Mandragora Whispers of the Witch Tree Review

I will admit, I am not the biggest fan of side-scrolling games that aim to be the next DARK SOULS. However, let it never be said that I won’t try new things. With that in mind, I decided to jump at the chance to give Primal Game Studios' latest title, Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree, a try to see if it can change my mind.

From the very start, Mandragora aims to impress with a remarkably strong opening that offers a glimpse into the world of Faeldumm. You take on the role of an Inquisitor, a warrior tasked with enforcing the Priest King’s will, mainly by killing witches and burning the odd peasant. During the trial of one of these witches, despite being a puppet of the king, you seemingly choose to show mercy and, as such, are forced into a journey that will reveal the very fate of your world. 

The whole game is split into around 60 quests with over 75 locations to explore. Now, while there is plenty to do, the actual plot isn’t exactly outstanding. It’s not that it’s bad exactly, and it does a good job of letting you know why you’re doing what you’re doing and where you are. The problem is that your Inquisitor is an idiot, and it becomes quite annoying at times. There are events where you run into someone who is clearly hiding something, but you’re not allowed to ever call them out.  

However, a lot of this is saved by the stellar voice acting, with each character who does speak sounding gorgeous. Honestly, the king's opening speech alone was enough to keep me hooked for the first hour of the game. I wish I could say the music was the same, but it was generic fantasy music. Not bad, exactly, but nothing to write home about. I will note that the initial great voice acting doesn’t always hold up, and some of the characters are worse than others. 

Now, as I said at the start, Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree was an attempt to make me enjoy a side-scrolling soulslike. I have to admit that I was being a tad disingenuous, as the game is more like a combination of every side-scroller we’ve seen. There’s a touch of metroidvania, alongside a dash of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Essentially, the gameplay is pretty simple: you have several means of attacks based on your class that you use while making sure you dodge hits and manage your stamina. I chose to play as a Flameweaver, which is a pyromancer/combat class that allowed me to throw fireballs and attack with melee weapons. 

The combat itself is fine, but it’s pretty basic, and most of the enemies are less of a challenge, with most being more of an annoyance. This is an issue because, as anyone who has played DARK SOULS will tell you, the fun is in the challenge and figuring out the best ways to beat even the weakest enemies. However, there are no real tactics to speak of; instead, you just dodge behind the foe and hit them, then repeat. It gets old, and while some of the bosses mix it up a bit, I never really felt challenged while playing through. 

This also feeds into another issue, the problem with levelling up and classes. Now, as you might expect, you gain EXP from beating down enemies that you can use to level up. The issue is that you have no choice in how to level your character in terms of base stats; instead, there’s a set improvement with each level. You can choose where to put your talent points for new perks in a, frankly, massive skills tree; the issue is that the skills are all pretty lacklustre. I never felt like there were some upgrades I just had to have, and I never felt much more powerful than I did when I started. 

This same problem occurred when it came to picking weapons, mainly in that I never had to change my equipment. I managed to play for hours with the starting mace, and never really found any reason to change to a different type of weapon. It felt like I couldn’t make a personal Inquisitor, which is something that the game should have made a focus.

Graphically, Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree is a bit of a mixed bag. The character art and the bosses all look great, but a lot of the enemy designs are repeated over time. There’s also a disconnect between the character art and the character models. The former is considerably more detailed and interesting, while the latter lacks any real substance. On the plus side, the animations for the attacks are pretty, while also being obvious enough that there isn’t much challenge when you need to dodge them.

Overall, Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree isn’t a game that stands as a paragon of its genre, being held back by dull enemies and a terrible skill tree. However, that isn’t to say it's bad; instead, it is perfectly playable with some lovely art and an interesting world to experience. It hasn’t made me love this type of game, but I can appreciate all that it does well. At the end of the day, that might just be enough.