Pupuya Games Little Witch Nobeta is, dare I say it, a charming breath of fresh air take on the Souls-lite genre. Correction, the subgenre of the Souls genre that’s based around projectile combat rather than close-quarters melee throw downs. Think Remnant: From the Ashes, by way of a healthy dose of anime inspiration and a wonderful difficulty curve that makes sure everyone can finish this journey.
Plopped into the pint-sized shoes of our tiny witch Nobeta, your goal is to brave the depths of an ancient castle in search of the Throne. Nobeta doesn’t know who she is or where she came from. She only knows that finding the Throne may give her the answers she seeks. So armed with a staff, spells and a black cat familiar to guide her on her way, she will brave the deepest dungeons and deadliest forces the castle has waiting for her.
Nobeta uses the traditional Souls-like structure. Goddess statues can be rested at and teleported to, with enemies respawning as you do so. Killing enemies gives you their Essence which you can use to upgrade Nobeta’s stats. Embracing the game’s easier take on the genre, Nobeta’s stats are easy to read and understand while lore items are dropped in the world from enemies or barrels. Further embracing that easier side, the game levels aren’t overly large either though they do drop some great vistas and stonework across the castle’s different floors. Paths lead back to locked areas for shortcuts and further shortcuts between the different floors can be found as you go along. It makes navigation easier though I did find myself occasionally turned around by the sameness of the stonework at times.
Pupuya Games have done a wonderful job with the game’s combat, making Nobeta play more akin to a faster-paced 3rd person shooter. Dodge rolls and air dodges make up your limited defensive abilities while your cane can be used as a melee weapon. The major use for your staff as a physical attack piece of kit is to build up your mana with each blow.
The meat of your attacks consists of your spells, each of which essentially corresponds to a gun type in other games with a secondary attack that needs to be “chanted up”. Ice, for instance, is basically a low-damage machine gun whose secondary is a mecha-like ice missile barrage that you would easily find in any mecha anime. Fire is basically a shotgun whose secondary is a rocket launcher attack. There are four spell types. You start the game off with one and have to find the rest in the castle. Upgrades for your spells work along the same line. Exploration will yield those upgrades if you’re careful enough to find them.
Ranged combat is the way you want to play and the combat is highly enjoyable. Magic is incredibly satisfying to use and can throw out a serious amount of damage, specifically lightning which does insane damage as, essentially, your sniper rifle. You’ll still need some good dodging skills though.
Boss fights are fun to play as well and are based on pattern recognition. Using the correct spell for the job is what it’s about if you want to make it through without dying too much. Standard enemies also are about recognising their attack patterns. Sadly though, the variety of basic enemy types is quite lacking and you’ll find yourself facing the same handful of enemies throughout the campaign.
This brings us to Nobeta’s difficulty. On the standard difficulty, with a buff to some of her attributes, Little Witch Nobeta errs on the easy side. Through my playtime, I died perhaps five times, only because I didn’t recognise that I needed a different spell to defeat a specific enemy and interrupt its attack. Nobeta is, without doubt, the easiest Souls-lite I’ve played to date and I’m quite happy with that. This helps to make it more accessible to gamers while allowing just about anyone of any skill level the chance to beat the campaign. It’s even more useful since this is a game designed for multiple playthroughs.
Visually, Little Witch Nobeta is a very pretty-looking game. There are some fantastic architectural rendering and lighting effects. The cel-shaded anime aesthetic is rather gorgeous, specifically on the game’s humanoid characters. As well, the game ran smoothly on the Switch’s hardware and I can’t recall any performance impacts at all.
With its pretty visuals and fun combat, Little Witch Nobeta is a great Souls-like for all ages. Purists only looking for the hard-core experience will be doing themselves a disservice by scoffing at Little Witch Nobeta as it’s a fun, charming experience that breathes some new life into a genre that is starting to get a little stale.
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