The game starts with a group of theatre students able to transform into magical girls and travel to worlds based on the works of Shakespeare, and that premise alone has enough to hook you, but there is more. These worlds are under attack by an eldritch force known as Nightmare, and our heroines must stop the evil before their home is threatened.
As you might expect, This Way Madness Lies is a game that does not take itself seriously and when not undertaking their heroics, our protagonists will go ice-skating, put on various plays for their community, and get into various hijinks. The game does feel like a cross between Zeboy’s earlier titles, especially the Cthulhu games and an anime series, especially in how the episodic nature of the game is separated into acts. In one act, the heroines will try and save the romance of Romeo and Juliet, but will also be trying to save them from invading monsters making for Shakespeare like never before.
Thiis is an RPG for fans of Shakespeare’s work and there are some amazing tributes to the Bard and his writing here. Among them is the Ye Olde English to New English translator feature, which translated the Shakespearian dialogue into more modern lingo at the touch of a button and produces some funny interactions. There is also a trivia section between dungeons, but this is just for fun though and there is not really a benefit to it in-game. Besides these Shakespeare shoutouts though, there is also a neat feature reminiscent of Dragon Quest’s Party Talk feature, where the girls will talk about their situations and offer up insight to the stories.
In terms of gameplay, This Way Madness Lies is very similar to previous Zeboyd RPGs, but there are some neat innovations. You will have a party of four magical girls at any time, however, there are instances where you need to have a specific combination, and the combat has a neat twist here. The game emphasizes status ailments and elemental weaknesses but will also have enemies build up a resistance to these attacks, requiring you to attack a separate HP for ailments just to make them vulnerable again, which opens up the gameplay to ideas of how to play.
The rest of the combat should be very familiar to those who play Zeboyd RPGs, with skills being the main method of attack that need to be recharged after a single use. This was present in Cosmic Star Heroine as well and functions mostly the same here, but what is a bit different is Hyper Mode. This mode will see the girls’ skills change and take on new attacks and will boost your unit attack effectiveness more than was possible in previous games.
As for presentation, Zeboyd Games projects are always well down visually. The pixel art style is excellently handled here and there are no hiccups on the Switch version. The music is also top-notch and is probably the best of any Zeboyd Games RPG yet, and gets you pumped for adventure at home or on the go.
Bottom line, if you like RPGs, magical girl anime, the work of William Shakespeare, or any combination of the above, then you need to play this game. It truly manages to do something incredible and create a blend that should not work otherwise. Zeboyd Games has another hit here and their streak of excellence remains unbroken.
Disclaimer: A review key was provided
