You bet your ass she'll do something nasty to you.
The Witch and the Hundred Knight is an Action RPG by Nippon Ichi (more specifically, the team behind Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero?) for the PlayStation 3. It is also Nippon Ichi's first true Video Game 3D Leap.
Deep within the forest, there live two witches: the Swamp Witch and the Forest Witch. The two are engaged in a deadly war for supremacy, which has lasted for over 100 years. One day, the Swamp Witch, Metallia, summons the mighty Hundred Knight, a mythical demon of untold power, in hopes of gaining the upper hand against her rival. She binds the Hundred Knight to her will, with her goal to defeat the Forest Witch and turn the world into a giant swampland. With a hundred days to spare before she perishes, Metallia commands the Hundred Knight to expand her swamp dominion over the world.
In the game, the player takes control of the Hundred Knight. The game is played from a top-down perspective and battles are fought in hack-and-slash style with some Roguelike elements mixed in.
An Updated Re-release called Revival Edition was released for the PlayStation 4 in 2016 with updated graphics, an improved frame rate and a new dungeon; the Tower of Illusions, which allows the player to take control of Metallia (or rather an alternate version of her, known as Lia).
A sequel, The Witch And The Hundred Knight 2 was released in February 23, 2017 in Japan and March 2018 for the west.
This game provides examples of:
- Aborted Arc: Metallia's 100 days to live. The timer drops at the end of every chapter, but what it means is never fully explained, nor is any attention called to it outside of when its first mentioned. And Metallia's actual "death" in the True Ending and sacrifice in the Bad Ending take place long after this timer has supposedly hit zero even then she still appears later in the Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk which takes place after the game as the Dark Wanderer.
- All There in the Manual: A large portion of Metallia's back story is revealed through optional conversations with characters around the house.
- Alternate Self: A few for Metallia are shown. These include a Delinquent at a Wizarding School, a bratty but lonely ill girl, and Torude, who is an Older and Wiser Metallia. Revival Edition also adds Lia, an alternate universe version of Metallia whom you can play as inside the Tower of Illusions.
- Alternate Universe:
- There are many of them out there and Niike's job is to stop them from getting too numerous.
- The Tower of Illusions side-story in Revival Edition takes place in one of these.
- Anti-Frustration Features: In the original release, players were given only a single weapon set. Because the game encourages taking advantage of an enemy's weakness, this led players to constantly pause the action to get the proper weapons ready in the menunote . Revival added two more weapon sets that could be swapped during the heat of battle.
- Anyone Can Die: Given how Darker and Edgier the game is, Metallia will be mowing through many of the characters throughout the game.
- Awesome, but Impractical: You can spend AP on making slightly stronger attacks that bosses still reduce to nearly nothing... or you can use them on Mystical Dodges and use normal attacks while their guard is down and you can actually hurt them.
- Status effect and Spread type staves are the only true ranged attacks at your disposal, but more often than not bosses are very resistant to magic type damage and ranged staves can't do AoE damage for clearing the small fry.
- Spears, particularly at higher levels. While they have a wide attack range and hit multiple times, each individual hit deals less damage than a single hit from any other weapon class, and due to the way damage is calculated, it's possible for end game spears to deal no damage at all against bulkier foes.
- Beef Gate: Occasionally you run into guardians with ridiculous base defenses who are only vulnerable to blunt damage; if you haven't been grinding in the current chapter, you're outta luck until you find a level-appropriate hammer.
- Black-and-Grey Morality: With the exception of Visco, pretty much everyone is guilty of some rather cruel or selfish actions, and while Metallia is by no means a Saint, she's got nothing on the actual antagonists.
- Bonus Dungeon: The Tower of Illusions in Revival Edition.
- Bowdlerise: Subverted. You would think the censored swearing was NISA's work (Which itself would have been strange as they had games with heavy uncensored swearing before), but it's actually the work of NIS as much of the swearing was already censored in Japanese.
- Breather Episode: Chapter 7, which focuses on the antics of Lucchini and Hundred Knight while Metallia takes a break from her usual witchery.
