YMMV / The Witch and the Hundred Knight

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Lucchini. Horrible monster who happily slaughtered hundreds of innocents and viciously betrayed everyone who ever cared about him in order to support his psychotic father's insane grab for power? Or a tragic hero who did everything in his power to make sure Metallia was in the right place to avert the apocalypse, even if it meant destroying everything that was precious to him? There's evidence to support both views.
• Angst? What Angst?: Lucchini is disowned by his mother and exiled from his village shortly after Metallia meets him. It doesn't seem to bother him in the slightest. Then you learn that he wasn't exiled at all—he slaughtered everyone in the village to make the Bell Plant bloom. When Totopepe later calls him the "pride of the village", Lucchini shows a proper amount of anger at him over it, given that he killed them all for an item that ended up being used as part of a practical joke.
• Base-Breaking Character: The enjoyment of the game overall greatly hinges on your opinion of Metallia. Some find her abrasive personality and foul mouth annoying and have a hard time looking past her...unsavory actions (see Broken Base below). Other players enjoyed Metallia's character development from a Jerkass to a Jerk with a Heart of Gold and grew to understand her transgressions after learning about the tragic, less visible aspects of her character.
• Breather Boss: The Hexen Byuphen, a palette swap of the Guardian Golem, which in-story is absolutely terrifying and dangerous, is actually less unpleasant than normal Golem-type enemies, as it is exactly as slow and predictable but unlike the Mook equivalent is not immune to Slash damage. Sure it takes forever to kill, but you'll be in no danger throughout. His magic fireballs even provide a wonderful opportunity to activate some Mystic Dodges.
• Broken Base: Almost everyone agrees the scene in which Metallia summons a bunch of horny mice to rape the transformed Malia was horrible. Whether or not it ruined Metallia as a character or even the entire game is another story.
• Complete Monster: Totopepe is a power-hungry beastman posing as an unassuming human squire. Seeking influence over the kingdom, he and his cohorts demonize and then persecute witches, Totopepe himself killing an innocent witch to spark the genocide. Capturing Metallia, Totopepe tortures her for days, smiling and giggling the entire time. When his initial plan fails, Totopepe unleashes his giant beastman form and violently conquers the castle with his son's aid, slaughtering all in their path. Wishing to have a "royal heir", Totopepe rapes one of the princesses to death, before killing her sister and carrying the latter's body in a sack on his back to remember how much he enjoyed her murder.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • Reaper type enemies, which move and attack extremely fast, deal high damage, are heavily resistant or immune to Slash and Blunt damage, are very resistant to hit stun, give almost no Gcals when eaten and are very persistent. Fortunately, they tend to have very low health.
  • Special mention goes to the "Dolly Gaze" reapers encountered in chapter 9, which deal more damage than some bosses and have very large health pools. It also doesn't help that it appears in the same area as the "Dolly Maze" enemy, which looks nearly identical (in name and design), is much more numerous and is infinitely weaker than the "Dolly Gaze", thus making you run away from both until you realize that there's a difference.
  • Bellneat Witch Soldiers. Surprisingly durable and like to cast a very damaging shield spell whenever you get close enough to attack and while their other attack is easy to see, they can use it from both afar (even off screen or across a pit) or even on a different elevation, ensuring you can't retaliate. This is especially annoying when they start coming in groups, potentially forcing you to juggle between both of their attacks.
  • The Undead, a palette swap of the already annoying charging soldiers from the Castle Courtyard, who have that same annoying charge attack and are completely immune to slash, blunt, and magic (but not poison) damage.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Metallia can be considered this, since she, just like Liliel, managed to rank in the top 50 fan-favourite (female) characters poll even though the game she's in hadn't even come out (And in the top 20 no less). Notably, both her and Liliel are DLC characters in Disgaea Dimension 2. The Hundred Knight ended up ranking as well, beating out characters such as The Unlosing Ranger and even King Krichevskoy.
  • Visco. Being probably one of the few unambiguously good characters in the game and being the catalyst for Metallia's development from Jerkass to Jerk with a Heart of Gold definitely helps.
