Witch Thief, for the Nintendo Switch, is a bullet hell game from witchthief games. You play as the titular character.

Most bullet hell games have the player taking a god like view from above, usually fighting through waves of enemies in a 2D environment. Witch Thief changes this up by placing you in a 3D world. This does not mean that you have free reign to go anywhere you’d like, as the game restricts you to a valley-like area. You fly along encountering other witches as well as using your bullets to destroy pumpkins. These turn into gems, which you can pick up as they add to your score. Sometimes they disgorge new spells to play with, and you can also get spells from defeated enemies and bosses.

Each encounter has you fighting against numerous enemies who all continuously fire at you. Your character can dodge, this is where you become insubstantial for a short period making you immune. You can also steal magic, a device where you gather to protect yourself against the projectiles being shot at you and then shoot them back at your enemies. The problem with this is that you are always looking at your character from the back, so when you gather a lot of bullets in front of you, it can obscure the target.

As you progress, your enemies will use different bullet patterns and you will need to learn them to ensure you don't die. Oddly enough, providing a 3D perspective makes this harder as you don’t have a choice to see the pattern from above, as you would in a 2D game. The bullets are coming straight at you and with half a dozen enemies it can be near impossible to work out where the bullets are coming from.

Because of this you will die more often than you would like, giving a very start/stop experience. You only get three lifes and if you completely die you get to start from your last checkpoint. I found the experience very frustrating, and even though the game offers up other witches and better spells, the actual experience of playing the game may well put you off continuing. It does give you options to change the game's difficulty but the central problem with the game’s mechanics remain.

It's bright and flashy and the world is attractive. The game holds many good ideas and the controls are smooth and responsive. Unfortunately, the constant dying gets to be a drag. Had the character been a little more resilient it would have made for a better experience.

5

Charles Packer