From publisher Eastasiasoft and developer Rainbite, the same three-person team who made Reverie, comes The Legend of Zelda with guns. OK the game is actually called Trigger Witch but upon first seeing it that’s exactly the thought that popped into my head. If the thought of playing a classic Zelda game but with guns intrigues you then read on to learn much more.
Trigger Witch is available on pretty much every modern platform and has clearly been inspired by classic 16-bit games like The Legend of Zelda. It’s a 2D twin-stick action game set in an open world where you’ll be relying on firearms much more so than magic. You’ll not only be exploring the overworld map but also venturing into dungeons at times which again brings Zelda to mind. But what of the story and characters? Well they are here but not vastly important or interesting. You play as a witch named Colette who has graduated from an academy called the Stock which is based around witchcraft and trigger. Her mom is the leader of this religious group and after an evil man appears it is up to Colette to track him down and put an end to his schemes. The writing is funny and the characters mildly interesting at times but they aren’t hugely compelling reasons to play this.
Fans of twin-stick shooters will feel right at home with Trigger Witch as movement is tied to the left stick and aiming tied to the right stick. The game starts you off with a pistol but there is a good amount of different types of weapons to obtain and upgrade along the way. These include a shotgun, sniper rifle, flame thrower, and quite a bit more giving you a good amount of variety in how you want to dispatch your enemies. Weapon switching is easy as you can set different weapons to the directional arrows or bring up a radial menu to swap. Also, if you run out of ammo at any time for your equipped gun the game will switch to your sidearm so that you can still fight without panicking. Ammo also replenishes on its own so long as you aren’t using the gun for a short period of time.
The world of Evertonia is enjoyable to explore with a good range of environments to see and plenty of hidden secrets to find. Gems are the resource you’ll need to purchase your upgrades and thankfully they aren’t hard to come by at all. Most things you do will cause you to earn them whether it’s breaking things or killing enemies. You can then use them to buy those upgrades for your guns like increase clip sizes, more damage, or faster reload speeds. Whether you choose to upgrade your guns is up to you as to me this game wasn’t very difficult. There are some different difficulty settings and things you can do to make it harder but playing on Normal I had little issue with it. The enemies are very easy to just sit back and shoot and watch them burst into blood (you can turn the blood off if you choose) and boss battles also didn’t provide much more of a challenge. That was a bit disappointing but the gameplay was still enjoyable to me overall. I also need to mention that the game has local co-op support so if you feel like having two gun-toting witches on-screen you can do that.
The 16-bit visuals are very charming with the game having some really nice sprite work and animations. A lot of it gets covered in red most of the time as you blast your enemies apart but I really enjoyed looking at it. It was just unfortunate that when it came to the enemies and bosses that there wasn’t enough visual variety. The music is also wonderful and will once again remind you a lot of a Zelda game. Sound effects from firing your guns are solid and mostly enjoyable. Those interested in the trophies will find a whopping 58 of them in total with a Platinum. Unlike most of EastAsiaSoft’s published titles this won’t be a quick completion but it’s still a pretty easy one. Expect to put somewhere between 8-10 hours in to earn that Trigger Witch Platinum.
Trigger Witch is a charming and fun marriage of the twin-stick shooter and adventure genres. The game clearly draws a lot of inspiration from classic games like Zelda but that isn’t a bad thing. Arming your witch with all manner of guns and blasting apart enemies solo or with a friend can be a lot of fun for a few hours even if it doesn’t challenge you that much. The game leaves things open for a sequel and it would be great to see the team build on the solid foundation that they’ve established here.
*Trigger Witch is available now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. PlayStation 4 version reviewed. Review copy provided by the publisher for this review.