WitchSpring3 [Re:Fine] – The Story of Eirudy (Switch)

Howdy guys and girls today we are looking at Witch Spring 3, a new title for the Nintendo Switch from the developers KiwiWalks. Witch Spring 3 is the first title in the series to make its way to console, with earlier titles in the series being available on Android and iOS. With that said let’s see how its first outing on console plays!

Witch Spring sees you take on the role of a young witch by the name of Eirudy as she tries to bring dolls to life and grant them the ability to communicate in an attempt to make a friend. Over the course of the game Eirudy will meet other cast members and allies, as she journeys around Derkarr to achieve the goal and uncover the secrets of the land.

I found myself enjoying the story and watching the lonely witch slowly make friends and pursue her dream of bringing her dolls to life after a living a life of seclusion and fear. It’s interesting to watch the character grow and begin to trust those that she meets. An added bonus, as someone who hasn’t played the previous titles, it’s nice to see that I don’t find myself lost in the story. Like me, many newcomers to the console version should be able to enjoy the title without playing the series previous entries.

The art style of Witch Spring leans on the visual novel aspect, but there are some in game scenes with interesting character designs that can be both adorable and intimidating. With that said it is a little rough around the edges, and it’s very easy to see that it was intended for mobile, but its far from the worst looking title I’ve seen on a Switch.

The Sound work in Witch Spring does a good job of setting the mood for each of the different areas you find yourself visiting, and is overall rather pleasant on the ears. Every aspect of the sound design works well for the title, be it when exploring exploring or partaking in battle

Gameplay in the title is somewhat a mix between growth management and typical JRPG elements. The former being the way you get stronger and facilitate the growth on your characters stats or improve the allies (dolls), while the latter covers the basics of battle and exploration.

Your stats don’t increase via the normal level system that that you see in most JRPG, instead crafted items or preforming certain actions increase your stats by a small amount. On top of this you can also train in various activities that increases certain stats by a percentage, however this can’t be done at will and will require the passage of time or completion of goals/objectives in order to earn part of a training attempt. While I do like the way this is handled it can feel like a bit more of a grind than your typical levelling session, especially if you hit a wall and there’s a fair few wall sized monsters out there wanting a small witchy snack.

For the most part the rest of the game is fairly straight forward, as an RPG you will explore the world gathering items and slaying foes in turn based combat using magic and sword attacks, as well as summoning your dolls for aid. For most RPG fans this will be quickly mastered while newcomers should also quickly get to grips with it.

In terms of enjoyability, for the first part of the game I found things a bit to slow, at least with exploration. This was remedied once I acquired my first mount and blitzed through areas for the purpose of item gathering or progression, at this point I also had access to more dolls and objectives giving me more to do and achieve.

With that said after the first hour or so I found myself progressing a lot faster, be that by facilitating my characters stat growth or progressing the story. To be fair however there was a hefty amount of trial and error in that, as I fell to large monsters scattered throughout the world. This in hindsight could have been avoided with some common sense on my part, however the allure of the best items saw me challenge them nonetheless

Overall Witch Spring 3 has been a surprisingly enjoyable title, to the point I wouldn’t mind seeing the developers other entries make its way to the switch. However failing that they are available on mobile. Despite my initial thoughts as the game was a bit of a slow burner, once past that it quickly opened up into an interesting adventure that kept me interested and gunning for the Witches happiness. Just about gets away with being a mobile port to Switch, but anyone that can look beyond that will find plenty to enjoy.