The Witch’s Bakery Review (Switch)
Time to bake some joy!
Publisher: Silver Lining Interactive
I’m so happy that The Witch’s Bakery released and that I was able to play it! I’ve been following this game ever since it was revealed as you best believe I would be all over a game where you not only play as a witch but as a baker as well. Especially since I’ve had dreams of opening up my own bakery. You can also imagine how devastated I was when the Kickstarter went up during a time when I couldn’t spare money to contribute, but hey, all that matters is that it got fully funded. I’m also so happy that the release date fell in October! The original release date was during a busy time for me, this game was perfect as an October release, and I’m an October baby. Nothing is better than a game you’ve been looking forward to finally releasing than it releasing around your birthday and being able to justify a purchase as a birthday present.
Now before diving into my review, I will say that I did play The Witch’s Bakery on Version 1.0.5. I wanted to mention this since the game is actually currently on Version 1.3 on PC with the update pending on consoles. I did think about waiting until the update made its way to consoles, specifically Switch, but I was a bit impatient haha. I already procrastinated on it a bit due to dealing with some health issues and being enamored with Nopixe;, but the silver lining was that it did allow me to play on the version of the game that PC had on release day). We don’t know when the update is going to come in (I love console gaming but the worst thing is the long approval process for patches), but since I know it’s coming soon I thought I would put this note. My luck it’s going to be approved right before I post this review, but I do recommend waiting until Version 1.3 makes its way to consoles.
The Witch’s Bakery follows the story of a young woman named Lunne Mirabel who we join right as she’s moving to Paris. The world of The Witch’s Bakery is similar to our own, but with one significant difference: the presence of magic. It’ll be easy to make the mistake of thinking this is just a little change, I almost did as well, but the more you delve into the worldbuilding the more you see just how much it affected things. Though, you don’t have to worry about that as the only thing you need to really know is that most of the population don’t have magic, there are three main “Voices” of magic, every witch specializes in one Voice, and there is a place called The Aside where magic stems from and is where mages go learn and hone in their magic abilities. As you can guess, Lunne is a witch herself, a Heart Witch to be specific, and she is fresh out of school ready to pursue her passion. What’s her passion? Well, she has always wanted to open up her own bakery, even before she knew she was a witch, and now she has made that dream come true! After years of hard work in The Academy training and studying, honing her baking skills, finding the perfect place, and getting the necessary funds; we get to see the start of a new chapter of Lunne’s life.
Lunne’s life in Paris is relatively quiet and lowkey I’d say. Of course, she dedicates a lot of her time towards her newly opened bakery which she named Le Croissant de Lunne. She, alongside her metamorph associate Orio, both work together to create the viennoiserie (I looked this up and it’s basically a baked good that isn’t quite pastry and not quite bread, but is somewhere in the middle) and bread they offer. Lunne prepares the dough, infusing it with her Heart magic as she does to make it into joy dough, and Orio uses his shifting abilities to shift the joy dough into fresh baked goods to sell. Don’t worry about it affecting the taste as Orio basically copies Estelle’s baking (taste and texture and everything) and hey you can’t pass up fresh baked goods on demand. So what does Lunne’s magic do specifically? Well, being a Heart Witch, Lunne is able to help people with their emotions. Her baked goods make people happy, if her preparing joy dough isn’t any indication, and be more attuned with their emotions more. Especially for those with Regrets, which are little magic creatures that basically indicate that someone is repressing an emotion for some reason. So Lunne isn’t just giving delicious baked goods to her customers, but also helping them!
She doesn’t spend all of her time in her bakery as she does make sure to explore Paris and get to know, and even befriend, the residents there. Lunne will be able to befriend a good handful of characters, some of which you’ll get to know more than others. As she’s helping the people in Paris and settling into a nice rhythm, something else also stirs. And I’m not just talking about the few people Lunne encounters with big Regrets that she promises to help.
