The game was provided to us by Team17 to review. Thank you!
Have you ever felt like it would be a great idea to mesh together metroidvania gameplay with fast-paced shoot 'em up combat? Well wonder no longer! The Knight Witch takes you on adventure to save your home and figuring out the cause behind the war golem invasion. As Rayne, a once rejected Knight Witch, you will fly through gorgeous hand-drawn environments and save as many people as possible, generating trust and forging bonds as you go. Utilizing spell cards and your magic bullets, you will overpower your enemies with combinations of unique skills and upgraded abilities in the hopes that you will discover who is behind this scheme.
In my time with The Knight Witch, I have been enjoying it immensely. Not only is the pacing fantastic, but it feels fluid and enjoyable to play. It doesn't reinvent the wheel in terms of gameplay, but the execution is fantastic. I especially love the spell card system and its ability to change my playstyle right off the cuff. One of the types of cards you get will change how your basic attack works which can alter how I react to enemies pretty heavily. Overall, I am loving the game, but of course, we are here to talk about Steam Deck performance.
The Knight Witch is not an intensive game and generally doesn't overuse resources, therefore, it runs like a charm on the Steam Deck! For the most part, the battery draw will stick under 10-11W with 3.5 - 4 hours of battery, but big areas and fights could go up to 14W. All in all, you will be getting around 3.5 hours of battery with silky smooth 60 FPS without changing a thing! Due to that, and full controller support, this is easily a Best on Deck title!
There have been a couple times when trying to load into the game that it will just stick at an endless loading screen. This happened to be twice in a row with the third time working fine. I first thought this was due to having a TDP limit, so I turned it off, but it stuck the 2nd time too. The 3rd time, I quickly went into my save game and it worked, so it might be something that you need to quickly just go into your save. Luckily, I don't see a reason to linger on the main menu and since this didn't break the game after you are in, I would still recommend checking it out.
This seems to only be in the main menu as loading once already in-game has no issues.
The Knight Witch is a wonderful amalgamation of metroidvania exploring with shoot 'em up combat. Pair this with the beautiful art and enjoyable gameplay loop and you will find yourself having a great time with a great game. On the Steam Deck, the game performs perfectly without any changes needed to the settings or quick access menu. Even with the loading issue, I would still say this is a worthwhile investment!
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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The Knight Witch is a wonderful metroidvania shoot 'em up game that runs beautifully on the Steam Deck!
