Anime has always lent itself particularly well to the JRPG form. There’s something about the typical shonen narrative of a protagonist slowly grinding their way from small-town nobody to world-beating juggernaut that meshes flawlessly with the hidden mathematics behind turn-based combat and inventory management. Slice-of-life anime often finds its way onto a handheld as a visual novel, too. While the result isn’t always pretty, there’s something logical in the transition from manga to television screen to console.
Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time does not manage that transition gracefully. It’s a game that is torn between a desire to be a traditional JRPG and a Dragon’s Crown-style side-scroller beat-em-up. Much like its characters, a group of adolescent witches at a school for magic, Chamber of Time has varying ideas about how it wants to be when it grows up. Also like a teenager, though, the game never makes up its mind, and the result is a frustrating, if not slightly endearing, mess.
Our Time Is Running Out
Well before the first hiccup in gameplay, though, the premise of Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time sets the stage for the game’s sloppy execution. I am passing familiar with the franchise, and the game actually does an excellent job of offering a refresher course in main character Akko’s option to reminisce about the major characters she meets during the journey. The characters have also been lovingly recreate...