Blog:The Legend of Dark Witch Episode 3: Decent and Disappointing

PREVIOUS REVIEW: EPISODE 2 After Blad reviewed his favorite game in the Dark Witch series, he had said the following. ''Anyways, now that I'm done with this game, I guess I might as well talk about the other Dark Witch games. Do I choose the game that started it all? The game I'm heavily mixed on? Maybe the spinoffs? Hmm... Maybe an outside source will choose for me...'' ''And so, one day in October 2022, the aforementioned outside force told him to review the game that he couldn't. Zeus protested, but he eventually started typing. And so, the legend of Zeus' reviews of the Dark Witch games continued...''

I think it's pretty obvious I'm a fan of Dark Witch 2. So when I found out about Dark Witch 3, needless to say I was pretty excited. I had checked out the trailers in December of 2017, and it looked amazing. A recap of all the Dark Witch games started. Dark Witch 1? I loved that demo! (Keep in mind I actually didn't own the full game yet.) Dark Witch 2? That's the best demo in the franchise. And now, Episode 3? No way. And the music, it's great! Woah, 3D? That's amazing! A new character named Day? Get out of here. The Lord Attack returning from Dark Witch 2? I loved that ability. The largest amount of stages in a Dark Witch game? A new magic item system that I can use an unlimited amount of times? I went NUTS  over this announcement. Excitedly, I typed in Dark Witch 3 in the eShop store, looking for a demo, aaaaaand... nothing. Yeah, keep in mind that I had no eShop funds and no way to pay for it. I don't know why I didn't just ask my parents for money, but I guess that doesn't matter now, since I have all 3 of the games now. Anyways, you know the story. Christmas Day 2019, boom, all of the Dark Witch games on 3DS, all mine for 20 bucks. I beat Dark Witch 2 that same day. And on that same night, I tried Dark Witch 3, and... I was pretty disappointed, and a little confused at the same time. Keep in mind I was waiting to play this game for 2 years, so yeah. I had a right to be disappointed. I was so disappointed that I literally shut the game off, and held it off until later. That's never happened to me in a video game ever before, and it hasn't happened since. But after a while, I decided to try the bad Dark Witch game again. I had barely recovered after that absolutely traumatizing experience. And needless to say, I was extremely displeased with Dark Witch 3, and I was done after a full playthrough. So I went back to Dark Witch 2. I went back to play as Day, and nothing changed. I had checked forum threads to see if I was just playing the game wrong, and I had seen that many didn't like the game. And for a while, that was the end of my Dark Witch 3 journey. I eventually picked the game up again a couple months later, anxious. And, oddly, I actually had fun. What was this weird feeling? I replayed the game again, and I actually liked it! I think once I had gotten the sour taste out of my mouth that this wasn't Dark Witch 2, I think I was able to enjoy myself a little bit. That being said, I thought it was still the worst mainline game, but it was still decent. A whole year later, I picked it up again, now on Citra, and I thought I was going to have a good time, especially with seceral calling it the best Dark Witch game... but... something changed. So today, I will talk about my experiences with Dark Witch 3, and how I feel about it now. So buckle up my friends. We're going to talk about Dark Witch 3, and how my thoughts of it changed radically over the years. Let's begin with the music, yet again.

Music
I felt like the music in Dark Witch 3 was pretty good. Really, the only thing I didn't like were the remixes. I guess this includes the Dark Witch remix. And don't get me wrong, there are some great Dark Witch remixes here. Sweet Green Love, Take a Walk, Research for Truth, and White Out Champion are all great. I wouldn't listen to them over the original songs, but that was true with the arranged songs in Dark Witch 2, so it's fine here. But what happened to the rest? I guess I can categorize the rest into two categories. Either ear-bleeding or boring. I don't know how else to put it. The only songs I think are bad are Hello Samurai Ninja and Illusion Andante. Wow, those are pretty rough. The rest were average at best. Many of them lack the heart of the original songs, both figuratively and literally, because most sound like robotic bleeps and bloops. Even the actual computer remix in Dark Witch 2 had some heart. Thankfully, these remixes are only in Rudymical, so you don't have to listen to them, unless you're doing 100%. The main game soundtrack is very good. Most stages have good music, but even then, I still prefer the Dark Witch 2 soundtrack, as there's more songs in Dark Witch 2, and the remixes are way better.

