I honestly admit that every time I Mika and the Witch Mountain, I would consider it as that, Kiki’s little delivery service game. I mean, it’s about a young girl who rides around on her broom as an apprentice witch to help her community by delivering packages. Chibig and Nukefist even threw in an anime-style introduction. The good news is that it is exactly what it seems, although some of the broom riding mechanics and deliveries can be a little frustrating.

Mika is on her way to the Stellar Lighthouse to study under Miss Olagari, just like her mother. When she gets there, however, her new teacher throws her off the highest peak of the island mountain. She tells her that she can’t really start until she gets back to the Stellar Lighthouse. Upon landing, Mika’s broom breaks. She begins working for Greff, who runs the local delivery business, as a courier to pay for repairs, and in the process, she becomes connected to the island and its secrets.

Although Mika is a witch, Mika and the Witch Mountain is pretty much exclusively a flight simulation about deliveries, the recreation of the entire Kiki’s little delivery service experience. You must complete the deliveries on your delivery card, some of which don’t appear until you set off a chain of events by accepting or dropping off the first delivery in line. Most delivery items have a certain number of hearts representing their condition and restrictions, such as not getting them wet or damaging them. (If you mess up, you can hold X to reset the package and try again.) Occasionally, a timer may ask you to complete a delivery in a certain amount of time.

Since your initial brooms aren’t that great, you’ll often have to rely on certain external elements to help you make your deliveries. These could be wind currents that lift you up or give you a speed boost to get through straight. Former ruin pieces can also help you trigger additional wind-generating portals or elements to reach even greater heights. However, depending on how fragile your package is, these can also work against you and hurl you into obstacles, ruining the item.

Not to mention that there are also optional deliveries. For example, you may see an item like a kite or an ocarina lying around that is marked by glitter in a section. Picking these up will only give you a hint as to who the owner is. That said, you need to have an idea of ​​who the residents are to make sure these things go back to the rightful owners.

Generally, Mika and the Witch Mountain works much better than I expected. Flight simulators can be a little tricky sometimes, especially when planes aren’t involved. Mika definitely feels like a witch who’s just finding her stride. This means the brooms themselves don’t always feel very precise! There was one early Greff delivery where I had to take an already damaged item to a specific location on the other side of the island that I’d only visited once before, and it took me about seven tries to actually get it there safely. The further you get in the game, the more fiddly some items can feel, so there were definitely a few times where I wished the brooms and controls were a little more precise.

But other than that, there was only one thing that stopped me from feeling like Chibig and Nukefist achieved what they wanted to achieve with Mika and the Witch Mountain. I really wish there was a way to “pin” objectives on the map. Sometimes characters move! They end up in different places than they were before. Checking the delivery map also gives you just a rough idea of ​​where things are. I understand what the developers were trying to achieve. It really does feel like I’m an apprentice witch, often repeatedly checking a map to make sure I’m heading to the right place. But when I started really relying on different air currents or relics to get to places, or trying to use those elements to get ahead, I found myself wishing I could see a little indicator on the screen to at least remind me that I was heading in the right direction.

That means everything else about Mika and the Witch Mountain is handled quite well. The script is charming. Even characters you don’t get to know for long at first leave a big impression. The developers did a great job of making us root for Mika! The layout of the island invites exploration, especially when you start to memorize which wind currents are most helpful. The designs for everything are also very vibrant and appealing. Aside from the few stressful and timed deliveries, it can also be shockingly unobtrusive! I also like that while this is definitely designed to feel like Kiki’s little delivery serviceMika is a very different kind of witch and protagonist and the game deals with other kinds of themes.

Mika and the Witch Mountain does a really good job and gives us a Kiki’s little delivery service kind of game, and it’s often quite relaxing too! Mika is a fun protagonist, and the island is this vibrant setting full of big personalities and life. Sometimes the broom riding can feel a bit fiddly, but it really is a delightful simulation of being a courier witch.

Mika and the Witch Mountain will be released on August 21, 2024 for Nintendo Switch and PC.