- Broken Pedestal: In Chapter 13 Metallia finds the Old Hag, AKA Uruka... and finds out that her hero was a straight up Knight Templar and wants her to go back to the swamp and then to replace her in maintaining Niike's seal. This may also apply to Malia, who also opposes Uruka's plans for Metallia.
- Bubblegloop Swamp: Metallia lives in one and it is not a welcoming place. Just the stench alone is enough to incapacitate or even kill the weak.
- Brutal Bonus Level: Two of them.
- Chapters 12 in its entirety. It can only be accessed as part of the Bad Ending, requires you to fight at least ten different bosses, sometimes back to back and every enemy in every stage has its level kicked up between 63-68, with their stats boosted even higher than that, when you normally finish the game around level 55 or so.
- The Martial Snowfield, unlocked for 333 Anima at Metallia's Bucket List during the Epilogue, is a gigantic snowfield full of level 78 enemies that deal upwards of 5000 damage on every attack and have higher health and defense than some bosses.
- The Cavalry: The Hundred Knight can summon tochkas; some will help you distract enemies, others will attack them directly, and others are entirely there for utility.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- Those seemingly random cut scenes and the small village visited during the tutorial level? Yeah, they come back later.
- Also, Lia's doll, the Green Seed and, interestingly, your own name.
- Chekhov's Gunman: The old hag, Belda and Totopepe. The last two are villains with seemingly innocent first impressions and the old hag is actually the Great Witch Uruka.
- Clothes Make the Superman: The helmet Metallia gives to the Hundred Knight when she first summons it are what give it its starting facet, Wonder Knight.
- Company Cross References: Metallia says that Hundred Knight in the temporary world will essentially be known as the "Dark Hero" and claims that she did not steal it from anywhere after a conversation with one of lamptrees.note
- Continuing is Painful: Being defeated means you lose 50 Gcals and 10% of the items currently in your stomach. Being defeated when you have 0 Gcals forces you to return to the swamp, reduces the experience you would have otherwise earned by half, and makes you lose all the items in your stomach at the time.
- Cool Train: The Night Train, which is also part Chimera.
- Cosmic Retcon: Metallia and Hundred Knight cause one by drawing on the power of the various destroyed alternate universes, reviving everyone killed during the Witch Hunt and Totopepe's coup in the True Ending, as well as causing everyone to mend their broken relationships.
- Crapsack World: With few exceptions, if there's something in this world that isn't trying to kill you, it's trying to make you suffer.
- Cruel Mercy: Metallia dishes this out a lot.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Belda and the Inquisitors feel very confident with the Hexen Byuphen by their side, especially after they are able to execute Nezaria. Then, Nezaria crashes Metallia's execution and shows them just how utterly wrong they are.
- Darker and Edgier: Oh, so much. The game is generally more dark in tone than the Disgaea series and is comparable to Soul Nomad in terms of some of the situations and sheer levels of nastiness that some of the members of the cast operate at, along with its twisted fairytale fantasy setting and blood being visible.
- DogGirl: Visco ala Forced Transformation. Then there's Liffey, who is a cow girl.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: In the Bad Ending, Hundred Knight kills Niike, the dimension-eating god-beast that not even Uruka and an entire army of Witches could defeat.
- Deuteragonist: While the Hundred Knight is the main playable character, Metallia is the real protagonist.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": Metallia hates it when anyone calls her Lia.
- Dramatic Irony:
- When Visco meets Metallia, she mistakes her for Malia, and says that it's a good thing they found her (Malia) before the Swamp Witch (Metallia) did. The irony is in the fact that Metallia did find Malia first, and we all know where that went...
- Another case comes during the Bad Ending. Metallia creates an alternate universe and then has the Hundred Knight destroy it so she can make things better in her own universe. Specifically, she's trying to revive Visco - and she manages to bring back or improve the lives of everyone except her.
- The Dreaded: Dark Witches, which usually elicit an Oh, Crap! from everyone present.
- Dub Name Change: To most likely prevent legal issues with the band of the same name, NISA changed Metallica's name to "Metallia".
