Kudos to the likes of Demons Souls and Dark Souls, in the last decade we have seen a rise in a genre of games known as ‘Soulslikes’… action-adventure RPGs that are characterised by higher than typical levels of difficulty, an often darker fantasy world which relies on the environment and exploration for storytelling, and other elements which set it apart from other action-adventure games. While it was FROM Software that pioneered the genre, we have seen a range of big-name developers take their own stab at the genre, and in a few cases, indie studios also provide their own memorable takes on the ‘souls-like’. One such indie studio was the Taiwan-based teams at Pupuya Games and Simon Creative, who rose to fame with Little Witch Nobeta – first on the Windows PC and later on the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4. With a cute anime-style witch girl as the protagonist, an adorable name and DLC that mostly surrounds different costumes for the cute character, one might mistake it as a very different game, but what players end up with is a short, enjoyable experience that offers solid challenge, an approachable combat system, and much charm – without overstepping in any area.
While the game probably doesn’t have the depth to feel like an all-compassing experience, there is enough to appreciate should you be after a proper narrative, and you won’t miss out on much if you want to dive in headfirst and skip the cutscenes. You fill the shoes of a young witch girl named Nobeta, who travels into a mysterious castle in hopes of discovering her identity and purpose. Joined by a mysterious black cat she happened upon by chance, the pair must now survive through the dangerous halls of the castle, using magic to take down its boss-like denizens and uncovering its secrets. There is enough narrative to get you hooked, and keep you progressing, if the storyline is what drives you, with a surprisingly enjoyable backstory and conclusion to justify the journey.
If you are like me, you will typically find yourself defaulting to a melee weapon when playing a souls-like game. A pivot from this norm, the combat system of Little Witch Nobeta does permit physical combat via your staff, but for the most part will see Nobeta using magical spells and shooting magic (or firing chared elemental shots across four magic types – Arcane, Ice, Fire and Thunder) from her staff to take down her foes. This adds a more complex layer of timing and strategy to combat, as you cannot simply go in and slash-slash-slash-dodge your way to defeating most enemies. In fact, as an added challenge, sprinting too much and draining all your stamina will cause Nobeta to face-plant the floor, leaving her at the mercy of other enemies around her.
If you choose the easiest difficulty settings, none of this is too big a deal as the game will be much more of a cakewalk, while the higher difficulty settings will pose some challenge – with the occasional difficulty spike – but nothing insurmountable. This is complemented by a range of environmental puzzles, requiring a balance of using Nobeta’s abilities and the player’s own observational skills to progress further into the journey. It is engaging and does leave you feeling a bit like Nobeta would whilst exploring the labyrinthian corridors, but a little more direction would have been welcome at times.
My main concern is that, while the Souls series games typically last players tens if not hundreds of hours to complete provided you don’t just follow the linear track, Little Witch Nobeta has a brief approximate dozen-hour runtime. This is about what I would have expected from an indie game, and playtime does not usually define how good or bad a game is usually… but I felt there was so much more that could have been explored, and even a DLC expansion with a few more bosses and challenges would have been welcome. On a more positive note though, given its shorter length and cutesy anime-style charm, afterwards it doesn’t leave you with that feeling that you ‘have committed so much time and mental energy to the game, that you don’t want to play another one for another six months’.
As mentioned before, Little Witch Nobeta really juxtaposes a darker and grim-looking castle with some adorably cute anime-style character designs. It doesn’t have that level of polish that you might expect from games on next-generation hardware or even last-generation hardware, yet it does well in replicating that soulslike charm and giving you some cuteness to soften the otherwise bland and non-descript surroundings. Plus… the DLC and unlockable costumes for Nobeta are all so gosh darn cute, even if they straddle that line between functional and fanservice. On the audiovisual side, the game’s soundtrack is pretty average but does the job amply, while the Japanese voice acting is on-point, featuring a small cast including Konomi Kohara (Nobeta), Omaru Polka, Shirakami Fubuki and Shirogane Noel – the latter three being popular vTubers.
Whether you pick up Little Witch Nobeta for its cute protagonist, chosen gameplay genre, positive word-of-mouth or have seen some of the… interesting… images shared on the game’s official Twitter / X profile (NSFW Warning!), Little Witch Nobeta offers an enjoyable standalone experience, which I hope they expand upon sometime in the future, or at least expand it outside the DLC costumes and bonus modes released.
This review was conducted on a PlayStation 4 copy of Little Witch Nobeta, played on a launch day PlayStation 5 unit.
A review code was provided by the game’s console publisher Idea Factory International for the purposes of this review.
Little Witch Nobeta is now available to purchase on the PC, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch
