The Legend of Gwen

Review

Gwen has only one thing in mind . . . To be the best witch in the world. That is probably the thought that all new Witches and Wizards have upon arriving at the famous school of sorcery. Unfortunately, this year an unwanted guest, The Evil, has gobbled up most of the school and its teachers! With just her wand and minimal knowledge of magic, she must restore the moons to defeat The Evil! It’s going to be a tough task for a new student. Here is The Legend of Gwen.

The Legend of Gwen is a hardcore parkour precision platformer with a speedrun element developed by _wiwigames and published by Flynn's Arcade on the 17 of February 2023 on the Steam platform.

What a colourful and difficult precision platformer. You play Gwen, a cute anime-like witch who has the difficult task of beating The Evil and Restoring the moon. The game consists of eight worlds that have between six to eight levels per world, which includes a boss fight.

As you launch your first playthrough, you will arrive on the main game map.  The map includes the first world and a couple of other locations where you can buy or upgrade a few abilities if you have enough blue crystals, of which you have none when you start the game.

Each world has five to six main levels, plus an additional level and the main boss fight. In the main levels, Gwen has to reach some sort of shrine at the end of the level before the time runs out.  She‘ll have four minutes to collect all five stars and reach the shrine. There is also a seed that you can collect if you want to, but it is not necessary to complete the level. To be honest, it will take you several attempts to complete a level as it is. The good news is that you can restart any of the completed levels at any given time, which is what I did to collect some of the seeds which are located in a chest somewhere within each level. If you didn’t have time to collect all five seeds, you can go the seed farm where you can check which seed you missed.  The seed farm is located near the first world.  

As I mentioned above, this platformer game is pretty difficult. As a matter of fact, I think the bosses are really easy to kill compared to how hard it is to complete any of the levels that I have experienced so far. As I write this review, I have reached the fourth world, which is halfway through the game. You need to collect a certain number of stars to unlock each of the worlds. By the time you reach the second world, even if you’ve collected all the stars, it won’t be enough. So you can buy some! This is where you really need to try to collect as many gems as possible as you’ll need to purchase stars with them. Each blue gem will give you one point while the green gem will give you three points. So, you need to make sure you collect as many gems as possible within each level. The good news is that they will accumulate even if you restart any levels.

What makes the game fun and somehow really difficult is the time limit, the obstacles and the foes that you will encounter. But it is also the fact that you have to change the camera views as you go through each level to have a better view, and platforms (still and moving) so you can actually reach and land on them. The trick is to stop and move the camera to have a better view. The unfortunate aspect of it, is the time limit so, if you are like me, you will probably change the camera view while moving, which in turn will change Gwen’s direction and most likely have some impact. For example, you might fall off a platform and lose a life. Oh, I forgot to mention that you only have a certain number of lives to complete each levels. Yes, an additional burden for your young apprentice.

For me, as much as I love platformer games, I needed to have a break between sessions, otherwise frustrations and colourful language would suddenly erupt from my angelic soul.

The graphics are colourful, and I am thankful that they have restricted the Japanese voices in this game. I personally do not like these high-pitched crazy Japanese voices that talk at 100 miles an hour, which a lot of Japanese games have. A big thanks from the 740 million people or 14 per cent of the world population who are currently suffering from tinnitus, including myself.

Review written by THE CPT FROGGY for Zeepond.com

The Legend of Gwen Steam Store Page