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Jenny the Witch Review
- Taylor Rioux
- Jul 23
- 6 min read
I fire up Jenny the Witch, and for a brief moment, it is 2002 all over again. It arrives with the luster and bluster of a classic PS2-era action RPG — loud and unconcerned with hyper-realism. Positioned squarely as a hack-and-slash spectacle that attempts to marry character action combat with floaty platforming, my mind alights with possibility and nostalgia. However, despite design elements that show clear promise, uneven mechanical tuning and technical rough edges keep this witch from fully taking flight.
Publisher: Catbird Soft Developer: Catbird Soft Platform: Played on PC (Steam) Availability: Released on July 22, 2026 on PC |
Visually, Jenny the Witch reaches for the nostalgic blocky aesthetic that has grown more popular over the last few years. For this game, that aesthetic manifests as bright colors and limited flashy effects during combat, while maintaining a bare-bones approach to environmental design. Between combat encounters, players will participate in some light platforming, a structure that, despite its “spectacle fighter” Steam tag, feels a bit more like Kingdom Hearts than a straight musou game like Dynasty Warriors.
Yet, for all of its reverence for those aged classics, Jenny the Witch neglects to build up its story and characters in any meaningful way. You play as Jenny, a bounty hunter of sorts hired to investigate the mysterious disappearance of several miners at a remote dig site. Piloting a witch-themed mech, Jenny will need to fight through hordes of mechanical super soldiers in order to discover what happened to the missing people and uncover the group behind the events.
There’s not much more to the setup than that, and the story remains minimal throughout, with brief dialogue exchanges appearing occasionally to establish basic context. With the plot pushed to the background, narrative tension rarely takes hold. Additionally, with a relatively small roster of enemy types and environment designs that can feel uniform over time, the progression across the campaign tends to blend together with few distinct thematic milestones.
I never really got a sense of who Jenny is as a character. Her brief interactions with her hacker brother don't yield much characterization, and the gameplay gives few clues on its own. This isn’t a plea for more “story.” I don't think an explanation of the ins and outs of Jenny’s philosophy or reasoning is necessary for Jenny the Witch to be a compelling game, but she lands nearly devoid of personality — an empty husk, much like the mech suit she pilots.
Character action games often live and die by their rich characters just as much as they do by their combat. They work in tandem to create memorable and exciting experiences. The characters inform the action, and the action informs us about the character — they become inseparable. For Jenny the Witch, so little of the action or characterization engrosses me, or drives the game forward.
In some sense, you can get a taste of this by taunting when your hyper meter is empty, with Jenny launching insults toward her mechanical foes, but very little about Jenny can be gleaned from her actions or animations, and I think that’s a shame. Take a character like Bayonetta, the lead from the series of the same name; her attacks and movements are fluid, almost dancer-like; her walk exudes confidence. We can learn so much about her just by watching her. In comparison, Jenny attacks with rigid movements, rather than with the flair of a heroine or confident hunter.
By contrast, the game’s final boss gets more characterization than all other characters combined, with interstitial vignettes showcasing their thought process and feelings throughout the game. Unfortunately, the game, along with the characterization, ends just as abruptly as it begins, with the ending sequence feeling intensely rushed as a means of shuffling us out the door.
When evaluating an action title, game feel — the tactile feedback and responsiveness of player controls — is paramount. Jenny the Witch delivers a mixed bag here, offering satisfying weight in some areas while feeling restrictive in others. That feel in combat has its positives, like the attacks carrying a noticeable weight, aided by subtle micro-pauses upon landing hits that make strikes feel impactful. Against smaller enemies, this system shines as hits stagger foes outright. However, because larger enemies do not react or stagger when hit, engaging them up close carries high risk, especially on elevated difficulty settings.
Jenny possesses both close-range melee attacks and long-range shooting mechanics. While melee combat is inherently more dynamic, yielding higher damage, hitting multiple targets, and filling the hyper attack meter much faster, it operates under noticeable constraints. A key design challenge lies in how the game ties both basic weapon attacks and dodge maneuvers to the same extremely limited resource pool. Because melee attacks feature relatively long recovery animations on their final hits, players are forced to spend this limited resource just to dash out of harm's way.
Switching to ranged attacks, which refills energy reserves for melee, presents its own rhythm, as there is a brief input delay between pressing the button and firing. This friction is further compounded by the game's monetary economy, where upgrades and new moves are purchased using funds earned through high combo chains. While melee attacks build the combo meter faster, ranged attacks allow players to build and maintain chains safely from a distance without breaking the combo or risking heavy damage. As a result, the safest and most efficient way to play often disincentivizes close-quarters melee, even though that melee system is arguably where the core combat shines brightest.
Once completed, Jenny the Witch opens up the ability to replay the story using your unlocked abilities, or participate in an "Arena" mode to face off against waves of enemies. The cliché is that “familiarity breeds contempt,” but thankfully, I’ve not found this to be the case. Playing the story on the highest difficulty comes with new enemy encounters, which forces engagement in melee due to the high volume of foes — something that is not true on normal difficulty. The increased difficulty necessitates a more robust playstyle, which does make it much more interesting to engage with than simply firing away at robots, but all of the aforementioned quirks and issues of melee remain the same, which can lead to frustration.
The Arena provides flat, dull stages to face waves of foes so that you can practice more thoroughly, but confers no additional benefit, as far as I can gather. Still, there is something soothing about learning the combat of a character action game like this, even if there is little to take hold of. Being able to manipulate the character just so, gracefully dashing from foe to foe, all of it does bring fulfillment. But here it also makes me yearn for more — more freedom in dashing and melee, and the ability to make each fight my own.
A key design challenge lies in how the game ties both offensive special attacks and basic dodge maneuvers to the same extremely limited resource pool.
Beyond the combat loop, Jenny the Witch encounters its most significant hurdles in its camera system and platforming responsiveness. Platforming segments are not exacting in their timing, but the camera often struggles to keep up with the action, occasionally clipping into geometry or swinging abruptly during tight maneuvers, making it difficult to gauge landing spots and positioning. As such, camera collision issues near walls end up being the direct cause of most falls and deaths.
Players may also occasionally encounter minor animation hitches, such as getting momentarily stuck in a jump state during frantic sequences, leaving the player unable to perform their normal combat actions and stranding them in a vulnerable state. On the positive side, early technical hiccups have seen active developer attention already. An early bug that prevented enemies from exiting spawn points was promptly addressed in a pre-launch patch. For early adopters, such day-one friction is not uncommon, and active patching bodes well for the game's ongoing stability.
Verdict Ultimately, Jenny the Witch is a throwback that channels the vibrant spirit of classic action titles, but never fully captures it. Its core combat carries a satisfying weight, and its blend of colorful visuals with arcade-style scoring provides a fun foundation, but camera inconsistencies, strict resource limitations, and a minimal story keep it from reaching true classic status. That said, players who appreciate retro game feel and simpler hack-and-slash action will find a title and developer worth keeping an eye on. |
Image Credits: Catbird Soft and Taylor Rioux
Disclaimer: We received a copy of this title for free from the publisher.
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