I quite enjoyed the story here! I really liked the slice-of-life approach The Witch’s Bakery had. The game focusing on Lunne’s first few months of opening her bakery and everything that comes with it perfectly fits with what I imagined the story would be back when I heard about this game. It also made the game quite cozy to play…which also made the more hardhitting moments of the story hit harder. I really loved the characters here and how they bounced off of each other. I loved Lunne the most, of course, with how passionate, upbeat, and optimistic she is. She certainly is like a ray of sunshine and it’s no wonder why people gravitate towards her and want to help her out. Though, man, what she hides deep inside her was pretty unexpected, but you can notice some hints at times. I honestly wish I could be like Lunne. Orio is pretty similar to Lunne, but even so makes for a great companion as Orio matches Lunne’s energy, is quite playful, and tries to make sure Lunne is taking care of herself. Orio is also perfect for Lunne considering the amount of help Orio is in the bakery. Lunne and Orio were perfectly written as they fit the role of protagonists really well. I thought about talking about the main side characters as well and decided against it, but rest assured that they also bounce off of Lunne and Orio well. Everyone has their own personalities and interests of course, but they do all have some commonalities with Lunne which I think helps solidify why they hit it off.
I did also enjoy the writing style here. I thought the writing was, funnily enough, light and airy which paired perfectly with Lunne’s personality, the slice-of-life approach, and the whole running a bakery aspect. I won’t spoil the last chapter, but I will say that it pairs more with Lunne’s personality than you’d think. That said, the game doesn’t linger long on the more sad or shocking moments for the most part. It likes to keep things light…until it can’t. I guess what I’m trying to say is that even the writing has a part in how the game tells its story. While I’m on that topic, I’d like to also mention how much I love how the gameplay ends up playing a part in the storytelling, reinforcing what Lunne is going through. It’s very subtle for most of the game as well, you’re just working at the bakery and having some downtime, but it gets obvious once things start to go down. Which also means I can’t really talk about it, but I do think I’m safe to say that it really helps reinforce how much Lunne is struggling. I also really like the role of the Heart Palaces. They not only represent the characters they belong to really well even before you really get to know them, but they do a great job in showcasing the emotion they represent and the various different situations Heart Witches may find themselves in. I found that last one pretty impressive considering there’s really only three Heart Palaces (well technically four). And it doesn’t feel like the Heart Palaces are trying to do too much since it makes sense why they’re like that as you get to know the characters they belong to. The Heart Palaces and characters have this nice feedback loop as you can see haha.
I will also say the game does a good job with the way it does its worldbuilding. You are thrown into the game with a character that spent half of her life deep in magic world so the characters talk with that knowledge, but for the most part it isn’t really a problem. The dialogue itself stays at the surface level where you can easily make assumptions or infer it from the dialogue. If you’ve ever consumed any fantastical, magical media you’ll especially have a really easy time as you can see the inspiration the game took in its worldbuilding. If you want to learn more about the world that The Witch’s Bakery takes place in and all of the magical creatures, you can during downtime through the game’s Codex and lore books that you can buy. The Codex updates as you progress through the game, where you’ll be able to read more about the locations, the various terms you hear, and the characters. The lore books meanwhile dive more into the history, more context on various aspects like school life or how magic works, and even some fun lore books that gives you a peek into theories and stories. I’d say the only thing you’d have trouble understanding is what IRMA is, especially since that Codex entry comes pretty late despite knowing about it in the first 20 minutes in the game.
I think you can easily go through the whole game without opening the Codex and still understand the game, but I do still recommend it. I did feel the worldbuilding and lore was interesting, it goes deeper than you think it does, and I was quite devastated when I finished the game as I still had lore books to read (and something else which I’ll mention later on). I really liked learning more about the game’s world and, in the same vein, I was pretty sad when the game ended as it meant I couldn’t hang with the characters anymore. I will also say the game does have some hanging threads and does have a bit of a sequel hook, but I think the game closes in such a beautiful way that it doesn’t affect it and stays at the back of your mind where you do want to learn what happens next but fine with where it ends.
So yeah, while the beginning of the game is a bit slow and I could have used some more character writing, I really enjoyed the magical slice-of-life approach this game went with. The writing style fits really well, the pacing and worldbuilding are well done, and the writers did a great job at characterizing everyone. Not to mention that there are so many good lines here (*looks at about 350 screenshots I took*) and I love how they did baked goods wordplay and nicknames which gave the script more whimsy.
