just gives me less time to react to on-coming notes, which makes the game even more frustrating. To add to another issue with the notes, you often have to hit notes twice in succession, even on Easy mode. Another annoying part about Rudymical is the sound effects. While you can turn off the voices (and I highly suggest you do), you can't turn off the ball bouncing noises, which is pretty annoying, and it threw me off even more. Finally, the offset is annoying to set up. If you've played a game like Muse Dash, they make setting offsets as easy as pie, but in Rudymical, no such sandbox exists, and overall made setting offsets extremely frustrating.

This is also a bit out there, but I wish this game had a lot of other songs as well. Yeah, I know. But hear me out. I'm not talking about other songs from other games, no. What about the entire series? This series has some of the best VGM I've ever heard, and it's a shame only 14 songs got used. And if NAN-A can reuse hundreds of sprites, why can FHW/Esquadra reuse some songs? Hell, throw in the arranged songs. You can make it a DLC, but unfortunately, that's probably not going to happen, given that the game is 5 years old now, bordering on 6 (how the time flies, huh?).

Conclusion
I know I complained a lot, but this is coming from an above average rhythm game player, and seeing a lack of certain features other rhythm games have is disappointing. I really wish this was made by a seasoned rhythm game developer, otherwise I think it'd be a lot better. Despite that, this game is alright. Although its difficulty is poor, and it's on the short side (seriously, only 14 songs?), the gameplay is pretty basic for what it is, but fun, and if you're a Dark Witch fan, you'll probably get a kick out of it. If you want to slash balls for an hour, this is a decent pick. Just be wary of the issues I've mentioned. Overall, I'd give it a 6/10.

Dark Witch Connect!
Alright, up next is Connect. Connect is a matching puzzle game, and you use revenge magic to get a higher score, and that's really it. Yeah, it's not really that big. There's a mission mode where you can get more Tres. You use Tres to unlock more characters, and if you unlock a character, you can use their revenge magic. You can also level up your character, but all it does is That's about as far as it goes. To be fair, unlocking new characters is satisfying, but that's about it really. There's also no English translation unfortunately, but you can get used to it.

Conclusion
Overall, I'm not sure what to think of Connect. It's pretty shallow, but it's also free, so I can't knock it too much. So I'm abstaining from rating Connect. But I will say, if you have time to kill, Connect is alright.

Break Rock Syega Crystal
Break Rock Syega Crystal is the last game we're looking at today. It was released in March 2021 for And...roi... oh no. Yeah, I'm an iPhone user, an unfortunate disease, I know, but there's not much I can do here. I do own a Kindle Fire, which is an Android device, but 1. that thing is really, REALLY old, and 2. it only has 1GB of RAM. Yikes. I know there's a way to use Android apps on Windows 11, but... it's Windows 11. I don't like having 2 diseases at one time, so no thanks. And yes, I know Bluestacks exist, but I'm not installing it just for one game. So... shit. Review's over.

OR IS IT? There exists something called YouTube, so maybe I can get a gist of the game there.

Break Rock Syega Crystal is a clicker game. You tap for 2 hours on end and you have a hunger mechanic. I'm not sure what happens if you run out of food, but I presume you die and reset. Anyways, you click until the meter at the top depletes, and then the game stops. Doesn't that sound AMAZING? Yeah, I'm glad I skipped this game. My good friend Mali described the game as "a buttload of shit, with nothing making any sense to it at all." This truly is the greatest game of all time.

Conclusion
Overall, save for Break Rock Syega Crystal, I think the spinoff games are worth your time, particularly if you're a Dark Witch fan. They're not really that deep, but they can be fun in short bursts (more so Rudymical). If you're looking for a longer lasting experience, I'd stick to the main Dark Witch games, however.

This review was kinda filler, because the next game... ooh boy. We're looking at Brave Dungeon 2, and that's going to be a ton of fun. I don't have much else to say, other than stay tuned. Good things come to those who wait, and it'll be good. I promise. Anyways, see you guys later!

This review was originally posted on The Legend of Dark With Wiki, prior to it's closure and my retirement from said wiki, and is now fully archived on Backloggd. I do not condone NAN-A nor Inside System's actions. They have participated in morally grey actions within the community and inside the franchise itself. As such, these reviews can no longer be considered recommendations, and do not have any formal scores to them. I stress that you do not take these reviews at face value. Any content within this review is subject to being broken, questionable, outdated, low quality, or at times, unreadable. Additionally, these were made from a different point of view compared to my writings of today, so I please ask that you disregard any positive statements about NAN-A or Inside System. All of these articles may be found, in their original, intended form here, alongside their numerous revisions. Additionally, these reviews are liscensed under CC-BY SA 4.0, under wiki policy. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy the review.

Returning from her slumber, the mistress rises once more and hands Blad Brave Dungeon, after reviewing the first game. Blad rises to the challenge once more, and so the story continues...

Brave Dungeon is quite the fan favorite in the series. If you ask someone "Rank the Dark Witch games", many will but BD up with the likes of 2 and 3. I was definitely a little surprised to say the least. My first play through didn't leave the best taste in my mouth. I thought it was repetitive as all hell and the combat was too easy. But that was a couple years ago, and my opinions on the Dark Witch games have shifted around a lot. So today we'll be reviewing Brave Dungeon for the Nintendo 3DS. We'll also take a look at the Switch and PC half-port, half-new game, Brave Dungeon + Dark Witch's Story: COMBAT. Gah, what a silly name. Apologies for the small rant, but Dark Witch games have always had really awesome titles. The Price of Desire, Wisdom and Lunacy, The Meaning of Justice, etc. And no, Break Rock Syega Crystal is not a good title. So why did they feel the need to add "Dark Witch's Story: COMBAT" to the title? Why not just call it "Brave Dungeon + Combat", or more simply "Brave Dungeon+". In fact, you know what? From here on out, I'll just refer to it as "COMBAT". I won't be mentioning it a whole lot anyways. As a final note, I played this game on Lunatic in a New Game+ save file. New Game+ is really cool in this game for reasons I'll explain later, but you'll absolutely want to use it as soon as you get it. Just make sure not to overwrite your original clear file. Anyways, lets get into the best part, the music!

Music
I'm going to run this joke into the ground, and yeah, Brave Dungeon's soundtrack is great. Interestingly, they remixed Dark Witch 2's main theme and intro, and that became the series' main theme. Admittedly, I was a little disappointed going into 3 that this was the case, but I don't mind it all too much. Brave Dungeon's soundtrack is intresting as it's half Dark Witch 2, half Dark Witch 3. It's a bit hard to explain in text, but Brave Dungeon doesn't feel as sequenced as Dark Witch 2, and whether that's good or bad is up to you. Personally, I don't mind it, but everyone's different. Even then, you can tell it's sequenced, even if it's less obvious. I don't really have a lot to complain about, but that's mostly because the soundtrack is 21 songs long. If I have to sum up most of the issues with Brave Dungeon's soundtrack, is that it's pretty repetitive, not helping that the song repeats when you leave a battle (Seriously? FFVII got that right years ago.). This game is one of the longer Dark Witch games to beat, and will take a while, especially on your first playthrough. But other than that, I'm not really a fan of some songs in the game. The first dungeon's music was far too repetitive for my tastes, the battle theme... eh. And Bajel's fight wasn't that good in my opinion. The rest though? Easy songs on repeat. My favorite song is Zizou's battle theme, which has an incredibly long build up, but just pays off in the end. So all in all, Brave Dungeon's OST is great! Now, lets get into the story.

Story
The story starts off with Al fucking dying.

Just kidding. The story kicks off in the Old Islands, where Al is searching for a magic item. She enters Godshill, and gets knocked out by several enemies. This is where we're introduced to Lugli, an innkeeper who saves Al. She gives her advice, and from here, Al is off to the races, and with a couple friends as well. Together, they traverse the dungeons of the Old Islands. After that, there really is no dialogue. But in the end, the girl who holds magical item named Bajel, fights Al for it. Al ends up winning, but Bajel teleports the item to Nightmare, where its reputation precedes itself. Al fights Zizou, and Al wins, and she now holds the magical item. And that ends Brave Dungeon. Yeah, a rather bland story for an RPG, isn't it? It doesn't really infuriate me, but it's just so boring, I couldn't care about it. The only part I really cared about is Bajel, who looks awesome. I'm a big fan of pixel art, and she looks amazing. Her movements are fluid and look great. But yeah, other than that, this is the only game in the series where I always skipped the cutscenes. The story really is just that bad.

