This Way Madness Lies

Genre: Turn-Based RPG

Players: 1

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Review:

This Way Madness Lies is a Turn-Based RPG released on PC in 2022 and ported to PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch in 2023. Coming from Zeboyd Games, the dame developer that brought us Cosmic Star Heroine and Cthulhu Saves Christmas, This Way Madness Lies follows a group of young girls who are all members of the Stratford-Upon-Avon High Drama Society, a high school drama club… who are also all magical girls who occasionally enter portals to alternate dimensions where they fight monsters invading classic Shakespeare stories.

As you can probably tell from that premise, this is a game that doesn’t take its plot too seriously. Not only does it gleefully partake in the absurdity of the magical girl genre, it also delights in contrasting this with the mundane concerns of high schoolers, and it’s also all too happy to criticize The Bard’s stories and their characters – you’re introduced to the game through the girls’ adventures saving Romeo and Juliet from plant monsters, and much of the girls’ conversation pertains to how Romeo and Juliet are both impulsive idiots, and also Romeo seems far too eager to glom onto any girl he finds attractive.

To this end, the game features a “translator” for the “Olde English” or Shakespearean dialogue that players can turn on and off to have these characters’ words changed to more modern English, though… well, it’s mostly just there to add humor to things. When Romeo and Juliet reenact their famous balcony scene, Romeo’s line, “Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?” gets translated to “Eavesdropping is fun, but maybe wrong?”. In short, if you’ve come here looking for a fun and silly romp with a mashup of Magical Girl and Shakespearean themes, you’re in the right place… but if you’re wanting a deeper deconstruction of Shakespeare, I would direct you to instead look up the game To Be Or Not To Be.

However, while the story is highly amusing and the characters are great, that’s not the only fun element of the presentation here, with this game’s soundtrack giving us a great mix of chiptune themes and retro-style pop-rock ballads, with great themes like the title theme This Way Madness Lies, Every Rose, I Wish You Joy, Now is the Winter, Our Stars, and Boldness Be My Friend. Suffice it to say, this game’s soundtrack does a great job working with the fun story to keep a smile on your face.

This is all for the better, because this game’s graphics are merely… okay. This Way Madness Lies mostly uses 16-bit style 2D pixel art visuals, but the style this game imitates is the older and more dated-looking RPGs of the 16-bit era. It’s not terrible, and it still succeeds in evoking the nostalgia it aims for, it’s just nothing especially impressive. At the very least, the pseudo-anime-style character portraits and animated magical girl transformation sequences (which you can skip, but only if you also admit that you like to kick puppies) all look nice.

As for the gameplay, This Way Madness Lies starts with a fairly traditional turn-based system, but adds in a fun mechanic in the form of the Hyper mode, a mechanic that gradually powers up for each character, and once activated changes all of that character’s moves, with each character affected in different ways. For one character, it may double the power of their attacks, while another character’s attacks now target all enemies instead of one. One character’s attacks all change from offensive to defensive in hyper mode, changing that character’s entire nature and the way they’re used.

What’s more, players can select only a limited number of abilities and only a select few passive enhancements for each character, giving some great strategic options to try to maximize each character’s effectiveness. At earlier difficulties, this will hardly seem necessary as you’ll steamroll over the opposition, but harder difficulties will make managing these traits and abilities a necessity.

When it comes to complaints, my main complaint is that the game is pretty linear, and especially early on it’s fairly episodic in nature, with random events that seem to have little connection to one another. What’s more, at an estimated 7-8 hours long, this is fairly short for an RPG, but the relatively low $10 price tag makes this last complaint far less of an issue.

Overall, while it isn’t without its flaws, I found This Way Madness Lies to be an absolutely delightful RPG, with great humor, fun characters, a catchy soundtrack, some clever combat mechanics, and solid character build choices. If you’re a fan of the genre looking for something lighthearted and fun, I would highly recommend this game. Especially at a price tag of only $10, this is an excellent choice.

tl;dr – This Way Madness Lies is a turn-based JRPG that is a delightfully silly mashup of magical girl tropes with some funny satire picking apart Shakespearean plays, along with a solid soundtrack and some genuinely good combat and RPG mechanics. The story is a bit too linear and episodic, but for only $10 this is an excellent choice for anyone seeking a fun and lighthearted RPG.

Grade: B+

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2023 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Best RPG, Best Value ($10), Funniest Game, Best Song (Our Stars by Joshua Queen), Best Story

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