• Fridge Brilliance:
  • Why is the True Ending, an ending that would be considered the bad ending in any other game, called the True Ending? Because it's the true fate of everything in the game as predicted by Lucchini.
  • Alternatively, the endings are named correctly, but from the perspective of the actual Witch (Mani/Aguni) and Hundred Knight (Niike). In the Normal and True Ending, they are left alone and will eventually be together again, but in the Bad Ending, they are killed.
• Genius Bonus: At one point, a fairy complains that this is 'the complete opposite of a tragedy'. And, the opposite of a tragedy? Is a comedy!
• Goddamn Bats: Fairy type enemies, who like to harass you from a distance with deceptively large delayed explosions and use a difficult-to-dodge area of effect when you get in close.
• Harsher in Hindsight: After the Hundred Knight scares away a bunch of kids trying to bully Mitten, Lucchini thanks the Hundred Knight and says "If I went all-out, I might have killed those kids." Considering that we later learn he killed everyone in his village to join Metallia and joined Totopepe in massacring all of Amataya Kingdom, he probably would have.
• Les Yay: It's hard to deny that Metallia and Visco's relationship goes beyond just friendship. Both have monologues about how much they have grown to truly care about each other and have gone through a lot for the sake of each other (Visco betrays her fellow Inquisitors and her kingdom to protect Metallia as well as give up her chance to be cured of her curse to ensure that Metallia will live and Metallia goes through great lengths to revive Visco after she's killed). However, a few characters actually ask Metallia if her affection for Visco is romantic, and she outright says that she's "not into that sort of thing" and even gets a bit angry at the implication. Among the characters to imply such a relationship is another Metallia. Metallia's failure to listen to her over this is part of what ruins her attempt to revive Visco.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • The Fog Witch, Nezaria Netherland is the leader of the Great Witches of Walpurgis, revered for her exploits and boundless experience. As one of the oldest witches, Nezaria witnessed Niike nearly destroy her world, fighting and sealing him. Aware Niike will return, Nezaria plans on using Metallia and the Hundred Knight since they share power, orchestrating their journey to empower them and guiding them to the foreseen path of Niike's demise, regardless of sacrifices, from the witches and Visco to motivate Metallia. With everything set, Nezaria challenges the two to test them before showing them Niike and entrusting them to do what she failed, returning to the sides to see the newly reform world the two made after Niike's final demise.
  • The Swamp Fairy, Mani—previously known as the witch, Aguni—was used as a hostage so that the witches could kill her lover, the Eldritch Abomination Niike, millennia before the present time, before taking her own life and being reborn. Manipulating Metallia and a sentient piece of Niike, the Hundred Knight, Mani sees to it the duo destroy the pillars sealing Niike's power to resurrect her beloved and together destroy the world they despise. Killing Grand Witch Uruka to stop interference with her plans, Mani comes moments from completing her goal and even with Niike slain, chooses to fight until the bitter end.
• Moe:
  • Visco, who remains sweet and forgiving even to those who are downright mean to her.
  • Mitten, the Buridango Princess, looks more like a kid in a bug costume than a giant cockroach and is easily one of the most adorable and lovable characters you meet.
• Moral Event Horizon: Heintz aided in Belda's plans because he wanted to marry into royalty and become king in a move that would him seem like an Expy of Hans^note Even though it's unlikely that NIS has heard of that movie by the time the game was released and went along with killing Visco, who was implied to be his first fiance before the curse forced him to move onto her sister. He later sends Belda off to face the heroes alone while he and his father escape.
  • There's also the possible case of Lana Nia Lucchini. His MEH was revealed right at the ending, where it is revealed that not only did he massacre everyone in the castle, including one of his friends, he did it to help his father, Totopepe, in a coup. Oh, and way earlier in the story, he massacred his village to get the Bell Plant to Metallia (let it be known that Metallia didn't even know that at the time). To sum up, he betrayed his mother, his village, his friends, and his master to help his psycho father take the throne.
  • Completely unambiguous is Totopepe, who first crossed the MEH when he killed Sabina and used her corpse to frame Metallia, then spent the next few weeks brutally torturing Metallia for fun. He then runs a full marathon past it by exploiting Lucchini's powers for his own gain, killing everyone in Amataya Castle, raping Visco's sister Hilda, and carrying Visco's body around on his back purely to taunt Metallia.