Gameplay
Brave Dungeon is quite the abnormal RPG when it comes to progression. You don't earn stats when you level up, save for HP. In Newport, you can buff your character with Tres earned. Think SMT IV, for example. It's an intresting system that I like a lot, as harder difficulties give you more Tres, but lower difficulties give you less Tres. My only issue with this system is that you can only do it outside of dungeons, and that would've been really useful to have. Other than that, you can craft many accessories, some of which are really good, like the parry ring, or the 50% ring, which gives you 50% more HP. That's awesome! You can also buff your skills with lunch tickets, which are always decently useful. Annoyingly, it's random, but you can drop out party members if you want to buff a specific character. You can also use Class Change to get a new skill, alongside a big buff to your stats. You select your skills (you get them all in the long term), and then you change your class. Your stats also stack for each class change, so there's no real reason to not change your class. You can also change your character, all of them having various advantages and disadvantages. Personally, I use Mari, Al, and Stoj. Mari debuffs enemies, Stoj heals but packs a punch, and Al is an all around character.

Dungeons
Starting out, you have 5 dungeons. These dungeons have 4 floors each, save for the final dungeon, Godshill, which has 2 more. The last floor is reserved for the boss in Nightmare, and you can go for any dungeon at any time, save for Nightmare, which you unlock after beating Bajel. While this sounds special, in reality, there's only one true order, as most enemies above your level will mop the floor with you without a fight. However, if you're brave enough, you can go to another dungeon, fight monsters, and get more EXP and Tres than at your current level, which is neat. However, the dungeons in this game are unfunnily unremarkable. Like, if you think Dark Witch 1 and 2 had linear levels, Brave Dungeon blows them out the water and into the atmosphere. No joke, it's literally a straight line where you hold one direction at a time. It's not fun at all, and the only real point of the alternative paths is to get more accessories and materials (which you use to craft accessories). Even then, you get materials from battles, so it's kinda pointless. Once you hit Nightmare, this is where it starts to get really bad.

The Never-ending Nightmare
Yes, Nightmare is THAT bad, so it gets it's own section. The first person who gets the header's reference gets $5 in Steam credit.[Notes 1]

Not only do you not have a map, not only is the difficulty astronomically hard, not only can you not jump floors with an item, not only is there large floors of poison which suck your HP up (other dungeons have poison, but this dungeon is loaded with it), not only are the first 5 floors randomized, but the floors are extremely large and non-linear, and can easily take up to an hour on your first try. And don't even get me started on Zizou, who hits like a truck, and has a move which heals over 40K goddamn HP. And if you die at any point, it's back to square one. I'm a fan of marathon stages in games. Mega Man's Wily Fortress stages are great, I really like the late game of Dark Witch 1 and 2, Gunvolt 3's D-Nizer Mode is great, and the Blood Stained Sanctuary from Cave Story is almost perfect in it's design. But this just went WAY, WAY, WAY too far. In fact, I still haven't beaten it yet. Because I got to Zizou, lost, and nearly destroyed my 3DS. THIS isn't fun. Not one bit. Fuck this dungeon. You cannot physically tell me how this is fair. One guy pointed out how it gives you over 3 million Tres so you can power up your character. OK, fair point. But that doesn't make this dungeon any more fun. If I wanted to grind, I'd go to literally any other dungeon. Also, some of you may point out that you should play it in New Game+, which I agree with. But it should've been very clear from the start. I have no idea what NAN-A was even thinking here. And you know what also sucks? This dungeon returns in Brave Dungeon 2, so I'll have to play it AGAIN! Although 2 is a lot easier, so I'm not sure about if it's gonna suck, but still! Didn't NAN-A know when to pump the brakes, maybe just a little? The only good aspect of this dungeon is it's music, which is an awesome rock song. Too bad you never get to hear it in full due to the...

Battles
The battles are your typical turn-based combat affair. You attack, they attack, you (de)buff, they (de)buff, and so on. So there's not much to explain. One annoying thing is that you can't run from fights unless you 100% the map. And that's not even a great thing anyways, as the enemy doesn't despawn. You might as well bite the bullet as battles aren't all that difficult. Not mindless or anything, just not that hard. Boss battles will be the bulk of your playthrough, and they can get kinda tough at points. They do really strong damage, so you'll want someone who can debuff enemies. Some also inflict lots of statuses, so watch out. And that's really it for the battles. So lets move onto the postgame.

Postgame
The postgame is pretty interesting in my opinion. It expands on what Brave Dungeon already does. You can unlock buffs in-game, and even unlock Zizou when you've beaten the game, who is really overpowered, but to compensate, she can't have any other party members. Brave Dungeon really pushes NG+, but to be honest, I'm probably not going to beat the game again, even if I think the game is decent. I haven't 100%ed the game yet, but I probably will, as it seems really easy to do. I'll update this blog when I do. Before I close out the review, I'll talk about COMBAT.

COMBAT
COMBAT is a rerelease of Brave Dungeon, and also sports a new game, Dark Witch's Story: COMBAT. Let's cover the new stuff in Brave Dungeon, and really, there's not a lot. Klinsy and Nevile are playable, and at the time, 3 was the game everyone cared about, so it's kinda cool that they added Nevile here. There's some new graphics for the dungeon, and the UI has been updated for the lack of a second screen. The game also has an enemy mode on PC, where you play as Hiroto, and accumulate monsters to fight with you. You can also reverse the maps on PC, which kinda messed with me, but it's still a fun feature. I'd say this is the definitive version of the game, so play this version if you're new to Brave Dungeon.

Anyways, COMBAT. It's a card game, where you play 2/3 matches against your opponent. You climb the ranks and earn Tres to power up your cards. The card-battling is rather simplistic and requires little-to-no player input. You can't even cheer your card on, which would've been cool. So I wouldn't even bother with this game, and as far as I know, you don't have to even play it for 100%. The card art is the only good part about this game. Seriously, why did they make Kinnopi so adorable?! But other that that, yeah, this mode sucks.

Overall, COMBAT is a nice upgrade, but it's asking price is a bit contentious. Brave Dungeon was $5, and COMBAT is $9, and $13 on PC. I think it's worth it (particularly for the postgame), but if you don't agree, I can understand that.

Conclusion
This review might seem pretty negative at first. Some of you may think I hate Brave Dungeon, but in reality, that couldn't be farther from the truth. Brave Dungeon is a decent game, at least in my opinion. Hell, you might get a kick out of the game if you enjoy the fundamentals. One guy I know (Oersted) loves the game, and he knows it in and out. But unfortunately, it's just not my cup of tea. But it might be yours. Even then, I'd still recommend the game, even if its flaws are really annoying. As for COMBAT, I think it's really nice, but I wouldn't double-dip unless you really liked Brave Dungeon on the 3DS. If you're a newcomer, the price is a bit steep, but I think it's still worth a purchase. Overall, I'll give Brave Dungeon a 7.5/10. The Switch port doesn't do much, but I guess it didn't do anything too bad. I'll give it an 8/10.

And that's another review in the bag. Normally I would host a voting session, but there would really be only one choice. Next time, we're covering the spinoffs. And then after that, the review series finale, Brave Dungeon 2. And that's a special case, so that's going to be last. I'd be a bit hesitant to review a game that's technically not even finished, but I'll explain my motives when I get there. But thank you for all of the support again, and have a good day. Take care.

Blad abandons the mistress, but soon, he would come to regret that. But that's a story for another time...

This review was originally posted on The Legend of Dark With Wiki, prior to it's closure and my retirement from said wiki, and is now fully archived on Backloggd. I do not condone NAN-A nor Inside System's actions. They have participated in morally grey actions within the community and inside the franchise itself. As such, these reviews can no longer be considered recommendations, and do not have any formal scores to them. I stress that you do not take these reviews at face value. Any content within this review is subject to being broken, questionable, outdated, low quality, or at times, unreadable. Additionally, these were made from a different point of view compared to my writings of today, so I please ask that you disregard any positive statements about NAN-A or Inside System. All of these articles may be found, in their original, intended form here, alongside their numerous revisions. Additionally, these reviews are liscensed under CC-BY SA 4.0, under wiki policy. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy the review.

