Witchroid Vania: A Magical Girl’s Fantastical Adventures

Really awesome little huge game if you're the right person (I am). One of the more gamey metroidvanias I've played. No real plot for the vast majority of the game, just go to new areas, explore and level up. To some degree it almost feels like a DRPG metroidvania. Game about exploring, fighting dudes, and getting loot and not much else.
The exploration in the game is very fun and quite interesting by metroidvania standards. The game makes a dedicated effort to keep you unaware of your own progress. The game has no in game trackers for progress, nothing to tell you how many items you've missed, nothing to tell you what map completion you're at. In many metroidvanias you can see the limits of the map screen to get an idea of how big the map is. Here the screen scrolls infinitely. It feels like an intentional design to both keep the player in the dark of how much game there is to go, as well as to make exploration about the rewards you get from exploring rather than completing some sort of checklist. I could see this design driving people mad since it is very easy to miss items however I found it very charming and it made the exploration all the more engaging to me. It helps that the rewards always feel tangible. Health and MP upgrades are always nice but even chests with just money are worth it given how much there is to spend money on in this game. There's also some pretty fun and interesting puzzles involved with exploration. Nothing too complex but definitely some out of the box thinking is needed.
Design-wise the game is also not too interested in the traditional movement upgrades of the genre. Outside of a single movement upgrade early on and tools which are only occasionally required what you see from the beginning is what you get. This makes the game feel much more open and also creates far fewer situations where you enter a room, realize you need a double jump, and leave. If you get to a room you usually have what you need to fully explore it, with figuring out how to do so being where the game derives it's fun.
The combat is also quite fun. In a genre which increasingly embraces souls-like trappings it's nice to see the game doing it's own thing. On a surface level the spell system feels similar to something like Ender Lilies however unlike Ender Lilies which emphasizes small encounter dodge-counter based combat this game is all about rooms of tons of dudes all trying to get you at once. The fun comes from being able to handle the enemies varying attack patterns, as well as knowing what spells are both effective, and the enemies in question will let you get away with using. Avoiding damage on a theoretical level is very easy in the game. You can effectively exist in a constant state of i-frames which allows you to stay close to enemies to make your openings very effective. The final boss is also amazing for all the reasons outlined here and more. My only complaint is I wish there was more content at the difficulty level of the final boss, though I didn't feel like I was missing anything until I fought it and wished the rest of the game was like this.
Music and art is also quite nice. There's a pretty amazing amount of enemy types in the game with some excellent and often funny sprite work making exploring just for finding new enemies satisfying in itself.
Very good game I enjoy.

Witchroid: Vania – 魔法の旅と少しの気になる点
Witchroid: Vania は、美しく、魔法システムがとても魅力的なゲームです。レベルデザイン、魔法の仕組み、ストーリーに多くの工夫と労力が注がれていることが伝わってきます。全体的にゲームプレイは楽しく、雰囲気もとても良いです。
音楽も場所によってはとても印象的で、世界観を引き立ててくれます。ただし、改善の余地がある点もいくつかあります。主人公のアニメーションはフレーム数が少なく、動きがぎこちなく感じられることがあります。また、音に関しても少し違和感がありました。たとえば、セイレーンボスを倒した後に流れるファンファーレはあまりにも典型的すぎて、思わず笑ってしまいました。
セイレーンボス戦後に少し困ったこともありました。下へ進まずに上を探索したところ、
隠された洞窟を再び通ることになり、ボスルームに戻るためにかなり戻らなければならなかったのは残念でした。
それでも、Witchroid: Vania は独創的なゲームメカニクスと
温かみのあるデザインで、記憶に残る素敵な体験を与えてくれました。
Witchroid: Vania – A Magical Journey with a Few Flaws
Witchroid: Vania is a beautiful game with a unique and engaging spell system. It’s clear that a lot of effort went into crafting the level design, the spell mechanics, and the story. Overall, the game feels fun to play and has a strong sense of atmosphere.
The music in certain areas stood out and really added to the mood. That said, there are a few aspects that could be improved. The main character's animation has very few frames, which makes movement feel a bit stiff. Some of the sound design also felt a bit off—for example, I laughed at the overly cliché fanfare that played after defeating the Siren boss.
One frustrating moment happened after the Siren boss fight. I chose to explore upward instead of going down, which led me back through the hidden cave. Unfortunately, I couldn’t return to the boss room easily and had to backtrack quite a bit.
Despite these small issues, Witchroid: Vania is a memorable experience with creative mechanics and plenty of charm.

Fairly solid Metroidvania, fun combat, good variety of combat moves, and difficult exploration. It is a bit lacking in some quality of life, but the developer has been adding things requested (such as the recent D-pad movement instead of just D-pad shortcuts).
Lily and Minidra's artwork is nice and their sprites have a good amount of animation. Something feels a little off with some of Lily's movements but I can't really explain why, it's not too distracting. The levels are decent, not super detailed but enough to tell what's going on. A few enemies are hard to see against some backgrounds, whether that's intended difficulty or just unfortunate color matches I'm not sure.
Exploration is solid, there are quite a few puzzles in the game, mostly optional but some are required. Some puzzles are really difficult to figure out or execute, and may require coming back later with more upgrades. There's no double jump, which is unusual for a Metroidvania, other movement and key locking or required spell gates are used more. It's sometimes difficult to tell where to go, and the way the map works does not help. I ended up missing a large mid-game area completely until far later (then the bosses were very easy) because I couldn't remember that a particular gate was there and the map didn't make it easy to tell.
Combat's good, there are a lot of spells, with summons, support spells, combat spells. Up to 4 different sets of 3 loadouts can be used, swapped with the right stick. Since it uses an analogue stick, sometimes it'll go too far and you can get stuck on a loadout you might not want in a tough situation. Managing casting times and which spells can be used with others is a big part of the combat style.
It is lacking in some quality of life. The map is a major problem. In the pause menu, you can see the map in a small part of the pause screen, where you can scroll it around with the right stick. I'm glad it has markers, but it doesn't seem to handle acceleration that well, so it's hard to position the scrolled map exactly where you want to place a marker. I would really like to have a way to view the complete map.
The UI is really large by default, there's a mini UI but it makes the HP/MP bars very very small. It would be nice if there was an in between setting, or if the other UI elements were smaller but HP/MP bars were the same size.
Finally, one sidequest (that grants an achievement) is pretty unclear what exactly you need to do, and it requires dealing with a rare spawn enemy in a particular area that can take some time to find, and it won't always give you the item you need when you fight it.
Overall it's a decent indie title. Some quality of life and it'll be a very good title. About 14 hours to complete the main game, and another 3 hours to do that one sidequest.

3 hours in and having a good time! The controls are a bit stiff, like when climbing up ledges, but the combat and exploration is fun, and I like the visuals and music. Looking forward to playing more!
Edit: I've finished the game now and loved my time with it! In addition, my issues with the controls have all been fixed/improved, so this gets a hearty yes recommendation from me!

A nice short and colourful Metroidvania with fun bosses, good puzzles and great combat.
Well worth the price if you enjoy the genre.

I had fun with this and it appears to be well done for a game with only 4 people working on it according to the credits. will play it again sometime. I would also like to point out that in my opinion the sign of a good or great game is how much replay value it has.

Reminds me of older Japanese indie games I used to play back in the earlier days of the internet. Simple and fairly straightforward but also fun.