Majogami - Switch 2 Review

Majogami by developer and publisher Inti Creates—Nintendo Switch 2 review written by Pierre-Yves with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes. 

There are a few of us on the team that pounce once Inti Creates drops a new title. How could we not when they’ve delivered epic series like Mega Man Zero and Azure Striker Gunvolt? Moving away from those more futuristic settings, Majogami is a fast paced paper craft side scrolling action adventure which will see plenty of vibrant colors as our protagonist slashes her way through the pages of their adventure. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGLFj8_msAE)

 

Breaking away from the norm, Majogami starts before you’ve even gotten to the start screen. Throwing dialog and combat tutorials both before bringing you to the main menu to really get started, this quick introduction serves to set a stage for the rest of the adventure. Split between image stills with dialog and fast paced 2D action based combat, this combination allows players to play as little, or as much, as they want per gaming session. 

Taking things from the top, our protagonist Shiroha has no memories of either who, or where, she is. Being guided by a piece of paper that calls themselves, both a shadow of their former self, and Shiroha’s father, Shiori, the two set out on an adventure together to fill in all the blanks of Shiroha’s memories.

The adventure itself folds out in a picture book format that has been scribbled out blocking Shiroha, and you, from seeing the content of each chapter. To view this content, stages will start to shine through in nodes that must be completed in order to move forward. As a chapter is completed, Shiroha will regain a portion of her memories allowing both her, and you, to fill in those blanks as to what is going on and start figuring out where it’s all going.

 

As you and Shiroha move through the chapters, you’ll have a few options as to what you want to do next. Each chapter starts off with a stage node and a shop node. The shop sells charms, scrolls and healing items to help Shiroha on her adventure. Aside from this, there are also trials that can be undertaken in an available side menu to earn additional money to purchase items in the store.

Moving into the stages themselves, there’s an interesting combination of “speed” and platforming. I say speed as Shiroha has access to regular attacks and Setsuna attacks. Regular attacks will simply swing Shiroha's katana in the direction that she’s looking. These can possibly do damage to enemies, however, they really exist in order to charge up your Setsuna gauge which allows you to fly across the screen.

Setsuna attacks allow Shiroha to flash across the screen and can target enemies from different angles. Doubling down on this aspect is that sometimes that's what's required to defeat enemies as not every enemy faced will be a pushover. Some will require either multiple Setsuna attacks, or, a charged Setsuna attack which focuses multiple quick but brutal strikes to take the enemy down.

 

To further increase the sheer madness that you unleash on your enemies, Shiroha will befriend Astrals that let her ascend for a limited time. Triggered by filling up a divine constellation gauge that goes from zero to eight, Shiroha will have to fill up the minimum requirement for whichever astral on the particular stage to ascend. This function kept things interesting as it’s not simply “this astral needs three points and that one five”. The amount of points for each will change making you need to think about which one’s power ups suit the situation best.

Base ascension grants both double jumping and a higher maximum Setsuna gauge. Alongside this, each Astrals weapons have different elements and “weapon” types which can change the flow of combat by matching the weakness of an enemy. More available Setsuna also means being able to more easily keep slashing through the hordes or helping against a super strong enemy or chapter boss.

Following up on Ascension, Shiroha can eventually also perform Astralization which grants an even more powerful form. Needing to already be ascended, once the requirements are met, Astralization can be triggered which grants even more Setsuna points, infinite jumps or mid air dashes. This form can make regular stages a cakewalk and the pure freedom of movement allows you to find all of a stage’s secrets much easier. 

 

Among some of these secrets are enemies with the above mentioned Tomes of Trials. If you can spot these enemies quickly enough, and then defeat them, they will unlock new challenges in the Trials menu. While these are not necessary to move on, they will reward you with hard earned cash that you'll need to buy new amulets and white owls that lead you to specific stage treasures that can only be obtained with their help. 

All of these elements lead up to the boss battles which are really fun as these are also not done in a traditional way. Instead of chipping away at a traditional health bar, you instead need to fill up their Soul Flame gauge and then unleash a powerful attack to remove one of their hit points. The more that hit points are removed, the harder it is to fill up the Soul Flame gauge. 

These battles will really test what you’ve learned up to that point. While Shiroha does not have a lot of abilities to be learned, the abilities that are learned can be really useful as long as the circumstances are right. With every chapters’ stages and stage boss being available to tackle in Easy, Normal or Hard, learning how to master Setsuna attacks, Ascension and Astralization is how you’ll get lower time completion scores. Not having to worry about finding secret items will also make that process a lot faster.

 

I really enjoyed Majogami. Inti Creates continue to showcase how good they are at what they do, creating a sense of familiarity with new concepts to their work. With very fast paced combat, gorgeous colors and solid gameplay mechanics, Shiroha’s adventure to recover her lost memories only shines brighter against the scribbles of the book laid out before her.

Score: 8 / 10