After reviewing Episode 3, Blad, formerly the Goose, had asked what game to review next in the Dark Witch franchise. The outside force that tortured then-known Zeus decided to not respond. She can be a cruel mistress, sometimes. So after being fed up with Dark Witch 3, Zeus forged his own path. He had picked up the game that started it all. The Legend of Dark Witch: Chronicle 2D Act.

So, the first game in the franchise. Chronicle 2D Act, also apparently known as Episode 1. Like Episode 2, I love this game. I haven't played it as much as Episode 2, but I still come back to it a lot. I first played 1's demo on the 3DS, and I liked it. Obviously not as much as Dark Witch 2, but it was still a good time. Fast forward to 2019, and I had received $20 in eShop credit, and I had no idea what to do with it. I thought about buying the Dark Witch games, and that's when I found the remaster of this game, confusingly and annoyingly named The Legend of Dark Witch on Nintendo Switch. Fans call it The Legend of Dark Witch Renovation, and so does the Steam version. Aside from that, I played it, and I enjoyed it. Not much else. I eventually moved on, but I got the trilogy on 3DS, and I had picked up Dark Witch 1 again. Now I own the Steam version of both Classic and Renovation, so I have basically all of the ports, minus the PS Vita version. But I'm not investing in a corpse, no thanks.

A lot of fans seem to really hate Episode 1, but I'm not one of those people. Fans often cite the high difficulty as an issue, and many detest the slot system. I disagree with all those statements, and I'll explain why. Personally, I think the game is great, and it's absolutely my second-favorite game in the series. But let's start off with the best part, the music!

Music
Raito went off the walls for this one. Every single song in this game is amazing. Sanctuary, Freesia, Get Justice, Sleeping Rock 'n' Roll, Not Glamorous, Vacations Noisy, Vulgaris, What's Safeguard, Mirror Trap, Or Not to Break, Melody Yasuragi, Blue heat Haze, Good Luck, Blue Heat Haze again, Raito, my guy, it's an obscure 5 dollar eShop game on the 3DS, calm down. Needless to say, the OST is oddly amazing. Seriously, it's criminally underrated. I love all of the tracks, easily one of my favorite soundtracks of all time. It doesn't top 3 or 2, but it deserves some points on the board. And if you haven't listened to it, go and do it. I love it, and you'll love it too. Anyways, onto the game.

Story
The story is simplistic and not really important, but I should still mention it regardless. Riva (the bad guy) secretly stole all the Syega from the Old Islands, and Zizou Olympia goes around the Old islands in search of the culprit. As she travels, she collects information about Syega and the culprit. Eventually, she stumbles upom Verri, a knight protecting Riva's castle. After she has been defeated, we encounter the fugitive, Riva. They duel, and Zizou wins. Riva then taps in to the power of Syega, in a last ditch effort to defeat Zizou. Riva fails again, and she agrees to return all of the Syega. All in all, the story isn't really important, but I think it could've been handled better. I do like the characters here, save for Riva. I've heard a lot of people dislike Riva, one (Dupli) even calling her the worst Dark Witch character of all time. I honestly don't see why she got a bunch of hate. I'm not saying that she's an amazing character, but she doesn't do anything too terrible to deserve all the hate she gets. The worst thing she did is be egotistical, which, while kind of annoying, isn't a big deal. In my opinion, the true villain of 3 is worse than Riva. At least you can love to hate Riva. Simeone is a disappointment.

Gameplay
So The Legend of Dark Witch plays like Mega Man... sorta. You have the buster shot, a slightly stronger buster shot, and all the abilities from the bosses you conquer, excluding Verri. The main appeal of Dark Witch is the slot meter. Killing enemies will increase this meter. The meter will highlight a skill that it will install. You can also skip over this skill by killing more enemies. Once you install a skill, the meter resets, but your stats improve, depending on what skill you install. Getting hit will make you lose part of this meter. I love this system, and it adds risk/reward to the game. Better skills are typically at the end of the meter, but speed is at the beginning. Do you go for speed, or risk it and go for power. And power is pretty overpowered. You can do an insane amount of damage by upgrading power alone. However, for the cost of Power (resetting your meter), it's worth it. One minor annoyance is death. Dying resets your slots. Personally, I'm a fan of this system as it adds to the risk of the system, but when it sucks to lose all your slots due to a missed button input, it REALLY sucks. Renovation removes this in the easy mode, but I'd rather have the player choose whether or not they want the harder version of the game. Think Gunvolt, for example. Personally, I prefer it on, but everyone's different, so I won't speak for you. Another issue is with the weapons. All of the weapons, save for the Liner and Comet shot, aren't worth it. They take away from your enhancement slot, and aren't really good in general. So when I'm playing the game, just stick to Liner. A far cry from Mega Man 2, and even the first Mega Man. Even then, The Legend of Dark Witch is looking pretty good so far, and it gets better in the stages.

Stages
The stages in 1 are pretty good. I love every stage in this game, and they're great for speedrunning. Here's a review of every stage.

Klinsy
I think Klinsy's stage is the best-designed stage in the entire series, bar none. It knows exactly what it wants to do and it does that very well. This is the first stage ever, and most players played this in The Legend of Dark Witch demo. Therefore, it's likely that most players played this stage first. Or, maybe they played the stages in a linear order on their first go. I know I did. The stage starts out very simple, showing how stages transform. Once you get into the main stage, you're on a flat runway. If Players will notice the danger icon on the top, with the books raining from the sky. This gives the player information to look out for. Granted, it's not used in game too many times, but it's still good to know nonetheless. The next section will show the player what to look out for. The elusive Syega. This tells the player that these upgrade your slots and are good to get. The books could be a good tutorial for parrying, which is done here by quickly pressing left. The only bad part of this section is the waterfalls, which slow down the pace. The next section has several pitfalls, which increase the difficulty, but even then, a first time player can easily beat this section. Then you enter the garden, which has several keys that you need to pass through doors. This section is easy and non-life threatening. After another short platforming section, you are offered the first alternative path. Taking this path is risky, however. You have a chance of dying while trying to get the key, as a book rains down pages at certain intervals, over a pit. Timing your moves is essential to getting this path. Getting this path offers a much faster route, along with more Tres (at least I think so), and a Syega Crystal. The final section teaches the player the coyote time mechanic. Normally, you can't get up to the key you need with a regular jump. But if you walk off a platform and quickly jump afterwards, you extend your vertical distance when you jump. If you have 3X Speed, this jump is possible. Many players grabbed the Speed Syega, but if you survive until this point and have 3X speed, you get a Tres bonus. Finally, the level finishes out with an easy platforming section. Overall, this is one of the best Dark Witch levels, and an amazing tutorial. I think this level is genius. 10/10.

Al
Al's stage takes place in an icy land, where buff, fire breathing snowmen exist, and the penguins go way, way too fast. Other than that, it's another really good stage. I don't have much to say about it, other than it's fun, and it has some alternative paths, which are always nice. One bad part is the end, with the slippery ice. It's pretty easy to try and correct your jump, only to slip off and lose a stock. But aside from that cheap death, the stage is great. 8/10.

Papelne
Papelne's stage is a city stage, and you have to switch blocks to proceed. One thing I have a problem with is that the block switching is pretty straightforward. You can easily find your way to the goal most of the time, but other than that, the stage is still pretty fun. It's another nice stage in the game. 8/10.

Blad
Blad's stage takes place in the Twilight Prison, where the deceased roam (at least I'm pretty sure). Anyways, a lot of people really seem to hate Blad's stage, but aside from one knockback kill at the end, and one that's pretty easy to avoid, I don't really see the issue with it, although I will note the stage is a bit hard. There are a lot of pits tbhat ae easy to fall into, and the hedgehogs shoot projectiles at you when you kill them. Other than that, the stage is alright. The thing is, there's just not a lot to do. It's gimmick is these up and down thingies, but they just get you somewhere, so they aren't really that fun. But there's nothing really inherently wrong with it, so I give it a 7/10.

