Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree

Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree has minor bugs that go completely unnoticed in the final work. Beautiful graphics, fluid gameplay, and plenty of extra content make Mandragora one of the best soulslike action RPGs out there.

2025 has already been and will undoubtedly be home to countless top-of-the-line releases. Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree has joined that list; a memorable journey for the ages.

Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree delivers, delivering an experience of over 40 hours and enough elements to make most of it fun and rewarding. It's no match for the greats of the genre, that's a given, but it's a few notches below, and that, these days, is saying something. The gloomy and nostalgic feel of its dark fantasy reveals a game with its own essence and identity, even when it resorts to tried-and-tested formulas and established elements.

Whether you are a seasoned souls-like pro or a newcomer to the genre, Mandragora has a lot to offer. An ability to tweak the gameplay to your liking by ramping up/down the challenge gives broad appeal to differing skill levels. With a gorgeously crafted fantasy world full of atmosphere to get engrossed in, deep character progression and a tonne of replayability, this is one certainly not to be missed.

Mandragora is a dark medieval metroidvania RPG with some great ideas and the kind of artisanal quality I've been missing in this genre. It pulls many things off well but doesn't achieve excellence in any of them, and yet I couldn't stop playing it for the 30 hours it took to finish it.

Mandragora is sidescrolling-action combined with Dark Souls with great combat, nice exploring and atmospheric graphics. It's not perfect, but still an indie pearl you should play if you love games like Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown or the classic Castlevania entrances.

There's a lot to love about Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree from its expansive and diverse map to its brutal boss fights that'll thoroughly test your character build. Its combat could definitely benefit from a bit more complexity, though.

Mandragora works as both a soulslike and a metroidvania. A very challenging game ideal for both communities.

Madragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree provides the perfect blend of Souls-like and Metroidvania. An engaging story and satisfying combat will keep you coming back even though there are going to be things that annoy you and force you to step away from time to time. In the end, there is an excellent adventure to be found here and I look forward to more like it from this development team.

Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree doesn’t veer off well-traveled paths, but that doesn’t mean its familiar combination of mechanics isn’t fun. Though it doesn’t necessarily stand out in any one area, Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree is still a substantial, visually impressive and generally engaging experience.

Primal Games delivers a visually stunning dark fantasy metroidvania with solid exploration, meaningful progression and class variety, although repetitive combat, shallow choices and underdeveloped narrative arcs ultimately hold it back.

Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree is an honest soulsvania that respects the genre's conventions and understands what makes the combination of these styles so special, even if it has an uninspired character design. Combat and exploration flow in harmony and are the elements that drive the experience from beginning to end. The story, however, is relegated to a supporting role.

Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree establishes itself as a truly remarkable soulsvania that, without reaching heights of excellence, manages to stand out above many other titles thanks to a solid combination of combat, narrative and visual design.

Mandragora is a grisly feat of world-building. There’s a remarkable sense that the ruined realm of Faelduum, the game’s setting, existed long before your arrival. It feels bracingly alive—molded by the ancient past, wounded and reshaped by recent tragedy, and damned by a cosmic doom set in motion an eternity ago.

Strengthening the genre of games that depart from the metroidvania structure to meet the soulslike style, Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree has more hits than misses. The energy management combat is slow and can be repetitive and somewhat clumsy, but it also has its highlights. The crafting system is bureaucratic and offers few incentives for counting on it, affecting the feeling of reward of finding items. The world is well-built and enjoyable to explore, although its biggest highlight is really the rich 2D visuals, making it one of the most beautiful in the genre and easily recommended to those who enjoy the style.

Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree is a solid entry for the Hungarian team. It doesn't add much, nor does it innovate, but the game has all the credentials to draw you in, amuse you, and at times enchant you thanks to its artistic compartment, mixing with great detail bits of gameplay on the whole work. It will probably be a title that will be devoured by some skilled players, others will find it unbalanced, still others will read its flow in advance, but the narrative, sound, technical and play system on offer works more than the sum of its individual parts.

Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree is a good, feature-rich Metroidvania ARPG with an entertaining narrative, a big world to explore, and a variety of playable classes to try out. The story is fun, if a bit rote, but beautiful visuals and great voice acting help push it over the line. While the boss encounters can be infuriating at times and the checkpointing feels a bit unrefined, Mandragora remains an entertaining experience from tip to tail.

Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree is a game with a ton of potential that suffers from feeling half-baked. The first five to 10 hours of the game feel fantastic, and after that, it seems to suffer from being rushed and unpolished, culminating in a particularly lackluster final area and boss. The bones of a fun game are there, but there are enough flaws that it's worth waiting to see how it looks after a few patches.

Mandragora is an interesting Metroidvania Soulslike that uses a skill tree to switch gameplay up. Some bugs and repetitive bosses sometimes dampen the experience, but the excellent gameplay is worth exploring.

Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree is a worthy metroidvania that unfortunately tries to overextend itself. Although the experience is diluted with ideas that could have been executed better, the core is strong enough.

An incredible aesthetic and solid combat make for a surprisingly solid Souls-like, with room for improvement.

Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree is a solid action RPG that delivers fun for fans of the Metroidvania genre. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it gets the fundamentals right — the tried-and-true basics. In a year packed with major releases and heavy-hitting games dropping every week, that might not be enough for everyone.

Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree is a decent 2.5D action RPG with a beautiful world. However, the game has some serious design and balance issues that prevent the experience from reaching its full potential. Heavily focused on artificial difficulties, such as boss fights mostly reliant on gimmicks, annoyingly placed enemies through its levels, and exhausting runbacks after failed boss attempts, Mandragora sometimes forgets the whole reason people come to play these types of games — to have fun. Despite these apparent issues in its design, Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree is still an enjoyable time for the most part, thanks to its great build variety and Metroidvania-style map. Still, the bad feels like it outweighs the good, so I don't think I'll play it again anytime soon.