Now let’s get into the gameplay! The Witch’s Bakery will have you progressing day by day and each day is also separated by three phases: Daytime, Evening, and Night. First up is the Daytime which I’d say is the phase you’ll spend the most time in. This is when you’ll be working in the bakery every day Monday through Saturday. Managing the bakery isn’t all that hard, it’s pretty easy actually. All you have to do is make sure you have enough dough prepared, pick up the baked goods your customers want, and give it to them in a timely manner. You have two short minigames for preparing dough, a kneading dough one for bread and rolling out the dough for viennoiserie, and this will go to Orio allowing him to make the bread and viennoiserie goods you have on your menu. You do start dough already prepared, but it is best to prepare some more as the beginning of the day is the best time to (there are some downtime moments, but I swear a new customer comes in when I go in the back to prepare more dough). Orio does require some time to make the dough into bread or viennoiserie, but I don’t think this will give you much trouble. Of course, customers will start coming in and they’ll tell you 1-3 baked goods that they want. All you have to do is grab it from where Orio put them at and hand it to them before their patience runs out. You can serve customers in any order you want.
You start out with the basics and as you progress further into the game you’ll unlock more aspects here. Of course, you’ll get to learn more recipes and this brings in the menu where you’ll be able to choose what you’ll sell. You actually get more employees and they all bring a passive ability and an active ability. Talking about that, you do have some active abilities that you can activate to help you out, like Orio’s ability will have him make some baked goods speedily. You’ll also start to get customers with small Regrets coming in. These customers will have you do a little minigame after serving them. It’s just a simple maze minigame where you have make you’re way to the heart icon and take it to the exit (symbolizing Lunne guiding it to the cradle), however there is a gimmick based on what emotion is being repressed. Sadness will have waves of water crashing through, pushing you to and against the closest wall. Fear will have you navigating the maze in the darkness. And finally Anger will have some spots in the maze erupt with fire every so often that will stun you if you’re over it. Oh, you’ll also have to periodically clean the countertop as Orio does make a bit of a mess when he finishes baking. Orio does slow down until he stops as the counter gets dirtier. Finally, there are different types of customers that you’ll get through your doors. Some will have less patience, some will want their full order all at once, some will require you to do two Heart dives, and some will change their order at random.
As you make more progress, you’ll also unlock ways to make this phase a bit easier. Like you’ll get spells to activate during Heart Dives (which is what you do when serving customers with Regrets) and can increase your profits in a lot of ways.
At the end of the work day, you’ll get a summary of that day where you’ll see how much money you made, how much experience you got through doing Heart Dives, and see your bond with your employees/companions rise just a bit.
Once Lunne closes up, it’s time for some free time in the Evening! On work days you just have enough time to do one activity, but on Sundays you’ll be able to do two. This is when you’ll be able to visit the various districts of Paris and do whatever that location offers. You only start out with three districts, but more are unlocked as you progress into the story more. You’ll be able to visit the various shops to buy books, games, more recipes, upgrade recipes, gifts, and even decorations to give your bakery some more pizzazz. Sometimes, you’ll also have some optional side conversations and there are some side quests you can pick up and do. These two won’t progress time, but the various activities will. There is a good variety of activities,and multiple different places so you can have a change of scenery. Aside from relaxing which will let you regain Energy (oh yeah, there’s an Energy system here I’ll get into that later), the other activities will cost Energy and money in exchange for giving you experience in one or more emotion and giving you the opportunity to raise your relationship with a main side character.
This is also when you’ll be doing the story-related Heart Dives. Now, these are very different from the ones you do for your customers as instead of a little maze minigame, you’ll be going into a proper Heart Palace that you can walk through. You’ll be able to take in the scenery that is formed to represent what that character is feeling and going through, be able to take a peek at some memories that are directly related to what they’re struggling with, and you’ll help the repressed Emotion (now with a cute little “physical” form!) make its way back to the Cradle where it’ll finally be released and thus allow the character to confront their feelings and resolve it. However, that’s easier said than done. If it was as easy as it sounds, you wouldn’t need to dive into their heart in the first place after all! These hearts will try to stop your journey in any way possible. There are basic blockages that require you to do a little puzzle to get through. Something can get in your way, whether it’s just a block you need to move out of the way or a Torment which represents their deepest struggle and you have to make sure to keep out of their way or else they’ll get you. And finally, each section of these Heart Palaces will have barriers that will block your way. Barriers are used to help pace the story as you do need to get to know the character with the Heart Palace more to progress. All the Heart Palaces share the basics, but are all different from one another.
