KIWIWALKS, developer of the WitchSpring series, released a trailer showcasing the combat of their upcoming title Shade of the Marionette: The Story of Piyorita, and it gives us an extensive look at how the moment-to-moment game will play.
The action combat is jam-packed with no small number of attack options. Pretty much anything you can think of is present, and the trailer shows off the following:
Dodging.
Charged attacks.
Jumping, allowing for platforming onto crates, including a midair jump.
Plunge attacks.
A counterattack known as an Opening Strike. When a button prompt appears, Piyorita will not only dodge the enemy, she'll cast a spell—the spell in the trailer is known as Blade Tornado, which drops a giant tornado on the enemy—right after a brief cinematic.
Laying down traps. In the trailer, landmines are laid down, and while they appear to detonate automatically after a set length of time, all lain landmines can be manually detonated.
A counter separate from the Opening Strike. In the trailer, Piyorita is being hit constantly by an enemy attack, and after five hits in a row, a button prompt labeled Counter appears. Pressing it, like with the Opening Strike, plays a brief cinematic, but its effect is that Piyorita interrupts the enemy's combo, allowing her to escape.
Swapping weapons mid-fight. Combat freezes during this swap.
During a boss fight, the boss's health can briefly be seen regenerating. In addition, when Piyorita attacks, some text is displayed: The enemy's guard is solid.
Deflecting projectiles back at their source.
Spells that require a charge-up to cast, and once that charge is complete, combat freezes so that the player can lay down the AOE wherever they please. A fireball spell shown off shortly after doesn't freeze combat, however.
Exploding barrels.
Summoning that also requires some time to activate. In the trailer, Piyorita summons a giant spider that draws the boss's attention.
Piyorita fights a witch, though it can't be said if this is an actual character or a generic enemy type.
Enemy attacks are telegraphed via red outlines, circles, and the like on the floor.
A number of non-combat features are shown off as well:
Weapons can be upgraded via one of four methods: Blade Reinforcement, Lightening, Crescendo, and Climax. Leveling up the Blade Reinforcement requires certain materials, and it can alter one of four stats: Average Power, Total Power, Attack Speed, and Weight.
Piyorita can examine a painting, with the option to stab it. Doing so in the right spot uncovers a creature hiding against the painting. (Unrelated to this mechanic, the painting is of a series witch.)
The creature from this painting is named Straccio, and it may be companion to Piyorita much like Black Joe is to Pieberry.
Some English dialogue is shown off, but it lacks voice acting. At this point, there's no telling what the lack of voice acting entails, though here are options in order from least likely to most likely:
-The game as a whole lacks voice acting.
-The cutscenes themselves shown might simply lack voice acting.
-Voice lines haven't been recorded yet.
-The game does and will lack English voice acting, and the usual Korean or Japanese voicework is turned off for this trailer so as not to stand out or divest attention from the gameplay features. This trailer is intended for an English-speaking audience, after all.
There is a fifth theory, and it's the most exciting prospect in my personal opinion, and it's that Shade of the Marionette will feature English voice acting. In a recent Q&A put out by KIWIWALKS to celebrate the 3rd anniversary of WitchSpring R's release, the possibility of English voice acting was asked, and the developer confessed they were open to the idea.
If Shade of the Marionette does receive an English dub, since that would make it the first title in the series to support English voiceover, I would, in KIWIWALKS's shoes, save that reveal for a later story trailer down the line, as a Smash Effect surprise to the audience.
While I have my fingers crossed for this, of all the theories I've listed, this is the least likely, as the English translations for past WitchSpring titles have been done by non-native speakers relatively local to KIWIWALKS's headquarters.
Back to the features, Piyorita's bedroom, her homebase, has five menu options available. In order, they are Mirror Travel (likely for entering White Nest for combat), Journal, Status, Crafting/Upgrade, and Tools/Dolls.
In the trailer, the Status tab is selected, which has four sub-tabs: Basic Stats, Soul Stone, Skills, and Records.
Under the Basic Stats tab, the only visible stats are HP and MP, though there are six more slots available. Below that are two rows for equipment. The top is for her sword, magic spell, summon, and trap. Below that seems to be for accessories, and when the inventory is brought up, three accessories are revealed:
-A Gravitium Feather, which increases Attack Speed by 10%.
-A Mana Convergence Ring, which replenishes three MP points upon defeating an enemy.
-A Mana-Infusion Repair Kit, which seems to be an automatic healing item triggered when Piyorita takes a major hit, at least a quarter of her HP, though it's a gradual heal over the course of 8 seconds, healing 40 HP, and requiring 36 seconds of cooldown before it's ready for use again.
Up to five accessories can be equipped at a time, and equipping one fills in one of the empty stats slots.
Incidentally, Soul Stones are a mechanic in WitchSpring3, serving as the experience bar used to awaken and level up Eirudy's dolls. Piyorita also has a Soul Stone bar marked at Lv. 1.
Finally, the trailer ends with a cutscene of Piyorita standing before the mirror in her bedroom as a character who bares a striking resemblance to Piyorita herself floats through. This same character is seen on a banner on the game's Steam page, accompanied with the text Captivating but Dangerous “Failures.”
This invading character in question also bears a striking resemblance to Eirudy, although her model appears to lack the distinct rabbit ears exclusive to witches. However, Eirudy's ears do tend to blend in with her hair, so it's not impossible that a strand of hair on the invader's model might actually be witch ears.
The man on the Steam page banner, if we're following the story of WitchSpring3, would be Adrian, Eirudy's love interest, though the resemblance between these two is less apparent, with the only real similarity being their shared eye color.
My personal fan theory is that these two characters on the Steam page banner are Eirudy and Adrian, or some sort of stand-ins for them, and Piyorita is their daughter. Everything spoken about the story for Shade of the Marionette so far denies this possibility, but I'd put money down that this would be mid- or late-story twist. Naturally, we'll have to wait for the game to release to see how right or wrong I am.
That's it for trailer coverage. All in all, Shade of the Marionette: The Story of Piyorita isn't looking to innovate in the field of action RPG combat, merely polishing what's commonplace and established, as well as translating WitchSpring traditions from turn-based combat to action combat.
No precise release date has been printed, but the game is still slated for a 2027 release, and I most certainly am looking forward to having fun with the combat and seeing what its story adds to the wider WitchSpring universe.
