Covens: Tournament of Witchcraft Review for iOS

Covens: Tournament of Witchcraft is a mobile app released by Raincrow Studios that enables a reality where players can practice magic and witchcraft anywhere they are, and interact with other witchcraft practitioners all over the world. Players can gather ingredients and cast spells, gain spiritual familiars, and fight other witches for Places of Power in spectacularly designed arena settings. Influenced by the moon itself and the coming of the seasons, Covens: Tournament of Witchcraft is intended for an entrancing experience for all players interested in merging the real world with the world of gaming magic.

Sound

        Pros:

• Good, super incredible, and beautiful soundtrack. Very diverse and mystifying, and fitting to the overall theme of the game. Adds an even more enhanced magical effect to an already magical gameplay experience.
• Apparently, the soundtrack is original and produced by the creators themselves, which makes the soundtrack tons more impressive.
• Especially immersive experience when using headphones, especially when those sound effects hit after casting and binding spells.

        Cons:

• Great quality most of the time, but shoddy at others. Headphones are recommended for a better player experience, but at the music’s shoddy moments, I personally would take the headphones out for the sake of my ear drums (even at a low volume).
• Awkwardly stops and starts sometimes. There will be wonderful background music, then more wonderful background music, then suddenly none. It’s distracting and hurts the magical vibe it works so hard to play to.

• I would prefer more sound effects for spiritual encounters. Battles with possible familiars are hurt by the lack of sound and 2D design.

Graphics

       Pros:

• I was very impressed by the graphics upon first opening the app. Graphics are beautifully well done, and are noticeably made with meticulous animating. User interface flows nicely with gameplay movement with little lag. Faces of the characters are very detailed, even on NPCs. Overall aesthetic of gameplay navigation buttons fits within their respective purpose without losing that witchy touch.
• Excellent effort put into the spell crafting designs. Casting hexes/spells visually give a very Wiccan experience, rather than a stereotypical one in classic RPG games.
• Player choices in character design is surprisingly diverse and contains references to other cultures, which is appreciated. Obviously, the player must start with generic attire, but obtaining currencies allows a great deal of expressive wiggle room.

      Cons:

• Albeit the design beautiful, a lot is lacking with being able to distinguish navigational buttons. Even though each button purpose is described to me in detail, I very soon forget what each one is for and get lost.
• The spirits meant to fight and become familiars are detailed but are distracted by the fact they are unfittingly 2D drawn relative to the rest of the game. Everything else contributes to a real, witch-like experience, except for these encounters.
• Character design can be improved by adding poses and movement to the player’s character. Each player character is frozen in an awkward pose of their profile. It’s a harsh, unflattering distraction to the eyes when trying to attempt to customize them with those hard earned currencies.
• The game is mostly, if not entirely, monochromatic. Black and white hex design is classic but Jesus, it wouldn’t hurt to have some color other than the most minimal that is done.
• Arguably, there might even be too much detail. I play on an iPhone 8, and attempting to play casually feels like trying to play an entire desktop game on a tiny a screen. Perhaps this bids well with users with larger phones, but not so much for the vast majority of iPhone users with smaller screens. Frankly, I’d rather not hold my phone so close to my face just so I can see everything less cramped together.

Plot

       Pros:

• Gameplay purpose is fairly straightforward: obtain Places Of Power, familiars, spell ingredients, group up with other witches, etc. — basically live a wonderfully witchy life. Nothing gets better than that.

      Cons:

• Really no cons to this kind of plot objective for me. I could play such a concept all day, everyday.

Gameplay

       Pros:

• Like I’ve mentioned several times, the gameplay is just incredibly original and beautifully done. It truly is a marvelous piece of art.
• Overall structure of the game intends for the player to not only physically explore other places, but to “spiritually” explore them as well. This means players can interact with each other and obtain Places Of Power all over the globe, which already is interesting in itself (at first).
• The fact that the gameplay is also influenced by real-life moon phases and seasons really adds some legitimacy to the entire experience.
• One can learn three types of witchcraft — White, Grey, or Shadow. A player can specialize in one of the three or learn all three to become a Master Witch, if they so choose.

     Cons:

• I have to admit, I would love if witches could have more freedom in pursuing more colorful jobs and fields of witchcraft. The choice in White, Grey, and Shadow is nice, but mundane sounding and not as magical feeling.
• The fact that players can travel all over the globe is great, but this hurts other players. This feels similar to issues that Pokemon GO experienced, where users were experiencing difficulty taking over gyms that are already taken over by higher leveled players that hack through the game to make it seem like they’re within playing vicinity, when they’re not. In the case of Covens: Tournament of Witchcraft, doing so is pretty much encouraged, and albeit interesting and fun, it is unfair to a lot of other players. It’s hard and therefore discouraging to try to obtain Places Of Power when so many are already taken by someone else in such little time after cooldown ends.
• The many tutorials are appreciated but does not change the fact that overall gameplay is just confusing. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of rhyme or rhythm to the chances of spells producing any damage, and it’s hard to figure out what’s going on in a lot of battles because of how convoluted and cramped the entire interface is when it’s happening.
• I know the game is user interactive friendly, and therefore allows global chatting, but like I said, the fact that the game takes place on a phone feels too small for this to be of much use, personally. There is just too much going on for me to really understand or deal with the fact that someone in another country is talking to other witches over something that sometimes doesn’t even involve me overall global chats.

Reviewer’s Opinion

I’m a sucker for any type of RPG game so I was very happy to go on and play Covens: Tournament of Witchcraft and give my utmost honest review. I really want to love this game and funnel a bunch of my time and money into it, but frankly, the costs vastly outweigh the benefits for me. It’s wonderfully thought out and detailed, but I believe its attempts to try and sort of “do it all” hurts itself such that it becomes very convoluted and gives too large of advantages to other players. That being said, Covens: Tournament of Witchcraft has so much potential to excel at being an amazing handheld experience, but at the moment, it has a lot to work on.

Check Out the Covens: Tournament of Witchcraft Video:

Covens: Tournament of Witchcraft is available via the App Store and Google Play.

For more information, please visit: https://www.raincrowstudios.com/

Charysma Natividad

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I am an arts and sciences student always looking for new games to sink most of my time into. Some of my favorite series include Ace Attorney, Final Fantasy, Shin Megami Tensei, and Persona. Don't hesitate to reach out for some friendly gamer banter.

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