Witchaven is a dark medieval melee fps, where you are hunting down an evil sorceress through gloomy dungeons filled with vile creatures and subtle satanic innuendos. You’ll be punching dragons in the face, hacking butt-naked goblins to bits and dodging deadly traps. Throughout a series of 25 levels, you’ll be swinging your weapons, which will eventually break down, finding new weapons, guzzling down hundreds of potions for health, strength boost, etc., finding more or less rewarding loot, finding secrets, avoiding traps, dying in traps, running down the stairs, running up the stairs, using barrels for jump pads, finding keys, opening doors and so on. The combat is quite clunky and might make you want to refund the game. Also the weapons are mighty unbalanced, and most of them feel just plain pointless - you’ll do fine with just the basic dagger, short sword or putting your dukes up. The bow is so weak that you’ll go numb. Sure, you have a collection of spells, but casting them is so tedious, that you’ll just stick with the good old hack and slash. What is good then? Why not just play Hexen or Heretic? Witchaven does have a distinctive feel to it. The atmosphere is spot-on gritty and the level design is great. Maps are quite vast and offer a thrill of exploration, even though it is not that rewarding - only the hero time-power up and magic sword, which is one of the coolest fps melee weapons, are actually worth it. The game lasts roughly about 6 to 8 hours, and after you’ve finished it, you’ll go ”that was quite alright”. Yeah, not great, not terrible. Oh, and the game has a system for leveling up, but it is pretty vague.