Story
The story in Dark Witch 3 is extremely frustrating, but I'll explain most of it later. I honestly don't care about spoiling it, so here's your warning now, I guess.

The game starts off so well. humans and the Fae are having a massive war, and the Magic Lion Corps are killing all the Fae. Then one person named Day betrays the group, and she's kicked from the group, and the Old Islands as a whole. The group then disbands. Day goes back to the Old Islands to get her revenge a while later. Zizou Olympia tries to fight and stop Day. Day activates Capacity Zero, which takes Zizou's magic. Day nearly kills Zizou before her sister, Mati comes in to save the day. Now it's your job to go find out what the Magic Lion Corps members know. Then she goes to the Fae and Beastwomen to find out what's going on. This sounds cool, right? Well, they ruin it. Zizou faces off with Day, and then Zizou wins. And I'm not joking when I say this, but out of nowhere, Simeone, a mastermind, comes in and says "Ooh, I tricked that stupid day girl", then fight commences. Day was already a great antagonist on her own. Why not do a climactic battle where Day uses Capacity Zero against Zizou, but somehow Zizou powers through it? An idea I had was that Day already went too far, and she doubts that the Magic Lion Corps likes her now, so she continues her rampage. That would be cool, but instead we have this worthless character. I should also note that Simeone isn't even present in Day's run as far as I know, so what was the point of this character? Hell, they treat it without fanfare. Simeone literally just appears on top of a textbox, like, there's no cool buildup before the final boss, and when you defeat her, there's no slowdown or anything. Anyways, the final boss commences, Zizou wins, talk with Mati, game's over, have a nice day (Ha, ha!). My god, talk about a disappointing ending. Spoiler alert, I'm gonna be saying that about Dark Witch 3 a lot. I should also mention Day's story. I actually skipped most of the cutscenes in Day's playthrough, so here's a summary by a friend.



And I'm not going to lie, but I was pretty shocked when I read it. It was so much better than Zizou's story. And they agreed! So all in all, this story could've been great, but that finale just broke me. Even when I hated Dark Witch 3, I was right on the money with this story. I also don't have a lot to say about the dialogue, except that it's not as good as Dark Witch 2. I don't think I really remember the conversations. The conversations are also ridiculously short. It's not that big of a deal, but you could already skip these conversations within a second if you wanted to. So players who wanted to read it could do so, and those who don't can skip it without time loss. Oh well. I guess we should go onto the gameplay.

Gameplay
The gameplay is easily the most controversial part of Dark Witch 3. And I'm going to be truthful when I say I'm not a fan of these changes. Before you raise your pitchforks, I'm going to explain why. First, what happened to the Technical Skills? Technical Skills were a big part of the appeal of Dark Witch. In Dark Witch 3, they are removed. Why? It was completely unnecessary. Sure, they made the bosses easier, but that removes a massive part of Dark Witch. The replayability. Without the technical skills, this may as well be a linear platformer, as there's no benefit to picking one stage over another. Another major loss is the Enhancement Gauge. The Enhancement Gauge is not bad in this game, but compared to Dark Witch 2, it's just so limited. Look at Dark Witch 2. You have large control over your slots. Now let's head to Dark Witch 3. There's no control. As far as I know, there's no bonus slot, which is extremely disappointing. Even the first game had a bonus slot if you get all the Syega. Also, I know I didn't touch on this in my Dark Witch 2 review, but where is the Syega Shop? It's not really a big deal, but again, this removes the replay factor. Hell, even playing with a new costume would've been nice. Or hey, why not an extra challenge mode, like a 1-Hit KO mode, like the first and second games? I'm not as upset about this change as the others, but it could've been cool. I also found issues with the controls. The controls in this game are pretty bad. I found jumping to be pretty awkward. Zizou is heavy, and floaty at the same time. If you press A and let go of it quickly, Zizou barely jumps, but if you hold A, she stays in the air for a second. This didn't kill me, but it definitely threw me off at points. I also hate moving in this game. Zizou has momentum in this game, which struck me as odd. You still have a speed cap, so I don't see a point in this. I did get used to it, but I definitely prefer the controls in 1 and 2.

