Let's get this out of the way right now... Awakening Darkness is weird, though mostly in a good way. One early puzzle involves discovering a crocodile hatbox is allergic to feathers because... reasons. There's a jumpscare with a ferret. There's a hopping... mailbox... scarecrow... thing in a band uniform. And things only get weirder from there. If that sounds good to you, well, good great! Awakening Darkness' sense of humour and twisted whimsy is actually sort of refreshing in a sea of serious, spooky casual adventures, and while that means the more dramatic moments feel a little goofy, it also means it has a feeling of real creativity and style that keep you hooked. The plot is a full of strange characters and stranger circumstances as Jack sets off to rescue his sister, and throw the aesthetics and tone of Howl's Moving Castle, Willow, and a bunch of '80s music videos into a blender and you'll come close to what it feels like to play. It's pleasantly strange, with a infectiously gleeful weirdness to its plot and design, though if you start to think too much about what's happening it does sort of fall apart into an overcomplicated muddle of conveniences and talking animals. How?! Why?? Who cares, evil Raggedy Annes! If you've been looking for something that doesn't take itself too seriously, then Awakening Darkness is definitely the perfect choice to kick back with.

There are a lot of superfluous things to click on in every area that mostly serve to offer up little animations or quirks, and while they don't actually have anything to do with the gameplay directly, it is sort of nice to feel like you're actually exploring an area for what you need instead of just swinging your cursor around to find the hotspot. You'll find a wide variety of puzzles throughout the game, and Awakening Darkness balances its hidden-object scenes and classic point-and-click adventure-y very well, often weaving more exposition into both. Backtracking exists, but is kept from being too frustrating because of how the game is structured, constantly moving you to different locations to explore instead of being rooted in one particular area. Click detection, however, can be a little fiddly in hidden-object scenes, which, while multi-layered with little puzzles of their own or extra items to find to unlock lists, just aren't as interesting as the rest of the game. What's nice is that while you do get the token cute animal companion, Bertha's a talker, and it makes a surprisingly big difference to have a character with actual dialogue and a personality as your guide. Witches' Legacy: Awakening Darkness does a remarkable job of incorporating the lore of the rest of the series without feeling as if its simply rehashing old material in this installment, and if you're looking for something fun, vibrant, and more than a little oddball, it's an easy recommendation.

Windows:
Download the demo (Collector's Edition) Get the full version (Collector's Edition)

Mac OS X:
Download the demo (Collector's Edition) Get the full version (Collector's Edition)