Sola
Sola's stage takes place in the Chelsea School, who has a big monster problem for an academy. The fake blocks are pretty easy to see coming, but they are a bit difficult to avoid. I also like the difficulty progression in this stage. In the first part, you have the fake blocks over a floor. Then you have a straight line of fake blocks over a pit, again, and then the hardest part, where fake blocks are scattered everywhere, with tight jumps. That's smart design! Overall, a 9/10. Also, this song slaps.

Stoj
Stoj's stage is alright. First, you start at a beach, with raining enemies, which are easy enough to kill. You have a bit of a leap of faith, but if you pan the camera, you can make the jump easily. Then you get to the second half. There are a couple of torches which you put out with rain. After that, it's pretty much a straight shot to the finish, with some enemies on the way. So a good stage. but it's not that noteworthy. 7/10.

Verri
Arguably one of the hardest stages in the entire series, Verri's stage is also one of the most controversial. A lot of people loath the stage, but I really think its issues are overblown. I think there's really only one part that's unfair for a first time player. The first part is your typical Dark Witch stage, but once you teleport, it gets hard. The first section has the On/Off blocks over alarge pit, but with simple timing, you can clear it with no effort. The next section is the only really unfair part. There are tornadoes which move up and down, and you have to avoid them. However, there is a pit in front of you, and if you don't know to hold right, you die, and you lose a bit of progress. You can't even pan the camera down because of the tornadoes, which will most likely hit you. It's pretty frustrating, but hold right and you're good. After a small section without many gimmicks, you enter the dark room, and really, there's not a lot wrong here. Sure, the area is dark, but you can still see enemies, so you should be good. The pits are also easily avoidable, but I don't know why they used Blad's up/down things for the pits. There's no way to get a jump mid-air, so I don't know why they put it here if you die either way. Anyways, you leave the dark area for by far the hardest section in the game. Penguins will travel at the spped of light, slimes will create more slimes, and birds will shoot at you, which can easily make you die and reset. But if you make it to the very end, and reach Riva's castle, avoiding the enemies guarding the castle, you feel awesome. Honestly, I love this stage, and it gets way too much hate from everyone. Aside from one unfair kill, I think it gets an 9/10 from me. If you've reached this point, you're ready to fight Riva, Princess of Rasil. And, unfortunately, this is where the game really falters.

Riva
Riva's stage is a boss rush, followed by the final boss. I don't mind boss rushes, but what I do mind is the boss itself, Riva. Riva's first form is nigh impossible on harder difficulties, but what really kills the fight is phase 2. Phase 2 is so easy, it's not even funny. Riva floats above your head, out of your reach. She doesn't even have a hitbox, so you can't hit her. She shoots bullets at you, but that's not the issue. She spawns enemies for 3 minutes straight, and more often than not, you can shoot them in one hit. So what do you do? Turn around repeatedly for the entire fight. Oh, isn't that not heart attack-inducing enough? Use Blad's rings to cheese the entire fight without a hitch. Maybe the hedgehogs will catch you by surprise, but as long as you have at least 2 hearts, you're fine. So needless to say, this fight is awful.

Bosses
I decided to review all of the bosses in one go, as unlike the stages, there's not a lot to say. I thought all of them were pretty good, but they really just blend in. Half of them don't even move an inch from their spawning point. So all they really do is launch bullets at you. And that's not to say they're bad, but it gives them less variety. And that's all I have to say about the main game, so what about the post-game?

Post-game
Post-game Dark Witch is typically the best part of any Dark Witch game (at least in my opinion). So let's go over that!

Lunatic
First, you unlock Lunatic mode, which significantly boosts enemy health, you lose your entire slot progress upon taking a hit, and there's a lot less Tres. I think this mode is alright, however it can be terribly frustrating at times, particularly with the girl who shall not be named. I find Dark Witch hard enough on easy, so while I appreciate the effort here, I ultimately didn't end up beating it, as the final boss was just too hard (see boss section for more info), and I'm not playing with the girl who shall not be named.

Riva
Second, you unlock the girl who shall not be named. She's godawful. Her weapons are even worse than the other skills. Cobalt Fire is way too weak at default to ever be useful. And don't even get me started on Sword Rain. She also has a dash, and while that seems good, if you dash midair, you might as well die because you can't cancel dash midair. Thankfully, 2 fixed this, but annoyingly, 3 removed the dash. She also fights Zizou as her final boss, who is WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too hard, even on Easy mode. She's so terrible, that she made Klinsy one of the hardest fights in the game. In short, Riva is ultimately not worth it, don't even bother unless you hate yourself, or you're going for 100%.

Hey, wait a second!

Syega shop
The Syega Shop is a quintessential part of any Dark Witch game, and it started here. You can buy upgrades (which don't hamper achievements, so have fun in Lunatic), cosmetics, and museum stuff (ex. soundtrack), and it's nice. There's not really much else to say about the shop, so I'll leave it at that.

Overall, I give the postgame a 7/10. It has it's frustrations, but I think I enjoyed it. I haven't 100%ed it yet, so we'll see.

Renovation

For some reason, I couldn't find high quality screenshots of Renovation, so just picture something like this, but with Dark Witch sprites.
Before closing out this review, I want to talk about the remaster, The Legend of Dark Witch Renovation. Some of you may know I have my Legend of Dark Witch RESERVATIONS about this game, but I want to explain myself. I do not think The Legend of Dark Witch Renovation is a bad game. It has some nice features that make the game a bit better, and for the most part, all of it's changes were good. The new attacks are hard, but they're really fun. You don't lose your slots when you die (i think it's better when you lose them, but I guess this is fine enough), which is good for newcomers. There are a couple of minigames now, don't really care. You have the Capacity Gauge, which would be a great addition if the weapons didn't suck so much. Comet is buffed, that's cool, but I never install Comet. And there's a new artstyle. Yeah, not really a fan of it. I think they smoothed out the pixels to give it a hand-drawn look (at least I think that's the case for most of them? Zizou looks pretty good, and some enemies actually look hand-drawn), but it just doesn't work. Seriously, I don't know why game companies love to use XBRZ in pixel based games (COUGH COUGH CAPCOM). In my opinion, it's an automatic failure whenever it's done. It just never looks good. So just play with the original graphics, right? Well, you can't... kinda. Reverting the graphics reverts all of the good changes Renovation brings, so you might as well not even bother with Renovation at that point. And that sucks, because Renovation's changes, while small, make the game a tiny bit better. And that leads me into my second issue. I feel like Renovation didn't do enough to justify costing $2 more. Now, I love The Legend of Dark Witch Episode 1, but I'll be damned to admit it's perfect. And honestly, if you want to get into DW, don't start with Renovation, even with it's new features. Some of you may consider this hypocritical, as I didn't really knock 2 for this. But 2 had a bunch of new stuff for the Steam port when it really didn't need to. Plus, 2 was already worth $10. 1 is a bit more debatable in this regard, as it's one of the shortest entries in the series (and, as much as I love Episode 1, one of the more flawed).

Overall, Renovation is an alright remaster. I'd say get it if you've never owned 1, but stick to Classic if you already have that.

One more thing; Classic now costs the extra $2 on Steam, even without the Renovation features. Come on, NAN-A. That's extremely scummy. I know you aren't the greatest game dev in the world (personally Inti Creates is my favorite), but this is not good, and my favorite video game franchise doesn't get a pass from that.

Conclusion
Episode 1 is an amazing game, and one I often revisit. While it does have some minor issues, the game is still great. It's indefinitely replayable, one tough game, but more importantly, a fun one. I can easily recommend it to newcomers, although I still think Episode 2 is a fair bit better. As for Renovation, it's a good way to play the game, but I wouldn't recommend it to returning players. Where it lacks in graphics, it makes up for with some additions that, while aren't completely necessary to fully enjoy the game, make the experience better as a whole. It just needed more features to justify the higher price tag.

Anyways, longtime readers know what's coming up, but here's a couple words from me. Yeah, this review took a long time to come out, and I apologize for that. I think I got a little burnt out from doing 2 big reviews in 1 week, but I finally got over that burnout, and here I am. Hopefully the next review will be a lot shorter, because we're doing the side games, so I don't have to review every stage and get a carpal tunnel.[Notes 1] I will note that the next games aren't as close to me as well, so be warned that I won't talk much about how I first saw them. Anyways, without further ado, here is the poll. Thanks for reading till the end, and see you next time!

