The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood Review
Some of you may or may not be aware of Witchcraft, what it entails and what it deals with. There are many different categories of witch and each deal with their own specialities such as herbs, crystals or even tarot with tarots being the most important one here, as this is what this game is based around. This review will be my first no spoiler review, as I would love people to play this game and experience it for themselves, however there will be some gameplay spoilers, so proceed while cuddling your chosen familiar.
This game was released August 16, 2023, for Steam, Nintendo Switch and itch.io and was developed by Deconstructeam. The main character of the game is Fortuna, who is a fortune telling witch who has been exiled by the leader of her Coven, Aedana, to spend 1000 years on an asteroid with only herself for company and without her beloved tarot card deck. On the 200th year of her exile, she casts the forbidden spell and summons a Behemoth called Abramar to help her to regain her freedom and to make a new tarot deck. As the game goes on, you will learn more about Fortuna’s past, why she was exiled and use the tarot deck you have built to help the other female characters, as by the law of the game, men can’t become witches.
You are in control of making the tarot cards that Fortuna will use, thanks to the help of Abramar. To create these cards, you will need to have to use different energies from the 4 elements, starting with Air, Water, Earth and finally Fire. When each element becomes unlocked, you will make a deal with Abramar so pick carefully, as what you pick will come into play later. When designing the cards, you start with summoning a sphere (choosing the background), next you channel the arcana (choose the main display of the card) and finally you add some energy symbols (extra symbols to display on the card). Each sphere, arcana and energy symbols have different effects and meaning, so you can mix and match them to create a variety of different cards however, you will notice that some are meant to go together e.g. The nightclub sphere and the bartender arcana. Be wary though, as once you have used any sphere, arcana or symbol, you can’t reuse them on another card.
I enjoyed building the tarot cards and following the story of Fortuna and the other characters in the game, there is a point in the game though, where the game mechanic shifts away from just reading tarots and building them to something else, which caught me off guard, but sticking through it, I found myself enjoying it still, as I still had option to choose and I was still in charge of what happened. I wish the game had a longer playtime and I could have had a chance to create more tarot cards and use them, as I only created 12 cards in my first playthrough.
I love the pixelated aesthetic of the game and while the majority of the game takes place in Fortuna’s asteroid home, the game also sprinkles in flashbacks and backstories in the beautiful pixelated art style, which I am immensely fond of, with the movement of the characters flowing effortlessly. As mentioned before, you spend the majority of the game in Fortuna’s home, and the colour scheme for her home is appealing to look at, as it contains redy purples with yellow and green mixed in to give it a cosy witchy vibe.
There is something I do need to mention as the developers did give a trigger warning and as for someone who has suffered with mental health, but was in a good place while playing this game, it still took me off guard so in the words of the developers “This game may contain content not appropriate for all ages or may not be appropriate for viewing at work: Some nudity and sexual themes, crude language, use of legal drugs, and general mature content. It tackles themes of mental health, self-harm, suicide, gender identity, and discrimination.”.
Taking the warning in mind, I still thoroughly enjoyed this game and I have been itching to replay it. There are 10 endings which can be unlocked and there are a lot of options in the game that I would love to explore. I bought the game in the Steam Sales for £8.99 with the original price being £14.99 but after playing the game, I fully think it is worth the price, as my first playtime was 8.9 hours. I do recommend you being in a good headspace to play it and go into the game with an open mind about mental health, women positivity and LGBTQIA+ but if you are not open to these ideas, this game will not be for you.
