Little Witch Nobeta

Little Witch Nobeta is a 2022 Soulslike 3D action shooter game developed by Pupuya Games and published by JUSTDAN.

Gameplay
Little Witch Nobeta is a single-player Soulslike third-person 3D action shooter game. Players control Nobeta, an amnesiac witch exploring an ancient castle on a quest to recover her memory.

The gameplay consists of mostly ranged combat using a variety of different spells that are acquired and upgraded throughout the game. Players fight different bosses and unlock new areas in the castle as they progress. The game has two difficulty options: "standard" and "advanced", with the former being more forgiving and adding health and mana regeneration.

Development
Little Witch Nobeta was developed by Taiwanese indie game developers Pupuya Games and Simon Creative. The development started in June 2017, and an initial demo was released in January 2019 featuring a single stage with one boss. The game then entered early access on Steam in June 2020, with development continuing until the release of the full version on 29 September 2022. PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch versions were published by Idea Factory International in North America and Europe on 7 March 2023.

The game's audio is in Japanese, with English subtitles available. Nobeta is voiced by Konomi Kohara, and all three major bosses are voiced by popular virtual YouTubers.

Reception
Little Witch Nobeta received "mixed or average reviews", according to the review aggregator website Metacritic, which calculated weighted average ratings of 65/100 and 71/100 for the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch versions respectively, with the former being based on nine and the latter on five critic reviews. Aggregator OpenCritic found that 57% of 15 critics recommended the game.

Christopher Farris of Anime News Network gave the game an overall 'B' rating, calling it a "Baby's First Dark Souls". Adam Haffen, writing for Siliconera, rated the game 8/10 points, praising its "incredibly fun" boss fights, but finding most of the regular enemies to be just "annoying obstacles". Calling it "not perfect", he nevertheless stated that he would return to play more of it. 4Gamer.net praised its "cute" character design and voice acting. Ryan Thomas Bamsey of TheGamer, on the other hand, rated the game 1/5 stars, calling the combat "functional", but "boring" and overly easy. He claimed it "suffers from a total lack of taste", and that it was "filled to the brim with egregious, pervy fan service", noting that a large amount of enemies, as well as the player's companion, were anime girls.

The game's Switch and PlayStation versions were the 13th and 17th most sold in Japan during its debut week, selling 12165 copies. In total, more than 250,000 copies have been sold since the game entered early access.