Review: Trigger Witch – PS5, PS4

Trigger Witch is a charming twin-stick shooter about a little witch. It’s actually quite good.

When I first saw the trailer for Trigger Witch, it all looked a little bit silly. It’s a game about a young witch who goes around blasting enemies with a range of upgradeable guns and all in the style of Zelda: A Link to the Past.

What is it that they say about judging a book by its cover? Granted, Trigger Witch does look a bit silly, but it’s a whole bag of fun.

Game Information
Release Date: July 28th
Developer: Rainbite
Publisher: Eastasiasoft
Availability: PSN (Digital) Retail (PlayAsia)

You play as Collete, a witch from Ozryn Village on the day she is set to run the Stock Gauntlet. This coming of age story is bog-standard stuff and you can bet your ass/bottom dollar/ broom that it isn’t too long before things go awry.

While Trigger Witch doesn’t do anything new with its story, it does manage to create a world that’s interesting and fun to explore. Collete is a decent enough heroine with enough of a personality to be likeable without being grating, and although the vast majority of NPCs are window dressing for the world, the game does flesh out its world out and fill in the gaps with some nice design and fun characters.

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Twin-Stick shooters are generally known for their fast, energetic gameplay, and Trigger Witch does its best to keep true to form, even if purists might be left wanting.

Trigger Witch wastes no time in giving you an arsenal of guns to choose from. The default Hand Cannon is a good starting weapon, with more unlocked as you complete dungeons visited throughout the game.

Each gun can be upgraded, too. By finding weapon parts as you explore you can unlock each stat, before using gems to upgrade guns further. This upgrade loop is rewarding, even if it isn’t long before you soon feel overpowered. Guns are powerful from the start, so as you unlock and upgrade the available stats, the game feels like it gets a lot easier. Maybe even too easy.

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In fact, Trigger Witch is a game that didn’t cause me too many problems. Playing on Normal difficulty, enemies don’t ever feel hard to beat, and bosses were beaten on the first attempt – mostly. There is a difficulty option that can be tweaked and adjusted as you play should you want more of a challenge, with more gems awarded on harder difficulties.

Alongside tweaking the difficulty, there are a few other things that can be turned on and off from the options menu, such as aim assist and a cursor. There’s even an option to switch off gore, so instead of enemies bursting into a red cloud of blood and guts as you blast them to smithereens, they turn into confetti instead. Full disclosure – I only discovered this because it had a trophy attached. I’m a trophy whore…

Trigger Witch packs a decent map that’s on offer from the pause menu, but don’t let its scale fool you. Although it looks huge, it can be navigated in a few minutes. This isn’t a bad thing as it means you can get around quickly and it’s super handy for hunting down collectables, too.

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Playing Trigger Witch has you pretty much cover the full map during the course of the game. As you visit each area the map is slowly revealed, with additional maps for collectables available to purchase and dungeon maps unlocked in chests. Initially, the northernmost area is blocked off, but this quickly changes about a third of the way through the game, at which point you can pretty much go anywhere you like.

Enemies are the game’s weakest link, sadly. The variety is disappointing and none of them really put up much of a fight. There are just two types of enemies: those who dash towards you to deal melee damage, and those who hang back and fire from afar. They’re all easily beaten.

Even the end-level bosses in the dungeons are simple to beat so long as you keep moving and shooting. It’s an easy game, then, and if you want a proper challenge, you’ll need to play on a harder setting.

Those small complaints aside, I still had a lot of fun playing Trigger With. The familiar gameplay, timeless art style, and wonderful soundtrack made for a fun couple of evenings blasting monsters away in a bewitching world.

It lacks challenge but it makes up for it with an abundance of charm, and it’s just got that something that makes it really fun to play and be a part of. If you’re looking for an easy game to get stuck into, Trigger Witch is good in my spellbook. Plus, it’s an easy Platinum trophy, and that’s always a good thing, right?

Review Disclaimer: This review was carried out using a copy of the game provided by the publisher. For more information, please read our Review Policy.

Primary version tested: PS5. Reviewed using PS5.