Finally, it’s time to wind things down at Night. Lunne and Orio will be hanging out on the roof and you’ll be able to do a couple things, some that will progress time and some that won’t. For things you can do that won’t progress time, you can check on Lunne’s Heart Palace which is basically just her level up tree. Lunne gains experience every time she serves customers and from doing most activities. There’s a branch for each emotion, which you get experience by serving customers with corresponding Regrets or doing activities that tells you will give you experience for that emotion, and leveling up will give you a spell and will upgrade it. There’s also a general branch which represents what level Lunne is at. You’ll get experience for this branch with each customer served which will boost something pertaining to the bakery like increasing how much dough you produce when you prepare it. You’ll also be able to just Admire Paris. For things you can do that will progress time, you can read a book or play a game which will also give you experience in one or three emotions depending on what you’re reading. You can also go into Lunne’s Atelier which is where you’ll be able to upgrade your recipes. This is basically a series of minigames where you’ll be making the recipe yourself step by step. From measuring out your ingredients to putting it into the Orio oven. I can also guess these recipes are pretty accurate to the real world recipes which is pretty cool. Upgrading a recipe is pretty helpful as it’ll decrease the amount of time Orio needs to make it, increase the price, and will allow you to change the style.
Once you’re ready to head to bed, you can then sleep to progress to the next day. You can do up to two activities before you have to go to bed, but there is a little catch, Energy management. Told you I’ll get back around to it. Lunne has an Energy meter and everything you’ll do will affect it. A lot of things will lower her Energy. Lunne is guaranteed to lose Energy on work days as working will lower it, as well as doing Heart Dives and using spells. Activities will also cost Energy, both Evening and Night ones. Though, Night activities are a bit different in this regard as it won’t take Energy but determines what Energy you regain overnight. The less you do, the more Energy you’ll regain which is important as you at least need enough Energy to make it through the work day. You can also regain Energy by relaxing or eating a consumable item you’ll gain access to later. So, yeah, you have to do a delicate balance of doing activities to increase your bonds, upgrading your stuff, using spells, and the story-related hits with keeping Lunne well rested or else she’ll be forced to take a day off. It’s harder than you’d expect it to be.
Aside from all that, you can also go into Lunne’s phone and peruse her apps during free time. You’ll be able to look at recent past messages, look at your relationship status with the characters and read their blurbs, look at your inventory, look at the quest log, and look at the Codex where you can read up on any of the key terms or locations. There is also a Museum where you get to look at some fanart! Though, sadly I only went into it when it first opened (so I only saw two or three pieces of fanart) and I forgot to visit it again before I reached the end game. So I’m not sure if more fanart pieces are added in as you progress or if it’s something the developers update with each patch.
I really enjoyed the gameplay here, despite the rough beginning I had with this game (which *looks at negatives section* will make sense soon). Yeah, I had a rough start with this game that had me really worried as I wasn’t quite enjoying it as much as I thought I would be. However, once I finished the first Heart Palace things started to open up more (both in terms of locations and things being unlocked) which I feel really helped. Having more places to go to and more things to do really helped increase my enjoyment, as well as unlocking more recipes, getting helpers to help out (I can’t just say employees here wink wink), getting the benefits of leveling up Lunne, and the game does slowly get harder. Plus, I personally think the first Heart Palace is the worst one and the others are much better. Like, I was dragging myself through the first Heart Palace even though I did like the character it belonged to and the symbolism and storytelling happening in it. The beginning of the game also felt repetitive, but the more I played and progressed the less I had that feeling until I didn’t. I think having more things to do also really helped in this aspect as, I believe, the first five-ish hours just has you doing the same thing and going the same places. It’s a bit hard to really explain as it’s more of what I felt while playing, but if you’re kind of meh on the game in the beginning there’s a high chance you’re enjoyment will increase the more you progress.
