Mika and The Witch's Mountain

Seems fun, but it constantly crashes. Devs have been aware of the issue since 2025 but haven't fixed it. Willing to give it another chance if constant crashing is fixed.

Do you want to play Kiki's Delivery Service, but in game form? This is it. But it's also transformative. It's got a more on-the-nose critique of capitalism, and if you're paying attention, you'll realize it's solarpunk rather than cottagecore, which is an upgrade. The characters are fun. The story is fun. The game is a bit short. I 100%'d it in about 9 and half hours, although I did use a guide to find the last few collectibles. I don't regret paying full price.

A very adorable game. Alas, I won't be finishing the game, since I softlocked my single save file during the Party Chapter in the game version I was playing. And the only way to fix it is wiping the save from the main menu and starting over. So... uh, just don't do what I did (e.g., just play the game like you're supposed to). In the "Party Chapter" of Mika and the Witch's mountain, you can escape from the intended area in two areas and softlock the save file. One method is going by the house with the fishtank and stand on the opposite side.  Jump onto the stone ledge, then onto the door awning.  Step to the edge of the awning and jump onto the roof with the chimney.   Walk up toward the chimney and then jump onto it.  You are now able to walk over the roof and explore the dock area. You can get back by standing on the corner of the fence and having a near-perfect jump onto the roof/awning.  Walk directly up to the chimney, jump onto it, and now you are able tore-enter the intended area. The more severe area-escape is by the kid "guarding" the rope fence (Who, ironically, says "You shall not pass." This is very, very incorrect. Look to the building immediately to the right, stand at the inside corner between the door and the stone ledge of the house. Jump onto the stone ledge, then onto the door's awning, and then jump onto the roof of the building.  You can now jump directly over to the train station. From there, you can explore all of the beach and even walk all the way to the manor.  To return, simply head back to the train area and jump from the brick railing back onto the roof and re-enter the intended area. However, you can jump from the corner of the train tunnel by the train station sign, onto the lamp post, and over the train tunnel.  From there, walk towards the manor and jump up the rock platforms due to the invisible wall on the lower plateau.  you can move all the way to the stone pillar area or jump down back to the starting-area beach and stand by the farm. The problem truly arises when you jump from the windy plateau down to the farm area, as there is no way to return back to the intended area and leaving the game forces you to load back in the farm area, outside the intended area. This softlocks the entire save file, with no way to progress nor revert this issue.

After multiple attempts and trying all the fixes I could find on trying to get the game stable and not crash, it continued to do so frequently. Until this is fixed, I can't recommend this game to anyone. I really loved the art style, and the game was fun, just the constant crashes just bugged the heck out of me. So, maybe I'll check this back out again in another year to see if the crashes have been fixed, but in it's current state, it's unplayable.

Maga venezolana

I.... really wish Steam had a "not for me but maybe you'll like it" option. Short answer, a more clunkly, kind of boring "A Short Hike". (if any dev reads this, please don't take this personally, this took work to make that I absolutely respect.) Genuinely, if you are thinking about getting this and haven't played "A Short Hike," please just go buy that, it is like a third of the price and is way more fun (to me) than this, and infinitely more heartfelt. I'm not really disappointed since I got 4 other games with this all for $10 CAD, (hopefully i like at least one of them cuz this was not a strong start lol) but I can absolutely not recommend this as a $25 dollar game. Credit were it's due, the visual art (2d art for UI, characters, tutorial popups, textures) are all superb. SO cute and fun, definitely got some real talented visual artists on payroll. Unfortunetly that's kind of the nicest thing I have to say about this. Biggest gripe, I haaaaate how slow the broom is. There is like no movement tech AT ALL in this game, and it makes it really really dull to navigate the island. It limits you to the same 4 or 5 paths around the island which gets old really fast. I have a lot of experience making my own fun in games with good movement, it's something I actively seek out in games, and this was entirely the opposite experience. And on the other side of the coin, I have played my fair share of delivery games. I love Death Stranding, which is like, literally an ANTI-movement game, and delivery focussed, but it still puts so much thought into the act of navigating an environment. Second biggest gripe, I really hate the music. But I had to revise this part of the review because I listened to the OST indepentand from the game, and it is actually, ...okay? I think the bar is at the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ moon, given everything Joe Hisaishi brought to Ghibli and Kiki specifically so I fully pre-recind my initial gripes that called into question the quality of composition. The soundtrack is fine, and noticably Kiki inspired which I think makes it successful in what the composer meant to achieve (I have some thoughts about whether the focus on emulating of a film soundtrack is a good idea when music in videogames behaves pretty differently in the hands-on moments, can't really dive into that). BUT, I really do feel like every ounce of WindWaker-esque atmosphere created in through the visuals is undercut by the way that the music is handled. None of the emotions that the compositions are asking of you feels particularily earned or situationally tailored, the scripting of the music changing as you fly around the island is noticably clunkly, and will literally just come to a complete stop if you spend to long somewhere, and will not start again until you enter a new area with a different motif. I get that Ghibli is a MONOLITHIC cultural influence that creates an impossibly high standard, but I think that just about everything that made Kiki's Delivery Service my favorite movie of all time is sorely lacking from this. Maybe that was just the launching off point, and they really didn't take too much from that film other than some surface level similarities. But man, I didn't get any of the juice that made Kiki's so special to me, and that's really my biggest dissapointment with this. How much I WANTED to love this game, and how I could not connect to it whatsoever. Didn't have enough in me to given all of the "dungeons" a chance, but I think that is probably where this game shines the most. Still a bit clunky when compared with whats out there, but I really think the devs had the best handle on making tight linear puzzle experiences.