- Earn Your Happy Ending: And boy, do the cast have to work for it.
- Exact Words: After defeating Valentine, Metallia promises Visco she won't do anything cruel to her. Which is why she tells the Korigon that Valentine has lost all her magic. With Valentine weakened, the Korigon are free from her rule and they celebrate their freedom by turning on her.
- Expecting Someone Taller: Literally. Metallia isn't exactly thrilled when it turns out the Hundred Knight is barely two feet tall.
- Expy: The Hundred Knight bears a striking resemble to Prinnies. It even has a fanny pack!
- The mini knights also look similar to the Patapons.
- Take away General Jilden's beard and color his mustache brown and what do you get? Certainly not General Carter, that's for sure.
- Extreme Omnivore: The Hundred Knight, who, in addition to devouring wounded enemies, swallows items he finds and stores them in his stomach.
- Foreshadowing:
- At the Walpurgisnacht, a vote is made to decide if Metallia should be considered an official witch. When Visco states she votes in Metallia's favor, the Fog Witch Nezaria counts it as a credible vote. One would ordinarily think she's simply being a Reasonable Authority Figure open to input from non-witches, but in the later chapters, we learn that Visco is in fact the daughter of the Sun Witch, and Nezaria considered her a fellow witch casting her vote.
- During Chapter 4, Metallia suddenly gets stomach cramps and vomiting, making Visco wonder if she was pregnant which she vehemently denies calling herself a virgin. Later on, it's revealed that a version of her, the Sun Witch, did get pregnant and gave birth to Visco.
- Gender-Blender Name: Lana Nia Lucchini is, in fact, a he. Meanwhile, his mother is named Rito.
- Gentle Giant: Arlecchino.
- Glass Cannon: The Noble Raptor facet, which increases Critical Hit chance by 30%, increases the power of AP attacks by 50% and has high proficiency with every weapon type except Staves, but reduces all your damage resistances by a flat 50% and reduces stats from armor by 20%.
- God Is Evil: He's a timeless, dimension-traveling Eldritch Abomination that exists solely to annihilate the countless alternate universes that come into existence every second.
- Golden Ending: As in most Nippon Ichi titles, the game has a Bad, Normal and True Ending. There's a catch, though... The True Ending is just the in-game prophecized ending, and would be the bad ending in any other Nippon Ichi game - some players have accused them of deliberately mistitling the endings because of this. The Bad Ending is where things actually turn out well for everyone, because Metallia gets to play Dark Hero and destroy her own alternate reality to fix everything.
- Great Big Book of Everything: The Witch Doctrine, written by Great Witch Uruka, which contains all the rules, guidelines, and etiquette Witches should follow.
- Guide Dang It!:
- The game has a bad habit of this whenever no objective markers are present, but the conditions to get the Golden Ending are easily the worst offender, involving hunting down and defeating the 3 dark witches encountered earlier in the game to unlock the last two chapters and the True Final Boss.
- At one point you need to hit a switch on the opposite side of a wall. Unless you've been using the arrow tochka in battle and noticed that they home in on your locked target, you'd never know you're supposed to fire one at an angle and lock on to arc it back toward the switch once it clears the obstacle.
- The Heartless:
- Dark Witches, Witches whose souls have been overwhelmed by dark magic and transformed into mindless, bestial killing machines. The Witch Doctrine goes so far as to outlaw Witches from interacting with them, lest they become corrupted as well.
- To a lesser extent, Witch Soldiers, soulless magical constructs created by a Witch to fight. When their creator dies or abandons them, they become extremely violent towards other Witches and their familiars/creations.
- High School AU: At the beginning of chapter 12, the Hundred Knight ends up in an Alternate Universe where Metallia is a delinquent at a Wizarding School (with Nezaria as an honor student and Malia as one of the professors). His stay is brief as the Metallia from the main universe pulls him out.
- Infinity +1 Sword:
- The Omega weapons. There's one of each weapon class, and they become available towards the end of the game. While Legendary rank 12 weapons still beat them out for raw numerical damage, they provide a different damage type, which is crucial for defeating enemies with higher defense.
