It is the East and This Way Madness Lies for the Nintendo Switch Is the Sun

O Romeo, Romeo, doth like rpgs Romeo? What about magical anime girls? If you said yes to both, then boy do we have an rpg for you. If you said no to both or to one or the other, we still might have an rpg for you! What am I talking about? Have I gone mad? Yes, because This Way Madness Lies…

“Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell?
Sleeping or waking, mad or well-advised?”-The Comedy of Errors, William Shakespeare

When you start This Way Madness Lies for the Nintendo Switch, William Shakespeare will greet you and tell you about the game. You’ll be introduced to the game’s Shakespearean dialogue and its strange translations. And then you meet Magicial Anime Girls who want to save the Shakespeare multiverse. First stop: saving Romeo from a giant plant!

Yes, This Way Madness Lies is a farce that clearly loves Shakespeare and wants to share him with the world, but also the magical girls and other weirdness that I will not spoil makes the game into something that is very hard to explain. Also, its a lot of fun so far.

What about its gameplay though? Is it just Shakespeare quotes and magical girls? Well, This Way Madness Lies is a turn-based rpg where you have the aforementioned magical girls fighting plants and other kinds of creatures. The battle system has a retro old school vibe that’ll make you think of such games as Phantasy Star and Breath of Fire.

You can avoid battles, for the most part, by running past enemies. You can also go to the menu and take part in a battle whenever you want. The game is separated by story in the real world and running around in dungeons in the Shakespeare multiverse. The real world section feels more like a visual novel where you make choices and then see the outcome. The characters have, so far, broken the fourth wall a lot and talk to the player. This game doesn’t take itself seriously at all.

I really love the story so far and the gameplay is a ton of fun. I haven’t finished the game yet; I just got the game the other day. We’ll see what I think about the game fully when my review hits next week!

“Let me be that I am and seek not to alter me.”-Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare

This Way Madness Lies will be available on the Nintendo Switch on July 25th!