You know, while it is a double edged sword, I do think it’s a good thing when the lowest point of a game is the beginning of it. It is a big risk as it can cause people to quit the game before it gets better, but I’d rather have the beginning of the game be weaker than the midpoint or the end.
Anyway, I generally did really enjoy the various aspects of the game. While there will be people that wished the shop management, sim, or RPG aspects of the game had more to them, I personally didn’t really mind. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t expecting it to lean more into one of those directions, but I think the game does a good job with how it balances these things out. Granted, this doesn’t mean there weren’t aspects I wasn’t disappointed in them not putting more work in, but this is pretty much what I was expecting. Simple enough with just enough complexity and difficulty. Though I am a bit surprised you couldn’t get a Daytime inventory upgrade as I feel even one additional slot could have been helpful. I also thought it was a bit weird that you get a lot of pastry recipes and not a lot of bread and viennoiserie recipes, but it makes more sense when you look it up and realize (1) there aren’t that many viennoiserie recipes in the first place and (2) they were going for recipes that originated in France. I did really like how making the recipes yourself were for upgrades (even though some recipes were a bit annoying) and you just prepared dough during the work day. I didn’t really have any problems with the customers in terms of them running out of patience (aside from the end game but that’s more story related so that doesn’t count) and I did come to like the challenge of managing Energy. I did also really enjoy getting to know the various characters, enough that I was pretty sad when I saw how lacking the game can be in the character writing. I really liked how the days are also split up into three phases and the way things progress both in the ways the story is brought in and how/when new gameplay aspects are introduced.
I already mentioned this before, but I also love how much the gameplay ties into the story. It becomes more prevalent in the last chapter so I won’t speak much about it as it definitely is best to go in blind, but it does a wonderful job at uplifting what’s going on in the story, making you feel like you’re Lunne. It also conveys a part of Lunne that the writing doesn’t explicitly say. I also love how the Heart Palaces play a part in the story and they do a wonderful job at visual storytelling and symbolism. I was worried as I thought they all would be the same, but they are all different. I really appreciate that while they all have the same bones, what’s built around it is different and they do really tie into the characters really well. Like all three have different puzzles and different ways that you progress through the Heart Palace (bar the barriers of course) and it was really interesting seeing the different ways that Lunne resolved things. I also love how much the Palaces fit the emotion they are tied to. Like now that I look back, the first Heart Palace really does feel somber and it feeling long and having to dragging yourself through it does fit with the character. The second one fits fear perfectly and while I was a bit turned off by the social media aspect and slang, I did like how it was incorporated in this game. Like you will not belief that this game can be scary until you get to this point. And oh man, does the last Heart Palace fit anger to a t. It also does shake things up pretty well, you expect the next Heart palace to go like the last one(s) did, but then they don’t. And like I said before, it really works here. It feels natural that these Heart palaces are tackling so much because it represents both the emotion and the character. They’re intertwined well.
So yeah, I ended up really enjoying my time with The Witch’s Bakery by the end. I was quite surprised when I realized I went from forcing myself to play more to wanting to play more so much I was sad that the game ended. This game does have a good share of downsides, but it has a good share of upsides.
Sadly, I do have a lot of negatives here. They are all small ones individually, but all together they did pile up and hamper my enjoyment of the game. The first one I’m going to mention is the most obvious one, the visuals do take a hit here. How big of a hit varies, as sometimes it’s not so bad but sometimes it’s so bad it’s kinda laughable. I think it’s a bit worse here considering everything is mismatched, but you do honestly get used to it and I do generally appreciate what the developers kept the highest quality of. Like most of the sprites retain the best quality and that was a great decision. While I don’t like Lunne’s overworld sprite taking a hit (except for weirdly the one frame in the middle of her turning), the background art is really pretty and it would be a shame to lose it. Heck, you see how much of a shame that is when you’re in the Heart Palaces. It is like night and day when you’re playing on the Switch and a Regret is in the background being a smooth blurry mass and then you look at screenshots or footage and, for example, you see how pretty the first Heart Palace’s Regret is. The longer cutscenes in the game are also pretty painful to watch. They do take a bit of a hit and there are points where there are artifacts (I think that’s what it’s called?) like the cutscene is being streamed to you but the source has really bad internet, but the painful part comes with how out of sync the audio and video is. I did wish the generic NPCs looked a bit better. The short cutscenes that play when you first go into a Heart Palace are fine, but the longer ones are not. I did also wish we got more CGs, as you do get little photos at points, but the two times you do get a full screen CG it’s blurry (though weirdly enough it’s fine for the Credits sequence). I did honestly flirt with the idea of playing this on the Switch 2 instead as the visual quality seems to be perfect in the 5 minutes I checked, but I decided against it. After all, I got a Switch key and I should stick with it so I can mention this lowkey travesty.
