Developer: Chibig, Nukefist

Publisher: Chibig

Played on: PC

Release Date: January 22, 2025

Played with: Xbox Core

Paid: $10.74

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Mika desperately needs a union rep.  Her boss is awful, withholding payment at the slightest slip-up, believing the customer is always right to a harmful degree, and even telling her to smile more.  It’s a depressingly toxic relationship for Mika and the Witch’s Mountain, a game that’s generally whimsical and chipper, almost to a fault.  What makes it even more overt is that pretty much everyone else on the island is laid-back and supportive of Mika, even when she stumbles.  It’s almost as though a more community-focused solution would be an improvement over the corporate structure of big business … I’m getting ahead of myself, though.

Mika wasn’t always a slave to the whims of capitalism, starting out the game as a young witch in training seeking to join Miss Olagari’s magic school.  However, her mother’s letter of recommendation doesn’t get her in, and Olagari decides to test her by casting her off the peak of Mont Gaun and forcing her to make her way back up on her own.  Her broom ruined, Mika meets a young woman named Allegra who gets things fixed up, but says it still won’t be possible for Mika to return to the peak with her current equipment.  With that in mind, it’s not totally clear how Mika was able to get up in the first place, but I’ll gloss over that as the story does.  What matters is that Mika needs money to buy a better broom from Allegra, and to do so, she starts a job with the island’s courier service, delivering mail to all corners of the land.

Enter Greff, the sniveling worm of a boss who Mika has to deal with.  He sets up a grading system for Mika’s deliveries, in which a green stamp means the customer is satisfied and Mika gets paid, but anything less means she gets nothing, with a red stamp potentially coming with further consequences.  Of course, at times he actively lies about the grades or fixates on mistakes; I had one day where I got green stamps across the board, save for one delivery (to the island’s despicable factory owner, Mr. W. Soot, who wouldn’t know satisfaction if it hit him in the face) and Greff claimed my delivery card was full of mediocre stamps.  Maybe this was a bug, but it sure came across as Greff just being an asshole, and it says a lot that I was more than happy to accept that at face value.

Thankfully, Greff and W. Soot are the exceptions to the rule, with the rest of the characters being fun to interact with, flaws and all.  Some come across as a bit strange, but in a fun, quirky sort of way, rather than being off-putting.  It also helps that each one tends to have some memorable qualities, as later on the game often gets you to infer who a particular item is destined for based on conversations you’ve had with them previously.  It’s something that could easily cause problems if the characters were too generic, but I never ran into issues with it during my play.  As for the writing overall, it’s quaint and charming, and despite Mika being a bit bratty at the start, things just become better as the game progresses.  Plus, it all culminates in an ending that – while perhaps predictable for a coming-of-age sort of story – is nonetheless heartwarming and feel-good.  It brought a smile to my face, and at the end of the day, isn’t that the most important thing?

Performing deliveries involves flying around the island on your broom, with the item(s) in question dangling below, meaning they can potentially bump into things or get dunked in the ocean.  To build off that, Mika and the Witch’s Mountain makes you deliver items that can’t get wet or damaged, or have a time limit attached, encouraging you to make use of the wind drafts scattered around the island and your broom’s boost function to gain extra height and speed.  Both of these aren’t without their issues, though.  Using wind drafts to gain height can be tricky, as your momentum will often carry you right through the draft without maximizing the amount of height you could get.  This often led to me circling around in the drafts to get as much benefit as possible, but the tradeoff was occasional delivery delays or damaged packages from screwing up a turn and hitting a wall.  As for the boost, it seems to recharge when you’re close to the ground or when you go through a wind draft, but this can be unpredictable.  Particularly when flying over water, I’d often be mashing the button to boost as soon as it came back up so that I wouldn’t dip my fragile parcels in the drink, and the boost would only recharge after the packages were already damaged.

Thankfully, there’s always the option to reset packages back to their original state (and starting point) and try again, which was a feature I utilized on a number of occasions.  It can be a bit annoying to have to backtrack, but it’s better than delivering a ruined package and getting a bad grade (unless you’re into that, you monster).  I think it’s telling that – while Mika and the Witch’s Mountain doesn’t require you to perfect all the deliveries – I nonetheless reset each mission if I wasn’t going to get a green stamp, simply because I wanted to make the islanders happy.  I did deliberately botch one at the start just to see what would happen, and there was some difference in dialogue (as well as a lowly orange stamp for my troubles), but outside of that I consistently strived for customer satisfaction, and enjoyed the experience more for it.  I do wish there was an option to retry deliveries after completing them, though; perhaps in the post-game.  As it stands, to “undo” that previously mentioned delivery and get the achievement for getting max rank on all deliveries, I’d have to delete my save and play through the whole game all over again.

When you’re not performing deliveries, there are collectible Napopo statues scattered around the island, which can be traded in to unlock new costumes for Mika and charms for her broom.  There’s also the Churro Express races, which task you with completing various courses under strict time limits.  Finally, there are some puzzly dungeons that were actually added the day I’m writing this, and while I didn’t get a chance to explore them in time for this review, it’s exciting to know the game is still getting post-launch content updates.  For a game as lovely yet brief as Mika and the Witch’s Mountain (my rather laid-back and exploratory playthrough took around six hours), any incentive to return is a welcome one.

I also appreciated the game’s presentation, which really felt like it was channeling The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, both in its vibrant, cel-shaded art style and its adventurous music that fades in and out as you glide across the island.  There’s also some really nice details, like Mika’s character sprites in dialogue exchanges reflecting the costume you’re currently wearing.  On the downside, the sprites do occasionally block parts of the textboxes, but usually it’s easy to infer what’s being covered up.  I also experienced a couple of crashes (one when I went to turn in a delivery, and another – coincidentally – as I was exiting the game anyway), but they thankfully didn’t cause me to lose much progress, and the game ran smoothly otherwise.

I don’t have a ton to say about Mika and the Witch’s Mountain, because it’s just a great, solid experience all around.  It has some hiccups, but the bulk of the experience is such a serene, cozy time that a lot of my issues faded into the background by the time I rolled credits.  Of course, Greff and W. Soot can fall into the ocean for all I care, but aside from them, seeing the community surround and support Mika throughout her adventure was a really touching experience.  And the experience of flying around the island to pick up and deliver packages is straightforward, but pleasant in all the right ways.  Sure, it’s not really doing anything new and exciting in the genre to make itself stand out, but that doesn’t change the fact that what it is doing is enjoyable through and through.  Check your mailbox; Mika and the Witch’s Mountain is here, and it’s well worth your time.

8.5/10