The mistress woke from her slumber and picked a game. She was pretty brave when picking it. But that's a story for another time...

This review was originally posted on The Legend of Dark With Wiki, prior to it's closure and my retirement from said wiki, and is now fully archived on Backloggd. I do not condone NAN-A nor Inside System's actions. They have participated in morally grey actions within the community and inside the franchise itself. As such, these reviews can no longer be considered recommendations, and do not have any formal scores to them. I stress that you do not take these reviews at face value. Any content within this review is subject to being broken, questionable, outdated, low quality, or at times, unreadable. Additionally, these were made from a different point of view compared to my writings of today, so I please ask that you disregard any positive statements about NAN-A or Inside System. All of these articles may be found, in their original, intended form here, alongside their numerous revisions. Additionally, these reviews are liscensed under CC-BY SA 4.0, under wiki policy. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy the review.

After Blad reviewed his favorite game in the Dark Witch series, he had said the following.

Anyways, now that I'm done with this game, I guess I might as well talk about the other Dark Witch games. Do I choose the game that started it all? The game I'm heavily mixed on? Maybe the spinoffs? Hmm... Maybe an outside source will choose for me...

And so, one day in October 2022, the aforementioned outside force told him to review the game that he couldn't. Zeus protested, but he eventually started typing. And so, the legend of Zeus' reviews of the Dark Witch games continued...

I think it's pretty obvious I'm a fan of Dark Witch 2. So when I found out about Dark Witch 3, needless to say I was pretty excited. I had checked out the trailers in December of 2017, and it looked amazing. A recap of all the Dark Witch games started. Dark Witch 1? I loved that demo! (Keep in mind I actually didn't own the full game yet.) Dark Witch 2? That's the best demo in the franchise. And now, Episode 3? No way. And the music, it's great! Woah, 3D? That's amazing! A new character named Day? Get out of here. The Lord Attack returning from Dark Witch 2? I loved that ability. The largest amount of stages in a Dark Witch game? A new magic item system that I can use an unlimited amount of times? I went NUTS over this announcement. Excitedly, I typed in Dark Witch 3 in the eShop store, looking for a demo, aaaaaand... nothing. Yeah, keep in mind that I had no eShop funds and no way to pay for it. I don't know why I didn't just ask my parents for money, but I guess that doesn't matter now, since I have all 3 of the games now. Anyways, you know the story. Christmas Day 2019, boom, all of the Dark Witch games on 3DS, all mine for 20 bucks. I beat Dark Witch 2 that same day. And on that same night, I tried Dark Witch 3, and... I was pretty disappointed, and a little confused at the same time. Keep in mind I was waiting to play this game for 2 years, so yeah. I had a right to be disappointed. I was so disappointed that I literally shut the game off, and held it off until later. That's never happened to me in a video game ever before, and it hasn't happened since. But after a while, I decided to try the bad Dark Witch game again. I had barely recovered after that absolutely traumatizing experience. And needless to say, I was extremely displeased with Dark Witch 3, and I was done after a full playthrough. So I went back to Dark Witch 2. I went back to play as Day, and nothing changed. I had checked forum threads to see if I was just playing the game wrong, and I had seen that many didn't like the game. And for a while, that was the end of my Dark Witch 3 journey. I eventually picked the game up again a couple months later, anxious. And, oddly, I actually had fun. What was this weird feeling? I replayed the game again, and I actually liked it! I think once I had gotten the sour taste out of my mouth that this wasn't Dark Witch 2, I think I was able to enjoy myself a little bit. That being said, I thought it was still the worst mainline game, but it was still decent. A whole year later, I picked it up again, now on Citra, and I thought I was going to have a good time, especially with seceral calling it the best Dark Witch game... but... something changed. So today, I will talk about my experiences with Dark Witch 3, and how I feel about it now. So buckle up my friends. We're going to talk about Dark Witch 3, and how my thoughts of it changed radically over the years. Let's begin with the music, yet again.

Music
I felt like the music in Dark Witch 3 was pretty good. Really, the only thing I didn't like were the remixes. I guess this includes the Dark Witch remix. And don't get me wrong, there are some great Dark Witch remixes here. Sweet Green Love, Take a Walk, Research for Truth, and White Out Champion are all great. I wouldn't listen to them over the original songs, but that was true with the arranged songs in Dark Witch 2, so it's fine here. But what happened to the rest? I guess I can categorize the rest into two categories. Either ear-bleeding or boring. I don't know how else to put it. The only songs I think are bad are Hello Samurai Ninja and Illusion Andante. Wow, those are pretty rough. The rest were average at best. Many of them lack the heart of the original songs, both figuratively and literally, because most sound like robotic bleeps and bloops. Even the actual computer remix in Dark Witch 2 had some heart. Thankfully, these remixes are only in Rudymical, so you don't have to listen to them, unless you're doing 100%. The main game soundtrack is very good. Most stages have good music, but even then, I still prefer the Dark Witch 2 soundtrack, as there's more songs in Dark Witch 2, and the remixes are way better.

Story
The story in Dark Witch 3 is extremely frustrating, but I'll explain most of it later. I honestly don't care about spoiling it, so here's your warning now, I guess.

The game starts off so well. humans and the Fae are having a massive war, and the Magic Lion Corps are killing all the Fae. Then one person named Day betrays the group, and she's kicked from the group, and the Old Islands as a whole. The group then disbands. Day goes back to the Old Islands to get her revenge a while later. Zizou Olympia tries to fight and stop Day. Day activates Capacity Zero, which takes Zizou's magic. Day nearly kills Zizou before her sister, Mati comes in to save the day. Now it's your job to go find out what the Magic Lion Corps members know. Then she goes to the Fae and Beastwomen to find out what's going on. This sounds cool, right? Well, they ruin it. Zizou faces off with Day, and then Zizou wins. And I'm not joking when I say this, but out of nowhere, Simeone, a mastermind, comes in and says "Ooh, I tricked that stupid day girl", then fight commences. Day was already a great antagonist on her own. Why not do a climactic battle where Day uses Capacity Zero against Zizou, but somehow Zizou powers through it? An idea I had was that Day already went too far, and she doubts that the Magic Lion Corps likes her now, so she continues her rampage. That would be cool, but instead we have this worthless character. I should also note that Simeone isn't even present in Day's run as far as I know, so what was the point of this character? Hell, they treat it without fanfare. Simeone literally just appears on top of a textbox, like, there's no cool buildup before the final boss, and when you defeat her, there's no slowdown or anything. Anyways, the final boss commences, Zizou wins, talk with Mati, game's over, have a nice day (Ha, ha!). My god, talk about a disappointing ending. Spoiler alert, I'm gonna be saying that about Dark Witch 3 a lot. I should also mention Day's story. I actually skipped most of the cutscenes in Day's playthrough, so here's a summary by a friend.



And I'm not going to lie, but I was pretty shocked when I read it. It was so much better than Zizou's story. And they agreed! So all in all, this story could've been great, but that finale just broke me. Even when I hated Dark Witch 3, I was right on the money with this story. I also don't have a lot to say about the dialogue, except that it's not as good as Dark Witch 2. I don't think I really remember the conversations. The conversations are also ridiculously short. It's not that big of a deal, but you could already skip these conversations within a second if you wanted to. So players who wanted to read it could do so, and those who don't can skip it without time loss. Oh well. I guess we should go onto the gameplay.