- The Hundred Demon Blade, the best slash sword, is obtained by raiding Metallia's house, which requires three level 80 facets to even attempt.
- The Heavy Metal Demon, the best impact damage hammer, is purchased from Metallia's Bucket List for 144 Anima and doesn't become available until completing Chapter 12 and starting the Epilogue.
- The Proof of Royalty, the best slash lance, is found in a Black Chest behind a false wall in the Sealed Prison during the Epilogue.
- On the armor side of things, the White Rose Dress, obtained by using the Captel tochka on a Rose Saqua in the Martial Snowfield. Second highest raw armor in the game, and 15% resistance to every damage type, and 80% resistance to every status ailment.
- Infinity -1 Sword:
- While the Omega Spear, Sword and Hammer and incredibly powerful, the Omega Staff and Spear are...lacking.
- Starry Storm, the best slash spear, is found in a Black Chest in the Martial Snowfield. However, it is the same damage type as the standard rank 12 spear, and suffers from the same low damage output as any other spear.
- Nora's Torch, the best Staff, is purchased for free from a shop in the Martial Snowfield. Unfortunately, it's attack power is obscenely low compared to other end game weapons, and it launches three fire balls, so it runs into the same issue as other multi-hit weapons.
- The Hundred Demon Mirror, found in the Sealed Land, provides the highest numerical defense in the game but has pitifully low resistances.
- Improbably Female Cast: With the exception of the Hundred Knight, Arlecchino, and Lana, the entire cast is female, though it's fitting, since the game is centered around witches.
- In-Series Nickname: When the Hundred Knight gives Metallia his name, Metallia decides to completely ignore it and just call him "Hundred Knight" (Or "Hyakkihei" in Japanese).
- Jack of All Stats: The Wonder Knight facet, which you begin the game with. It has standard proficiency with all weapon types, gains full benefits from all types of armor, reduces the number of Gcals lost on death and reduces the cooldown of your Tochka skills.
- Limit Break:
- Chaos Awakening, which greatly improves your stats but drains your G Cals at a rapid pace.
- Revival Edition gives you the ability to temporarily play as Lia within the game's new dungeon, the Tower of Illusions.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: Invoked by Malia on the first fight, but Metallia isn't fazed. Also implied in the Bad ending that future Metallia is Visco's mother.
- The Magocracy: The world of Medea is essentially run by the witches.
- Manga Adaptation: ...which actually started even though the game was stuck in
Development Hell for several years. - Mighty Glacier: The Power Fortress facet, which improves your guard and damage resistances to Slash and Blunt, but makes you incredibly vulnerable to Magic. Although the Facet itself doesn't reduce your speed, it specializes in Hammers, which are the slowest weapon class.
- Mr. Exposition: The lamptrees that wander around Metallia's swamp serve no purpose besides providing the player with background information.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: THE GAME. Nothing good ever happens from Metallia acting nice to another person, she'll either be betrayed or it will backfire horribly.
- Not Completely Useless: You can poison enemies and wait a few years for them to die... or you can just go ahead and keep hitting them. Redeemed when you run into the Undead, who are invulnerable to everything except poison damage.
- One-Man Army: What the Hundred Knight was thought to be. Subverted when it turns out he's a two foot tall black blob in humanoid form. Double Subverted over the course of the gameplay, where it becomes clear that the Hundred Knight really is as badass as the legends said he was.
- Optional Boss:
- It's possible to find and properly fight the various Dark Witches you encounter in chapters 4, 9 and 10, and is required to unlock Chapters 12 and 13.
- Every boss in Chapters 12 and 13. Some of which were The Unfought in the story proper while others (mainly Totopepe, Purple Peel, and Malia) are rematches, and some are new opponents and thus Walking Spoilers (Dulche Valentine and especially Niike).
- Permanently Missable Content: Once Lana joins your party, you can no longer go back to his village because of how Lana tells you that his people decided to shut themselves from the world for the rest of their lives. This means any item you failed to get during the first visit will be gone. Fitting given how Lana killed everyone in the village.
