Reigns has taken yet another beloved fantasy franchise and given it a new lease of life. It took me a while to get to grips with knowing what response to give, who best to please, and how the systems work, but once I did I couldn’t stop playing. Reigns: The Witcher embraces the legacy of Geralt of Rivia. Told through the songs of Dandelion, you’ll encounter various monsters and people alike, where nothing is quite as it seems. Maintaining the balance of keeping everyone happy is no easy task.
Nerial has done a great job of delving into the lore of The Witcher. I encountered a whole manner of characters from the books, as well as some famous stories made more familiar with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Whatever your exposure to The Butcher of Blaviken, I was hooked. If you’ve never played a Reigns game before, you have to swipe left and right on various images complete with a snippet of a story. Most involve making a decision to tip certain scales in favour of different types of individuals.
Do you make humans happy, please the non-humans like dwarves and elves, or put a smile on a sorcerer’s face? The final meter you have to find the sweet spot for is not losing sight in your quest to kill monsters. Every decision you make will increase or decrease these four gauges. Once one is full or empty, you risk death in a multitude of ways. Once dead, Geralt starts all over again, albeit with a new story to focus on through a range of different inspirations that have come to the loveable bard, Dandelion.
Each inspiration comes with a variable. Maybe humans are easier to upset or sorcerers are likely to be happier with a decision. There are missions attached to these inspirations as well. I had to help rats and be kind to children, make a troll smile and find love, fool a serial killer and save a snake-woman. Each run blends three of these inspirations to weave a tale that affects how you make your decisions. Every single run offered unique opportunities when it came to making decisions, and this is what provides the replayability.
Not only do you swipe cards and choose how to react to any given situation. Sometimes, you’ll have to battle. Drowners and fishpeople might challenge you, but so do cult leaders and even a dog. These fights play out on a static board, where icons drop down a grid. Hitting these icons when they hit the bottom require you to bounce along the bottom from tile to tile, making sure you’re in the correct position when they land. Both you and your enemy have a number of hearts. If you get hit or they do, you lose a heart until the battle is done.
This is where Geralt gets to use his famous Signs. Geralt can also use one of his swords in combat, but enemies also use a variety of attacks. It offers a break from swiping and can provide some surprisingly tense moments. Reigns: The Witcher is a simple game to play, but one that’s hard to master. It helps that there’s so many stories, characters, and possibilities. When you level up Dandelion’s storytelling, various inns will invite you to please the owners. By selecting the correct response, new inspirations and characters will unlock.
I quite can’t see Reigns: The Witcher as something players will spend hours with at a time. However, it’s perfect for filling up short bursts of free time with. A lot has gone into the storytelling, and it will make fans of Geralt and friends very happy. Occasionally, I would make the wrong decision despite thinking I knew how it would affect the different gauges. It was mildly frustrating, but something I started to understand more as I played. Whether on your phone or PC, this is yet another fun game in the card-swiping series.
