Review: The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood (Nintendo Switch)

A point-and-click interactive story that genuinely makes you think about the choices you make, The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood challenges you to consider deep existential ideas. Through the story of an exiled Tarot reader, the game examines responsibility, community, politics, and the concept of destiny.

You play as Fortuna, who has been isolated from her coven in a tiny house on a meteor for 1,000 years. 200 years into your sentence, you summon a Behemoth to help you create a new Tarot deck and influence your community to allow your release in exchange for a great sacrifice.

You are then allowed to receive visitors, and the initial gameplay mainly takes the form of conversations with witches to come to meet you. Some ask for help or advice, others bring news of the world outside. You use magical energy to craft your new tarot deck, and then use it to provide readings that predict the future.

Most of the game takes place within Fortuna’s home. This quirk of the story makes for a clever way of removing the need for multiple background designs. There are, however, flashbacks at the beginning of every chapter which offer glimpses in Fortuna’s life pre-exile. These are all beautifully designed in a cute 8-bit style, and they’re usually incredibly moving. The storytelling in each is superb.

The characters you meet and the conversations you have with them are incredibly well designed. Each visual is distinct and unique, with fun quirks of personality giving each witch a fully rounded existence. The conversations you have with them are legitimately engaging. You are drawn into their lives, the wider culture and magical system in which they exist, and the relationships they have with other characters. For all the fantastical elements in the game, it makes sense. It feels real because the characterisation is so finely executed.

The Tarot deck creation and reading elements of The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood offer a chance to flex your creativity. You design the cards yourself, combining a background, a character, and a symbol into one card, each of which will result in different interpretations when pulled during a reading.

Some of the design aspects of the gameplay don’t suit themselves hugely well to using Joy-Cons, but effort has clearly gone into making it as comfortable as possible. The influence of the uniquely made cards on each reading you perform gives the game a lot of flexibility in terms of how differently you can play each run. Any clunkiness in the mechanics is far outweighed by the positive impact on the overall experience of the game.

This genuine impact you make on the plot is also evident in the dialogue you choose. How you approach each character on your very first interaction with them can influence the course of your relationship throughout the entire game. As the story unfolds, you can see where your earlier choices ripple through the narrative.

It definitely makes The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood well worth playing over and over again to see the various ways you can weave through the community. While a single run typically takes around six to ten hours, it’s easily the kind of game that can keep you captivated for weeks.

The second half of the game takes the form of a political campaign ahead of an election for the new leader of the coven. You establish allies and decide how best to navigate the delicate landscape of a coven on the brink of fracture, while still developing your deck and performing readings. 

Here, it is more apparent than ever how your choices can cause serious ramifications for a community that, by this point, feels incredibly real. You have to be intelligent and calculated in your pursuit of your ideal outcome for both Fortuna and the witches she cares about.