Mika and The Witch's Mountain

I have a soft spot for games that could have been cynical cash-ins on an obvious reference and chose not to be. Chibig's broom-courier adventure wears its Kiki's Delivery Service heart openly and without apology, and for the most part that honesty is the thing that keeps it afloat. You play as Mika, a young witch-in-training unceremoniously tossed off the top of Mount Gaun by her stern teacher Olagari - broom snapped, ego bruised, and an entire island's worth of deliveries between her and the summit. The setup lands with a quiet warmth that sets the tone for everything that follows. The core loop is simple and deliberate: pick up packages from the Amazing Deliveries office, locate residents scattered across the island of Orilla Town, drop off the goods without getting them wet, battered, or expired before the day-timer runs out. Villagers rate your service, coins fund new brooms, and each broom unlocks a new layer of the island. One broom trades carrying capacity for speed; another tightens the steering for navigating rocky corridors. The progression is light but it does its job of giving you a reason to keep gliding back out. There are also hidden air-current shortcuts to activate, collectible statuettes tucked into corners, optional side deliveries, and post-launch minigames added by Chibig after listening to early feedback - a Churro Express racing challenge, a kitten-rescue sidequest, and a pet companion system among them. The full 1.0 release in January 2025 arrived with that additional content already folded in, which makes the experience more rounded than the early-access version critics originally reviewed. Here is where I want to be honest with you, because the game deserves honesty more than hype. The flight is not really flight. Mika glides close to the ground, catches wind currents to climb, and skims surfaces rather than freely soaring. Some players find that meditative; others find it frustrating, especially when the broom controls feel slightly sticky and there is no in-flight compass telling you which direction you are facing relative to the map. A handful of reviewers flagged the absence of a hard-stop mechanic as a small but persistent nuisance. The overarching story is thin - structured across three narrative "days" of deliveries - and the writing, while warm and occasionally funny, does not dig as deep into Mika's character as it could. If you come in expecting Wind Waker's emotional weight, the shallowness may sting. The total playtime, including optional content, hovers around five to six hours. What the game does beautifully is atmosphere. The cel-shaded art style on Mont Gaun is genuinely lovely, bright without being garish, and the island communicates a lived-in history through the residents you meet across those deliveries - a gruff lighthouse-keeper inventor, callbacks to characters from Chibig's earlier games Summer in Mara and Ankora: Lost Days. Each delivery peels back a little more of the community, and the cumulative effect is warmer than the sparse story structure suggests. The soundscape is exactly the kind of gentle ambient score that makes a short game feel like a long exhale. For players who want exactly that - a cozy afternoon, a sense of place, a simple task done with care - this is a remarkably good fit. For anyone expecting genuine aerial freedom or a narrative with stakes, the gap between expectation and delivery is real enough to matter.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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