My Aunt is a Witch Review

My Aunt is a Witch is an intriguing visual novel with minor issues. The story is very simple but becomes more complex the further we dive into the mysterious wizarding world that this game is. Our main character’s name is Thomas Mayer and his journey starts when he’s sent to visit his aunt. Thomas’ living situation is rough with his father being obsessed with his evil stepmother, Sophia, and keeping her happy. He lost his mother at a young age and is currently 12. When we arrive to meet Aunt Alice, we discover she has an ex-boyfriend who has been turned into a cat, Grimmor.

Of course, he can talk and is also wanting to steal cookies. Shortly after meeting the two, Thomas gets a tour of Alice’s house which is filled with dangerous charmed items and creatures. The player discover that she used to be a teacher, but lost the respect of her peers by losing so many of her own students’ lives. Their skulls are scattered throughout the game and can be found for extra details on each death. Thomas is willing to help Alice earn her license to teach back and begins by learning potions even though he has zero magical ability.

The gameplay is a visual novel with images and text pop ups. The occasional choice will pop up and typically revolve around either dying or being a diligent student. There aren’t any real choices one can take to change the story as it develops, with it being more scripted and linear. There are uniquely moments where the game does break the Visual novel genre and becomes a Point and Click Adventure to locate ingredients to brew a potion. This happens a couple of times during the story and helps the player explore Alice’s home, which is roughly 10 rooms large.

Using the Left trigger will allow the player to see all the items that can be interacted with, so it’s a matter of reading the text and piecing together the easy puzzles. We also have the left bumper which brings up the notebook filled with helpful information to solving or finding some items. When we have all of the ingredients to make a potion, then we must finish a brief minigame to put each ingredient in correctly. This minigame is rather simple and just involves mashing directional prompts in a short amount of time using the D-pad.

My Aunt is a Witch does a great job at creating a world with an intriguing story, but its more of a short novel read. If you were to read every text box, the game would roughly take 4 hours to get through. That’s a lot of text! There are also more typos the further we go, leading to a feeling of a lack of time (or effort) spent on this area.

 The ability to save and load is almost available all the time except for unique story related moments where Thomas ends a section. The settings in the game allow us to change the language between Russian and English. We can also adjust text speed, sound and music levels but nothing else. 

 My Aunt is a Witch plays out like more of a children’s story filled. There are a large variety of characters, and the cast really grows by the end. There isn’t any dialogue to be heard in the game, just music that loops until you advance to the next section and simple sound effects during moments of action. Fortunately, the music isn’t annoying and adds to the youthful sound of the game.

The story is interesting, but it has many similarities to Harry Potter. I’m sure the book series had some inspiration in making this game; there is even an Easter egg mentioning Harry’s invisibility cloak when interacting with an item in the attic. The graphics of this game, being a visual novel, are still impressive. The colorful animated drawings really help bring the story to life and there is an abundance of different drawings that add to the world of the game. Easter eggs are also hidden in them which can be nice to spot when reading the text for that area. After finishing the story, I went to the Main Menu and you can read all about the characters and look at all the art you saw playing through the game in the gallery.

The longevity for this game isn’t very high. I only see myself playing this game once and maybe once more when the sequel releases just to refresh my memory. It’s a one playthrough affair and most of the game is text pop ups with little point and clicking going on. If you really wanted to blitz through this game and earn all achievements provided, it probably would take one to two hours with a guide. The story for My Aunt is a Witch is a fun one if you’re into the science fiction fantasy stories. There is a large set up for our characters and we learn some truths that complicate Thomas’ life.

Conclusion

If you’re into reading about a fun adventure in the wizarding world with colorful animated art, then this game might be for you. I personally didn’t like how abrupt the end of the story was and that also contributed to the rushed feeling I experienced while playing this game. I also feel like the text scenes were very long and the game didn’t provide enough choices and following consequences other than moments where Thomas can die like Alice’s past students. If you played the game once then you have experienced everything except for a couple Forest scenes late in the game that are optional. The further I played, the more I felt the game was coming to a conclusion faster and faster. The end game events really fly by quickly compared to the first half of the game exploring Alice’s home and making potions.  However, I’m looking forward to the sequel if there is one in production by Graven Visual Novels as this was a fun story to read.

This game was reviewed based on Xbox One review code, using an Xbox One console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.