"Reminds me of Twilight..."

"A Witch's Tale", I must admit, definitely caught me by surpise. We were Christmas shopping and I saw it, not being able to stop myself from hinting the whole day that I thought it was "soooooo cool". Of course, my step father got the hint and bought me it. Now, I cry at the fact I almost broke my DS screen playing it (along with the pencil I was using in place of my stylus).

Music: [2/10]
The music.... was terrible. Especially the battle music (-->More on this in my Battle Rate Rant). While you're wondering through these kingdoms, trying to save princesses, collect cards, and control dolls, the same god forsaken music is playing. Personally, I was extremely confused in the Third Kingdom, so I listened to -Fake- old-style Japanese music for several hours. The more I listened, the more I got annoyed.

The first Kingdom's music (the candy kingdom) wasn't that bad, especially since you supposed it would change as you went around into different areas and collected things. Well, it didn't. The second kingdom? I flew through that kingdom so fast I can't even -remember- the music. The "BURST!" Battle Mode Music was great, though. Only thing that was with the first five kingdoms. The fifth world/kingdom's music was... well, it reminded me of high-pitched opera music. So I ended up muting my whole system.

The Battle Music. God... Every three seconds, -blasting- music (which wasn't so bad... -at first-) would go through my headphones and into my ears, right to my brain. I think I lost several brain cells with each battle, which would probably be.... yeah, a lot of braincells.

Characters: [5/10]
Personally, I think some more information would have been better for the characters. This is where it reminds me of Twilight. There is so much unneeded speech and detail and, yet, absolutely no detail on the side characters. The vampire (I can't spell his name, so I'd rather call him a vampire than make myself look like an idiot) is still fairly mysterious, we got some decent info on Lidelle, and no one else except maybe Babayaga, the Ice Queen, and a bit of Alice and the Eld Witch had any detail mentioned.

Once you get past Lidelle's main-stream, cliche, teenage personality (excluding the small bit of sadness and kindness) and the vampire's perfect, mature, but still slightly childish personality, nobody has one of their own. Sure, Babayaga had a bit of a personality, but who else? The monsters? Well, you sure saw THEM enough to learn about their personality >_> The princesses were also (mostly) cliche and repetitive. "Oh, you must be the one who saves me. Here, take my sigil and find my doll." They mostly had oh-so-sweet personalities... so much that you eventually lost the interest in meeting them.

I wish we learned more about the dolls. I know there was the traveller telling their story and a few flashbacks of Lidelle's past with Dayna, but what else? I kind of wanted to learn the unique personas and situations of the dolls--not just fight with their powers.

Graphics and Animation: [4/10]
I loved the -art-, but the animation and images -in- the animation were choppy and not well done. I think that, if they were going to introduce the great art (the pictures they slightly animated throughout the game that were so amazing), they should have tried to do something better than such (to me) basic flash animation. The backgrounds were repetitive, but "O.K." I, personally, think they could have used a bit more clarity and more use of the top screen, not just for battle, pictures, and maps. Speaking of repetitive things... the dungeons/castles definitely could have been more interesting. It was pretty much going through different corn mazes all made of the same corn. This, again, reminds me of Twilight. This story would have been much more interesting if the graphics had been a bit more interesting and up-to-date, as well as less reptetive.

The battles were all simple and boring, for there was no difference from battle to battle other than the monsters, dolls, and possibly spells.

Battles: [1/10]
This game would have been Much, MUCH better if there weren't monsters every three god forsaken seconds...

The battles were, again, simple, boring, repetitive, happened too often, and needed better music. I will save myself from a rant here with that simple sentance.

Story: [8/10]
I -loved- the idea and potential of the story! That's what won me on this game. As an author myself, the potential was so amazing that I felt like I absolutely had to play the game and find out where it went. There definitely could have been some more detail, and it could have been executed better, but I believe the story was one of the better parts when compared to the rest of the game.

Ending: [?/10]
I'm not quite sure about the ending. I got through it, but I just kind of lost it. I'll try to re-rate this later when I replay the game and double-check my opinion on it.

Overall: [6/10]
I think that, because I was a sucker for the story, how drawn I was to Lidelle's past ( and the vampire's personality and appearance :P ), and how much potential I see for an amazing re-make of the game, this "overall" is higher than the average you would have gotten from the things I listed. I can't help it. There are some things you can't explain and rate in words. I found the game captivating, and, yet, boring at the same time.

PS:
Why I Almost Broke My Screen and Pencil:
The battles.... T~T

I eventually got so pissed off at the battles that I jammed my pencil onto my screen. When I realized it almost broke, I just squeezed the pencil to the point where it splintered after every 10-string of battles within a 3 minute period. (All of which, I might add, I "escaped" from so I didn't have to deal with them. Then the monsters got cocky and the screen said "The monsters are looking down on you!" Because of that, I started killing them again.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/04/10

Game Release: A Witch's Tale (US, 10/13/09)