Hands-on with Witchblood on Quest 3: Still good, in both VR and MR
The early PC VR gem Witchblood makes a comeback today on Meta Quest with an optional passthrough mode. Is it worth buying?
Witchblood was first released for Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR in 2017. Today, Hidden Path brings the game to the Meta Quest platform.
In Witchblood, you control a young witch on a quest (no pun intended) to avenge her father's death, guiding her through a labyrinth of forests, houses, and castles. In Metroidvania style, you will gradually learn new skills and reach previously inaccessible areas of the game world.
Hidden Path, promises more than 6 hours of exploration and combat, hundreds of rooms, 40 character upgrades, and four difficulty levels.
The Quest version supports passthrough for the first time. Read on to find out what this means, whether the game has been improved, and whether it's worth buying.
Passthrough is welcome, but unnecessary
I played through Witchblood on Oculus Rift seven years ago. The game captivated me to the end with its fluid gameplay, refined level design, nice-looking dioramas, and character progress. None of that has changed with the Quest version. Witchblood is the same fun game.
But being an early Oculus exclusive and not supporting motion controls, it hardly benefits from being in virtual reality. You could play it with a gamepad on your couch in front of a flat screen without losing much in terms of gameplay.
The passthrough mode doesn't change this.
Witchblood only renders the room you are currently in. When playing in VR mode, you will see walls with the outlines of adjacent rooms and your character's path drawn on them. If you switch to MR mode, you will see your own living room instead of these walls (see my hands-on video above). This adds convenience, but the game does not interact with your environment in any way.
You can move the diorama up and down, left and right, and adjust its scale. The game pauses while you do this. It would have been better if you could do this without interrupting the game, using your hands instead of the buttons and analog stick. Demeo showed how this could be done.
Not optimized for Meta Quest 3
In terms of gameplay, nothing has changed from the original. At least I didn't notice anything. Witchblood on Quest is not a remake or even a remaster of the original, but a 1:1 port with a passthrough option.
Witchblood does not appear to be optimized for Meta Quest 3 and runs at a resolution that severely underchallenges the new VR headset. Using Sidequest, I was able to increase the resolution by 75 percent without negative side effects. Witchblood looks much better when it is sharp and just as I remembered it on the PC.
If you like the metroidvania genre, VR diorama games, and occasionally like to play VR on the couch, then I can recommend Witchblood to you. Just keep in mind that the passthrough mode does little for the game.
Witchblood will be released on the Quest Store on July 18th. The price is $15. Meta Quest 3, 2 and Pro are supported.
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