The Knight Witch Review: Metroidvania Hell

Bullet hell SHMUPs are almost defined by white-knuckle precision, where you have to nail everything from the start of a level to the very end. That seems like a strange genre to mix with a Metroidvania. Taking bullet hell gameplay into an ongoing world means, theoretically, you’ll have nowhere to hide, no end to the pain, it really shouldn’t work. Which is why I’m fairly surprised at how much I like The Knight Witch. While far from a perfect game, with characters and a story that never grabbed me as much as I wanted them to, the gameplay is more than solid, even if it might have been better served pulling back on a few mechanics.

The End Of The World As We Know It

Fourteen years ago, the world ended. At least more or less. An evil ruler was dominating society, but The Knight Witches stood up to him and achieved a victory, their power coming directly from the belief and will of the people. Their victory was short-lived, though, as the battle they fought literally destroyed the planet. The only thing the survivors could do was retreat underground and start a new society away from the world above.

Rayne was supposed to be a Knight Witch, but in the end, she didn’t quite make the team. Having lived for years wondering whether she could have made a difference, she now lives a relatively peaceful life underground with her husband. That changes when a mysterious force starts attacking their homes, targeting the Knight Witches. Rayne may never have been a full-fledged member of the team, but she’s certainly willing to fight for the only home she has left.

A Strange Combo Mostly Works

Right from the start of The Knight Witch, the amount of bullets sent flying your way can be hard to take in. This is a bullet hell game, and even the first boss proved challenging at times. There’s a lot going on at once, and you’ll need to keep your eyes peeled to catch everything. Most enemies telegraph their attacks to some degree which is helpful, but if you get too focused on any one aspect of combat, it can become easy to miss these little tells. That’s a good way to end up dead quickly.

Soon though, I started to get the hang of things, and Rayne is a joy to move around. She’s fast and can deal a ton of damage very quickly. Bosses may be intense, but they’re uniquely designed and have a ton of personality. Most of the world of The Knight Witch has a lot of personality, actually. While I didn’t love the main story or characters, I did enjoy taking in the world around me and the character designs. This made exploring the world a ton of fun and worth the deaths that kind of come with the territory in a bullet hell title, at least until you really get the feel of things. Respawn points are reasonably placed, and I rarely had to go too far to get back to where I needed to.

Along the way, you’ll unlock a lot of additional abilities as well in the form of Rayne’s magic attacks. You’ll collect cards as you progress in the game, each with a unique spell, and manage a deck of attacks. As you use magic, you’ll cycle through the deck, and while these aren’t one-off attacks, you do have to work your way back to cards you’ve already played. It can create a nice layer of strategy.

What Doesn’t Work

The problem with this is that it all ends up being a lot, especially when you get into major fights. You’ll have enemies throwing out absurd amounts of attacks at you. Meanwhile, you need to manage your deck, glancing down to see what cards you have available and which will work best. You’re watching the edges of the screen for signs of incoming attacks there. You can’t even just point your character and spray attacks if you want to fight optimally because The Knight Witch uses twin-stick controls for attacking, but the right stick doesn’t actually fire, it just aims.

This means you have to aim with the right stick, move with the left stick, fire with a button, while watching everywhere on the screen, and managing a deck of magical attacks. It’s a lot, and it’s quite frankly a bit too much at times to manage. Ideally, in a bullet hell game, I can almost lose myself, simply feeling the game and getting into a sort of flow state, but I never found that in The Knight Witch. Too much of what it was asking of me required strategy and thought. You do have the option to just fire without aiming and let the game lock on for you, but you do significantly less damage if you choose that option, making it a last resort.

Conclusion

Even with flaws, and a few too many mechanics for me to truly get lost in, I had a surprising amount of fun with The Knight Witch. I wouldn’t have thought that a bullet hell SHMUP could fit so smoothly into a Metroidvania, but that aspect of the game worked for me. While its story and characters didn’t connect as strongly as I’d have liked, it has enough personality that players looking for an interesting take on the genre should consider it.

Final Verdict: 3.5/5

Available on: PC (Reviewed), PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Switch; Publisher: Team17; Developer: Super Awesome Hyper Dimensional Mega Team; Players: 1; Released: November 29th, 2022; ESRB: E10+ for Everyone 10+; MSRP: $19.99

Full disclosure: This review is based on a copy of The Knight Witch provided by the publisher.