- Pre-Ending Credits: Inverted, the game rolls the credits after the end of each chapter.
- Press X to Not Die: QTE, which stands for Quick Time Eat.
- Punny Name: GIGA-cal -> Calories
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: The Hundred Knight. The Korigon also qualify.
- Screw Destiny: Lucchini believes that no one can stop the end of the world and Uruka wants Metallia to fulfill her destiny in purifying the swamp. Metallia believes otherwise.
- Shout-Out:
- Shrouded in Myth: According to legend, the Hundred Knight is several stories tall, has the appearance of a burning phoenix, has multiple arms carrying enchanted weapons, thirteen all-seeing eyes, a legion of 100 soldiers at its command, can create storms with its wings, cause earthquakes with its voice alone, and has the ability to shoot liquid fire from its face and crotch. None of these are even remotely accurate. And then you come face to face with Niike, the real deal, and it turns out that most of these descriptions are more or less true for both of his forms.
- Sick Episode: Chapter 4, in which Metallia contracts a dangerous illness and is bedridden with stomach cramps and vomiting.
- Sound-Effect Bleep: Heavy cursing is censored with a bleep. This is present in both the Japanese and English versions.
- Squishy Wizard: The Trick Screamer facet, which specializes in Staves, improves your Tochka skills and Mystic Dodge and allows you to charm enemies into helping you, but has significantly lower defense.
- Stripperific: ...Metallia demonstrates this for us.
◊ - Summon Magic: The Tochka skills, which allow Hundred Knight to summon allies in a variety of different forms.
- Talking to Themself:
- Lavi holds conversations with and takes advice from her completely ordinary stuffed bunny, providing its voice herself.
- And is subverted with Nezaria, who prefers to address others formally through her magic talking staff.
- Take Your Time: Despite Metallia only having 100 days to live, you're free to take as much time as you like in grinding and exploring, as time only passes during specific story events.
- Updated Re-release: Revival Edition, featuring updated graphics and a new side-story centered around a new dungeon, the Tower of Illusions.
- Video Game 3D Leap: This is Nippon Ichi's first fully 3D video game, and also their first Action RPG.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: The Hundred Knight is free to ransack people's houses and steal their stuff. [[ Video Game Cruelty Punishment Though doing it too much]] will make villagers attack you on sight, and shops will charge exorbitant prices for their goods.
- Virgin Power: Played with. In-universe, it's a commonly accepted belief that one must be a virgin in order to become a Witch. According to Great Witch Uruka, this is a load of nonsense, but she still advises Witches to remain celibate and the sheer number of problems caused by witches who fall in love over the course of the story certainly proves her correct in that respect.Uruka: Only disaster will come from a Witch lying with a man.
- Wham Episode: Chapter 10. During Amataya Kingdom's anniversary ball, Metallia and Visco get into a fight when Metallia's antidote fails to lift Visco's curse. Heintz, Belda, and Totopepe then murder Sabina and use her corpse to frame Metallia of trying to undermine the kingdom, getting her arrested and set to be executed while launching a massive witch hunt that nearly eradicates the Great Witches.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: In chapter 12, Metallia tells Hundred Knight to build up its karma and destroy the world. Said world is a temporary one created by Metallia using fragments of other destroyed worlds and tells the Hundred Knight not to feel bad for whatever damage it causes.
- With Friends Like These...: Some of Metallia's friends are Vitriolic Best Buds (Visco and Arelechino) at best, others are traitors and Big Bad Friends (Luchhini and Mani) at worst.
- You Are Worth Hell: Hundred Knight for Metallia and Metallia for Visco in the Bad Ending. After having his contract revoked and his name restored, Hundred Knight still chooses to delve into the Sealed Land to save Metallia, and despite fixing nearly every problem in the world and earning her freedom from the swamp, Metallia would rather sacrifice herself than live in a world without Visco.
- Your Soul Is Mine!: When enemies die, there is a chance they will drop Anima, which Metallia describes as "the crystallized form of a living creature's soul". Hundred Knight can collect these and give them to Metallia in exchange for certain rewards.
