GAME REVIEW: Wytchwood (2021)
Every once in a while, you come across a game that is exactly what it needs to be, no more, no less. That is how I would describe Wytchwood, which I played in August and thoroughly enjoyed! This game was released in 2021 via Alientrap and was published by Whitethorn Games and Whisper Games.
Wytchwood begins with the main PC, the witch, waking up and meeting a goat (implied but never confirmed to be the Devil), who explains that they are there because of a woman out back who is trapped in a magical sleep. In order to wake her up, the witch must collect the souls of a variety of truly bad people and bring them to the goat. As such, the player explores the world, gathers ingredients, and makes potions and items to find ways to help good people and take down those who are evil.
This is very much a counterpoint to another game that I had to fully stop playing: Shadow of the Colossus. In that game, I quickly realized that what the PC was doing was murdering gentle giants in order to bring his dead friend back to life. As a dirty old hippy who appreciates nature and animal life, I quit this game fully after three or four bosses because I legitimately felt like what I was doing was wrong. I was killing innocent creatures—possibly gods of some sort—in exchange for one life. I am perhaps cold and unsentimental when it comes to sentient life, but twelve gentle giants for one life seemed a steep price to pay and it just made me literally unhappy. I decided to take the character and leave the area, leaving my dead friend behind and the remaining nine or so gods alive.
Flash back to Wytchwood, wherein everyone the witch captures is a conniving piece of absolute shit. From a big bad wolf that wants to eat cute girls, to abusive pigs that are literally working people to death, to a greedy hawk that only cares about improving his own wealth… every one of the souls the witch must capture absolutely has it coming to them, and the witch ultimately leaves the world far better than she found it.
Furthermore, the ending was exactly what I hoped it would be, but I wasn’t able to predict exactly how it would play out, so it was what I wanted it to be, but I still was able to enjoy the novelty of it despite having predicted what would happen. The gameplay was just complex enough to make it fun but didn’t require too much wandering and grinding of items and resources to make it boring or tedious, and the art design and characters were all really fun.
In short: Wytchwood was exactly what it needed to be!
