Review for Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time. Game for PC and PlayStation 4, the video game was released on 30/11/2017 The version for PC came out on 15/05/2018
From the famous animated series of Studio Trigger finally arrives Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time, which sees the protagonists of the series struggling with a new adventure marked by the hands of a mysterious magic clock. A + Games and Bandai Namco they offer us an action RPG in 2.5D, which will lead us to explore more and more elaborate and fun dungeons.
During the start of the long-awaited summer vacation, our Akko is forced to suffer punishment for her negligence. Fulfilling the request of his teachers and arranging the school library, stumbles upon a secret passage that will lead her to a more than mysterious portal, accompanied by a clock that will totally upset the routine of her holidays ...
A summer in Luna Nova
Recreating the entire setting of the anime, Studio Trigger has certainly put his own in the making of the game, certainly accentuating the artistic quality and effectiveness of the cut-scenes, which although not amazing, still respect an excellent standard. The story, curated by Yoh Yoshinari, the screenwriter of the anime, certainly does not win in originality, since the theme of time and magically repeating days is rather used even in not so old games, like Akiba's Beat. Luckily, unlike the other titles, Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time is saved thanks to its historical cast, full of lovable characters to the point of obsession like Sucy or Costanze. The problem lies in the fact that, being basically a connected filler in the first half of the series, the experience is a bit marred by the lack of new characters able to drive the product and by the fact that, of course, the s and characters they won't go on due to the very limitations of being a filler.
The essence of the game aside, the story itself is digested quite well, providing a simple and straightforward narrative but still able to hold the game. Surely it helps the possibility of going around the Luna Nova academy in the role of the cute Akko, albeit with models not exactly perfect. The dialogues and interactions with the characters are handled in a dignified manner, creating a series of credible and consistent side missions to the cast itself.
A rough and far from good gameplay
Speaking of the painful notes, the gameplay has disappointed a lot of expectations, showing itself rather raw and mechanical. The missions consist of real dungeon explorations where, through the use of the keys obtainable through secondary missions, exploration and main story, you go to create a dungeon in which creatures of various shapes and one or more bosses can be present. Through the use of different types of spells and various equipment, we will be able to enhance our playable witches (seven) and defeat opponents with a large number of attacks. Appreciate the long string of upgrades and equipable items, which make a variety of builds possible.
The problem arises when these attacks are all too similar to each other, at least when it comes to the spells to equip. Although the characters have very different move-sets and more or less useful in different situations, this does not apply to the spells, which, on the contrary, due to the 2.5D system become almost immediately inaccurate due to the lack of depth of the map and the trajectory far too direct. This makes the game unnecessarily cumbersome and crude, making us wonder why A + Games didn't opt for a Cuphead or Hollow Knight-style platformer, which would have been more interesting and effective. The chaos of fighting when there is more than one enemy in the room is certainly not to be praised.
While the exploration missions are quite fun even in the case of farming, this does not apply to the secondary and main missions where it is necessary to travel inside the school. While it is in words one of the most interesting things to do, it is damaged by the passage of time itself and the logical function of each mission. In short, to carry out certain missions we will have just two to three minutes to accept them and complete them: after that time, the mission will disappear and we will have to wait for the next reset. Logically speaking, it is a sensible choice, but makes the gameplay extremely frustrating and not very linear, damaging the very economy of Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time. The secondary missions are mostly all the same, sometimes with interesting pretexts, sometimes not. There will be the classic missions of collecting collectibles or those in which we will be required to recover some materials (good 70% of the time). The DLC with Costanze is also nice, an excellent addition even if not essential.
To save the situation is once again the exploration of the dungeons, which thanks to co-op it is made even more fun, although it lacks a real sense of challenge due to the poor artificial intelligence of the enemies and allies controlled by the CPU. Nevertheless, it is still a lot of fun and helps to ease the otherwise frustration that Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time manages to give in its worst moments.
Low content, nice packaging
From a graphic point of view, the settings, especially the dungeons, are very beautiful, as are the animations during the fights, decidedly elaborate especially in the realization of special attacks and spells. The main and secondary character models are more than decent, with a good rendering from the animated counterpart (albeit not perfect). The same thing cannot be said of the overly repeated extras on the map. Another point in favor is the design of the enemies, incredibly varied and beautiful even just to look at, especially as regards the bosses.
Expressively it is a victory, with uA series of funny and at the same time adorable faces, reflecting the “moe” facade of the work. Dubbing helps immersion a lot, given the acting quality of the original voice actresses. The soundtrack does not depart from the animated series, proposing the same themes with some nice additions.
Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time turned out to be a disappointing product in many ways, not too different from smartphone games like Sword Art Online Memory Defrag. From the artistic side nothing to complain, but from the gameplay we expected something more incisive and fun.
► Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time is a JRPG-type game developed by A + Games and published by Bandai Namco for PC and PlayStation 4, the video game was released on 30/11/2017 The version for PC came out on 15/05/2018
