WITCH ON THE HOLY NIGHT

If you’re going to get into Witch on the Holy Night, perhaps while waiting for someone to tie George R. R. Martin to a chair long enough to finish off their magnum opus, it’s going to be a commitment. 20+ hours of either nudging an analog stick to stop the system from going into screen saving mode or jamming A will get you a well-written story that sets up a lot of things for the future.

Despite a slow start, Witch on the Holy Night does earn its reading time. It takes well-established character paradigms and works them in fun ways. The limited animations punctuate and accent the words, creating vivid action scenes with color choices that pop. This is a title for kicking back and relaxing, as there isn’t anything happening on the gameplay front. As long as it’s understood that the first couple of hours need to be processed before it gets good, this is one of the better visual novels to come out in recent years. A patch fixing up the text is almost required, but a forgiving reader will find a lot to enjoy here. Witch on the Holy Night is mostly a tale of action, but it mixes in creepy shots and relatable humor, making for a fun, but flawed, romp.

It only took ten years, but now, we finally have the first official English TYPE-MOON visual novel in our hands. And it’s absolutely stunning. With some fantastic characters, brilliant writing, and the best visual novel presentation I have ever seen, Witch on the Holy Night is a must-read for anyone interested in the visual novel medium. Maybe they’ll get to Fate/Stay Night next time. But it won’t look as good as this.