WitchSpring3 [Re:Fine]

WitchSpring 3 Re:Fine - The Story of Eirudy is a heart-warming and sweet JRPG-like game ported from mobile devices to Nintendo Switch. Our heroine is Eirudy, a young witch living in seclusion in the Misty Forest. She is distrustful of humans, whose witch hunts have forced her into hiding. Eirudy’s life changes when she meets a boy called Adrian, who accompanies her for an adventure in which she learns of the conflicts between deities and humans in the surrounding lands. Ultimately, Eirudy must choose between light and darkness.

Developers: KiwiWalks, IKINAGAMES

Publishers: KiwiWalks, United Games Entertainment GmbH

Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Android, iOS

Reviewed on: Nintendo Switch

Review Code Provided

Written by Chanel S

WitchSpring 3 begins with Eirudy surrounded by dolls, who are her only friends in her isolated forest home. She uses her magic power to awaken a small and helpless-looking doll who seemingly lacks any useful abilities. Disappointed by the pathetic doll, she christens him Failur. This humorous moment sets the light-hearted tone of the rest of the game. Failur sits on Eirudy’s head and remains with us throughout all of the game’s adventures. The rest of Eirudy’s dolls can be awakened using her Vitality Stone, which is filled by extracting vitality from enemies defeated in turn-based combat.

Although we are referring to her as Eirudy, she is actually a nameless witch at the start of the game. She only gets her name when she encounters Adrian, an adventurous young man who wanders into the Misty Forest, which is considered too dangerous for most humans to traverse. The witch is cold and terse with Adrian at first, as she has only ever had negative experiences with humans who’ve been persecuting witches. Despite her aloofness, happy-go-lucky Adrian is warm and friendly to her, giving her the name Eirudy. Eirudy and Adrian quickly develop a friendship which soon blossoms into something more. Eirudy ventures into the world beyond the Misty Forest for the first time in her life and learns she is more powerful than she ever knew.

WitchSpring 3’s combat mechanics are refreshingly simple to understand, following the familiar formula of traditional turn-based JRPGs (although the game was developed by a Korean company.) Anybody who has played a JRPG will easily be able to grasp the HP and MP system in WitchSpring 3. That being said, this game would make for an accessible introduction to a player who is new to the genre and wants to try a game with a low level of difficulty.

The combat might lack the challenge a seasoned player is looking for, but I enjoyed it enough nonetheless that I wanted to keep playing. You approach a monster and are given the choice of initiating battle or dodging. Then, you choose your actions from a circular menu. Your options consist of sword attacks, magic attacks of a variety of elements, magic swordsmanship, and summoning dolls. The dolls in Eirudy’s basement are motionless until you bring them to life, when they will provide a range of important abilities to aid Eirudy in combat. You are allowed to summon up to three dolls in a single battle.

I found leveling up in this game to be satisfying. Some stats can be increased simply by interacting with your environment and picking up certain items. Mainly, you will raise your HP, MP, Magic, Strength, Defense, and Agility by “training” in Eirudy’s room. This is very easy to do – you can choose from a list of training skills to complete, each of which will make one in-game day pass. A training session will consume a total of five in-game days. (The training animations are some of the best visuals in the game – they are quick and super adorable.) To make combat a breeze you can repeat the same training sequence many times in a row, but I recommend not doing so if you don’t want to be too overpowered compared to enemies.

There is a rudimentary crafting system which utilizes items found in the environment, as well as some obtained through enemy drops. You can craft objects that restore and increase stats, and eventually create new weapons and magic circles to be equipped in battle. You will also use the crafting cauldron to increase the capacity of the Vitality Stone, allowing you to unlock bigger and better doll upgrades.

The game has a static camera and is played from a top-down 2.5D perspective, with 3D chibi character models and 2D backgrounds. Some of these 2D environments are beautiful, particularly Shubeth and the surrounding areas, while others like the Lehert Desert are somewhat bare and lackluster. Gorgeous anime-style artwork of each character is displayed during dialogues, while a few special cutscenes include full-size drawings. The UI leaves much to be desired, though, with unremarkable fonts and a plain gray color text box.

Sound is an area where WitchSpring 3 shines. The combat alone might not have been enough to hook me, and the graphics do look like they were originally from a mobile game, but the voice acting made the game feel much more alive. It kept me entertained and invested in the story and characters. I played the PAL version of the game, which offers Japanese and Korean voice acting with text in English, Chinese, Japanese, or Korean. As I always do when a game gives me the option, I chose to play with Japanese audio and English subtitles. I can’t speak to the Korean audio, but the Japanese actors did a great job of portraying the emotion of the characters. Eirudy’s voice is soft and soothing, which suits the mysterious and “kuudere”-like nature of her character.

In addition to excellent voice acting, there are 28 lovely music tracks in the game, which can be played on the title screen as you unlock them. Some of my favorites include Silent Dolls, which plays in Eirudy’s basement, and Rest for the Weary. The piano compositions in the game are the most touching of the whole soundtrack, namely Tears of a Doll and Longing Heart.

Conversely, the English translation is the game’s biggest drawback. It is littered with typos, grammatical errors, and at-times awkward phrasing that a native English speaker would not use. These errors become much more frequent and noticeable midway through the story, making it seem as though the translators had given up on double-checking things by then. For the most part, these errors are not so drastic that they make the meaning of a given sentence impossible to understand, but they did impact the experience for me. Conveniently, previous dialogue can usually be reviewed using the + button, offering you a chance to go back and reread things if you find yourself confused. While the poor grammar annoyed the writer in me, I have to give the developers some slack considering 1) this game was made by a small team and 2) maybe they did not have the opportunity to have native speakers review everything.

Overall, I think the port of WitchSpring 3 from Android and iOS to console was well-done. There are some obvious mobile game mechanics which carried over to the Switch – mainly timed respawns of enemies and items, which will appear again in the same place they were before. The game doesn’t utilize the Switch shoulder buttons at all, even at times where it could be convenient (mainly, I thought L and R should be used to move the battle wheel.) But it does make efficient use of both joysticks, the d-pad, and A, B, X, and Y buttons.

WitchSpring 3 will keep you occupied for approximately 15-20 hours depending on your playstyle and how much you choose to indulge in side quests, training, and crafting. The short length and ease of gameplay was a breath of fresh air for me after I had just finished a much longer and more complex game. I enjoyed seeing Eirudy’s character arc and growth throughout the story. The game offers replayability, splitting into three paths about halfway through. This allows you to choose to be a “dark” or “light” witch, resulting in three different respective endings. There is also post-game content available, provided you get the “right” ending to access it!

Conclusion

Cute and charming, WitchSpring 3 sticks to the fundamental basics of that which makes JRPGs enjoyable. The game is quick and easy to digest for someone who is new to JRPGs or looking for a laidback palate cleanser. The doll system sets it apart from other games in the genre, and the Japanese voice acting is delightful. However, an excess of grammatical errors calls into question how much quality control there was in the English language localization of the game. And even the “hardest” bosses are so underpowered compared to Eirudy that they are merely HP sponges, providing little in the way of challenge.

Despite the game’s flaws, I thoroughly enjoyed WitchSpring 3 to a point I plan on buying the physical version for my collection. The cheaper Nintendo eShop version is worth a purchase, with a US price point of $39.99 and UK price of £34.99.

2 / 3

Good game, worth your time and money.

Pros

Accessible and fun turn-based combat

Beautiful character designs

Great voice performances

Heart-warming story that gets straight to the point

Cons

Bosses are too easy

Glaring grammatical errors in the English translation

Author: Chanel S