Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time is an Action RPG set in the Little Witch Academia universe for the PlayStation 4 and PC. It is developed by A+ Games and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment.
The game is an Interquel set between episodes 7 and 8 of the 2017 anime. Stuck with cleaning Luna Nova's library after getting in trouble once again, plucky teenage witch-in-training Atsuko "Akko" Kagari discovers a secret door leading to a place called the Holorogium Chamber. The next day, she realizes that unsealing the Holorogium Chamber caused the day to continuously repeat itself, so she and her friends Sucy, Lotte, Amanda, Constanze, and Jasminka, as well as her "rival", Diana must find a way to right the flow of time. In the meantime, they must also solve the Seven Wonders of Luna Nova, several mysteries surrounding the Chamber and the school at large.
There are two distinct game modes: adventure-style exploration, and an action mode where the characters explore the school's labyrinths.
The game was released in November 2017 in Japan and globally in May 2018.
Tropes:
- Ascended Extra:
- Molly was originally just a random student, seen in some scenes in the films. In Chamber of Time, not only is she fully-voiced she's also revealed to be the one behind the entire plot and serves as the game's Final Boss.
- Downplayed with the Luna Nova students. While they're still primarily extras, the game goes out of its way to flesh them out significantly compared to the series, giving them all distinct voices, names and personality traits.
- Bookcase Passage: The Horologium Chamber is accessed through a secret bookcase in Luna Nova's library, which was sealed up for hundreds of years until Akko accidentally undid it's seal thanks to a book that had the power to undo it, courtesy of Molly. It was ultimately sealed up again at the end by Ursula.
- Cel Shading: The game incorporates a cel-shaded aesthetic to stay faithful to the franchise's traditionally animated look.
- Checkpoint Starvation: The game has no autosaves, and your first save point is a whopping one hour into the game, after three separate time loops and one starter dungeon. And after that, you have to unlock every additional savepoint with a special one-time-use potion, and even then they're still far in between.
- Cool Key: Seven magical keys, earned after solving each anomaly, allow the characters to travel to different regions via the Horologium Chamber.
- Cute Ghost Girl: One of the Seven Wonders of Luna Nova. Which is revealed to be Molly.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: Despite Akko's canonical incompetence at spellcasting, in dungeons, she can reliably and accurately cast spells, including summoning the Shiny Arc at will. The Chamber of Time apparently makes it possible for her to cast spells reliably somehow. Outside of it, though, it's handwaved away by Akko using magical potions which enable her to perfectly cast spells for single-use, which only begs the question of why she hasn't used them before or since.
- Gameplay Roulette: The game has two distinct gameplay styles that it shifts between, the first one being an adventure-style/visual novel mix of sorts where Akko must explore Luna Nova to complete numerous objectives and progress the plot further and the other being a more combat oriented beat-em up where 3 characters must go through the various labyrinths to fight and defeat various monthers.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: Everyone is repeating the same day over and over, but no one else is aware, except Akko and her friends.
- Idle Animation: Akko will start yawning while staying idle for too long. The other playable characters also have their own unique idle animations in dungeons.
- Interquel: Set during summer vacation, between "Orange Submariner" and "Akko's Adventure in Sucyworld".
- Mythology Gag: Diana uses the same Storm of Blades spell which she tried to kill the minotaur within the first film. The other characters also have super skills that reference elements used in the series and the original films, such as Akko, Sucy, and Lotte's group special, Shiny Ballista, Constanze summoning the Grand Charion mecha for her personal super, and Lotte singing the same spirit lullaby from The Enchanted Parade, except much deadlier to the monsters around her. Akko and Diana's group special is also a shoutout to Teri Terio's manga, In which they used a giant fire spell like in the third chapter of the manga.
- Older Than They Look: Molly, who otherwise looks like another teenage student at Luna Nova, is later revealed to be around from the Golden Age of Magic, making her one of the oldest characters in the franchise.
- Recycled Soundtrack: While there are a few original tracks, most of the game's soundtrack consists of music from the short films and TV series.
- The Seven Mysteries: The Seven Wonders of Luna Nova, 7 mysterious characters, objects and/or events reported by Wangari. They're all a combination of the influence of the Magic Keys and mundane coincidences. They are, in order:
- A Creepy Doll in the courtyard, who's rumored to dance during the night. It's one of Sucy's experimentations.
- An UFO is seen flying in the night sky. It's actually a teacup possessed by a spirit.
- Disembodied hands in the greenhouse, reaching for nearby people's legs. There is no mundane explanation for this one, and it was apparently triggered by the Magic Key.
- A wet chair in the cafeteria. Yep. It was caused by the Barometer Ball in the rooftop malfunctioning and leaking through the cafeteria.
- An animated skeleton running on the playground at night. It's implied to be the result of Professor Lukiç bathing the skeleton in magical bath salts.
- A faceless Spooky Painting said to have glowing eyes at night, despite the fact that she doesn't have eyes. It's apparently a reflection of the night sky in the painting, but it could also be the magic key's doing.
- A ghost girl in the library. She's Molly, the Ghost Witch victim of the Curse of Time.
- Series Continuity Error: Constanze summons the Magic Knight Grand Charion as her special move, even though the Grand Charion wasn't even thought of at the time, as the game is placed in-between episodes 7 and 8, with the Grand Charion first being conceptualized and created in episode 18.
- Ship Tease: Hannah gets ahold of a picture of Amanda in her boy disguise, and falls heads over heels in love with "him". Even after Akko reveals that it's Amanda, Hannah insists on keeping the picture.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Akko and Diana have this dynamic in the game, as they are only working together because the circumstances force them to do so, which neither one are happy about, due to preferring to fix the time loop themselves. This unsurprisingly leads to the two constantly bickering and clashing throughout the game, including their special move, which has Akko become angry when Diana joins to do the spell with her.
- Took a Level in Badass: Akko gains a temporary one upon entering the dungeons, as she is able to use magic effectively and even utilize special spells. However this only applies to whenever she enters the dungeons as she is still incapable of magic outside of the dungeon, which she finds out the hard way after attempting to perform a spell after leaving the first dungeon. Oddly, the game never explains why this is the case, as it is quickly brushed aside after the first dungeon.
