Mika and the Witch's Mountain (NS) - Review

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Cozy games are big these days and it's easy to understand why. With so many pressures and anxieties in the real world, it's nice to sit down and disappear into the video game equivalent of a mug of hot chocolate. Joining the ever-growing list of warm and comforting games is Mika and the Witch's Mountain, developed by Chibig, known for Deiland and Summer in Mara. A 3D action-adventure title starring a cute witch and featuring very low stakes, it's ideal for players looking for a breezy, relaxing experience.

Mika and the Witch's Mountain starts with the titular character — a young, aspiring witch — arriving at the Stellar Lighthouse on the peak of Mont Gaun island. Her would-be mentor, Olagari, is immediately displeased with the upstart trainee and pushes her unceremoniously off the clifftop. Mika falls thousands of feet to the village below, where she decides to become the new delivery girl in order to pay for broom repairs and, hopefully, fly back to the summit.

The game's premise shows a lot of potential. There's something very powerful about starting at the top, plummeting to the bottom — whether figuratively or literally — and working your way back up. The problem is that Chibig doesn't take enough time to do this journey justice. Because the game lasts only three hours, without side content factored in, the studio needs to fast-forward through the narrative. At one point, an NPC says to Mika, "you're known around the island as a very nice girl who cares about everyone's needs", even though she's only been delivering packages for a couple of days. The story simply needs more time to breathe.

So too does the adventure. There are a lot of fun mechanics in Mika and the Witch's Mountain, but they don't have enough room to grow. The gameplay loop is solid: you earn coins from deliveries, which you then use to buy broom upgrades, allowing you to fly faster, farther, and higher. The physical act of flying is quite nice: you can hop on/off the broom with a simple press of the Y button, and Mika is both maneuverable and weighty — an ideal combo. Delivering packages can be tricky at times, as you need to shield them from harm, but also forgiving, since you can always return a damaged package to its original spawn point and try again.

The problem, again, is one of duration. The game supports over 30 main deliveries, but they can each be completed in only a few minutes. To be fair, there is a decent amount of ancillary content: 18 side-quests, 6 unlockable outfits, 15 hidden tarot cards, etc. If you decide to go for 100 percent, you can expect to tack on an additional 90-120 minutes to the running time. Still, Mika and the Witch's Mountain craves more content: additional missions and mission types, more areas to explore, new ways to leave your mark on the island.

Speaking of the island, it's quite appealing, in its low-texture, cartoon-y way. The environment is sort of reminiscent of 3D worlds from the N64 days, in the best way possible. It's far from the most impressive technically, but it has a charming, dreamlike quality. The visuals are paired with some surprisingly effective music, courtesy of composer Adrián Berenguer. One of the highlights of the whimsical score is "Become a Witch".

There are some cracks in the facade, though — like NPCs floating in mid-air or small typographical errors that pull you out of the fantasy, including a word ending in </b instead of being bolded, and an entire line of dialogue in German, which has to be a mistake. In addition, if you invert the jump button during your session, it will revert to the default setting the next time you boot up the game. It's a small thing, but annoying.

Regardless of those unforced errors, Mika and the Witch's Mountain remains a cozy, comforting little adventure. It benefits from an interesting premise, breezy mechanics, some fanciful tunes, and a rewarding gameplay loop that pushes you forward. Its biggest problem is that it feels unfinished; the story and character relationships don't have enough time to mature, and the mechanics don't have sufficient room to evolve. This is a game that should have been twice as long as it is.

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