• Never Live It Down: Infamously, at the end of the player's first adventure, Metallia turns Malia, her sort-of mother, into a mouse, then, when irritated by her, summons a bunch of horny rats and throws poor Malia into their midst. For many gamers, this marks the point at which they no longer care very much how tragic Metallia is or how she develops as a character; they've learned all they care to in that moment and they leave it at that.
• Polished Port: The PS4 Updated Re-release, Revival, fixes many of the problems of the original release, including the removal of the Game-Breaking Bug that kicked players to the Home screen, fixed the wonky frame rate to be much smoother during most encounters, and fixed the armor and accessories to make use of their experience meters. The addition of alchemy, which allows players to MinMax their weapons and armor not unlike Nippon Ichi's SRPGs, a new campaign and a new dungeon called the Tower of Illusions, and other quality of life changes like the ability to swap weapon sets on the fly make this the definitive version of The Witch and the Hundred Knight. The only major loss is that much of the extra voiced dialogue in the Japanese track from the Japanese release is missing, including the voiced dialogue from the Tower of Illusions.
• Obvious Beta: Perhaps due to schedule constraints and having to cut back on certain features they had planned, many aspects of the game feel unpolished or outright incomplete.
  • Armor and accessories have a level indicator and experience meter, but do not level up or gain experience. This is thankfully fixed in Revival.
  • Several levels suffer from very poor design (Pillars nonsensically close together in some areas and then ridiculously far apart in others, large areas of space with no enemies or items, etc.).
  • Mechanics like dodging, hit stun, Facet skills, Tochka skills, and NPC behavior are clunky and feel tacked on.
  • Character models have very limited animation and are of somewhat low quality. While this is Nippon Ichi's first full Video Game 3D Leap, some of their Sprite/Polygon Mix games have better quality 3D models.
  • Some of the 2D character portraits lack mouth-flaps for when a character is talking. This is most notable with Visco and whenever Metallia does her bent-over 'angry' pose.
  • Many bosses have very limited, repetitive attack patterns, in so far that they look more like mooks with large health pools. Especially jarring for bosses that are supposed to be powerful in the setting context.
• The Scrappy: Belda, the appropriately named Scum Witch. The atrocities she committed throughout the game would have made her a Hate Sink if the game didn't try to give her a Freudian Excuse (she was bullied and only Heintz showed kindness to her) that felt forced and quite frankly was too little too late by the time it was revealed. Also, while several nasty characters who were revived at the end become somewhat better people, she is the only character to not have changed in the slightest, making her a Karma Houdini as well.
• Tainted by the Preview: A small portion of the fanbase aren't too fond of Metallia not being playable. Luckily, the Updated Re-release's Tower of Illusions allows players to take control of Metallia as a Super Mode.
• That One Boss: The Valley Guardian in chapter 4. Its only attack is shielding itself with electricity and it is immune to magic damage, so you have to break off your attack whenever it becomes vulnerable to damage. Additionally, the area it is fought in is small, and if you're too close to it when it shields itself, it can hit you multiple times, killing you before you have a chance to recover. Not to mention the Dark Witch circling around tossing spells at you...
  • After that is the fight with Purple Peel and Thin Ice Lily in chapter 6. They both have a mountain of health, are immune to magic, and like to teleport around the stage. What makes the fight truly aggravating is the fact that they are uncannily good at chaining their spells together, making it very easy to get stunlocked until you die. But worst of all is the giant Metallia in the background, which periodically takes control of the camera away from you and puts it at a weird angle so she can drop meteors on the stage. The fight is, however, made a great deal easier by utilizing the Mini-Knight, Casserio, and Diallo Tochkas to provide cover, deal damage, or both, a detail often overlooked as all bosses before could easily be handled with just the Hundred Knight himself.
  • Dark Mitten in chapter 7, who, in addition to constantly draining your health every few seconds, likes to spam fireballs which are incredibly difficult to dodge at close range. What's worse, due to how long it takes to recover after being hit, getting hit by even one can mean you have to start over.