Gameplay
The gameplay is easily the most controversial part of Dark Witch 3. And I'm going to be truthful when I say I'm not a fan of these changes. Before you raise your pitchforks, I'm going to explain why. First, what happened to the Technical Skills? Technical Skills were a big part of the appeal of Dark Witch. In Dark Witch 3, they are removed. Why? It was completely unnecessary. Sure, they made the bosses easier, but that removes a massive part of Dark Witch. The replayability. Without the technical skills, this may as well be a linear platformer, as there's no benefit to picking one stage over another. Another major loss is the Enhancement Gauge. The Enhancement Gauge is not bad in this game, but compared to Dark Witch 2, it's just so limited. Look at Dark Witch 2. You have large control over your slots. Now let's head to Dark Witch 3. There's no control. As far as I know, there's no bonus slot, which is extremely disappointing. Even the first game had a bonus slot if you get all the Syega. Also, I know I didn't touch on this in my Dark Witch 2 review, but where is the Syega Shop? It's not really a big deal, but again, this removes the replay factor. Hell, even playing with a new costume would've been nice. Or hey, why not an extra challenge mode, like a 1-Hit KO mode, like the first and second games? I'm not as upset about this change as the others, but it could've been cool. I also found issues with the controls. The controls in this game are pretty bad. I found jumping to be pretty awkward. Zizou is heavy, and floaty at the same time. If you press A and let go of it quickly, Zizou barely jumps, but if you hold A, she stays in the air for a second. This didn't kill me, but it definitely threw me off at points. I also hate moving in this game. Zizou has momentum in this game, which struck me as odd. You still have a speed cap, so I don't see a point in this. I did get used to it, but I definitely prefer the controls in 1 and 2.

Dark Witch 3 does bring some new things to the table to make up for its removals. One example is the Lord attack, which acts like a dash. This dash is great in theory, but it ends up being unreliable, because for some reason, if you dash into an enemy, you get sent into freefall. This does not seem bad at first, but you can't move in freefall, so most of the time you'll just A. fall into a pit and take damage, or B. get hit. This makes the dash pretty unreliable, and as a result, I never use it. The risk just isn't worth the meager payoff of slightly more damage. I should also note that if you dash into a boss during i-frames, YOU take damage, which is extremely unfair. You could at least bounce me off of the boss, game! There's also the new magical items, and I guess they're okay. That's really about it for the additions. I'm going onto the levels and bosses. Unlike Dark Witch 2, I won't review every stage unlike Dark Witch 2 as I don't have as much to say here. For the most part. And I'll get to that.

For the most part, Dark Witch 3 stages are actually pretty well designed. They definitely improved it from Dark Witch 2. Usually, they introduce gimmicks, and some of them are a tad annoying (Cholsey's stage, Teddy, etc.), but don't really interrupt the flow of the gameplay. There's a lot more verticality than the previous 2 games, and the levels keep you on your toes. The only bad stage in the first part is the clock stage, which is just tedious. Another disappointing aspect is the replayability. Typically you replay a Dark Witch stage to get the fastest time & Syega but in this game, that element is all but absent. There's typically no way to go faster other than just spamming Dash. There is Syega, but the payoff just isn't worthwile, especially on Easy mode. Syega barely does anything here, so you're better off just not bothering with Syega entirely and just use your Tres to upgrade. All Syega does is increase your level, which allows you to upgrade more, but you barely have any Tres to even upgrade anything most of the time. And upgrades here aren't really as good as 1 and especially 2, except for heart. Personally, I'd just go for heart, maybe go for the others if you need to. But other than the fundamental flaws of 3, the biggest flaw comes in the second half of the game.

The Second Half of The Legend of Dark Witch 3
This part is genuinely awful, and unfortunately soured my entire experience. While most of the issues stem from the second tier stages, I did find issues in other stages, so I'll start at Miah's stage. Miah's stage is really slow and tedious. There are some enemies that take a crap ton of damage. I actually found myself sitting for more than 15 seconds killing the tank guys. Yeah, I probably could've dashed into them for more damage, but the dash is unreliable at this part of the game where practically a dozen enemies are on screen at one time. Thankfully, the second half is a little bit better, but I still don't like the stage. Next up is Wonder Girl's stage, and here's where I start to really question if I like Dark Witch 3. This stage is annoying. The main issue is the screen crunch. 3 was released on a handheld, so screen crunch can be a bit annoying, but in most games, it was fine. In 3, the screen crunch got me killed a bunch. In the other games, the screen was a little zoomed out, but it was still playable. In 3. the camera is focused on Zizou, so what would've been easy jumps in the first and second games are often leaps of faith in the third. It's not terrible for most stages, but in this stage, it can get you killed because enemies usually hide in the bottom of a waterfall, which you can't see on the screen. This pissed me off when I first played the stage, and I nearly had an aneurysm while playing this stage. And this isn't even the worst of Dark Witch 3. Next up is the second tier stages, all of which are pretty bad, sole exception being Claudia's stage, which is actually pretty okay. First up is Brujita, which is a BRUJal stage. The main gimmick of this stage is these portals which you go through. Then you go through these other portals until you get it right. Think Astro Man's stage from Mega Man 8, or that one stage from Mega Man X6, I forgot. Or Switch Inferno from Super Monkey Ball 2. Were any of those stages fun? NO. This stage is awful. It's so boring and not fun. See? I'm even being redundant now. Not much else to say, it sucks, and this doesn't compare to Zanetti. Zanetti's stage is an overly frustrating and long piece of crap. Unless you're on crack-covered steroids, combined with 5 cans of Red Bull, except to take a good 20 attempts to clear the stage, because for some reason they though it was a good idea to introduce off-screen projectiles. And I thought Sonic 1 was cruel. I nearly broke my controller after I had died in my 30 minutes of attempts. Here's a quick way to beat this stage. Get powerup, and if you die at any point before the midboss, reset the game. This saves so much time, it's not even funny. And this makes Zanetti a pushover as well, and her bossfight is way too difficult. It's so hard, it actually makes the Lord Attack useful. It's so difficult that I don't even know what I'm saying! If Zanetti does the jumping attack and she's about to hit you, use Lord Attack. Your i-frames will actually protect you from getting hit. And when the lasers come in, it's all over. If she uses the laser attack, and then the jumping attack, I'm actually 100% certain it's impossible to not take damage, which is BS. One of the users of the Dark Witch Discord actually theorized a way to dodge it. God bless her soul, but this fight still sucks. On a final note, WTF is this music? It's not bad, but what? Here's a link if you want to listen to it. Onwards to Claudia's stage, which is actually kind of fun. Not much happens in it, but it has some decent platforming challenges, and it's pretty fair for the most part. But which bastard put a hole at the end of the stage that makes you redo the platforming section if you fall into it? Very uncool. Claudia's fight is also okay as well, but it's on the easy side. Finally, there's Patty. Her stage goes to fun in the intro, frustrating at the miniboss, and then boring with this easy-ass mountain climb. And Patty herself is a pushover. Aside from me intentionally dying at the start, I beat her on my first try. With the exception of Litty, that's LITTerallY never happened to me in a Dark Witch game before. AND NOW... the """""grand""""" finale of Dark Witch 3.

The final boss is okay. Does it compare to Franzer, or even Zizou? Hell no. But the fight is enjoyable nonetheless. I should also mention the Mati fight, but I don't really remember it. All I know is that it was really easy, but I'm not playing through 3 again to just get one new boss. No way in hell. Also, Day sucks. Enough said.

Conclusion
So, you wanted my answer? Episode 3 is a very mixed bag for me. I appreciate several aspects of it, like most of the levels, the music, and more. But there's a lot of negative aspects for it to, like the godawful second half, questionable design choices, and poor controls. I generally think 2 is better, hell, even the first game is better in my opinion. Maybe I should call it the worst Dark Witch game, as I'm actually learning to appreciate Rudymical, and Brave Dungeon is better than I originally thought. Is Dark Witch 3 a good video game? Eh, I think it's just okay. I can appreciate what's here, but even then, it's not that great. If I were to give it a score, probably a 7/10, maybe even a 6/10, and if I'm feeling like a madlad, a 5/10, although I really don't like making scores unless I need to. Can I recommend Dark Witch 3 to new players? Hell no. Play Dark Witch 2 first. It's fun, it's pretty cheap, and is pretty much the definitive Dark Witch experience. Can I recommend Dark Witch 3 to Dark Witch veterans? I guess I can, but even then, I still think the main game is decent at best, and one of the most frustrating at worst. I would at least recommend getting while you still can, as it's exclusive to the 3DS, and there are currently no plans to port the game to Steam. But who knows, maybe NAN-A is cooking something up behind the scenes. And that kinda sucks, as I see great potential in Dark Witch 3, but unfortunately, it's buried in a bunch of major issues, which makes the experience frustrating. But for now, Dark Witch 3 is the black sheep of the series, and likely will be for the rest of the series' lifetime. For better or for worse, Dark Witch 3 made me a changed man. And I guess I finally answered my question that's been in my head ever since I played the weirdest entry in the franchise.

