The Witch's House is a Twisted Nightmare

After looking at way too many games on my "to-play" list just labeled as being RPG Maker horror games from 2012, I grabbed one at random. Let's see how the original The Witch's House holds up!

SPOILER SKIP [17:08]

[Timestamps]
00:00 - Introduction
00:47 - Overview
01:16 - Floor 1
04:10 - Floor 2
05:17 - Floor 3
06:23 - Floor 4
08:35 - Floor 5
12:34 - Endings
17:08 - Closing Thoughts

[Music]
00.00 | Man's Back - Last Window: The Secret of Cape West
00.47 | Heat Up - Last Window: The Secret of Cape West
02.55 | COUNT DOWN - Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
03.02 | This Mysterious Feeling - Persona 3
05.05 | Suspicious People - Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies
06.42 | Digital Root - Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors
08.35 | Beauty and Dandy - Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
10.49 | Midnight - Hotel Dusk: Room 215
12.34 | The Long Night - Hotel Dusk: Room 215
14.34 | Just Like This - Persona 3
16.38 | Sunset Men - Hotel Dusk: Room 215

[Tags]
#thewitchshouse #rpgmaker #puzzlegame #horrorgaming #gaming #gamingvideos #videoessay #gamereview

[cylexia]

one of the parts of this game that hurt me the most was in the ending when the dad yells "STAND BACK, VIOLA!" the real viola backs up too before being shot at

[harrogeorge]

Bruh you missed the best part of the lore. Ellen was suffering a painful disease that left her bedridden. But just before she swapped with viola she ensured her own death by cutting off her legs stabbing out her eyes and burning her vocal cords so that viola in Ellen’s body would not be able to replicate the spell that swapped them and would die a painful horrendous death screaming silently in a bleeding eyeless corpse

[ShinMegamiToast]

Man I love how you cover stuff like this. You don’t cut the bull, you say the good and the bad and don’t try to be a apologists to the flaws

[Lh]

Dumb fun fact, every death you have in game is technically canon, the terms of Ellen’s contract literally prevents her from dying (key word HER) until she’s free of her illness so just gets brought back to life over and over again until she escapes the house, since technically the deal hasn’t been fulfilled until she’s free.

[pqche]

“She’s very well spoken, giving us lines including ‘gah’’ugh’ and ‘ghj’”
You never fail to crack me up with some of these descriptions 😭✨

[twistedmyth]

This game has such a good story. And it's such a slap in the face. Like you spend the whole game thinking you're trying to save Viola only to not be able to. There is no good ending once you've experienced the true ending. Ignorance is the Best ending and no one can really bring themselves to stop at that ending not only because of the question mark at the end of that ending and that there is an unexplorable cabnet that asks for you to return to it. It's so mean and yet kinda brilliant story wise. It does however hold the old adventure game logic of everything logical and illogical will kill you. I don't blame you for needing a break despite this being a short game.

[baitposter]

Given the true ending, perhaps the witch does indeed know the house well enough to not be killed by it, like a speedrunner.

[yov]

Still has one of my favorite easter-eggs for how to escape. You can just stand by the roses for like an hour, and they die because of the spoiler expiring

[astero]

Great video ! The Witch’s House is one of my favorite rpgmaker games, if you’re wondering what the reward is for going the whole game without saving is, it’s mostly just more lore on Ellen and the cat, the cat mocks you for not speaking to him and Ellen’s sprite in the chase sequence is somewhat different

[Deepseashark]

Its funny to see you say the worst part of the game is the big reason alot of people play the game for, the deaths. I honestly miss these death packed rpgmaker games.

[autumnblizzard]

This game MESSED ME UP as a kid. Love it, glad you covered it!!

[thepanzerofthelake]

My favorite part is that since the original girl is sorta just dying inside the witch's body, if you just stay outside for a long enough time then she just dies and the bushes disappear.

This essentially means that Viola in Ellen's body is just wondering where the hell Ellen is and spends her final moments neither worrying about her father, or being "betrayed" by him, she just kinda dies with the regret that she should have never body swapped in the first place, and arguably that is the best ending since Viola doesn't have to watch her father choose someone else over her and doesn't have to witness her father pointing a gun to her head, in this ending she never really gets any closure on anything and therefore gets to go to the afterlife with just worry and no horrific realization, very much allowing her to move on even if just a bit in the afterlife.

[cidevant]

The infinite deaths I think it's a whole genre of games on it's own, so I can't really fault this one for that. Thousands of other games do the same for different purposes and in this one, I guess the idea is that "of course that Ellen would know how to navigate her own house" so by helping her continue on you are helping the antagonist to get what she wants. You became the owner by always knowing what to do. The point of learning the mechanics of each death and how to avoid it is for you to be tricked, just like Viola, into the doing the will of the witch without knowing. After all, as the last ending shows, you could have done nothing at all and you would still be fine, you could still get an ending. I think in that sense it's very thematically coherent, even though it's still frustrating for the player.

Also I have to defend the jpg skulls. I think they give an otherwordly sensation because you know, you can see that they aren't like anything else around them, and that is the point. They are not real skulls, it's the house treating you like a unwanted guest until you prove yourself.

[lordmarshmal_]

6:15 - I respect the nonchalant bravery in this moment, nobody else I've watched play this went back into the frog-die room

[trinitroid]

I mean, let's face it. Every death in this game is a good ending... unless you decide to wait in the intro.

[ladylunaginaofgames]

Surprised you mentioned those two games and not Mad Father (or the other game made by the same creator: Miaso). Mad Father is ny top favorite with only the witch's house being second. Add that to the list.

Fun fact, you can learn the game's true story via reading the manga or playing the MV version on Extra mode (which is hard mode) and reading the Witch's diary. Additionally, if you get through the entire WITHOUT TALKING TO THE CAT, you get a different outlook with the cat alive, revealing he's a demon, and examining stuff in the room will have her comment that its *her* stuff [also, the diary you read at the end revealed how Ellen wanted to make Viola suffer in her body, so she cut off her own legs, gorge out her eyes, and when she went to comfort Viola in her old body, she gave her a throat burning medicine (also, Ellen still suffers from her illness, which cause her lots of pain, but she's used to it)]. Also Fun Fact: Extra mode extend certain chases, add more death traps, and alters the puzzle solution to either require extra steps, or changes the solution all together. You'll love MV's version, trust me

[scarletine]

This game brought me so much fear with that cursed teddy bear—
I have to admit Witch’s House isn’t my favorite in terms of ending, but that’s because I’m a sucker for happy endings. I still appreciate the tragedy of it however.

I do wish the there were less unfair deaths, but ah well. Thank you for this nice vid! Looking forward to more!

[Loaves_of_Cat]

I read in a wiki that what the Ellan meant by the house not X her is that the house was helping her get through while Viola tried to stop her.

Remember all those signs with instructions?

[xlgbesbloxer]

this game is insane. Unfortunate that there’s no “good ending” but that just adds onto the tragedy aspect of this game. Points off for being an unfair game though 😅

[MrGanon]

I’d love to point out 2 extra things, first in the OG witch’s house, there was a specific trick, where if you don’t read the note about the room where you avoid all distractions, there is a file you can remove from the game and it will allow the player to explore the hallway and read a special witches entry. (Side note for the first point, for every diary you read, a new entry is added to the library downstairs, with a total of 6-7) Second there is a hidden secret to the game, IF you can get to the witches room without talking to the cat once, to save, the cat won’t be dead when you arrive at the room, he explains a bit more before the demon that possesses him (and whom gave the witch her powers in the first place, ) vanishes, also changing the text in the witches room to say that the items are yours.