Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time

[h1][i]“Seriously, it's over.”[/i] ~Terumi Nishii[/h1] Anime's dead. I'm trolling, of course. Am I though? I mean, lots of anime veterans do agree. The Japanese economic bubble that gave us masterpieces like Akira—while also creating an OVA “gold rush” that gave directors enormous creative autonomy—is long gone. “The Hunger Games” have returned. Everything absolutely [i]must[/i] sell. And when it doesn't? It gets killed. At this point? It's almost like the only thing Japan does is export moe. Ghost in the Shell director, Mamoru Oshii, said that “if the market is like this, it’s because of the viewer’s tastes”, but honestly, I don't think it's true. It's just the big guys playing it too safe. Moe sells. End of story. Why show people there's more to anime than that? So yeah, here comes some moe. What's interesting is, Little Witch Academia actually started as a government-funded project. It had purpose. Did I mention that the Japanese economic bubble is long gone? Well, things are so bad that they can't produce their own animation anymore even when they want to, outsourcing lots of stuff to third parties. And the government gives away money in a desperate attempt to fight that. Sou…

the quest system kinda sucks

Cute game with pretty meh combat and really grindy achievements. If you enjoyed the LWA anime and movie, you'll probably love the game just for the character interactions alone, which there is plenty of. That's really the main reason to buy the game, and for that reason I'd recommend it.

E SUPER REALISTICO ci sono tutte le stanze del anime lo consiglio

This is not a bad game at all! Would i recommend it though? Sadly not. I get that a game about a time loop has to have some repetitiveness to it, but this is just too much and too uninteresting to keep you motivated. Quests are a little wack and hard to track due to the constantly quest marker flooded map due to repeatable quests. Even if you remember these repeatable quests, you will have to double check all these rooms anyway as a random item or character can appear there as well any time. Time is running by very fast, making you constantly rush from point A to B all the time. Game is from 2018 so there are loading times every 10 steps of course. Combat is decent at best. Dialogues and cutscenes can catch the feeling and humour of the show sometimes, giving you that magical feeling of being inside of one of the episodes. But ultimatively this game is just too tedious and exhausting to be a great game.

This is clearly a game made for fans of the anime, and that is where it works best. If you like Little Witch Academia, there is enjoyment to be found in the character scenes, small side stories, and extra endings. My problem is not that the game has no charm; it does. My problem is that almost everything around that charm feels poorly supported by the game design. A simple example: the minimap could have used a different color marker for quests or events you had already completed. Something as basic as a purple marker for already-seen events would have saved a lot of pointless wandering, because you would know when to ignore old content and when to check for something new. Instead, the game often makes you move around just to confirm whether a quest is actually available or not. That is the main issue throughout the game. Many quests depend on time windows, hidden prerequisites, rumors, specific NPC positions, and chained events. This kind of design reminds me of older games like Legend of Mana, but it is much harder to forgive here because the game does not give enough tools to manage it. Even with a guide, you can still end up asking: “Did I do something wrong, or is this quest…