So, that was my Dark Witch 3 review. A lot are going to be disappointed, and to be honest, I was too. I remember really liking Dark Witch 3 on that second go around, but I guess things change. I wanted to write about how underrated the game was, and how it was ignored in the 3DS scene, unlike the first 2 Dark Witch games, which are still decently popular. Unfortunately, that's the review I can't write. And I actually had a good time until the second tier, which ruined the entire game for me. Dark Witch 3 is not a bad game, it's just flawed. I want to say more, but that would be ultimately redundant, and it would make me sound like I hate the game. In reality, I don't, and my review probably didn't do a good job of that. I want to love it like 1 and 2, but I simply can't. Some of you may have noticed I wasn't all that funny, nor as energetic in this review, compared to 2, and that's because I'm mostly indifferent to 3. Contrary to popular belief (at least I think so), reviewing a game you don't care about isn't fun at all. I can talk about how 2 is amazing till the cows come home, but I really dislike talking about 3 because I don't think about how bad the game is, I just think about how it could've turned out. A true pile of crap (ex. w:Blaster Master 2) is fun to write about how much it sucks because it's laughably bad. Something like Sonic Forces, arguably as bad of a video game, isn't fun to talk about because it had so much hype and won over most of the fans, just for all the hype to be thrown away for a bland and lifeless title. So that's why. And that's my ultimate verdict. Well, I guess I have to update a certain blog now. Damn... Anyways, you know what to do. VOTE.

And so, the outside voice didn't respond. So Blad forges his own path, and chooses himself. But that's a story for another time...

A month back, I had reviewed Super Meat Boy Forever on this site. I cited it as one of the worst games I had ever played, being frustrating in nature, lacking lots of polish and a sense of overall direction. It was an impersonation of what the original game stood for, and what the game stood for. During the development of Purple Platoon Panic, a commonly cited inspiration was Super Meat Boy Forever. A large amount of flaws I had with Forever were only highlighted when I played Purple Platoon Panic. I checked out this game thanks to Salt N’ Spam’s video on it, comparing it to Forever in several aspects. A lot of our ideas paralleled each other for both games as we had similar issues with Forever, but I’d still recommend watching his Purple Platoon Panic review, as well as his Forever review, as he goes more in-depth to the game compared to me. The links to both are here and here, respectively. Tell them that ZeusDeeGoose sent you.
I was surprised at how fun Purple Platoon Panic was, how it encourages experimentation with the levels while maintaining Super Meat Boy Forever’s simplistic controls. For the true Super Meat Boy Forever (and intended, I guess?) experience, I played it on mobile, and it works like a charm. I wish that it wasn’t locked to browsers as I had some weird issues with iOS highlighting the game in blue text, and uppercutting is a bit cumbersome without multi-tap, but I won’t fault it for that as it can also be played on PC without issues. For starters, I complained in the original that the controls were incredibly limited, with only a jump, punch, and slide, which didn’t work when the levels expected you to speed through it to get the A Rank, in an auto runner. Mastering the “levels” be damned, you just needed to spam jump, punch, dive on repeat to get the A Rank. And if you wanted more excuses to break a fucking keyboard, you have to do it all deathless for 100%. It doesn’t sound fun, and that’s because it isn’t. Bird Tapper fixes all of this. First off, you have a triple jump, and an uppercut. No longer are levels locked to the same unfun controls than before, it feels much more expansive and has a wider degree of control. If you fuck up and jump too early, you can actually correct yourself, rather than being locked into your own doom. It’s not an easy game per se, but the game is forgiving to your mistakes as you achieve mastery of the game mechanics. This lack of consideration plagued the deathless achievements of the original Forever, as you had to input everything essentially perfectly in order to win, which wasn’t the case in the original at all. The levels in Bird Tapper take full advantage of the greater focus on controls, by making each level have a score count. Each score threshold represents 3 things; your first clear of the level is Bronze; the baseline skill level. It’s easy to get and can often be done on your first try. Silver is an intermission between being new and mastering the level. It’s often achieved by going for Gold ranks, which represent complete mastery of the the level. The primary challenge is to chain as many enemy kills without touching the ground, which resets the combo, and you really have to use everything to your advantage. For example, knocking the soldiers into each other instantly kills them, and adds to your combo chain, which is needed if you want to kill an enemy behind a bomb, for example. The game encourages you to keep trying for those higher ranks, as they’re directly tied to your progression. The rankings of Bird Tapper are nearly perfect. It allows players to get accustomed to the game, and invest either the bare minimum, or the upper limits of skill level in the game. A solid game all around; Purple Platoon Panic is short, yet sweet, and offers a better experience than Forever with great tunes blasting in the background. It’s quite literally free, so I highly suggest that you check it out if you have the time. And I highly suggest the developers to create a Steam release containing a gajillion more levels with the same design philosophy as beforehand and a level editor, because it’s really fun and I would buy it. Me and my Steam Deck would be happy.

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh binding of isaac rebirth review series coming soon, been in the works for a while now but it’s coming to fruition now. hope you enjoy! oh and spunky 2 coming soon woooooooooooooooooooooo!

also fun fact: i submitted this to igdb

It took about ~300 deaths, but I fucking did it.

Almost everything in my original review still holds up. The Ice Caves is probably my least favorite area in the game but I still liked it, and Temple was a good sendoff to the game.

Hell? Doesn't exist, what are you talking about?

Spelunky is a game that hates you. It’s randomized, filled with secrets and only a few helping hands throughout your adventure, and a few too many mistakes sends you back to the beginning of it all. There are no exploits, nor cheese to be had. There is only you, and your persistence.

As of writing, I haven’t even completed Spelunky, technically I’m not even a halfway through the game. So why am I reviewing it if I haven’t dropped/finished it yet? Because this is an experience that no other game has been able to capture. I’ve played numerous roguelikes in my days, with my favorite game of all time being a roguelike. Few (really only The Binding of Isaac) have managed to capture my attention like Spelunky. Unlike a good chunk of roguelikes which rely on the player’s reflexes and skill (which isn’t bad design for the record), Spelunky throws you into a random world and tells you to survive. You’ll find this incredibly difficult. Even with the less than threatening enemies, you’ll still find yourself dying over and over again. The goal to success is expirimentation, Spelunky’s strong suit. Since runs only last a few minutes each (10-15 minutes usually), I was more open to expirimentation with the game, compared to other roguelikes where changing my strategy mid-way through could lead to a lost run of about an hour (or so). This (and The Binding of Isaac) are the only two roguelikes that I’ve seen actually get this right, and it’s disappointing, because it works in both games’ favor, and I think a lot of roguelikes would benefit from this (ENTER THE GUNGEON.). Suddenly, as you play, once you bend the rules, rather than banging your head against a wall, the game responds accordingly. You’ll find that Dart Traps are activated with motion, and even by other enemies. So carrying anything will substantially increase your chances of survival. You can use one of the ladies as an extra HP point, use her as a meat shield for those damned dart traps, or sacrifice her for a chance at an awesome cape. You can steal from the shopkeeper which will give you several bonus items, but you have to fight him, which can easily lead to your death. And then he cock blocks the gateway to the next levels. I’m only scratching the surface of what I’ve learned through my 3 hours of playtime, and it’s not only because some of it is second nature at this point. I hope to learn more about Spelunky in my many more hours to come. I’m not sure if I’ll ever complete Spelunky, because it’s so difficult, but wishful thinking leads me to believe I will. I’ve conquered dozens of unabashedly difficult games in my lifetime, so Spelunky may be no different. But for now, Spelunky is a game that has made me feel little games have ever done. Even if you won’t see the credits, play this game. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. (and thank you alpharad for bringing my attention to this game, love you dude :D)

Haha April fools you got PRANKED LMFAFAOAOAOOOAOAOOAOAO! Sex is FUNNY! WHY THE FUCK AREN'T YOU LAUGHING?!?!?!

Genuine spoiler warning; Play this game first before reading this review. You'll enjoy this little look at the game a bit more if you do. I actually recommend the game, but for a different reason than you may think.


