Witchspire

I'm a bit torn on this one, but I am going to recommend it because I did have my fun with it and it did scratch that itch I wanted. I'll be blunt to make this short at first: If you watch the trailer and are interested in Witchspire, it is worth the price. But for those looking for a quick verdict: +Good building, exploration, movement, and area design. Would recommend for these alone, especially with a friend. -Familiars really need work, loot rewards need balance/better scaling for later areas -Not suuuuper 'Witchy' and more 'Wizardy' -Character classes could use a bit more clarity/individuality The positives I came out with: -Exploration is done really nicely in the beginning. I find it wasn't quite as good in the desert area, but to see what the areas have to offer and to find so many hidden goodies (usually chests) is always a fun time. -Building reminds me of an older Valheim. Not quite as many parts yet, but enough to make a nice looking home- even just out of wood. The materials are not too costly, the resource gathering is quite laid back, and being able to properly build as a ghostly version of yourself (think Astro-projection) does make the process easier. I just wish the pieces had more 'Snap Points' you could cycle through like in Valheim nowadays. -Flying and Movement is done quite well. At first it feels kinda slow, and it's not until you reach your second island that you gain access to flight. If you follow the main quest, you can probably get this in 20min, but I'm a slow-ass bear and took a couple of hours because I was having fun exploring. You have to unlock flight with (nearly) every island, but you can still use your broom to travel along the ground- which is lovely. The jumping I wasn't terribly fond of at first, the double jump was fine, but then I realized... You can have a second double jump. Then a third- fourth- possibly up to 10 with some of the consumables. This made it much easier to explore vertically. Along with the building being outside of 'campfire range', this makes for some great puzzle solving imo. -Islands are designed quite well. I do wish there was less "green ones" because a few of them almost felt the same, just with different familiars on them. The areas were definitely Not copy/paste, but... I felt like they didn't look different enough to really feel like you were exploring a brand new island. Still, good places, good ideas, fun to explore around. Okay, the main negatives: -Familiars. The creature designs are cuuuuute. I'll talk more about them later as a nit-pick, but some are used for your base like Palworld. -Scratch that, some are REQUIRED. Which makes the capturing system a little... Annoying, since it is RNG based. You can dramatically increase your odds, but if you attempt to capture a rare purple 2-Star Familiar you find in the wild and it fails? You're out of luck. It's gone. I don't know how I feel about this, but... While the stats on them can look absurdly good (like +500hp, I think I had one that had a total of +70% Attack speed?)... It runs into my main issue with Witchspire: -Combat. Your main character combat? Fine. I wish some attacks were better, but they are creative and they work well. FAMILIAR Combat though... Ooooof... Mine felt like a buggy mess. You get the choice out of 4 Starters, but you can find all four in the wild at some point in the game. One of them is currently very rare, but they are around and you will likely stumble upon them. The problem is... Okay, story time. I ended up finding a big familiar around in the wild and thought "Huh... I wonder if I can bond with/capture that?" And to my surprise the game let me. Awesome! I equip it, look at it's skills, one of them is a freaking Carpet Bomb. Fly above your enemies and cover the ground in flames. Absolutely sick~ I go and try it out and... I mean, it definitely flew, it definitely covered the ground in fire, but... It didn't do any damage. No status effect, it wouldn't even provoke a wild creature. SO Many of the attacks of the familiars are either incredibly Bad or just do not work at all. -One of them was even removed during an update and still hasn't been fixed. Too many skills are "place down a field of Damage over Time" and these just don't do Enough. 1-6 damage per tick, when my main attack is doing 140+ per swat. That's... Not useful. And when your Familiars only have Two skills... That's half of their kit. Which can absolutely make or break a creature you really really like the look of, but... They're just bad. While everything else in the game is rather good, this is the one area that Really needs work. If you're coming in looking for a 'Creature battler' akin to Pokemon or Palworld, you might just want to keep an eye on this one for now and wait until they fix these up. As for my playthrough... Familiars were just moral support. ...They are quite tanky though, holy balls. If they could keep aggro, that alone would have some use. Anyway, the other 'Negative' I want to leave on is on the theme itself. I bought the game because of the Familiars/Bonding system, yes, but also for the Witch theme. I just felt like a Witch game, really, and this stuck out. The problem is... You could've taken 'Witch' out of the name and just shown me the game, and my first thought would be "Wizard". It is more akin to that of Wizards and Arcane users- which isn't a bad thing. Still fun to run around in a pointy hat casting a barrage of fireballs at enemies... But that's not what I think of when I picture "Witch". I suppose what I'm looking for is a game that leans into Witches like V Rising leans into Vampires. Witchspire isn't really that game, but I have no regrets at all buying and playing it. *After going through the tutorial again:* Oh right. Character Classes exist. ...I couldn't tell you how they actually differ, but apparently they exist.