Quick Critique: Witch and Hero 2 (Patreon)

I really liked the original Witch and Hero for what it was. It's a super simplistic game that has two or three neat ideas and it executes on all of them well in a game that's short and to the point, but that's also priced accordingly. WH2 follows on those same lines with a twist... Witch can now move! You control Hero with the stick and Witch with the buttons, so it's by no means an elegant control scheme, but it serves its purpose. Other than that, it's kind of the same game, but that's okay. The grind for money to buy the equipment upgrades is still pretty tedious and for a game that's almost all about clashing numbers, the grind is required. The worst decision there is that later stages aren't really worth much more money than the earlier ones. It's often faster and easier to grind on an early stage since it's worth about the same and takes less time. Making money is pretty mindless from the tedium, but in short doses like a ride to the office, it works well and creates an adequate diversion. To give you an idea of how bad it is, the game has 90 levels (30 levels at 3 difficulties each), but it took me almost 230 levels to max out my equipment (which is very much needed for the final levels) and I still wasn't even at max character level (and was nowhere close to meeting the enemy kill requirements to complete the gallery).

There are some new twists like being able to perform super attacks when you max out a meter, a magical shield that works like Zelda's, and Witch's ability to revive Hero faster if they're close to each other that create little bits of strategy. The map has branching paths but it doesn't make sense to not play all the levels. With all the time you spend grinding for money, you may as well just beat every level and the keys to unlock the gallery items are earned by beating stages, so using a branching path and skipping a stage only hurts you.

Witch and Hero 2 is an extremely simplistic game but it knows that, so that's why it works. It does what it sets out to do, kills some time in a fun way, and only asks a handful of bucks for the experience.