The localized version of Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time is launched for PlayStation 4 and PC (Steam) recently! The side-scrolling action JRPG was available in Japan since last November, and now Bandai Namco Entertainment Asia is bringing it to the global market. We are pleased to be able to enjoy the game so here is our Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time review!

The story

The game features an original story based on the popular Little Witch Academia anime series, where you will follow Akko and her friends into the Luna Nova Witch Academy. It is the first day of the summer vacation, but Akko got herself into troubles again and is punished to clean up the school’s library. Akko, along with her friends, Sucy and Lotte accidentally discovered a hidden room that sits a mysterious clock.

Akko touched the clock which it leads to a strange phenomenon – the day starts repeating itself over and over. Together with her friends, players will need to help Akko to investigate and find a way to return the flux of time back to normal.

Gameplay

Fans of the anime series might be familiar with the characters already, and if you are new, the game does provide a brief introduction to the main characters so you won’t felt left behind. There are two distinct modes featured in the game – the adventurous 3D mode where Akko wanders around in the academy to solve quests or progress the storyline and the dungeon crawler 2.5D mode where Akko and her party consisting of 3 characters will battle monsters.

You will be given plenty of quests (storyline or side quests) in the 3D mode that most of them require you to find something or someone. Certain NPCs only appear at a specific time so you will have to take advantage of the infinite time loops to reach the right place at the right time with the right items (if you missed the chance, wait for tomorrow and try again!)

It might sound interesting but as you played it for few hours, it turns out to be tiring as there are tons of similar quests that repeatedly direct you to someone else. The map and radar system is confusing to use, yet some of the quests don’t give a clear instruction. For example, your quest is to find an item, but you have no idea where the item is so you have to search everywhere and ask everyone around.

On the dungeon crawler part, you will be able to take a party of 3 formed by characters of your choice (you can leave Akko out of the team, but noted that there will be no EXP for the characters who are not included in the party). Every character has their 3 basic attacks with different skill sets and customizable spells so you can adjust your team according to the condition. EXP points earned can be used to upgrade the characters as well as progress their abilities with the cool Horoscope-based skill trees.

A series of rooms are connected together in the dungeon, where you will meet a great amount of well-animated monsters, plenty of traps and boxes of loots in it. Battling through the dungeons are fun at the beginning, but again, you will feel exhausted as you progress through the game.

You are only allowed to control one of your characters in the party while the rest will be AI-controlled. Here comes the problem: the AI partners are so dumb, they will frequently wander off from where they are supposed to stand, wasting their skills by attacking thin air or even fail to heal themselves when they are in low health. Your journey in the dungeons just gets harder thanks to your AI companions.

However, you can still find some really good aspects of the game – the cutscenes, characters, and their voice-acting are awesome. The game features exclusive and fully Japanese-voiced cutscenes by Studio Trigger, while the characters are lively and charming. The conversations between the characters are interesting (fits their personality) too!