With that out of the way, lets get into the rest of the negatives here. There were some aspects that I don’t think needed multiple confirmation presses, like you don’t need to confirm to open the shop (this was a toss up, sometimes it takes one press, sometimes it needs two), there are some baking steps that didn’t need the confirmation at the end (like rising the dough), and oh my gosh it was so annoying having to press A like 10 times when the text box just had “…”. There were, I think, two textboxes with “…” that didn’t have this problem in Chapter 2, but then it went back to needing you to spam the button. And on this topic, there’s no text log (*cries*) and I did notice some inconsistencies here and there, as well as some out of sequence stuff, which wasn’t a big deal but there is one that did cause some confusion for me since it set a hard weekday for a story event to happen but I was already past it (this didn’t block my progression, don’t worry). I feel like the game could have used a bit more tutorializing. Like the game doesn’t tell you the button to fast walk nor the button to bring up your phone. I wished you could change a pastry style without having to make it again and thus taking up a time slot and energy. A part of me did wish the small, basic Regrets had a different look to them depending on the emotion, even if it was just a color swap. The game will decide what order the goods are in for you. If you get used to certain menu items being in a certain order and try to fix it when picking the menu, the game will switch it back the next day which is annoying. On that topic, I don’t think the Curiosities actually attract more customers with Regrets, particularly the emotion it’s for. Like, I had the one you get for Fear from a side quest on for at least a week (I didn’t count) and I only got one customer with a Fear Regret in that time. I did also notice when random chunks of a customer’s patience would go down at some points before things start going down at the end of the game.
You have no idea how much I hated the indecisive customers. They’re just annoying when they first pop up, but once you start selling pastries I was ready to throw hands. There were multiple times when I would be walking to them or even just got to them and they changed their mind and I even had a few times where they changed their mind right as I was handing their order to them. Like what. Thankfully, they can’t change their order once the shop is closed. I did find it weird that sometimes they did mention the actual brand or IP since they mostly used parody names to make references to other games and books. And that note, while I do think having a lot of parody books/games was used as a way for players to learn about these other pieces of media (and what media the developers probably liked as well), I do wish we got to learn what Estelle thought about them more. I was a bit disappointed with the dialogue when hanging out with someone wasn’t that interesting, though a part of me understands they probably went down this route so it wouldn’t risk it feeling drawn out. Though, I was pretty disappointed when giving someone a gift just had them say thank you most of the time. Like, give me a good interaction here! I did also notice that the characters you can easily raise your relationship with had more gifts than the ones you’ll have a harder time with (aka the characters you need to buy stuff from to raise your relationship level).
I do feel that the first Heart Palace could have done a better job at getting across that you need to get to know the person it belongs to more first. The barriers in the first one are so simple and easy that you can guess just based on what you learn when walking through it. The other Heart Palaces does a better job in this aspect as while you can guess the surface level of what’s bothering them, you can’t guess what’s at the core of it all. Also, a reset puzzle button for the first Heart Palace could have been nice and I did miss out on dialogue as the overworld text didn’t follow me during the final dive. It does seem like story events do override heart events so you might be in limbo waiting for that character to contact you depending on where you’re at in the story (thankfully, the game does store any additional points so if you give a gift forgetting the heart icon is still locked, it’s fine). I think if there are any unread messages it should have that red dot to notify you on the home phone screen; as well as the map notifying you when a character has something to say (and if you do go to them every day you do learn early on it’s a waste of time as it happens a few times). You can’t look at older messages. For shop decorations, I wish they were ordered in the order they’re added in the shop and you could view the whole set at once (as well as buy the whole set). If you make set plans with someone, just plop me there (and I know the game can do that as it does for main story moments), don’t act and imply like I can do something beforehand. On that note, story events can and will take energy and money from you. This also is a nice segway to how you lose more energy than you can gain back and I did wish there was a little toggle to see the numerical value of your energy. I also really wished that all of the UI went away for when you’re admiring Paris at night and for full CGs.
