Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time is an RPG/Beat ‘Em Up Action game based off the highly popular anime Little Witch Academia. Set within the same setting as the anime, you play as Akko, a student with little to no magic capabilities. You can think of Little Witch Academia as being Japan’s “Harry Potter” so to speak. Chamber of Time tells a story that is set somewhere between the first and second season of the anime. The game was developed by A+ Games and published by Bandai Namco. The game is voiced acted in Japanese with English subtitles, so fans of the original Japanese version of the Anime will not be disappointed!
Right away you’re thrown into cutscenes where you learn that Akko and her friends are heading off for Summer vacation. You can’t help but notice the animations looking as if they’re not exactly finished. Whether this was the intent or by accident due to time constraints is unknown, but to me it throws the entire game off. You come to find out that Akko has done something wrong and is punished by forfeiting her vacation and being forced to clean the Library instead. Upon cleaning the Library, Akko finds a special book that opens a secret door that leads to the Chamber of Time. This sets you off on your never ending dungeon crawl smash ’em up beat ’em up action gameplay!
Upon entering this Chamber of Time, the friends triggered a spell that resets the time from midnight back to 8AM the previous day. This means a never ending day happens for Akko and her friends. You also find a dungeon entrance that permits you entrance to another realm altogether to fight through countless dungeons with many doors to search for treasure and experience! With the never ending day, you are tasked with completing different quests as optional content while exploring the Luna Nova Magical Academy. This gives fans of the series much needed fan service, while also beefing up the gameplay a little.
The real meat of the game comes from the combat. This is a dungeon crawler fighting game. Sure it has RPG elements, but they are minor. Action combat is what makes the game shine the most. You have 3 attacks, Light, Medium, and Heavy. Each assigned to a different button. Then you have spells you can cast by holding the L1 or L1+R1 buttons down and pressing Square, Triangle, or Circle to perform said spell. Square is your light attack, Triangle is your normal attack, and Circle is your strong attack. You can also press the X button to jump, and L1 to dodge, and R1 to run. The weak point of the whole game, however, is the dungeons themselves. Each dungeon may have a different skin, but they’re all the same. You’d expect different “floors” would look differently, but whatever “theme” of dungeon you’re in, it all looks identical. It gets repetitive and boring over time, which is a shame due to the fun combat.
Each dungeon has traps laid out to kill you. Traps that you can also use against the enemies if you position correctly. Examples of the traps would be these huge concrete ceilings with spikes on them that fall on top of you, or huge boulders rolling down paths you need to go up into. They aren’t extremely difficult to deal with, but do throw that added mechanic into the fray to keep you on your toes. The best part is using them to kill the enemies for you. While the combat is fun, the positioning can throw everything off. While casting your spells, or even heavy attacks, if you aren’t lined up pretty much 100% with the enemy, your spell will miss. You may think that would be a simple fix, but with everything that’s going on the screen at once it’s not always easy to simply follow your character in hopes to line them up perfectly to make that spell hit. You have a range of characters to choose from to fill your 3 person team. Characters range from Lotte and Sucy, all the way down to Amanda and Diana. Giving you plenty of characters to choose from that all have their own strengths and weaknesses.
All in all the game is mediocre at best. It’s a great game for fans of the series that just want that extra bit of fan service and to play as their favorite characters. The animations throw the game off in my opinion, but the story and the settings are pretty great. I feel if they made the animations perfect, or as perfect as they can, the game would be so much better. The dungeons are all the same, so don’t expect much difference. Overall it’s an okay game to kill a half hour just smashing enemies. If you’re looking for an indepth story to fill your eager hearts of Little Witch Academia, you may find yourself disappointed. I felt like I was playing half visual novel, half action fighting platformer. Which isn’t a bad thing, but just wasn’t implemented correctly enough to be called a huge success.
