Never Grave: The Witch and The Curse Review — My New Possession

A beautifully crafted roguelike with Metroidvania-style level design, Never Grave: The Witch and The Curse masterfully combines elements from both genres to create something really special. Easily becoming one of my new favorite roguelikes, the game shines through its artwork and style, beautiful score, and deceptively simple yet enthralling combat and progression systems.

Honestly, it’s hard to know where to start when talking about the elements of Never Grave: The Witch and The Curse that I enjoyed. If we’re going to start with the first thing any new player would notice, however, it would be the unique art and aesthetic direction.

I absolutely adore the art direction in Never Grave: The Witch and The Curse. It’s not just that the game is beautifully hand-drawn, but that the 2D style and character designs fall into a sort of soft-gothic, magical-girl-adjacent look. I feel the energy of classics like Puella Magi Madoka Magica produced in the same style, with a sort of grim cuteness permeating the setting as dark colors and macabre monsters are portrayed with a cute look that softens their presence without betraying their grim nature. The soft, melodic, melancholy piano score beautifully pairs with the visual style, presenting a world that feels like a dream as you explore it without shying away from the nightmares.

Mechanically, Never Grave: The Witch and The Curse uses Metroidvania-style level design and combat mechanics paired with a roguelike loop, where each run consists of procedurally generated maps, ensuring no two levels are the same. It isn’t the first to do so, and it’s a pairing I personally enjoy, even as someone who has been vocal in the past about not being too big a fan of Metroidvania titles in general. The map design in Never Grave: The Witch and The Curse still makes use of some elements of the aforementioned genre that I don’t really like, such as backtracking, but it isn’t especially bad or intrusive, and I found myself invested enough that the elements that usually would tire me out didn’t have much effect.

One aspect of level design I wasn’t too fond of, though, was the way Never Grave: The Witch and The Curse uses a sort of “level lock” mechanic that blocks straight-ahead progression. Essentially, as you go through each uniquely themed segment, you’ll progress until you finish the level just after the one you finished last, unlock the next one, and then be forced to return to the hub. Basically, if you’re on level one of the Ruins segment, you’ll play through to level two and then unlock level three before being forced to go home and give up all the boons you’ve collected along the way. This stands in contrast to how roguelikes usually work, wherein you can keep going until you reach the final boss if your build and player skill are good enough. I personally didn’t like having to give up my good builds simply because I played the game well enough to get to a forced return point.

That being said, the progression in Never Grave: The Witch and The Curse is deceptively captivating. During runs, you collect coins and resources, which are used in a sort of town-building minigame, where your character can grow food, build new structures that act as upgrade hubs or resource-producing areas, and otherwise spend collected resources to upgrade stats for future runs. While the variety of resources in the game can make unlocking certain skills somewhat of a grindy process, you definitely feel the power of your progression with each one, going from an easily killable witch to a powerful warrior, with each upgrade you invest providing a significant return.

The game’s combat is pretty straightforward, featuring a basic hack-and-slash with a dodge mechanic and the ability to cast two spells and use a tool in battle. The variety of upgrades found in the level is fun, but again, it can be hard to build a satisfying kit before the levels of a segment are fully unlocked because you’re sent home early each time.

Platforming is made more interesting with the use of possession, the ability to leave your body and then summon it back to your location as a magical hat. This can be used to gain extra distance on a jump or slide into hard-to-fit places, but the game also allows you to possess the bodies of certain enemies, which essentially gives you a free health bar and a new move set. This was a very fun and essential mechanic that I ended up taking advantage of whenever I could.

Overall, I can certainly recommend Never Grave: The Witch and The Curse both to newcomers and fans of the Metroidvania genre. The map design is pretty good, and the roguelike progression and combat are especially fun. While I don’t like how the game sort of bottlenecks your progression by forcing you to return to the hub and give up your build before you might be ready, it was an otherwise small inconvenience that didn’t take away from the game too much. Despite my criticisms, I can definitely say I enjoyed Never Grave: The Witch and The Curse and will be playing beyond the time I needed to write this review.

Try Hard Guides was provided a Steam code for this PC review of Never Grave: The Witch and The Curse. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page! Never Grave: The Witch and The Curse is available on Steam, Xbox, PlayStation, and the Nintendo Switch.