This is the story of a witch's revenge...
The Witch's Night of Vengeance or Night of Revenge is a Souls-like RPG H-Game developed by D-lis, inspired by Bloodborne and starting development around 2015 and officially released on October 29, 2022.
100 years ago, demons have ravaged the world. Both the Witches and the Church have been trying to fend off the demons, but to no avail. However, one day, a heroine called the Witch of Thorns managed to turn the tide against them, culminating in the event known as the Devil's Fall, which saw the Witch of Thorns slay the leader of the demons. With their resolve strengthened, the Witches and the Church successfully repelled the demons.
But, a few years later, a combination of a famine and a demonic outbreak causes the Church to blame the Witches' rituals for causing both of them, resulting in a Witch Hunt and eventually escalating into war between the two factions, increasing poverty in various places. Many years have passed, yet even as the demons fell, the Church continues their hunt against the Witches.
One of the Witches, Aradia, sees her hometown razed by one of the Inquisitors, and her sister and father killed in front of her. Eventually seeking refuge in Parish Church, she is taken in by Vanessa, who trains her in weaponry. Eventually growing up, she responds to a bandit attack, seeking to purge the demons and take her revenge on the Church... but is there more to it than it seems?
This game provides examples of:
- Air-Dashing: Aradia can dodge mid-air, which is useful when crossing gaps and having to avoid an attack while above.
- Armor Is Useless: Most of the costume changes are cosmetic and won't change how much damage Aradia takes from enemies. On the other side of this trope, this is zig-zagged: More armored enemies tend to have higher HP compared to those without armor, but the ones surrounded with demonic corruption tend to be incredibly hard to kill compared to the others. With the exception of the Fallen Requiem Knight, most of the bosses don't have any armor.
- BFG: The Old Cannon, which fires a huge cannonball that flies straight and pierces enemies. It's stated to be a modified version that was previously used in the war against the demons, which could explain why Aradia herself can wield such a huge cannon in spite of her (seemingly) average frame.
- BFS: One category of weapons in the game are Greatswords, which are ginormous swords that are slow-swinging, but deal good amount of damage and scale equally with Strength and Dexterity.
- Bittersweet Ending: With high emphasis on the bitter, bordering near Downer Ending. By the end of the game, the Church has a suffered significant blow with their most powerful people, the Pope and High Inquisitor Candore being taken out of the picture. However, this included multiple innocent people and various Witches were hunted down as well, and the clone Aradia kills her original self and slices her own neck to prevent a Cycle of Revenge from happening, and there's no telling what will happen if another demonic outbreak happens, not to mention the state of the world hasn't changed that much.
- Bonus Stage: Two of them are hidden behind a sidequest and a Karma restriction:
- The Ranch, which is the headquarters of a Slave Market operation involving Human Traffickers. This is accessed by pursuing Suzune's sidequest and then infiltrating the area to rescue her.
- The Unknown Lake, a cave containing the secrets of the Witches' research on the Witch of Thorns, which can only be accessed by having 100 Karma.
- Boring, but Practical: Swords are perfectly balanced all-around, making them viable even for the end-game.
- Clothing Damage: Suffering a hit that knocks Aradia back or guard breaks will lead to her clothing being damaged. Sewing kits found can repair her clothing. The same can be said for various other female enemies found in the game.
- Corrupt Church: The Church has been shown to brutally raze villages if they suspect them to been harboring Witches or demons, and in some of the Game Over events, have been shown to throw women for the vagrants to ravage them if they're suspected of witchcraft, and the Pilgrims have been shown to partake in rape as well.
- Crapsack World: Needless to say, the world is not a good place to live on. Apart from the drastic amount of poverty, rape is commonplace around the areas, and demons run rampant throughout the world, and the war between the Witches and the Church have worsened things.
- Crippling Overspecialization: Giant weapons have immense base damage and scaling, but their slow swing speed means that the only way to take full advantage of their power is to use them in ripostes.
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!:
- When going into the game and upgrading your weapons, the player might notice that their weapons are stuck +2, and they need to find a material to upgrade it to +3. Truth is, unlike other souls-like games where the max upgrade level is +10, this game has the max weapon upgrade level at +3, meaning that the material needed upgrade it to +3 is only found at the final levels of the game, which can prove to be troublesome since the player can find materials to upgrade it to +2 much earlier in the game.
