Review: Trouble Witches NEO!

I won’t lie to you, I picked this Xbox LIVE Arcade game to review because it had the word “witches” in it and I thought it might be exciting. I like witches. I like witches in all their forms: Samantha Stephens, Willow Rosenberg, the Halliwell sisters, Sabrina, Hermione, Lafayette, even Bette Midler in Hocus Pocus. If someone is casting a spell, I am there.

I may have finally found my witch-love Achilles heel.

The new arcade game Trouble Witches (NEO!) makes a big show of pointing out how NEO! it is. Like a big pink glowing stamp of approval, the word NEO! sits at a jaunty angle to the rest of the title, as if to indicate that the NEO! is so NEO! that they had to hastily slap it on after already designing the rest of the title. Like a “new and improved!” sticker on a can of cat food.

And it makes about as much sense as a can of cat food, too.

Trouble Witches (NEO!) is a frenetic, colourful, nonsensical explosion of colour, in the vein of the classic arcade horizontal scrolling shooters. It is also batsh*t insane.

The story goes…well, I have no idea. I know that you’re a witch n00b who has to go through a series of adventures in order to become a full-fledged witch, but apart from that I am utterly lost, because it is SO CONFUSING.

First off, you have to choose your character. You can play as Pril, the Greenhorn Witch Apprentice (makes sense); Sakurako, the Anime Otaku Astrologist (righto); Louie, the Vagabond Witch (vagabond? eh, I’ll go with it); Symphony, the Princess of Fairies (fairies aren’t witches!); Valorie, the Celestial Witch of Selfishness (huh?); or Aqua, the Genius (hmm) Pop Star (wait) Witch of the Sea (WHAT?). That is her full title. Aqua, the Genius Pop Star Witch of the Sea.

Naturally, I selected Aqua.

A few seconds later, my retinas detached.

There is so much colour, and so many “bullets” flying, that it is almost impossible to know what you’re shooting at, or where the things flying at you are coming from. As a general rule of thumb, you just shoot anything that isn’t you; although sometimes it’s even difficult to tell where you are.

From a non-stop action perspective, this game is golden. You basically hold down the ‘fire’ button and go to town on the enemy, whatever they happen to be (at one point I was fighting a giant machine called “Palindrome”—even though it had nothing to do with words—that fired cat footprint-shaped bullets. I am not making this up). Occasionally you’ll stop at a shop (run by a woman called “Autumn” who wears a giant pumpkin for a hat) and buy some upgrades in the form of cards, but otherwise it’s just fire and fly, fire and fly.

If you like your frenetic scrolling shooters, and care not about what you’re shooting at or what the plot is as long as stuff is blowing up, then you’ll enjoy Trouble Witches NEO! If, on the other hand, you prefer a game that does not resemble a sociopath’s acid trip, you might want to look elsewhere.

I give Trouble Witches NEO! four out of ten giant pumpkin hats.