This Way Madness Lies | Switch Review

August 20, 2023 Alyssa White

I was obsessed with magical girls as a young, overly imaginative child. Their ability to attend school and also fight evil with their best friends (in beautiful outfits, no less) captivated me. To be honest, I’m still infatuated with the magical girl subgenre as an adult. Discovering that Zeboyd had created This Way Madness Lies was a dream come true. Adding Shakespeare and eldritch creations to the mix only piqued my interest further.

Champions of Justice

This Way Madness Lies follows Imogen and her six best friends as they’re preparing to put on Shakespeare’s plays for the school drama club. As they tackle each of the Bard’s works, a mysterious portal opens up and pulls them into the world of that specific story. Doesn’t sound too terrifying, right? Wrong! These worlds have been infested by zombies, ghosts, and Lovecraftian monstrosities that the group must vanquish. Luckily, they have the ability to transform into magical girls, giving them the power to kick all sorts of monster butt. The cherry on top? They each have a transformation sequence, which is an absolute must-have in this specific subgenre. I dare you to try to skip these scenes. Really. Try to skip them.

Punishment in the Name of Literature

Gameplay consists of traditional JRPG mechanics. Battles are turn-based, with a wonderfully strategic edge. You can’t just spam attacks and hope to make it through the skirmish. It’s imperative that you utilize buffs and status ailments against your enemies, or you’ll be staring at Game Over screens quite a bit. I appreciated the need to think more critically during battles, and it made victory feel sweeter.

As you progress through the game’s six to seven hour story, you’ll pick up an abundance of traits and abilities. Traits are special buffs that also change your stats, so blindly picking them isn’t advised. Weighing the choice between more health or extra damage with a certain attack is a tough task, but it further adds to the richness of the combat. The rate at which you gain traits and abilities is somewhat overwhelming, though, since you gain multiple of each every time you level up. I did wish the accumulation of these would have slowed down at some points during my playthrough, but it didn’t impact my enjoyment in the slightest.

Saving the World One Smile at a Time

This Way Madness Lies evokes memories of classic games that I played during my childhood. The 16-bit graphical style is stunning, and the score made me reminisce about the good old days of playing on my Game Boy for hours without a care in the world. The sound effects during battle sequences were also incredibly satisfying. It’s evident that a lot of love and nostalgia was poured into this title.

The humorous dialogue also had me laughing during the duration of my play time. The jokes are clean, effective, and contain references to pop culture. There’s also an option to “translate” Shakespearean dialogue to modern day language. I found myself constantly switching between the classic vernacular to Zeboyd’s lines just to chuckle in delight. A beautifully written paragraph about saying goodbye to someone being translated to “laters” had me rolling on the floor in fits of laughter.

The Final Verdict

This Way Madness Lies is a truly delightful gem of a game. The combination of magical girls, Shakespeare, and eldritch creatures is a weirdly perfect mixture. The throwbacks to classic 16-bit JRPGs evoke halcyon memories, and Zeboyd’s daft hand with incorporating humor into their narratives is a welcome treat. Traits and abilities may flood in at an overwhelming rate after each level up, but the focus on being strategic during battle is welcome. I can’t recommend this game highly enough. Now to go back to dreaming about making “magical girl” my occupation.

To hear me talk more about This Way Madness Lies, be sure to listen to the August 8th, 2023 episode of The Gaming Outsider podcast around the 34:34 time stamp.

This review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy of This Way Madness Lies provided by Clever Communications for coverage purposes. It is also available on PC via Steam and will launch on PlayStation 5 at a later date.