After reviewing Summer in Mara several years ago, I’ve been reluctant to try out other Chibig games. It was pleasant enough, but entirely based around fetch quests. Mika and the Witch’s Mountain, which is entering Early Access, is very openly a fetch quest game, but in a way that’s rooted directly in the premise. Maybe you’d think this wouldn’t do much to make things better, but the game adds enough wrinkles and other such ideas that definitely make this game’s flow more interesting. But the question stands – is Mika and the Witch’s Mountain worth it in Early Access, or would it be better to ride your broomstick elsewhere?
In a storyline that was heavily inspired by Kiki’s Delivery Service, Mika and the Witch’s Mountain stars the titular character as she’s about to begin learning the ways of the witch. Her teacher-to-be instead throws her off the mountain, breaking her broom in the process. Mika immediately meets a young woman who slaps Mika’s broom back together. Alas, a broken broom won’t get her up the mountain and the woman requires payment, forcing Mika to get a job delivering packages in order to pay for better brooms that will eventually let her return to the mountaintop.
Thus the game’s structure presents itself. Everything is broken up into days where Mika must deliver certain packages across the island. Some need to be delivered on time limits (although not very frequently,) and most need to be handled with care, as if they take any damage you’ll have to discard them and return to their spawn point. Some packages also can’t get wet, so you’ll need to be careful dipping into the water and ruining them. As Mika’s a witch, she uses her broomstick to fly around the island. I say “fly”, but that’s not quite accurate.
The broom hovers on the ground and then glides from whatever altitude it has dropped from. But there are gusts of upward and forward wind that Mika can use to gain altitude or speed. As you complete the events of the days, Mika gets better and better brooms too. For instance, on the third day her broom gets the ability to boost forward a little. Brooms also increase the amount of packages Mika can deliver at once. Package deliveries will be met with green, yellow, or red evaluations, depending on your performance.
On top of the normal packages, there are optional items you can deliver to people as well. These are scattered about the island and, unlike the normal packages that tell you where to go and who to deliver them to, the optional ones typically give a vague hint, requiring you to be familiar with the island and its inhabitants. It’s a solid choice, I think. Summer and Mara didn’t have much weight to the controls and lacked in the way of actual gameplay, but Mika and the Witch’s Mountain definitely improves greatly on these fronts.
Of course, this game is in Early Access, but that doesn’t mean only a fraction of the experience is available. Surprisingly, the entire main story is present and accounted for (although polish is expected as development continues.) Instead of using the promised six months of additional dev time to finish out the story, side quests and more are set to be added as time passes, meaning that anyone that simply wants to play through the story can do that on day one. The game is very well optimized on PC, giving me a consistent 120 fps using a 3090 and 5700x, with the extra option for very wide draw distances.
Mika and the Witch’s Mountain is a cute, relaxing game that can be played from start to finish, so if you’re itching to play and the main story’s enough for you, then I say the game is worth it. Gliding around the island and unlocking new brooms is a fun focus and fans of Studio Ghibli movies and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker will find more areas to have fun with, making for a solid experience all around. Anyone that isn’t interested in delivering packages will understandably want to sit this one out, but the game’s not for them anyway.
Take a look at our previous feature:
The Plucky Squire preview – Added dimensions |