A gentle action-adventure game, Mika and the Witch's Mountain essentially takes the premise of the Studio Ghibli classic Kiki's Delivery Service and gamifies it. We play as Mika, a young witch-to-be who climbs a massive mountain to find the home of a wizened witch whom she hopes will train her. Instead, Mika is thrown off the mountain by her would-be mentor, and she alls the way down to the island below, damaging her broom in the process. To make up some cash for repairs Mika becomes a delivery girl, putting her makeshift magic to use to fly around the island. While the plot's nice, the writing has a bit too much post-millennial twee to it for me, and while I appreciate a solid anti-capitalist narrative, Mika's is not the most neatly written I've seen. I enjoyed the gameplay though. Flight around the island isn't just a matter of jumping and neatly zipping along; as befits a trainee witch, Mika's command of her broom is a bit more jumpy and needs you to catch gusts of wind or activate speed rings to get the most of out it. I approve as well of its commitment to old-school collectathon sensibilities, with a ton of stuff to find around the island and a bunch of cosmetic upgrades to get from them.

[h1] MIKA AND THE WITCH'S MOUNTAIN É AQUELE TIPO DE JOGO QUE ABRAÇA O JOGADOR [/h1] Tem jogo que quer impressionar com gráficos gigantescos. Tem jogo que aposta em combates difíceis. E tem Mika and the Witch's Mountain. Ele só quer que você relaxe. E faz isso muito bem. Logo nos primeiros minutos eu percebi que essa aventura não tinha pressa. Você não está tentando salvar o mundo. Não existe uma ameaça gigantesca. Seu objetivo é simples. Fazer entregas usando uma vassoura enquanto aprende a se tornar uma grande bruxa. Pode parecer pouco. Mas funciona muito melhor do que parece. Voar é, sem dúvida, a melhor parte do jogo. Controlar a vassoura é extremamente gostoso, e conforme você melhora seu equipamento, explorar a ilha fica ainda mais divertido. Diversas vezes eu ignorava completamente a missão que estava fazendo só para sair voando sem destino. É um daqueles jogos em que a movimentação, por si só, já diverte. A ilha também é muito bonita. Ela não é enorme. Mas consegue transmitir personalidade em cada canto. Sempre existe uma praia escondida, um penhasco bonito, uma pequena vila ou algum personagem simpático esperando por você. Foi um mundo que me convidou a explorar sem precisar encher o mapa de marcadores. Outro ponto que gostei bastante foi o clima da aventura. Tudo é leve. Os personagens são carismáticos, os diálogos passam uma sensação de conforto e existe um charme muito grande em ajudar os moradores com tarefas simples. Nem todo jogo precisa contar uma história épica. Às vezes, uma boa aventura tranquila já basta. Visualmente, Mika and the Witch's Mountain também é muito bonito. A direção de arte aposta em cores vivas e um estilo acolhedor que combina perfeitamente com a proposta do jogo. É impossível não lembrar de animações do Studio Ghibli em vários momentos. A trilha sonora segue exatamente o mesmo caminho. São músicas calmas, agradáveis e que acompanham muito bem toda a exploração. Agora... Também existem limitações. A campanha termina relativamente rápido. Quando eu senti que já dominava completamente a movimentação e queria mais desafios, a aventura já estava caminhando para o final. Também senti falta de uma evolução maior nas mecânicas. As entregas continuam divertidas durante boa parte do jogo. Mas poderiam ganhar ainda mais variedade conforme a campanha avança. Outro detalhe é que alguns controles durante o voo exigem um pequeno período de adaptação. Depois de algum tempo tudo fica natural. Mas no começo tive alguns momentos atrapalhados. Mesmo assim... Mika and the Witch's Mountain conquistou justamente por não tentar ser algo que ele não é. Ele não quer competir com grandes mundos abertos. Nem reinventar o gênero. Só quer entregar uma aventura confortável, divertida e cheia de personalidade. E consegue. No fim das contas, foi uma experiência que me deixou constantemente com um sorriso no rosto. Daquelas que você termina mais relaxado do que quando começou. E, sinceramente... Às vezes é exatamente esse tipo de jogo que a gente precisa.

really fun game, but traversal starts to feel really slow after a while.

Neat game, moving around the map feels pretty neat even though it's less flying upward and rather paragliding and using wind current. Very nice characters and I generally enjoyed everyone's story arch, down to earth and kid digestible naratives about growing up and living. Still cracks me up that one of the studios that made this game is called Nukefist.