Dark Witch 3 does bring some new things to the table to make up for its removals. One example is the Lord attack, which acts like a dash. This dash is great in theory, but it ends up being unreliable, because for some reason, if you dash into an enemy, you get sent into freefall. This does not seem bad at first, but you can't move in freefall, so most of the time you'll just A. fall into a pit and take damage, or B. get hit. This makes the dash pretty unreliable, and as a result, I never use it. The risk just isn't worth the meager payoff of slightly more damage. I should also note that if you dash into a boss during i-frames, YOU take damage, which is extremely unfair. You could at least bounce me off of the boss, game! There's also the new magical items, and I guess they're okay. That's really about it for the additions. I'm going onto the levels and bosses. Unlike Dark Witch 2, I won't review every stage unlike Dark Witch 2 as I don't have as much to say here. For the most part. And I'll get to that.

For the most part, Dark Witch 3 stages are actually pretty well designed. They definitely improved it from Dark Witch 2. Usually, they introduce gimmicks, and some of them are a tad annoying (Cholsey's stage, Teddy, etc.), but don't really interrupt the flow of the gameplay. There's a lot more verticality than the previous 2 games, and the levels keep you on your toes. The only bad stage in the first part is the clock stage, which is just tedious. Another disappointing aspect is the replayability. Typically you replay a Dark Witch stage to get the fastest time & Syega but in this game, that element is all but absent. There's typically no way to go faster other than just spamming Dash. There is Syega, but the payoff just isn't worthwile, especially on Easy mode. Syega barely does anything here, so you're better off just not bothering with Syega entirely and just use your Tres to upgrade. All Syega does is increase your level, which allows you to upgrade more, but you barely have any Tres to even upgrade anything most of the time. And upgrades here aren't really as good as 1 and especially 2, except for heart. Personally, I'd just go for heart, maybe go for the others if you need to. But other than the fundamental flaws of 3, the biggest flaw comes in the second half of the game.

The Second Half of The Legend of Dark Witch 3
This part is genuinely awful, and unfortunately soured my entire experience. While most of the issues stem from the second tier stages, I did find issues in other stages, so I'll start at Miah's stage. Miah's stage is really slow and tedious. There are some enemies that take a crap ton of damage. I actually found myself sitting for more than 15 seconds killing the tank guys. Yeah, I probably could've dashed into them for more damage, but the dash is unreliable at this part of the game where practically a dozen enemies are on screen at one time. Thankfully, the second half is a little bit better, but I still don't like the stage. Next up is Wonder Girl's stage, and here's where I start to really question if I like Dark Witch 3. This stage is annoying. The main issue is the screen crunch. 3 was released on a handheld, so screen crunch can be a bit annoying, but in most games, it was fine. In 3, the screen crunch got me killed a bunch. In the other games, the screen was a little zoomed out, but it was still playable. In 3. the camera is focused on Zizou, so what would've been easy jumps in the first and second games are often leaps of faith in the third. It's not terrible for most stages, but in this stage, it can get you killed because enemies usually hide in the bottom of a waterfall, which you can't see on the screen. This pissed me off when I first played the stage, and I nearly had an aneurysm while playing this stage. And this isn't even the worst of Dark Witch 3. Next up is the second tier stages, all of which are pretty bad, sole exception being Claudia's stage, which is actually pretty okay. First up is Brujita, which is a BRUJal stage. The main gimmick of this stage is these portals which you go through. Then you go through these other portals until you get it right. Think Astro Man's stage from Mega Man 8, or that one stage from Mega Man X6, I forgot. Or Switch Inferno from Super Monkey Ball 2. Were any of those stages fun? NO. This stage is awful. It's so boring and not fun. See? I'm even being redundant now. Not much else to say, it sucks, and this doesn't compare to Zanetti. Zanetti's stage is an overly frustrating and long piece of crap. Unless you're on crack-covered steroids, combined with 5 cans of Red Bull, except to take a good 20 attempts to clear the stage, because for some reason they though it was a good idea to introduce off-screen projectiles. And I thought Sonic 1 was cruel. I nearly broke my controller after I had died in my 30 minutes of attempts. Here's a quick way to beat this stage. Get powerup, and if you die at any point before the midboss, reset the game. This saves so much time, it's not even funny. And this makes Zanetti a pushover as well, and her bossfight is way too difficult. It's so hard, it actually makes the Lord Attack useful. It's so difficult that I don't even know what I'm saying! If Zanetti does the jumping attack and she's about to hit you, use Lord Attack. Your i-frames will actually protect you from getting hit. And when the lasers come in, it's all over. If she uses the laser attack, and then the jumping attack, I'm actually 100% certain it's impossible to not take damage, which is BS. One of the users of the Dark Witch Discord actually theorized a way to dodge it. God bless her soul, but this fight still sucks. On a final note, WTF is this music? It's not bad, but what? Here's a link if you want to listen to it. Onwards to Claudia's stage, which is actually kind of fun. Not much happens in it, but it has some decent platforming challenges, and it's pretty fair for the most part. But which bastard put a hole at the end of the stage that makes you redo the platforming section if you fall into it? Very uncool. Claudia's fight is also okay as well, but it's on the easy side. Finally, there's Patty. Her stage goes to fun in the intro, frustrating at the miniboss, and then boring with this easy-ass mountain climb. And Patty herself is a pushover. Aside from me intentionally dying at the start, I beat her on my first try. With the exception of Litty, that's LITTerallY never happened to me in a Dark Witch game before. AND NOW... the """""grand""""" finale of Dark Witch 3.

