{"id":64899,"date":"2024-03-29T17:08:18","date_gmt":"2024-03-29T07:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.digitallydownloaded.net\/?p=64899"},"modified":"2024-03-29T17:09:39","modified_gmt":"2024-03-29T07:09:39","slug":"review-violet-wisteria-nintendo-switch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.digitallydownloaded.net\/2024\/03\/review-violet-wisteria-nintendo-switch.html","title":{"rendered":"Review: Violet Wisteria (Nintendo Switch)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Violet Wisteria is two things \u2013 firstly, it\u2019s a brute of a game that wears its old-school homage on its sleeve.<\/span> It\u2019s also heavily inspired by the classic Valis series<\/a> of fanservicey magical girl platformers.<\/p>\n

\"Join<\/a><\/p>\n

Things start off really<\/span> well with a story sequence pulled directly from the PC-98 era of design. Gorgeously rendered art pieces explain the situation that Wisteria<\/span> is in, and<\/span> how she came to wield a powerful weapon, the Violet Sword, and become a mighty defender of the people. There’s also a light dash of fanservice thrown in for<\/span> good measure. I told you the game was clearly inspired by Valis.<\/p>\n

After that, you\u2019re dropped into a series of platforming stages \u2013 eight to be precise, and it\u2019s here that Violet Wisteria starts to form<\/span> an identity of its own. The core mechanic that powers this game is that there are three different \u201cattacks\u201d that the sword is capable of, each of which is tied<\/span> to a different colour. Each enemy has one colour. You need to hit the enemy with that colour to damage it.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/p>\n

But sometimes you\u2019ll want to hit it with a different coloured attack, because that will cause Wisteria to \u201cbounce\u201d, and fly across the screen. Frequently you\u2019ll run into areas where there\u2019s no way that Wisteria\u2019s standard jump will<\/span> get her to the next platform. At those times you\u2019ll need to master the bounce mechanic, while still dodging enemy attacks.<\/p>\n

It can be difficult. Enemies aren\u2019t particularly fast or aggressive in Violet Wisteria, but<\/span> this triangle system of attacks means there\u2019s some juggling involved to navigate the gauntlet, and it can be difficult to avoid traps and enemy projectiles while also figuring out what attack to hit an enemy with, and line up the \u201cbounces\u201d so you can progress through the level. There\u2019s a timer ticking down all the while, and while it\u2019s generous, again, there\u2019s<\/span> a complexity to navigating this game, thanks to that triangle, that tends to slow progress down. This is not a platformer for the speedrunner, and<\/span> nor is it designed for them.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Violet Wisteria is a little<\/span> too slavish in its homage to platformers of the 90s,<\/span> and this makes it difficult to get along with at times. Firstly, the platforming can require some substantial precision<\/span> from players at times, but Wisteria\u2019s animation is more clunky than more modern players will be comfortable with. Remember the classic Castlevania games<\/a>? The platforming in this feels a lot like<\/span> those, for better or for worse.<\/span> It\u2019s authentic, but sometimes homages are better served by being visually and thematically a homage, while modernising the underlying structure and mechanics.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also some imprecision in terms of attack ranges whi<\/span>ch<\/span> means enemies and Wisteria alike tend to get hit and damaged by things that don\u2019t look like they should have the kind of range they do. Most critically of all, however, there\u2019s very little<\/span> checkpointing. If Wisteria falls down a hole (as she often will), she\u2019ll be sent back to the start of an area, which can mean some significant backtracking at times.<\/p>\n

Platformer fans that are nostalgic for the bygone eras of the genre will have no issue with any of this, and it\u2019s<\/span> fine that the game has been made with that audience in mind. The triangle attack system is a nice<\/span> spin on things which, as I said, gives the game its own identity too. Unfortunately, Violet Wisteria really needed to invest a bit in the art.<\/span> While the cut scenes are gorgeous, there are not that many of them and for<\/span> the most part, you\u2019re looking at 2D platforming that looks like it borrowed a lot from Game Maker libraries. Enemies are dinky and unmemorable, environments tend to be cobbled together in an incohesive manner, meaning that they don\u2019t do a good job of selling<\/span> the exotic worlds that you\u2019re meant to<\/span> be exploring,<\/span> and Wisteria herself is, unfortunately, wearing a very dull costume. It works in the cut<\/span> scenes, because it\u2019s a gorgeous full-length dress. However, when that\u2019s turned into a retro-style sprite, the character just<\/span> looks like one long, pink musk stick. Valis\u2019 body-hugging armour and micro-skirt wasn\u2019t just great<\/span> because it was fan servicey. It allowed the artists<\/span> to use several different colours and help to define<\/span> the character. It\u2019s something Violet Wisteria\u2019s character artist should have cribbed notes<\/span> from.<\/p>\n

Violet Wisteria is very transient, ultimately. It is enjoyable, yet also forgettable.<\/span> Once you get into the groove with the triangle combat system, the pseudo-puzzle quality to<\/span> the platforming will keep you on your toes and get you to think about movement and combat in a different way. It\u2019s a clever quirk and the developers have implemented it well. The art in the cut scenes is also gorgeous and<\/span> I\u2019d like to see the developers expand on this character and her world in a visual novel or similar. However, the platforming itself is clumsy, the effort that went<\/span> into the visuals in the cut scenes is not reflected in the gameplay, and ultimately Violet Wisteria is only going<\/span> to appeal to the hardest of hardcore retro platforming fans.<\/p>\n

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Violet Wisteria is two things \u2013 firstly, it\u2019s a brute of a game that wears its old-school homage on its sleeve. It\u2019s also heavily inspired by the classic Valis series of fanservicey magical girl platformers. Things start off really well with a story sequence pulled directly from the PC-98 era of design. Gorgeously rendered art pieces explain the situation that Wisteria is in, and how she came to wield a powerful weapon, the Violet Sword, and become a mighty defender of the people. There’s also a light dash of fanservice thrown in for good measure. I told you the game<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":64902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,104,17],"tags":[12999,12769,12763,12935,12764,12799,15657],"coauthors":[12758],"class_list":["post-64899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nintendo-switch","category-platformer","category-reviews","tag-eastasiasoft","tag-indie","tag-nintendo-switch","tag-platformer","tag-reviews","tag-switch-review","tag-violet-wisteria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitallydownloaded.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitallydownloaded.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitallydownloaded.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitallydownloaded.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitallydownloaded.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64899"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitallydownloaded.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64905,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitallydownloaded.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64899\/revisions\/64905"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitallydownloaded.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitallydownloaded.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitallydownloaded.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitallydownloaded.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64899"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitallydownloaded.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=64899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}