Kill The Witch: First Impressions
Mar. 1st, 2026 11:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brandynAs I do every new paycheck, after buying essentials and some stuff to enhance my apartment (That I should've gotten a long time ago, just started anti-depressants so forcing myself to do other things to clear the path to them working) I roamed the Steam page for something to buy, I've got a backlog but I tend to mostly play 2d platformers and other games that are equally low tech so it's not a huge waste if I never end up finishing them.
So I was scrolling, looking for some new 2d platformers specifically and stumbled across Kill The Witch. I was intrigued by the cover art (Shown below), cute girl bashing things with a baseball bat? Yeah that's me coded on the most surface level.
Next I checked out the trailer and beyond just a pretty basic action platformer in terms of gameplay I saw a lot of intrigue in the story. The level shown off in bits and pieces had pictures of a woman (Pixel art, to be clear) clearly meant to entice and sexualize.
Nothing fully explicit but the intention was clear, possible red flag, especially for something clearly inspired by Japanese media, but then the trailer continues. We cut to a cutscene of someone saying: "Why not just be honest? As long as it eases your loneliness, anyone will do." And well, at that point while the possible red flags were still in my mind there's now a potential green flag to replace it. The scene reminded me of my favorite movie of all time, The End of Evangelion. Still early to say but it seems like the game is going to use the pseudo sexual and philosophical nature of that kind of work to a point, not just to seem smart.
I bought the game and while I'm not too far in that assumption still seems accurate. The main plot of the game is that humanity's despair reached a point where we invented a Super AI to try to fix the problem, the AI, who according to the opening narrative did love humanity found that the only way to keep humanity happy is to make the perception of others and themselves be as like bugs. Not entirely sure how that works, it's definitely a narrative choice that is coasting more on vibes than anything else, but the vibes are good so I'll accept it. Humanity has given up on the chance for happiness by destroying the chance for unhappiness. There are certain women who through force of will can bypass whatever perception everyone else sees. They're called Witches. You play as one such Witch and it becomes clear that she's cynical in the sense of yes she wants to free humanity but she's not fighting for them so much as against everything else. This is driven home by the first boss, called Yozoh. Who we learn before this (Via exploring a bit) was a woman who wanted to be humanity's savior and was crushed under the weight of expectations and her own depression and despair making it so she didn't believe her own messages and dreams. The main character apparently was around during her rise and left at some point, which is maybe part of what started her downfall.
All in all it's a very intriguing game so far, cute girls is me coded on a very surface level, but an exploration of happiness and heroism in a very cynical but sincere way? Oh baby that's me coded to my the deepest depths of my soul.
Will probably continue to post about it as I move through the game (Not an easy task, the game is HARD).
So I was scrolling, looking for some new 2d platformers specifically and stumbled across Kill The Witch. I was intrigued by the cover art (Shown below), cute girl bashing things with a baseball bat? Yeah that's me coded on the most surface level.
Next I checked out the trailer and beyond just a pretty basic action platformer in terms of gameplay I saw a lot of intrigue in the story. The level shown off in bits and pieces had pictures of a woman (Pixel art, to be clear) clearly meant to entice and sexualize.
Nothing fully explicit but the intention was clear, possible red flag, especially for something clearly inspired by Japanese media, but then the trailer continues. We cut to a cutscene of someone saying: "Why not just be honest? As long as it eases your loneliness, anyone will do." And well, at that point while the possible red flags were still in my mind there's now a potential green flag to replace it. The scene reminded me of my favorite movie of all time, The End of Evangelion. Still early to say but it seems like the game is going to use the pseudo sexual and philosophical nature of that kind of work to a point, not just to seem smart.
I bought the game and while I'm not too far in that assumption still seems accurate. The main plot of the game is that humanity's despair reached a point where we invented a Super AI to try to fix the problem, the AI, who according to the opening narrative did love humanity found that the only way to keep humanity happy is to make the perception of others and themselves be as like bugs. Not entirely sure how that works, it's definitely a narrative choice that is coasting more on vibes than anything else, but the vibes are good so I'll accept it. Humanity has given up on the chance for happiness by destroying the chance for unhappiness. There are certain women who through force of will can bypass whatever perception everyone else sees. They're called Witches. You play as one such Witch and it becomes clear that she's cynical in the sense of yes she wants to free humanity but she's not fighting for them so much as against everything else. This is driven home by the first boss, called Yozoh. Who we learn before this (Via exploring a bit) was a woman who wanted to be humanity's savior and was crushed under the weight of expectations and her own depression and despair making it so she didn't believe her own messages and dreams. The main character apparently was around during her rise and left at some point, which is maybe part of what started her downfall.
All in all it's a very intriguing game so far, cute girls is me coded on a very surface level, but an exploration of happiness and heroism in a very cynical but sincere way? Oh baby that's me coded to my the deepest depths of my soul.
Will probably continue to post about it as I move through the game (Not an easy task, the game is HARD).
