It would be typical of 2020 if Nine Witches: Family Disruption came true. A second dark moon has appeared in the night sky, eclipsing the more traditional moon, causing zombies and mindflaying worms to shamble across the Earth. It feels like the natural culmination to a wonky year.
Except Nine Witches is obviously fiction, and is set in 1944, when Nazi Germany was beginning to lose the Second World War. As a final hoo-rah, Adolf has sent his Okkulte-SS, a secret group of occult enthusiasts, to the far reaches of Norway. In an effort to bring about the end of the world, they kidnap a witch and complete a ritual that sends everyone back to the Dark Ages.
Nine Witches: Family Disruption is out now on Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PS4, PS5, Switch and PC via Steam.
You play both Alexei Krakovitz, a quadriplegic professor, and Akiro Kagasawa, his faithful assistant. Your mission, whether you like it or not, is to infiltrate ‘Eklipse Fest’, a party that the Nazis have set up to celebrate the end of the world. You weren’t picked at random: as Alexei, you have the ability to enter the spirit realm, moving through doors and spotting points of interest with a ghost radar; as Akiro, you are quite the crack-shot with a pistol.
Nine Witches: Family Disruption is a graphic adventure, and it clearly has a lot of love for old LucasArts games, with the world map in particular feeling like a nod to Secret of Monkey Island. That doesn’t mean it’s anachronistic: a lot of effort has been put into making it console friendly, with only a few different actions you can perform, all mapped to the face buttons, and none of that click-to-move malarkey.
We reviewed Nine Witches earlier this month and gave it a solid 3.5/5, saying it “doesn’t reinvent the graphic-adventure wheel, and you won’t find it on any end-of-year lists. What it does do, though, is tell a spooky, kooky story, tickle your ribs as it does it, and wrap it all in a frustration-free experience.”
Features include:
- Unique original story. (99.999999% GUARANTEED)
- Single player, dual character action-adventure with puzzle-solving elements.
- Join professor Alexei Krakovitz and his loyal Japanese assistant, Akiro Kagasawa, in their heroic crusade against the Okkulte-55.
- Retro-pixel style artwork.
- A quirky cast of characters!
- Visit Sundäe, an oppressed village on the northwest coast of Norway.
- Talk with the dead.
If that sounds like your cup of pixels, then Nine Witches: Family Disruption is out now on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S and starts at £12.59, although that is with taking into account the initial launch discount. From there out, you’re looking at a £15.74 asking price. It’s also out on PS4, PS5, Switch and PC.
Game Description:
October 1944, something strange is happening in Sundäe, a rustic Norwegian town where a mysterious dark moon hangs over the sky, generating uncertainty among its inhabitants. As World War II continues, the Okkulte-55, a secret division of the Third Reich, arrives in Sundäe to unleash an ancient curse, in a desperate act to twist the course of the war. Alexei Krakovitz, a quadriplegic professor of occult science and Akiro Kagasawa, his faithful assistant, are sent to Norway on a secret mission to unravel the mystery and save the world from the Okkulte-55 clutches. An original story with absurd dark humor, riddled with eccentric characters, diabolical inventions, puzzles, occultism, talking dead, witches, worms, a mysterious party, and an ancient curse that threatens the human race. An adventure so delusional that it will make you delirious to the delirium itself! Ha-Ha!
