I bought a game called The Legend of Dark Witch, thinking it's going to be good. After playing it for a while, I ended up not having a good opinion about it.
One day, the Syega (magic crystal used for magic) got stolen. It's up to Zizou Olympia, the titular dark witch to find the culprit by beating up 6 potential suspects. Yeah, classic Megaman bareboned plot.
The game is combination of Classic Megaman and Gradius power-up system. Like Megaman, you run and gun through the level and fight the boss, beating the boss will get you their weapon. Bosses are weak against a certain weapon. The game includes Gradius esque powerup. Every enemies you kill give you Tres (basically money & EXP as one) that fills your Enforcement Slot and gives you money. Once your EXP fill up a certain slot, you can activate a certain Enforcenent to make yourself stronger. The slots are Speed, Wing (glide), Line, Comet (both attack option, though those two don't differ much), and Power. You can use Tres to permanently upgrade your stats or upgrade weapons obtained from bosses. That the basic of it. Now let's talk the other aspect of the game... And how it frustrated me.
Unlike Megaman, your HP does not represented by a health bar, instead, you got 4 hearts as your HP. 4 hits and you're toasts. Better yet, in normal difficulty or above, there is no health restoration. Go clear a stage and its boss without taking more than 4 hits, ya? There is a max health upgrade, but it's easily THE most expensive thing the upgrade by far. The zero upgrade achievement should go screw a donkey.
The game heavily punishes you for taking damage. Taking even a single damage reduces your EXP by 25% - 100% depending on difficulty. Dying deletes all your Enforcement, nuisance in stage, incredibly fatal in boss fights.
Each stage has its own enemy pool. While the enemies are various, the problem is that very few of them poses a threat. Some of them dies in one hit, and I can kill them with ease the moment they entered the screen. Even if there's a tough enemies, I can mash the attack button to kill them fast. The only time they managed to hit me is that if they have advantageous position, took me by surprise, or if I'm clumsy.
Though there is one awesome enemy.
Japan Everybody.
The camera is pretty crap. It gives you good view of what in front of you and above you. What it doesn't give you give you viewing what's behind you (read: Respawned enemies who are more than eager to backstab you) and below you (Bottomless pits). The camera also waits a view seconds before moving if you're facing the other direction. There's a section in a stage that have zig-zagging pattern.
The bosses are... meh. The bosses have regular health bar while you're stuck with just 4 hearts. I actually counted how many their attacks pattern are. Answer: 4. The final boss has 1. They make up for it by making their requires broad memorization, positioning, and agility to dodge, by agility, I mean putting at least one level on your speed. Dodging with your default slow-ass speed is almost impossible. If you are really good, you can parry any attack by tapping the movement just as the attack is going to hit you. I'm not good at fighting game, and I prefer to jump my way out of trouble. Like Megaman, the final stage has you fighting all 6 bosses before you can fight the final boss. Riddle me this: How the heck am I gonna fight 6 bosses with just 3 lives and 4 hearts? You hit them with their weakness. Hitting the bosses with their weakness will knock them and cancel their attacks. Their invincibility will be gone the moment they're recovered...
The sub weapons are also nothing to write about. Most of the are gimmicky and too situational to use. Besides, they draw their energy from the Enforcement Slot. It's much better to upgrade your basic shot instead. Dia Missile locks on to enemies and sends 4 missile to converge at their direction. It's range is pretty short, but the missiles itself is pretty good. Ice Divide shoots a veeeery slow ice ball that can be spread to... wherever the hell it wants. I rarely hits anything with it. Ground Impact sends a bullet from the ground straight up. There's rarely any enemies that well above my range. Bound Ring shoots a bouncing ring diagonally upward. Basic Shot LV2 can shoot diagonally upward. Circlecron summons 2 rotating bullet around you that can be shot forward slooowly. The boss its weak to is melee-oriented, so its okay I guess. Upper Tornado plants a small tornado on your feet. Damaging the boss with it requires you to get extremely close to her.
Go straight down Goddamit!!!
Once you finished the game, you get a second character to play as, Riva. She handle a little differently from Zizou. Her Enforcement Slot are Speed, Dash, Cobalt Fire, Sword Rain, and Extra. Almost all of them are... unique. Since there's no dedication button for dashing, you instead dash by double tapping a direction, which is likely to accidentally do. Unlike Megaman X, her dash is uncontrollably fast, and dash jumping will send her flying through the stage lightning. Speedrunner could use this to quickly traverse the stage, but more often than not, it will send flying to nearest hazard or bottomless pit. Unlike Zizou, Riva's attack (Cobalt Fire) doesn't reach full screen. Sure it deals 2x damage and can be charged, but having a range of just a few feet means I have to get close and personal against enemies and bosses now. Sword Rain drop sword around her, the range is awkward and it can get stuck on high platform and low ceiling. Extra lets you fire off charged attacks without the needs to charge it for a while. Let's just say it's overkill for normal enemies and useless against bosses. I'm not playing as her.
There's some things I like about that game. The music is pretty nice. It's so nice it's sold as separate DLC that's twice as expensive as the game itself (it's also redundant since the game comes with built-in music player). The art style instantly makes me bought it. Riva has her storyline and different final boss*cough*Castlevania can't do that *cough*.
As much as the game frustrated me, I can't say it's bad. I'd rate it average -good.
