There’s something cool about new games coming out for the PlayStation Vita in 2021. While Sony may have changed its mind about closing the Vita PS Store, developers can no longer submit new Vita games through the digital marketplace as of last month. It looks like a few devs released their games in time for the deadline, though, which is great if you’re a PS Vita fan who wants something new to play on the handheld.
One game that just made the deadline is Witchcrafty from Pigeon Dev Games.
It’s worth noting that Witchcrafty is a timed-exclusive on Vita, with a PC version coming in the future. Still, the fact that this game is a Vita exclusive for any length of time in freakin’ 2021 is fun, good-natured quirkiness at its finest. Sure, the Nintendo Switch may be the ultimate handheld, and Valve’s Steam Deck looks promising, but the Vita will forever go down as an underappreciated portable, if you ask me.
So yeah, Witchcrafty on Vita is this neat little thing, and it’s actually kind of fun — but sadly, it’s also very frustrating, buggy, and really, really short.
At a glance, Witchcrafty ticks a lot of the boxes for what you’d want in a lighthearted indie game. It has super colorful pixel art, its protagonist is a little witch, and the level designs look good. Visually, the game is definitely strong, with great environments and some nice diversity in level themes, even if there are only a few chapters to play through. And as far as the level designs are concerned, they’re solid. I genuinely enjoyed exploring the game’s world.
Unfortunately, there are too many issues that rear their ugly heads all too often, making the good parts of Witchcrafty difficult to enjoy for very long. For starters, combat is both basic and problematic. Fighting enemies isn’t fun, and it’s annoying that they respawn whenever you enter a new screen. Also frustrating is the fact that some enemies are placed right at the entrance of an area, which means you’ll take a hit nine times out of ten when entering those sections.
There are also a lot of bugs in the game, and these range from simply odd to straight-up obnoxious. At one point, the player character’s walking animation was locked, so it looked like she was just sliding and moonwalking all over the place. While in this state, I couldn’t attack, and I even lost control of the character. I looked on in confusion and horror as the character slid right toward an attacking enemy.
At one point, I entered an area and saw my character get hit by nothing… twice. It kept happening every time I entered that area until I quit out of the game and restarted it. When I entered the area with what I had originally perceived to be killer air, it turned out there was actually a bat enemy flying around there. Some glitch made it invisible when I was playing the first time.
Despite being described as a Metroidvania by the publisher, Witchcrafty is really an action-platformer. There’s nothing here that makes it feel like a Metroidvania. Progression is straightforward for the most part. There are branching paths, but alternate routes just lead to more of the game’s currency, which you can you use to buy… stuff. I never found out what any of the collectibles did because after the first hour, I just decided to run through the remainder of the game, avoiding enemy encounters as much as I could.
While you do gain special abilities like fire and lightning projectiles, these don’t feel very meaningful. You’ll encounter treasure chests that can only be opened with these elemental abilities, but they just contain more currency and are hardly worth trekking back for.
Load times are also kind of bad. At first, I thought the game had locked up, but it turned out it was just loading up. Thankfully, you’ll only encounter these at the start screen and when starting a new chapter.
I really hoped Witchcrafty would’ve been a dope 2D action-adventure game, but it instead comes off as a prototype for something that could’ve been really awesome. It also feels kind of rushed, with a story that goes nowhere and gets more “meh” the further you get into it. You can probably get through Witchcrafty in two hours, at which point it just sort of ends — like, super abruptly.
So here’s to you, Witchcrafty. You breathed new life into my PS Vita, but sadly, just a little bit of life. On the plus side, I remembered I have Iconoclasts and Hotline Miami 2 on my Vita, so I might play those soon!
Oh, and for it’s worth, Witchcrafty is only $5, so if you’re curious about it and want a game that’s a mix of lighthearted fun and heartbreaking disappointment, it’s on the Vita PS Store if you want it. While you’re there, I’d recommend checking out Russian Subway Dogs and ScourgeBringer, which are two legitimately awesome games.
