What Citrouille: Sweet Witches is
Citrouille: Sweet Witches is an arcade platformer with adorable little witches out to collect candy. The look is bright and cartoony, but the play is merciless in the old arcade way. There is no jump button at all. You summon magic ladders instead, and you use spells and power ups to get through each screen. Covering the ground with flowers is what wins levels and charges your power, so you are always pushing forward rather than waiting around. Surprise gift boxes hide deadly weapons you can grab to crush your foes.
Playing the story together
Story Mode follows Praline and Vanille through 50+ levels spread over 5+ unique worlds, and it runs about 30 minutes if you don't die. A second player can join you on a shared screen, with a couple of catches worth knowing up front: both players share the same life counter, and your spells and weapons do not tell friends from foes. Helping each other and accidentally blasting each other are the same action, so expect some chaos. The game also supports Remote Play Together, which lets a friend join over the internet as if they were sitting next to you.
Settling scores in versus
Versus Mode puts two to four players on a shared screen, and Anis and Reglisse, the two antagonists, join in to claim their share. There are two modes across 5 unique arenas each. Death match keeps going until one player is left standing. Time limit ends the round and hands the win to whoever has the most flowers on screen at that moment. Four playable witches are available, each with a unique spell, so the roster gives you different tools to build a strategy around.
Before you start
Go in expecting a challenge: the presentation is childlike and family friendly, but the difficulty is deliberately old school and the story mode is short because you will die often. Movement is built entirely around ladders rather than jumping, which takes a little getting used to if you come from standard platformers. It plays on a shared screen, so it suits a room where everyone takes turns or jumps in at once.