• That One Level: Brockenturm Tower and the Dimensional Rift in Chapter 6, which are rife with Fake Difficulty. The former has multiple The Legend of Zelda-style puzzles that reset if you leave, meaning you have to clear it essentially in a single go. The latter has poison traps every few steps, which means you'll either be burning through your Gcals obscenely quickly or you'll use every antidote in your inventory. It doesn't help that both of them have very fast and very strong enemies, all with different damage resistances, so no possible weapon combination is effective at killing them.
  • Before that, there is Chapter 3's Chocolatta Palace, which is a rabbit warren of winding passages, gates locked with levers, warp doors, and multiple staircases leading up to the upper levels. Normally, this wouldn't be too bad...but one of the objectives is to destroy five specific objects scattered throughout the level. The layout makes finding all of them a real headache compared to the rather simple missions before it.
  • One-upping both of them, however, are the Amataya Sewers and Ancient Amataya City in Chapter 10. The former isn't very large, but it has no pillars at all and the only enemies in it are Witch Soldiers, which means you have to traverse the entire sewer in a single run without any way of restoring your Gcals other than your very limited items. The latter is a sprawling labyrinth of lever-locked doors, multiple levels, and one-way jumps, in addition to having veritable mazes between pillars and nothing but Witch Soldiers and Doll-type enemies to keep you company. Keep in mind, you have to do these stages back to back.
  • Chapter 12 is the single most difficult part of the entire game, for all the wrong reasons. All the enemies are about twenty levels higher than where you'll probably be by the time you reach it and their stats are even higher than their level would suggest, it requires you to build up massive amounts of Karma, which can be difficult if you've been using the Marginal Gaze facet up til this point, it's host to some of the most unforgiving boss fights in the entire game, and an extremely dark color filter is put over everything that makes some areas virtually impossible to go through due to a lack of visibility. On the other hand, the ramped-up enemy levels make for some excellent grinding.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • While Heintz was shown to be quite ruthless despite appearing to be a nice guy, his relationship with Mitten and Belda in the past showed that he was a legitimately nice person, making players wonder what lead to him becoming so ruthless. Unfortunately, that question is never answered.
  • Lavi voting in favor for Metallia becoming an official witch in order to get the chance to battle her one day had the potential to develop into some kind of rivalry. It, unfortunately, never does.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: The game's first major story arc ends with the protagonist turning her own mother-equivalent into a mouse and throwing her into the midst of a bunch of horny rats, explicitly hoping they sexually assault her. And unfortunately, that sort of mean-spirited Black Comedy is not only pretty representative of the game's overall sense of humor, it's meant to be the comparatively lighter comic relief for a story full of genocide, rape, and pointless cruelty as the bad clashes with the worse and anyone sympathetic is not only impotent but gets absolutely hosed or killed. It makes for a difficult game to recommend, to put it mildly.
• The Woobie:
  • Visco. Nothing ever goes right for her and she's constantly ostracized either because of her position or her curse and the only person she could ever call a friend is Metallia. Sure, they eventually form a true friendship, but it takes a whole lot before Metallia starts acting like a friend.
  • Mitten. Poor, poor Mitten...
  • Lonely Sabina. And to make it worse, unlike everyone listed under The Woobie, she's the only one who doesn't get brought Back from the Dead or receive a happy ending.
  • Life is never kind to Malia. Her transformation into a mouse has led to one misfortune after another, whether it's being raped by horny mice, being devoured by a bird, or getting chased by the Hundred Knight. And even in her past, she had to deal with her parents dying due to the swamp, being ostracized just for going near the swamp to train with Uruka, and being trusted with a plan that involves her "daughter" eventually dying in the process.
  • Jerk Ass Woobie: Metallia. Despite how she acts, especially in the early part of the game, she does grow into a decent person and does the right thing. That sad part of it is that most of her good deeds backfire horribly. To summarize, the antidote she makes to cure Visco of her curse backfires and causes them to lash out at each other. The witch she spared gets killed and her corpse is used to frame Metallia as a conspirator against the kingdom, leading to her being imprisoned, tortured, and scheduled for execution. Also, with the exception of Visco, Arlecchino, and the Hundred Knight, most of the characters she trusts end up betraying her in some way.

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