- The attack button isn't used to perform ripostes- the confirm button is. This can cause some issues with players who are wondering why they cannot perform a riposte with their attack button.
- Parrying isn't done by a single button, as it's done by doing a specific combination by holding the block button and then pressing up.
- Difficulty Levels:
- Easy, intended for players inexperienced in the Souls-like RPG genre as enemies are weaker.
- Normal, the standard difficulty level intended for experienced players.
- Hard, in which the standard Souls-like RPG mechanics and difficulty apply here, where enemies hit hard and you lose your Inspiration on death, and going back to the place where you have been defeated allows you to regain it back, but being defeated twice results in your Inspiration being gone for real.
- Very Hard, in which enemies hit much harder, and if you get defeated, you lose your Inspiration with no way of getting them back.
- Double Jump: Aradia can jump twice, which is highly unusual for a Souls-like RPG since they usually allow you to jump once.
- Dump Stat: Endurance, since Stamina only determines dodging and the amount of swing attacks performed, and a lot of weapons are significantly better with burst damage rather than multiple hits.
- Earn Your Bad Ending: The choice to join the original Aradia in her path of revenge against the demons, Witches and the Church requires Aradia to accumulate a significant amount of Karma by performing certain side quests and rescue rape victims. Should the requirement be met however, the game ends with the clone Aradia joining the original Aradia into continuing her revenge, with the ending CG having them Atop a Mountain of Corpses made from the bodies of various Church members, and the final shot has them glancing at the screen.
- Graying Morality: At first, it seems like a standard revenge story against the Corrupt Church, but as you delve deeper into the Story Breadcrumbs, it becomes much clear that the whole situation is a lot more complicated, eventually culminating into a major revelation: While the Church has indeed done some horrific things, as revealed by the original Aradia herself, while she sought help from the Witches, one of them tricked her into mass-producing clones of the Witch of Thorns by injecting her with the Witch of Thorns' cells, then mutilating her and forced her to be gang-raped so she could give birth to multiple Witches of Thorns, one of them being the clone Aradia the player is controlling. Eventually breaking free, she slaughtered everyone, including the children she was forced to give birth to, driving her mad and deeming that every single Witch, Demon and Church member must be killed for the sake of the world.
- Guide Dang It!: Perfect Blocking. It acts similar to blocking, except you press the block key right before you suffer a hit. The game never tells you about this, but this is important against enemies who utilize ranged attacks rather than melee attacks.
- Guns Are Worthless: Zig-zagged. Guns are initially useful in the early-game, and conservation of it is required to even survive some of the earlier bosses. However, in the late-game, while they don't deal as much damage compared to melee weapons, they're still useful for attacking multiple enemies at once, especially the Old Cannon.
- Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Inverted. Initially, magic builds have a great early game, especially with the basic fire spells being necessary against the Cleric Beast. However, magic drastically loses their potency at the Basilica, as the faster moveset of the enemies make it hard for spellcasters to keep up, while weapon builds have a better time thanks to their surprisingly high base damage or attack speed.
- Permanently Missable Content: The choice to accept the original Aradia's request to join her path of revenge is only available once, and cannot be accessed again unless you have a save file prior to the final battle.
- Shout-Out: Being a Souls-like RPG, the game has a few towards Dark Souls and Bloodborne.
- The Undead are very similar to the Hollow in Dark Souls.
- One of the bosses is similar to the Great Gray Wolf Sif. For extra points, you later find an boss similar to Knight Artorias.
- The Final Boss has a somber tune when fought. Though instead of an old man or an Eldritch Abomination, you're fighting against the original version of Aradia.
- Starter Gear Staying Power: The Witch's Sword is likely going to be your best weapon throughout the game, as its simplistic moveset and ease of use means that players can easily get adjusted to it. Justfied because the weapon was based on the Witch of Thorns' Sword, a Super Prototype that uses part of the Witch of Thorns' power.
- Wham Shot: As Aradia enters the White Cathedral, the pink-haired Senior Inquisitor decides to show the Pope how to kill Aradia... by sprouting various thorns to impale the other Senior Inquisitors standing near the Pope.
- Witch Hunt: The main plot involves the Church instigating a hunt against Witches due to blaming them for the rise of demonic outbreaks caused by their rituals.