And most devastating, once you finish the game that’s it for the save file. Trying to continue it will put you at the epilogue and the only thing you can do is erase it and start a new save. There’s no overtime weeks where you can read the Codex again, finish relationships you couldn’t get to, or do anything else you didn’t have time for. I do think this is even more important here since the game progresses with each passing day and you can’t postpone it.
Now this is where I mention negatives I have that are going to be fixed when Version 1.3 comes to consoles. I thought about whether to mention these in my review since, well, they’re going to be fixed once the update finally gets approved, but I thought it was important to still mention it so you know where I’m coming from. I’d be lying if some of these didn’t hamper my enjoyment for a good while. Anyway, the first negative I had for this game and was the biggest annoyance for me throughout my whole playtime is actually in this category. It’s wishing that the fast walk was a toggle and not a hold. I did also wish you could rebind it since the button is the thumbstick, but that’s not coming in the update. I do really wonder what my thoughts of this game would be if I waited for the update as this actually does affect the whole game. Like, I didn’t really like going to some of the shops or spots where characters were because of where they were located at (as they were out of the way and I just don’t like it when sprint is holding down the thumbstick) and my main complaint of the Heart Palaces was that they mostly are you just walking forward. The other negative is related to one of the side quests where you’ll get to talk to a character on Fridays when relaxing. However instead of getting the 200 energy, you get 150 energy which I found pretty odd. This doesn’t seem to have been intended, but as I was thinking about this I thought that it would make sense for it to be higher (like at least 250 energy regain). I felt it would be more relaxing to be able to talk about your week to someone, especially since it actually ends up reinforcing how the magic system works that you’ll learn about in a lore book. It gives you a really good reward don’t get me wrong, it leveled up all of Lunne’s emotions for me, but I think it would have been nice for the tradition to continue. Like, when you go to the spot on Fridays you get the option to invite anyone (and I mean anyone not just the main three side characters) to talk about your week with and that could be another way to raise your relationship with them.
Okay it turned out to be only two, I thought I had more haha, but there are some minor things that I did run into that are going to be fixed. Like dialogue that pops up that shouldn’t have or a sound effect that should have stopped.
On this topic, while I do recommend waiting until the console version of The Witch’s Bakery gets the Version 1.3 update (which the developers should announce on socials when it does), I’d say you don’t have to. There are some progression gates, but I personally didn’t run into them. Or maybe I didn’t notice as I did see that a heart event being blocked was fixed but I don’t really remember if I encountered it since it generally seems like story events block heart events anyway. Though, if you are planning on getting Lunne to romance a certain someone (it’s not really a spoiler since it’s been part of the marketing since the beginning but hey, if you don’t know about it I won’t spoil it) I do recommend checking what dialogue choice you need to pick to dodge the bug.
Now to start tying things up with a bow, it’s time to gush about the sound and visuals here. I really liked the music here and I think it fit the game well. You can’t go wrong with Clair de Lunne, especially if your main character is named Lunne and you set it as the Night wind down track, the track for the work day blends both the rush and high energy of it all with how happy Lunne must be to finally achieve her dream. Plus a dash of how relaxed she must feel in the mix of the hustle and bustle and stress. I also think the tracks for the various locations (including the Heart Palaces) fit those places well and how Lunne must feel walking through these places as someone new to Paris (as well as someone who grew up in the countryside finding herself in a big city). There isn’t much voice acting here, but what is here is pretty good and I did wish we got voiced lines from the others aside from the barks they do when you activate their ability. The sound effects were well done here as well, fitting what’s happening, pleasant enough that they don’t end up getting on your nerves, and giving you that feeling of satisfaction when baking or preparing dough.
