The end of the world turned out to be overhyped. With the surface drained of life and the sky cracked open there was still underground to retreat to after the war between nature and industry. There were no winners, only survivors, but at least the four Knight Witches prevented disaster from being any worse than it already was. In the fourteen years since moving underground the various races have built up a cozy city, eking out a life that would be much nicer under open skies but is at least comfortable, and the situation has finally settled enough that they can hold a festival honoring the heroes who saved them. Rayne never got to be one of the heroes, though, being more an apprentice Knight Witch at the time, but when the peace finally breaks she's got to step up and start slinging her own magical bullets in the fantastically-illustrated shooter/metroidvania The Knight Witch.
The demo for The Knight Witch landed today and it's showing off an adventure that sets the metroidvania action in its own well thought-out world. Rayne is a hero with two aspects, knight and witch, and her abilities start out equally divided between shooting and magic. Shooting is as simple as pointing and holding the right bumper, or not even pointing if you don't mind the weaker power of the auto-aim bullets. Magic is earned by shooting enemies, and they've got a fairly good drop rate on the orbs that power Rayne's spells. The magic system is built around the idea of a deck, with each card being a spell you can use as many times as you like so long as you've got the magic orbs to power it. You get a choice of three spells at a time, randomly selected from the ones you chose for the seven card (at least it's seven as far as the demo goes) deck, and if you've got a favorite you can have it take up as many spaces as you'd like so that the odds of drawing it are greater. When one spell is cast the next set of three instantly replace the current selection, and as long as you've got the orbs you can cast them as quickly as you'd like.
The other fun wrinkle in The Knight Witch's progression is the level-up system, which doesn't rely on experience but rather people trusting you. In the demo this is done by rescuing the cages townsfolk, found by exploring the maze and checking for secrets, but the full game will also have character interactions where you'll need to balance the desire for power against the need to be honest because not everyone is going to want to hear what you should be telling them. The demo only goes up to Rayne's first major boss, though, so seeing how that plays out is something for later on.
The Knight Witch demo is instantly likeable, but that doesn't mean it's going to go easy on the bullets. Enemies are quite happy to spread the firepower around and the two bosses will probably take a couple of tries apiece to get past. The shooting feels good too, with Rayne's bullets packing a punch and enemies exploding into satisfying piles of scrap. The encounters are designed to take full advantage of the fact that Rayne flies rather than walks, with the action being a fusion of free-roaming horizontal and twin-stick shooting. The whole package makes for a great evening's gaming, thanks to the combination of shooter, metroidvania, and a hugely endearing comic book art style. The demo is freely available on Steam and easily worth checking out, or at least give the old announcement trailer a view to see it in action.
https://www.anrdoezrs.net/links/3607085/type/dlg/sid/UUhgUeUpU8963/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3Vlsabc1PM