Does anyone seriously find joy in this holiday? Whatever; anyways. Cave Story Sex RPG 2007, released in circa 2007 based on the title! Right off the bat, saving apparently soft locked my game??? You can tell where this is going already, can't you? Also the music doesn’t loop properly, as I found out while typing this review. Aaaand that’s it. You're stuck in this room for the rest of your life. Well, that was short! Damn shame, Bagenzo. I'm not sure if the reviews on this game are trolling or what, because I genuinely cannot progress as far as I know. A shame, but oh well, the game was a minute long. It might've been a test or something.








Okay, upon further key spamming, I found out if you press S you can progress! The game calls you a dweeb for stealing Chako’s lipstick (from the original game) and then tells you to sleep. And then someone (presumably Curly? I can't tell) talks about the Mimigma. Then you go to the PC, and then the books tell you this character’s past, and it’s genuinely deep shit??? I’m not even joking, it talks about why the creator stopped making games, and even their family. And it somewhat speaks to me as someone who makes reviews almost daily, and some of the annoyances that come with content creation in general. It talks about how robots cannot be changed (which I'll get into later). But it eventually ends, and you go to the bed to remove water from Curly. And then finally, the game reflects on the main character’s life before the game loops indefinitely.

Okay, that was shockingly deep despite the game’s title. But there's something I think the game is trying to tell us, and I'll try and piece it all together (this is 100% an unironic section, there's no jokes here). First, some of the tags on the itch.io page hints towards the overall message. “LGBT”? More specifically, “Transgender”? While I am a cisgender male myself, what I am as is Bisexual as fuck, so I'm still involved in the LGBT community to some extent. And based on what I do know about being transgender (although I did consider myself non-binary midway through 2021), I'll try to provide my best understanding of the story. First off, most of the story is told in retrospective; referencing the character’s past experiences with Cave Story (the game). This is the character’s former identity, as a cisgender person, likely in 2007 based on the title. Talking about the games they made in the past, they also talk about family. I believe this character is a creator inspired by Cave Story, with numerous ideas that ended up fruitless, with close family that is touchy to the character in the present. The character's current identity is transgender, evidenced by both the game’s tags, as well as the description, with the line “Reassignment to Pretty Girl”. Additionally, on the topic of the family mentioned in the game, I believe that the main character's family was unsupportive of their transition, which is not uncommon for trans experiences. After further researching Bagenzo’s website linked on their itch.io profile, the bottom of their page denotes that they are transgender. So this might also be a self biography of the creator themselves. I was genuinely not expecting that from a game dubbed “Cave Story Sex RPG 2007”.

Okay, I unironically recommend this game. This is a quick little biography of a Creator's life, and I didn't want to knock it too much, nor tell too many jokes, because I felt like it would be in poor taste. If I got anything wrong in my story analysis, feel free to correct me as once again, I am not Trans. But yeah, I wasn't expecting to enjoy it so much in retrospect. If I had to give a score… uhhhhhh… none! Once again, I don't want to knock it too much. Could've explained the controls (how the fuck do I not know how to advance in a visual novel?), but it's whatever. I enjoyed it a bit.

how does kay yu keep making games for free, needs to hop on a commercial game because he's ripping himself off

i slightly prefer holocure but this is again a solid time

sorry for a short review i am very tired + working on another big review (outside of backloggd tho)

I really, REALLY hate being negative about games, contrary to my most popular reviews on this site. Who wants to just bitch and moan about how bad a game is? Sure, it’s fun after the moment, but the hours you spend leading up to the review are dreadful. This very fact was tested by The End is Nigh. Coming in from an outsider’s perspective, I was very intrigued by Nigh. A game created out of the stresses that comes with game development? Sounds interesting! And plus, it’s a game created by Edmund McMillen, who created some of my personal favorites! It’s going to be a great time, right?

You can already tell where this is going. I’m sorry, but this has to be the biggest letdown I’ve experienced in gaming so far. I just don’t like The End is Nigh. Coming a few years after Super Meat Boy, the platforming legend that it still is, The End is Nigh feels like it barely took any hints from that game’s design. And it tries. So, SO hard to embody what made Super Meat Boy so special. But it just fails. And no, to clarify, I am not disappointed that this game isn’t a renamed Super Meat Boy 2. What I am trying to say is that it simply fails to lives up to the design quality of the classic that was made by the same developer. And it suffers heavily from that. First off, the level design. I really don’t like it. Not at all. It’s rooted deep in trial and error, which is not a bad design for a game, but compared to other games like it, it’s just not as fun. The End is Nigh has numerous chapters with 20 levels within each, but the skill ceiling is simply far too low to warrant replaying any of them. The End is Nigh barely lets you toy around with it’s level gimmicks, nor does it have satisfying controls for a modern game. While the controls themselves are fine, you don’t have any major abilities to use, so most levels become very generic, and quickly. The level design itself is passable, but I don’t think they were very captivating to play. It’s just going through the same song and dance over and over again. You just grapple onto cliffs, move here, move there, and bam, onto the next stage. It’s a complicated issue, and I don’t even know why I don’t like the levels. There’s no bullshit or anything, but I thought the level design was just too standard. In this adventure, there are little gimmicks in your way, so eventually all of the levels kind of blend in and aren’t interesting at a certain point. Are they challenging? Kinda. Not hard enough to stand out from other more difficult platformers, but I guess it isn’t New Super Mario Brothers 2. But I didn’t pop off when I beat a hard level, I breathed heavy and moved on. This is also more of a personal nitpick, but I wish there was some feeling of accomplishment with beating a level. What if it was like Katana Zero and Super Meat Boy, where you’re shown a replay of all of your runs? Not just unceremoniously switching to the next level. So, if there’s no extrinsic value of enjoyment in the stages, why should you want to replay them? The Tumors. And you’ll want to collect as many of these as you can, which I’ll explain later. The tumor collecting itself also doesn’t feel that great in my opinion. Once again, it’s rooted deep in frustrating game design, and you don’t feel accomplished when you grab one. Nor does securing a tumor feel great. Once again, in Super Meat Boy and Celeste, Bandages and Strawberries weren’t placed haphazardly. There were designated areas to collect them, which furthered your enjoyment (and skills, most importantly) of the game. In Super Meat Boy as well, you actually got shit for completing the game, like new characters and whatnot, not just an achievement on Steam (an issue I have with Celeste but that's beyond the point). But in here, it’s like doing chores on a chore list. It's not as satisfying, and I only exhaust like I did in the main game when I finally secure it. And shockingly, that’s all of my major issues with the game. Yeah, a short list no doubt, but the game never deviates from the norm. By the end of The Past, I was extremely burnt out with the game. When I went back to the first chapter (thankfully you don’t have to backtrack), I lost all hope for the game at that point. And then, the game decided to suckerpunch me in the dick. You know those tumors I brought up? Yeah. Now that’s your fucking LIFE COUNT NOW. I had 30 fucking tumors going in. And there were 20 levels in a single chapter, meaning I had to do each level while dying only ONCE EACH. Seriously, FUCK THAT DESIGN CHOICE. No game I have EVER played in the 21st century has cock-blocked your progression like this. Either have no lives or NOT, especially when it’s not even COMMUNICATED TO THE PLAYER. I thought Super Meat Boy had no lives to avoid players getting frustrated, so where did that design element go? Seriously though, what the FUCK is the correlation between the amount of tumors I got in The Past compared to The Future? This design choice single handedly ruined my opinion of The End is Nigh, and proved my point that this game is so poorly designed. I already wasn’t having too much fun to begin with, but pulling this at the halfway point is seriously sadistic design. Oh, but what if I wanted to go back to collect all of the tumors I needed? I essentially needed to REPLAY THE ENTIRE GAME OVER AGAIN. I’m not even kidding, the Fast Travel only allows you to warp to the beginning of each chapter, NOT the individual levels within said chapters. Why not divide each individual chapter up into 3 to avoid this issue, or better yet let us travel to each level? It’s not that hard. These two design choices killed all motivation to continue. The level design kind of sucked to begin with. I’m not interested in redo-ing the entire game but slightly more irritating.

The End is Nigh was such a letdown to me. I think I’ve explained well enough why I didn’t enjoy it, so I don’t really have anything more to say. Uhhhhhh play Blaster Master Zero ok thanks bye