There’s also a small detail that I really loved that was included. At Night, there’s a chance whenever you get back to that screen that someone is playing the violin. When you go to admire the scenery, you do get to hear the sounds of Paris and that will include the violin player. I really loved that they put in the small detail of the violin player not only playing Clair de Lunne alongside the piano, but the player being bad at the song at first and gradually getting better as you get further into the game. And as a violin player myself, I can also say the timeline is accurate.
I absolutely love the visuals here! In fact, it was what drew me to this game aside from the title. Despite the hit the visuals take on the Switch, the game is still beautiful to look at (which is also why it’s a lowkey travesty the visuals took such a hit. The backgrounds are beautiful, the Heart Palaces are beautiful and does a great job at representing both the emotion and the character, the physical form of Emotions are so cute (apart from the last one haha) and fit the emotion they embody really well, and I really loved the designs of the Torments. I liked the item artwork, but I especially loved the food artwork and how you had two different styles to choose from. I did wish there was a third style, but I like how the second style ranges from being more fancy to being super cute and completely on brand for Lunne and Orio. I really liked the mini and full CGs and while I was a bit more meh on the art style for the cutscenes (probably because I love the art style used for the majority of the game) I really liked the cutscenes as well. And lastly, I loved the character designs here and the various sprites that the characters got. Everyone looks so good, ends up fitting their personalities well, and the more important side characters get so expressive. Like Orio really wears his heart on his sleeve and I loved Estelle and Mawali’s various sprites. Oh, and I loved the designs of the big Regrets and what they end up representing. The more magical creatures here are a bit more shocking, like Ghaldari, but I did like seeing some of the Aside species. I almost forgot to mention that I also really liked the decorations you can buy for your bakery! There were some choices I was a bit confused on, but they all really do come together when you have a full set equipped. Personally, I loved the Spooky set (plus the one pink computer from the Cute set cause I am allowed one pink item goshdangit).
Now, it’s time for what I’ve been dying to write about: Lunne’s design! I absolutely loved Lunne’s design and the artist(s) did such an amazing job with her. I mentioned that Lunne’s personality makes it a no brainer why a lot of people gravitate towards her, but I’d say her design brings it home. Lunne is such a cute character. I love how squishy and dough-like (in a good way!) her face looks and I just wanted to reach through the screen and squish her cheeks. I love how expressive she is, her happy and excited sprites never failed in making me smile; while her sad and angry sprites really hits hard partly due to how they’re drawn and the fact that you don’t see her sad or panicked or angry a lot (and man when she does, it’s devastating and you just want to make her feel better). Personally, my favorite sprite of hers is her excited sprite as it is just so contagious. I love her outfit as well, so much that I want to cosplay as her one day, and I love the small detail of her hair braid looking like a braided brioche bun.
I really hope The Witch’s Bakery gets some merch later down the line cause you best believe I will pick it up. Fingers crossed for a keychain or pin of Lunne riding on her broom (basically the artwork for the loading screen). Oh my gosh, a keychain of Lunne riding on her broom and Orio dangling underneath.
As for performance, I’d say it’s good here. Aside from the visuals taking a hit, I only noticed some small hitches when preparing dough (which I don’t really count) and I did have a random crash when traveling back home from the map (which wasn’t as big of a deal since the game does autosave pretty frequently).
Verdict
Despite the rough start I had with The Witch’s Bakery and the many negatives that I had, it turned out to be the really enjoyable and cozy experience I’ve been hoping it would be. I really loved the slice-of-life approach and how emotional the story got, enjoyed the gameplay here, really loved the characters and artwork, loved how much the gameplay ended up tying into the storytelling, and I really appreciate all of the small details that were put in the game. I really do hope we see more from the world of The Witch’s Bakery, whether it’s a sequel or a free or paid update that extends the game in some way. I’m already missing Lunne and the gang.
I think it’s obvious that I recommend The Witch’s Bakery despite all of its flaws, but I think I do still need to clarify that I do also still recommend the Switch version. I do recommend playing the Switch 2 version if you can so you have the nice crisp visual quality, but even if you can only play on the Switch it’s still worth it. I thought back when this was announced it would be the perfect game to play anywhere and I was right. It was so nice being able to get all cozy irl while playing this cozy game.
Stay sweet!
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