The final boss is okay. Does it compare to Franzer, or even Zizou? Hell no. But the fight is enjoyable nonetheless. I should also mention the Mati fight, but I don't really remember it. All I know is that it was really easy, but I'm not playing through 3 again to just get one new boss. No way in hell. Also, Day sucks. Enough said.

Conclusion
So, you wanted my answer? Episode 3 is a very mixed bag for me. I appreciate several aspects of it, like most of the levels, the music, and more. But there's a lot of negative aspects for it to, like the godawful second half, questionable design choices, and poor controls. I generally think 2 is better, hell, even the first game is better in my opinion. Maybe I should call it the worst Dark Witch game, as I'm actually learning to appreciate Rudymical, and Brave Dungeon is better than I originally thought. Is Dark Witch 3 a good video game? Eh, I think it's just okay. I can appreciate what's here, but even then, it's not that great. If I were to give it a score, probably a 7/10, maybe even a 6/10, and if I'm feeling like a madlad, a 5/10, although I really don't like making scores unless I need to. Can I recommend Dark Witch 3 to new players? Hell no. Play Dark Witch 2 first. It's fun, it's pretty cheap, and is pretty much the definitive Dark Witch experience. Can I recommend Dark Witch 3 to Dark Witch veterans? I guess I can, but even then, I still think the main game is decent at best, and one of the most frustrating at worst. I would at least recommend getting while you still can, as it's exclusive to the 3DS, and there are currently no plans to port the game to Steam. But who knows, maybe NAN-A is cooking something up behind the scenes. And that kinda sucks, as I see great potential in Dark Witch 3, but unfortunately, it's buried in a bunch of major issues, which makes the experience frustrating. But for now, Dark Witch 3 is the black sheep of the series, and likely will be for the rest of the series' lifetime. For better or for worse, Dark Witch 3 made me a changed man. And I guess I finally answered my question that's been in my head ever since I played the weirdest entry in the franchise.

So, that was my Dark Witch 3 review. A lot are going to be disappointed, and to be honest, I was too. I remember really liking Dark Witch 3 on that second go around, but I guess things change. I wanted to write about how underrated the game was, and how it was ignored in the 3DS scene, unlike the first 2 Dark Witch games, which are still decently popular. Unfortunately, that's the review I can't write. And I actually had a good time until the second tier, which ruined the entire game for me. Dark Witch 3 is not a bad game, it's just flawed. I want to say more, but that would be ultimately redundant, and it would make me sound like I hate the game. In reality, I don't, and my review probably didn't do a good job of that. I want to love it like 1 and 2, but I simply can't. Some of you may have noticed I wasn't all that funny, nor as energetic in this review, compared to 2, and that's because I'm mostly indifferent to 3. Contrary to popular belief (at least I think so), reviewing a game you don't care about isn't fun at all. I can talk about how 2 is amazing till the cows come home, but I really dislike talking about 3 because I don't think about how bad the game is, I just think about how it could've turned out. A true pile of crap (ex. Blaster Master 2) is fun to write about how much it sucks because it's laughably bad. Something like Sonic Forces, arguably as bad of a video game, isn't fun to talk about because it had so much hype and won over most of the fans, just for all the hype to be thrown away for a bland and lifeless title. So that's why. And that's my ultimate verdict. Well, I guess I have to update a certain blog now. Damn... Anyways, you know what to do. VOTE. '''NEXT REVIEW: EPISODE 1, CURRENTLY A WIP. THANKS FOR THE SUPPORT EVERYONE! ❤️ WE'RE ALMOST THERE!'''